Catstronaut: Mission Impawssible
Overview
3D Platformer
Reference game: Super Mario 64
Engine: Custom engine developed by our group (BOB Engine)
Time: 15 weeks (half-time)
Team size: 21 people
My contributions
Complete 3D player movement
Gameplay mechanics:
- Bouncepads
- Timed button events
- 2D camera sections
- Trigger boxes
VFX implementation
Animation implementation
Highlights
Complete player movement
I made full 3D platformer movement with basic combat all by myself inspired by Super Mario 64. I wanted it to feel a lot like the reference game but still have my personal touch and fit our more modern game. I’m very proud of it! Also one of the highlights was that I got to work really closely with both animators and level designers to make the final product great.
The features:
- Run
- Jump
- Combo jump
- Long jump
- Groundpound
- Crouch
- Bouncing
2D section
Although we had Super Mario 64 as reference game we wanted to have 2.5D sections inspired by Super Mario Odyssey. With some interpolation and smoothing I made this camera transition.
Trigger boxes/Buttons
At first I made buttons that could spawn and despawn objects for the level designers. After some playtesting we realized we wanted trigger boxes as well. I used lerp to scale and float up objects, also used distance to the object so they don’t all appear at the same time.
Polish in Hub
Made the planets rotate, lerp towards you when you get close to them, lerp the intensity of pointlights that share the color of the planets in the respective window and made different camera zones for a more immersive hub. I also smoothed the spawning of the UI popups a bit when you walk towards a planet. Finally I made the chairs in the hub bob up and down and depending on which side you touch it it rotates in that direction.