The Mechanical Heart

Development Blog

Where better to start the Dev-blog than what the player will see first when playing the game, the main menu. We wanted the main menu to really set the scene of the game, if you have read the previous issue you will know the game is set in a factory located in a baron wasteland outside of a city. My artist got to work and created the following image.

As pretty as the picture is, I felt the image the image looked rather flat even for a menu in a 2D game. To make the image more dynamic my artist suggested to add clouds which crept across the ice and snow which fell from the sky. Adding clouds was simple enough, as they are just images which move Left->Right or Right->Left... placing them where the artist wanted them was a different story, after getting a graphical representation from the artist to where he wanted them place the clouds I was able to place them where he wanted them.

However the snow was another story entirely, hence the title of this blog. I now, have come to realise that I am the only person who [s]thinks[/s] KNOWS that snow falls with a pendulum type motion when there is no wind, similar to how a leaf falls.

(a rough mock up)

After Creating a rough version of how I wanted the snow to fall I asked for feedback. The mass majority of people pointed out [s]my mistake[/s] that they think that snow falls straight down, and not with a swing type movement. I decided to consult with my artist again and he confirmed that he envisioned what everybody else was saying. He gave me instructed me to do the following for optimum snow movement:

• 200+ snowflakes on the screen
  
• Random fall time
  
• Random lifetime - then fade out
  
• Random speed
  
• Random angle, but all falling Right->Left
  

These where all pretty simple specifications and where implemented in no time. I also decided to make it look like, vary rarely, a snowflake would stick to the players monitor and fade out.


Finally, we decided Help and Controls/Options menu should pop up above their respected buttons, and tell the player about the game and the controls.

The menu is mostly finish finished I just need to add the game title to the main menu. I would also like to add (sky) clouds to the scene, I think it will look nice if I layered them behind/in front of the factory which will also help to reduce the 'flatness' of the image. Another addition might be adding smoke which billows from the chimneys of the factory.

I'm still looking for feed back on the Menu and the Blog, so don't hesitate to let me know!

Until Next time,
Dsm

Note: the fonts are a little pixelated but I will be upgrading the graphic system in the future so I will fix that then. Also, I realise I could put the Controls into the help menu, but I will, in the future, adding more options (to the controls menu) and increasing the blurb (in help menu)