Hello again!

First and foremost we changed the title to Bedtime Breakout! We decided upon the theme of baby siblings holding a pillow fight in their bedroom.

The game would be a 1 v 3  setup where 1 person tries to tag 3 others in a limited amount of time, this combined with the main mechanic of becoming invisible.

Art bible
By creating the art bible we were able to really narrow it down to a specific style we want to go for. This ended up being more based on 3D animation pieces than on other games, but we think this is the best style for our theme and setting.  

We tested shaders and some post processing features in Unreal Engine 4 and also coming up with an overall style for the game. 

Materials prototype
For the materials we created a prop on which we tested all the materials and post processing effects. After some iterations we came to a visually pleasing result. The base color of the props will be gradient textures and we will unwrap the props based on that. Some issues were fixed regarding the outline post process feature with the inversion of light and dark spots on objects. Also the cel shader had some issues that were fixed over the week regarding normal maps  showing as light details.

Room layout
The room layout still needs a lot of iterating, but this is an idea of what we hope to achieve on a slightly larger and much more complex and detailed level:

Character
The playable characters will be babies,  each one wears a different onesie to recognize them by.

Multiplayer prototype
Last week we made a movement prototype for a signle player, so to get a couch game we need something else... Other players of course! So we tested out multiple ways (code wise) to spawn our players and found an easy solution. Giving us a coop "game"!

Trigger prototype
Another important part in a game of tag is the ability to actually tag sombody. For this we use a trigger box. Which can be extended every x-seconds. The trigger boxes are being displayed to give the player a sense of what they are going to tag. Not only that players now rotate acording to their movement direction. So the triggers expand in the right direction.

Visibility prototype
When standing still the player is visible. But as soon as he starts moving, the player becomes more and more invisible. Based on the speed of the player in comparison to the maximum speed. A dynamic material was used for this.

Tagging prototype
And that leads us to the final prototype of this week. The most basic version the game can find itself in. With the most important mechanics present. Movement, invisibility and tagging. Players get stunned for a second when tagged. And each of them has gotten a random color. There is no score yet as this prototype just has to sell the idea of the game.

See you next week!