Devlog: enemy models and slide code

Aug 28

I modeled, textured and rigged the prairie enemies, but I have to carefully consider their AI before I can animate them. I also improved the textures of the swamp and the hill, and programmed the death planes for them both.

I noticed that Ternera's state machine didn't register her death unless she touched a ground collider, so I changed the code to also accept a depth limit. The result doesn't look great, but it'll do the trick for now - no more falling forever.

Aug 29

The whole slide hill puzzle is functional - I can't believe I got it all working in just one day. The sheerk rolls down its path, adjusting its rotation to its direction and linear speed, it smashes into rocks if the player doesn't remove them in time, flies off the hill if the player breaks the wrong rocks, and successfully joins the herd if it manages to reach the end of the puzzle.

I noticed a potential bug if the player plugs a hole after the sheerk has already fallen in it. To make sure nothing breaks, if the "hole plugged" signal is detected after the sheerk has already reacted to not having received it, it triggers an immediate puzzle reset - either the sheerk got crushed under the plug boulder or it was about to fall into the lake anyway.

Additionally, I had to carefully tweak the speed and direction of the sheerk when falling off the hill, as it sometimes ended up bouncing and rolling all over the level, instead of falling out of bounds. It was cute and funny, but not what was supposed to happen. I also made sure that both the swamp and the hill reset to safe states in case of failure.

Aug 30

The level enemies are fully modeled and animated. I even gave them dynamic textures so they close their eyes when they die - they looked too creepy otherwise. I've already planned their AI, so now I just have to export them to Godot and program them.

Enemy model