VFX & Technical Art
Show the player that there is a hidden object (Doors or Item) in this area that they cannot interact with without some sort of ability obtained later.
After using the “True Sight” powerup sending out a pulse originating from the player, any hidden objects that overlap will become visible.
Created using:
– Opacity Masks
– World Displacement
– Distortion Particle Effect System
– Temporal Dithering
– Post Processing Material Layer
To encourage stressful exploration, allow for the transparency of walls to be controlled and culled by player location.
To reduce unnecessary shader complexity the dissolve of walls is achieved using a masked material and temporal dithering which complements the pixelized low resolution shader our game uses.
Objects that need to be partially visible at all times such as doors use a translucent material only rendered when on screen.
Block all incoming damage from enemies and environmental hazards, allowing the traversal of areas previously unavailable.
Customizable length to reflect the the duration the players shield ability.
Flashes to communicate to the player that their shield duration is running out before breaking. Eliminating the need of onscreen ability counters.
I created a footprint mechanic where the monster player is able to track each of the 4 survivor players locations for a limited time based on their past footprints.
The footprints are a sprite particle effect created when the player is displaced and are color coded to match each of the 4 players to be easily discernible who you are tracking.
The footprints are tracked locally on each players machine and are only rendered to the monster player during their 30 second tracking ability.
Each footprint particle effect has a maximum lifetime of 60 seconds so that the information is up to date and not cluttered.
To create a sense of anxiety in each local player, I created a Stencil Buffer shader to only render other players when they are within a small radius around each independent local player.
Due to the isometric camera perspective, walls became obstructing to the camera and provided plenty of hiding spots for survivor players.
To balance this I created a wall transparency shader to compare when a player is behind a wall and to cut out a small circle to allow them to become visible.
This however is only calculated locally for each player so that they can still hide without becoming visible to all players. This in turn added to a very fun interaction where players who walk by a wall can suddenly see a hiding player and choose to hide with them or chase them.
