Troglodyte in Underbelly: Map Rework

Author: Shemaiah Nelson

Date: 3/6/2024

For this week I started creation on the Loading Screen and reworking the map functionality to enhance player navigation and immersion in our game. While this endeavor yielded promising results with the successful implementation of a Loading Screen for transitioning between the main menu and levels, I encountered two challenges. Firstly, I was having issues aligning the indicator for the player's position accurately on the map. Secondly the original design of the map seemed to disappear allowing for the player Hud to persist when switching to the map.

Additionally, during the creation of the Loading Screen, I faced the complexity of accommodating three different transition scenarios between scenes. Each distinct version of the Loading Screen needed different requirements for their triggers. The Loading Screen had another issue of not accurately displaying the progress of the scene's loading progress. This multiplicity of designs not only increased development overhead but also introduced potential inconsistencies and inefficiencies into our game's user experience.

To address the challenges encountered with the loading screen functionality in our game "Troglodyte In Underbelly," I implemented a strategic approach to ensure seamless transitions between scenes while accommodating various transition scenarios. Utilizing a modular design pattern, I created a versatile Loading Screen script that could adapt to different transition requirements. This script featured multiple functions, each tailored to a specific button or interaction triggering a scene transition. By organizing these functions within a centralized Loading Screen class, I maintained code coherence and minimized redundancy across our project. To address the challenge of aligning the player indicator accurately on the map, I tried a workaround that effectively resolved the issue without compromising performance or visual integrity. By attaching an empty GameObject to the Player to serve as the player indicator, I could precisely control its position and appearance relative to the map. Setting the GameObject's sprite renderer component and adjusting its layer to "map" ensured that it remained visible only within the map's context, preventing interference with other game elements rendered by the main camera. Additionally, by manipulating the GameObject's depth parameter, I fine-tuned its visual prominence within the map, ensuring clear visibility without overshadowing other map features.