Week 7 - Player Movement

One of the most significant things for a game like "The Lonesome Fisherman" is the player movement. Having a fluid, responsive and intuitive movement system is very important to create an experience that is enjoyable. However, this does not limit the skill ceiling for the game as the combinations are endless with many forms of movement available to the player. 

Players current hitbox

Below we can see the player being moved with the WASD keys while always looking towards the mouse. The circle in front displays the player's attack range. Unfortunately, he has managed to misplace his fishing rod but that will do for the time being ;) The movement currently works a dualshock 4 controller however, the direction he is facing is something I'm still working on.

Next up, the player's dash. The default key for the dash is spacebar, pressing this temporarily increases the player's speed by a large amount, leaves an echo effect behind the player and disables collision with enemies for the duration of the dash. To Indicate the dashes cooldown I've changed the colour of the trail to blue when the player can dash and white when they can't.  Also don't mind the useless enemies so far, they're just acting as test dummies!

Finally using some TERRIBLE placeholder art I've implemented the players hook ability.  Right-clicking sends the "fishing rods" hook towards the direction of the mouse for a certain distance. If this hook hits an enemy it drags the player towards the enemy and will eventually stun the enemy too! Originally the enemy remained still while the player was moving towards the enemy, but adding some slight movement to the enemy made it feel much better. The player is also able to dash while the hook is attached to the enemy to cancel the ability, which can lead to some pretty fancy combos. I intend to add some sort of indicator to the player for when the players hook is on cooldown, similar to that of the dash. Whether this be the player physically reeling the line back in or some sort of visual indicator.