Portalz - Content Update #1

A progression packed update that introduces daily rewards, a player inventory, expanded shop options, collectible power up cards, overhauled checkpoints, post level reward cutscene, and so much more!

Comment

Inspiration

The inspiration for this content update comes from mobile platformer titles that offer progression focused game loops such as Rayman Legends, Sonic Runners Adventure, and Super Mario Run. We were deeply inspired to take the foundation we had in place for fun and rewarding progression throughout 20 levels of gameplay, and cranked it to the max with a ton of new progression focused updates!

What it does

  • Our new Tutorial Level onboards the player via a short and danger free experience that introduces the goals and game items in a way that is straight forward. We made the level openly accessible for farming via a portal in the lobby should the player need to stock up on lives or grab a shield for a particularly difficult level. The player is unimpeded during this short tutorial level, and completion takes no longer than 15-30 seconds in our tests.
  • With our Shop Overhaul, we added a whole new section to the lobby to house our World Shop Gizmo, added new items, and updated the SKUs with new prices and thumbnails. The shop system no longer auto consumes purchases, instead all purchases are now stored in our new player inventory.
  • Our new Inventory System stores all of the player's purchases so that they can be consumed on the fly. This inventory holds Extra Life packs, our new Shield item, our new Lightning Bottle item, and our new collectible Boss Cards! It also holds any daily rewards that the player claims.
  • Our new Daily Rewards UI offers returning players increasingly awesome gifts from our shop, such as huge Extra Life packs, Shield packs, and Lightning Bottle packs. This new system replaces our old daily streak leaderboard.
  • The epic new post level Prize Cutscene replaces the plain old UI results screen from before. Now after the player completes a level they briefly teleport to a prize room, the camera shifts and faces the player and an avatar animation fires of them dancing next to the results screen while fanfare plays. A treasure chest opens up next to the player and a random prize pops out and floats to the player, either a Shield, a Lightning Bottle, or an Extra Life!
  • Boss Cards are a new durable item held in the player's inventory that grant the player a small albeit permanent speed boost. These cards are obtained by defeating the final boss in each biome and are granted to the player after an epic cutscene plays, revealing the card from a treasure chest. There are a total of 5 Boss Cards to collect.
  • Checkpoints have been completely overhauled, checkpoints are now visually denoted by a semi transparent checkered flag. When a player passes through a checkpoint, an avatar animation will now play of them pumping their fist as a burst of confetti surrounds them. We also added an awesome new checkpoint sound and moved the checkpoint popup to a friendlier location on screen.
  • We added additional World Quests and attached rewards from the World Shop to each Quest to reward the player for progressing through the game and completing various milestones.

How we built it

All updates were applied in the Desktop Editor and with VS Code. Avatar animations were sourced from Mixamo and cleaned up in Blender prior to import. The Daily Rewards and Inventory UIs are modules provided by Meta in the Public Asset Library which were adapted in VS Code to fit our needs. We built the tutorial level in Desktop Editor and placed it with the lobby since it is low capacity, so teleporting in and out is quick and painless. We made use of the new player avatar animation via the Core TypeScript API, as well as expanded upon our usage of the Camera API.

Challenges we ran into

Implementing the new player reward system challenged us to learn how to create and implement persistent JSON Objects to keep track of visit streaks and time until next reward in a clean and reliable manner. We also challenged ourselves to learn the ins and outs of scripting player avatar animations and making use of the available options in the Core API. Another challenge was ensuring the Shop, Daily Rewards, and Inventory systems all work together in a cohesive manner with the associated SKUs and player item balances reflected accurately across each UI.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of how polished and cohesive the Shop, Daily Rewards, and Inventory systems feel and how well they compliment the game loop. We are also proud of the plethora of new cutscenes we were able to add to the list of epic moments throughout the game. We wanted to lessen loading times for our players, and we are proud to have taken the time to optimize the vertex count in all 20 levels, with some levels seeing a 40% decrease in vertex count as a result of our optimization efforts.

What we learned

We expanded our knowledge on the various TypeScript APIs in the Desktop Editor, including World Streaming, Camera, Custom UI, and Core. We learned about rigging and importing avatar animations, and scripting them for playback at key points in the game. We also experimented with different camera angles for new cutscenes and learned how static camera angles can be utilized effectively.

What's next for Portalz

After the competition, we plan to take the necessary bifurcation steps make Portalz a seamless cross-play title so that VR players can experience it as well. We also plan to add a new biome with 5 new levels at the end of the year.

Share this project:

Updates