Red beam levels! Let’s go.
SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY MY GAME, PLAY IT FIRST AND COME BACK TO THIS LATER.
Alright, so the idea behind the red beams was baked into the game from about day 3 or 4. If the default beams could be walked on, it made a lot of sense to introduce a type that doesn’t allow for that. Levels could be far more controlled and platforming-focused, without requiring taking into consideration every possible angle the beam could be shot at and where that could allow the player to walk to. Plus, it allowed me to create a sort of “checkpoint” for the beam – if it started white and needed to be red to finish, the player would need to direct it to a white-in red-out diode before getting it to the finish. But as I was designing the levels, I came up with the coolest idea I’d had for the game in a long while.
What I could use two starting beams at once? The player could use the white beam as a platform to adjust the red beam!
There was a small problem to that – I, as a lazy coder, made a bunch of assumptions that revolved around there only being one starting beam object. I tried making these levels with a bunch of stacked diodes pointing at each other, but it just didn’t work right. I’d have to fix previous me’s errors.
*queue hacking montage*
By the way, try searching “hacker stock photo”. Try it. Really. Every single image is ridiculous.
Just one more, I promise:
Anyway, I made the changes I needed to make, which allowed the construction of this level:
Just looking at it, you can tell the design is vastly different from previous levels so far. This isn’t the first level with two beam sources in the game, but it is the second, and to have the two types side-by-side as they are helps call attention to them immediately. They signal that things are vastly different and more complicated now, and that the player is going to need to stretch their brain hard for these levels. Additionally, more mirrors are mounted on walls and ceilings than on the floor in this level. The player gets to figure out where their platforms need to be, while under the tight constraints of the existing mirrors. In many ways, it’s the epitome of the idea I had when I was just starting. See if you can figure out how to get from the first picture to the second, or the second to the exit:
I’ll be pausing development for a while after this – I’ll be going on a family vacation and getting my wisdom teeth out over the next couple weeks. By the time you see my next post, I’ll probably be completely done with the game. See you then.