Starting The Story
With the week of editor practice in the books, it was time to start developing a story for my level. Looking at the different environments for Alpine Skyline, I decided to make my level centered around the Twilight Bell section. Out of all the sections, I definitely liked this one the best, but I also thought that the Dweller Dimension in this section had a very unique premise that could be explored in a more narrative sense.
After some brainstorming, I came up with a story centered around why there are Forest Dwellers in this part of the game. The premise is that after they have been absorbed by the cherry bombs in the Subcon Forest, they're transported to this dimension, as a kind of purgatory. When Hat Kid arrives, the Dwellers beg her to help them escape, but the only way is to distract the large Goats guarding the exits. Once the Dwellers can return to the Subcon Forest, Hat Kid will be given a Time Piece.
A New Resource & A New Level
Getting back into the editor this week felt much easier after taking the online tutorial, but there were still a few things that I needed help with. Luckily, I found out about the Hat in Time Discord server, which has an entire section of channels dedicated to modding. After making a couple of posts, I was able to get some advice and pointers from a few different people on finding and constructing different parts of a level. This resource is definitely going to be very useful in the future once I get more complicated with my level.
As of now, the new level is still pretty basic, but is still a step up compared to the practice level in my opinion. None of the platforms animate, but this level has a bunch of grappling hooks for the player to use. I also got the chance to learn about how to properly place enemies, and make sure that they don't wander off into places that they shouldn't. There's also a platforming challenge that uses the Dweller platforms and the Forest Dweller Hat.
The thing I'm probably the happiest with though is the buttons that I placed in the level. These required me to dive back into the Kismet editor and get more practice with visual scripting. Basically, I set up the buttons so that both of them have to be pressed in order for the Time Piece to be set active at the center. The only issue with this was that after pressing one, you could hear the Time Piece, so I want to look into the settings I have now and fix that soon. As of right now, all the player has to do is cross both obstacles, press the buttons, and grab the Time Piece. Check out the walkthrough for this level here.
Coming Soon...
Moving forward, I want to start working on making NPCs interactable. Once I can figure this out, I want to start writing some dialogue for these characters. As for actual level construction, I want to make the current obstacles I have longer, and add more in general. This week will probably be a bit more heavy on work than before, but I'm super excited to keep going deeper.