Reel Time Attack

Reel Time Attack is a zero-g, time trial racing game in the vein of Neon White, where you are tasked to get to the end of the level as fast as possible while defeating all the enemies on the way.  There are 10 levels to optimize and try and beat each's target time. This game has been made as a portfolio piece, and so is not quite a full game. Additionally, I will be going a bit into detail on the implementation of some of the game's mechanics.

NOTE: THIS GAME CAN ONLY BE PLAYED WITH A CONTROLLER

Development

I have developed this game over the course of around a month. I had the idea for this game years ago when I was first learning game development and I couldn't figure out how to code in gravity for a barebones platformer. After saying "I wish I didnt have to deal with gravity", the idea of a zero-g platformer came into my head. The system for moving around the character came naturally to me, and was almost definitely inspired by this 10 second clip, where the movement the characters are doing with dual grappling hooks is just so cool.

In the beginning of the development process, I started just attempting to get the grappling hook system down. I thought of and developed a system where the grapple hook's start point is sending a raycast towards the next closest collision in the rope every frame. If something collides inbewteen these, then a new grapple collision point is created. This collision point is a class that contains its position, as well as the condition from it being removed from the grapple rope list. I then manages the grapple's maximum length, which I wanted to restrict the players movement in a way that would allow you to swing around corners. I did the calculations for it which allowed the rope to be any length and still restrict the player very accurately using Godot's ridgid body physics system. The grapple rope is a series of drawn lines and points, while all of the movement of the player happens virtually.

Review and Possible Avenues of Improvement

I'm very happy with this project. Its been in my notebook and brain for a long while and the fact that I find playing it a somewhat enjoyable experience is a HUGE success for me! I'm really proud of the general implementation of the player movement. The play between the thrusters and the grapple hooks, and their interaction with enemies in each level is great. This is also the first project where I've swapped from Gimp to Krita with the art assets and I feel like the art I made for this project is a step up from previous projects.

Even though this project is 85% of where I want it to be, there is an extra 15% that I would have loved to include, but due to time constraints or otherwise, they didn't get implemented. The first thing is the music, which I would have loved to include and I had a couple of fun ideas for it, but thinking about writing the music had me procrastinating working on the project, so I decided to just make sound effects instead. A second thing I would like to improve is the grappling hook collision system. The rope often clips through the geometry if the player is moving too quickly around a corner, or if the player changes their movement direction on the pixel that a grapple segemnt collides with a corner. I have ideas about solving both of these issues, however I spent so much time prototyping different solutions to my grapple hook that this system that works 95% of the time is good enough for what this game is.

If I were to continue delveloping this game, there are some features I'd like to add. I think that different enemy types would be interesting obstacles, such as enemies that orbit the player, or enemies that fire slowing projectiles at the player. Another feature I was thinking of would be walls that you cannot grapple onto, allowing for more interesting level designs and make the player interact with the grappling system differently in order to beat each levels' target times. Different types of grappling hooks to choose from, gravity fields, and extra quality of life ui additions would also be things I'd look at adding if I were to continue with future development.

3rd Party Assets

Controller Image: https://opengameart.org/content/ps4-controller-icon

Input Prompt Icons: https://www.kenney.nl/assets/input-prompts-pixel-16

SFX: https://www.kenney.nl/assets/sci-fi-sounds

            https://www.kenney.nl/assets/ui-audio

(sound files modified in Audacity)

Other assets made with Godot 4 and Krita.