Coffin Bound Games

 Eventually we come to the original reason that a bridge was even built, a large body of water. we've already got a deep ravine under the bridge so all we need to do is install a water plug in [since it doesn't come in standard unreal] for this I used the aptly named 'water' plugin which, although reportedly being experimental was the most commonly recommended plugin. I dropped the custom water body into the level which proved very easy to edit to the size that I needed and had lots of options to edit wave size, frequency, width, height etc. However the water wasnt greatly appreciated by my very low spec CPU and makes the game run quiet poorly while looking at the water. Additionally due to the heavy fog in my level I could very easily have got away with instead using a plane made to be slightly transparent [and this might well be changed before I declare the level complete].   

As I think I've previously mentioned the player will be turning on the electricity through the level via a fuesbox [requiring a fuse] a switchboard [requring a switch to be turned on] and a coin operated meter [requiring a coin] I started by blocking out the various boxs's, using boxes, and the objects required to fix them. I havn't shown off the code [since it's incredibly boring] but one part I was quite proud of was instead of the bridge asking whether the three objectives where complete it asks whether a float is equal to 3 with each objective increasing the float by one [although any processing power saved was immediately wasted on the water that I'll bring up in another post] I'm also quite proud of the meter which, upon a coin being inserted, will change it's material.

 I'm not sure if I've yet explained the admittedly very simple mission that the player will be able to complete in the level, but since in this post I will be breaking down the layout of the level now seems like the opportune time. To get the bridge to work, the player needs to fix the electrical system between the bridge and an electrical pylon. During the development of the level the I came up with three things that the player will need to fix to get electricity to the bridge, a switchboard, a coin operated electricity meter and a fuse box, the coin op meter and the fuse box requiring a coin and a new fuse respectively, these items being hidden in the toll office and the warehouse. The placement of these buildings is very important to organically and subtly draw the player through the level and towards the next objective [hence why the layout of the level changed through development] obviously lights and the like will also be used to draw the player through the level, partly ...