Stories are being written...
The lack of updates recently is not because I've been idle but rather because I've opened several cans of worms that I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to.
As I've been trying to complete the next chapter in "The Signal" story campaign, I have had to come to terms with the fact that the game was never really designed for detailed manual map layouts. I could have stuck within the limitations and accepted that the story missions would not be all that different from the procedurally generated ones, but that felt like betrayal and a lost opportunity.
So, I decided to fix whatever needed fixing to be able to create truly unique manual expansions.
I've already mentioned some of the hurdles in previous updates, from manually ordering the progress tree to creating custom objectives and special triggers, but as it turns out, those were only the tip of the iceberg.
For example, the level format was just an array of bytes, which is tiresome to edit by hand. So I've had to implement a complete hex map editor inside of Unity to speed things up.
The latest cascade of changes came when I, on a whim, decided to introduce interiors with walls and doors. Because why not? I could have taken the easy route and made both walls and doors 1 tile thick, but that would have reduced it to a visual gimmick and not really introduced anything new from a tactical or level design perspective.
Also, why take the easy path when there's a complicated one :)
So walls and doors now sit on the edges between tiles, and grenades and areaFx (anything "thrown") cannot cross these boundaries (I.e. you can toss grenades into a building through an open door, but not over a wall as it would end up on the roof).
As a consequence, I've had to change the entire level format, I had to re-do line of sight and path finding, and fix a ton of little subtle bugs that resulted from this.
In the end, it's all for the better; it has opened pandoras box for a plethora of other things like destructible walls, folding bridges and even puzzles that require additional planning on top of the basic strategy of survival.
Unfortunately, it means that I've still not finished the next part of "The Signal" - but I'm pretty sure most of the roadblocks are now out of the way (famous last words), and I can focus on the remaining 6 levels...
