Welcome to Gobo Rampage's seventh devlog!

Game Level
Once most the vegetation, buildings and props were modeled/textured, we filled up the game map with them. The previous weeks we still had a level filled with only BSP's, but now the map is nearly finished.  Sail shades, balconies and obelisks were the first thing we looked into. We decided to theme certain parts of the structures with colors representing each district. We added these colors as small lines on some, while coloring other parts entirely. Now the oasis buildings will all have a uniform green accent, while the market will have red ones. Sail shades also follow this trope. Environmental props and textures were also created to give more color to the ground. Once we had our buildings, we started with some more detailing. 

Landscape and foliage
Using the landscape tools in unreal we made a landscape material with different textures that enables us to blend those together more easily. Path and sand got darker textures for greater freedom when blending in proximity to water. To complement the new textures we needed a more efficient way of placing down vegitation than by hand. The foilage brush in unreal allowed us to more easily fill up places that need some more green.

Village walls
We created the walls of the village as well as the gates & towers in the same style as the houses. These will ensure that the player is unable to leave the area of the village. 

Market props
With the main buildings now finished we started making some smaller props to fill up the market stalls and other empty corners of the map. Pottery (for plants and spices), carpets and crates for fruit. 

Waterfall shader
A waterfall shader and mesh was made to beautify the scene and to contrast the typical yellow sandy-type colors. The bottom of the waterfall contains a particle system recreating the splashing effect.

Item spawning system
To avoid multiple items spawning in the same location we made an object in the world that keeps track of item spawn points. This combined with a new system keeps track of individual spawn points, e.g. when it's empty, when an item has been spawned, and when that item is picked up. To implement de- and respawning of epic pranked villagers, we reused the item spawning system. There was a lot of figuring out needed to spawn an AI dynamically via C++. 

Animations
All animations for the different types of characters were created. Idle, running, grabbing, stunned states and a lot more. We spent time syncing those animations up to the actual characters in unreal. Both locomotion systems and unique animations were added: e.g. Attacking adventurers, pranked villagers, charging guards etc.. When adding an animation to the throw mechanic, we worked with delays and timers to make the action feel and look more natural. 

Prank system
We had to start visualizing pranks, so with a tracking system that was already set up, we added a visualization blueprint that can spawn in items in different ways. This blueprint is customizable for both normal and epic pranks, for spawn points, particles and other detailing. This system will get a few more changes in the future, e.g. rotation. 

Prank Items
To make the game more intuitive, we removed the pick-up controls entirely. Instead, prank items are now automatically picked up when the player runs over them. This should also make the gameplay feel more fluid and fast paced. 

Health, annoyance bar and UI
The goblin now has 3 health points. When losing 1 he becomes temporarily invincible, as to avoid getting killed instantly. UI elements were added and linked to in-game values (health, multiplier, ect.). For the annoyance bar, there are 4 stages of difficulty. A new stage gets entered if enough time has passed. When a higher stage gets entered, the adventurers get a speed upgrade and the guard's view distance gets upgraded by a multiplier.

Guard view radius
Now he only stays in his view radius. When the player enters his view radius he starts chasing him until the player is out. When he collides with the player he grabs him. When the player frees himself, the guard can't do anything for the moment. When the player walks out of the view range after being freed, the guard runs back to his original position and is active again. This is to prevent that the guard can grab the player multiple times, so the player doesn't get stuck on the guard forever. The guard also alerts all the adventurers in a certain radius now when he grabs the player

Fixing bugs
We worked on improving the AI. The adventurer loses the player when he isn't visible for some time. After that we added a state where the adventurer goes looking for the player by wandering around the area he lost him in. There was also a problem where the stun on the adventurer gets delayed when he is hit by a throwable. This is now fixed. The adventurer now instantly gets stunned.

See you next week with another devlog!