Back to the Project

Now, we should probably go over what is actually next for our good friend Tomato Man.

Loops were meant to be closed

So far, we have a game that does very little. This isn't the worst thing ever, but once you're done collecting all the pick-ups, the game just sits there with a dumb look on its face. Not exactly what we want.

What we do want is to display some stats to the user, give them the ability to restart or exit, and ideally give them some way they can challenge themself, if they so desire. The idea is to show how many coins were collected, and how many enemies were defeated (hopefully, I get this far; enemies are currently in the Never¹ section below). What would be really nice is to implement a level timer that records how long it took to get to the end. This way, the user could try to beat their best time, or we could even implement a scoreboard. For the first iteration, we'll stick to only displaying the stats and best time.

Signals - Chain Through Layers, or Connect Directly to Final Node?

One interesting conundrum that I've run into is this: If I have a node that needs to pass a signal up the scene tree, is it better to chain the signal up to its final destination (have each node in the chain listen for the signal from the node below, and then forward the signal further up the tree using its own signal), or simply have the destination node listen to that signal directly?

To my ever-so-slightly trained eye, it seemed more simple to use the latter strategy. It sounds cleaner and more straightforward, and there are less signals being thrown around in general. On the other hand, chaining signals up the tree sounds like it could get confusing and messy pretty quick. Although, if nodes on the path also needed to respond to the signal, this could actually be pretty nice.

After some research,² it looks like it's generally considered good practice to chain signals up the tree. It's said that this makes nodes easier to re-use and test in isolation, both of which I very much appreciate. So, this is what we'll be doing.

Ok So What Are We Actually Doing???

Fine, we'll go over the actual task that's next up. No more pontificating and wishful thinking.

• Now
  • Implement the ending of the level and give option to restart or exit
    • Add flag asset, related collisions, and signals
    • Add end-level UI with stats display (coins for this iteration)
    • Add option to restart level or exit game
• Next
  • Add a main menu with Start Game and Exit options
  • Add pause menu in-game with Resume and Exit to Menu options
• Never
  • Add timer to level and end-level stats display
  • Add tracking for best time
  • Consider adding a Mac build
  • Add enemies (idle, damage and death animations only)
  • Add player attack, damage and death animations