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My Roles* For best experience, play using a gamepad controller |
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A 2.5D sidescrolling platformer about an inventor named Griff Zochran. He must navigate the machinery inside the airship Nimbus, in order to finaly bring it to an end. Its Mechanical crew have set course to bomb the metropolis of Emery City. Griff is their last hope, but will he survive his objective? Griff has a Machine Control ability that allows the player to move and rotate the platforms typical of the platformer genre. |
Design Notes |
The TeamLevel Design, Kismet Logic, Front End Design Level Design, Puzzle Design, Character Design. Cinematics, 3D modeling, Technical Artist. |
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The Camera System | ||
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Nimbus features a Dynamic Sidescrolling Camera.
The camera logic was implemented in Unrealscript. Functionality was exposed into the UDK Editor through Kismet. This gave Level Designers the power to control what the player sees.
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Case Study:The following is a short example of how level designers can readjust the camera's behavior in the UDK Editor using the Nimbus Dynamic Camera without having to deal with scripting: | ||
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1) This is a typical view in the Nimbus game. The entire room is encompassed by one Camera Volume that is preset to the values that result in this screenshot. But one issue arises when the player jumps down to the platform below them. |
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2) A foreground element blocks this area of the room when the player jumps down. The current settings for the camera is insufficient. |
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3) In the UDK Editor, we can select the volume that is influencing the camera. In the image, the foreground element is blocking the platform the player lands on. |
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4) Raise the bottom floor of the volume to a level where the player will not interact with it when he jumps down. |
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5) Create a new volume that encompasses the lower platform. This new volume will hold new camera settings. |
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6) In Kismet, create a new Touch Trigger node and a CameraSetting node. The values for the CameraSetting node were taken from the older volume. |
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7) The result is that the camera will automatically readjust now when the player jumps down to the lower platform, framing the character and platform he's standing on. |
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Postmortem |
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What went rightFlexibility of cutting back scope in one area to support a different area"As [one] area of the game was falling behind, scope was cut from another, more complete portion of the game so as to free up a team member to aid in the player character. In the end, the combined effort to strengthen the quality of the character model paid off." |
What went wrongPacing Crunch"...the entire team often stayed even later than the core hours to keep working on the game. This contributed to a lot of Nimbus' success, but was also wearing everybody down in post-Beta." |
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Download Full Postmortem
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The Character Controls
The character in Nimbus features an Analog Jump, where the height of the jump is determined by the duration in which the Jump Button is held down for. This was a simple mechanic implemented to give players more control and flexibility over the platforming, and increase the sense of mastery.
 Screenshot of Telemetry Data used to tune the jump values. |
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Screenshots
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System Requirements |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
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Download Nimbus (480mb)
