Sunday, May 24, 2009

Level editor experimentation.

I spend a night experimenting with the LittleBigPlanet level editor, trying to focusing on space and sound.

I used the following sound effects:
Jump - boing
Grab - ding (might change)
Danger - buzzer
Safety - angelic choirs
Change direction - ?

While jumping on a audio cue works nicely, the grab function is much less tricky to configure for blind platforming.
This means the player could only move down the enviroment, and not up.
When the grab function is used in an upward motion, it is much more difficult to control the player.

From this I gathered that a "blind run" would be limited in the way you could move through the space.
The only way I can guide the player through a blind run would be to have the player run left and right (which I need a "change direction" sound effect), and have them desend through the space. Like the opposite to a game of Donkey Kong. You can still jump obstacles, but instead of climbing ladders, you fall through the ground by using "grab".

I also came up with an idea of a symplistic drum kit. Because LBP contain three layers on the Z axis, I could have three different instrument parts.
It's a little hard to explain the programming without having some knowledge of the LBP editor, but basically there would be three 2-way switches which would move the drum kit part (ex. symbols) towards the player. As the that moves closer, the speed between the repeating symbols would increase.
So by the player interacting with the space, they can create and listen to their three part drum beat.
I would imagine if that works correctly, I could copy and horizontally flip the drum kit, and change the sound effects to create a 6-part drum kit.

My other concept of the safe/hazardous door works nicely, but it looks best if it is confined to the foreground z layer. I just need to refine the timing of the sound effects.
This is a direct conceptualistion of the classic example of listening for cars before you cross the street. I still think the "safe" sound effect is needed for clarity.

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