Crossbow

I've been thinking about if hit scanning or using projectile objects would be a better way to approach using the crossbow. The crossbow itself are already a full-retro, animated sprite on the screen, so I can always draw some extra effect for indicating when the projectile leaves the weapon, so I went for the hit scanning - for now.

To test is, I sketched a simple ghost enemy sprite and test level, then made a scene for the Ghost itself.

Note: Ghosts are the basic monsters in the game. They are basically humans corrupted by the effects of the cataclysm that made most of the Earth a dark wasteland. No one really knows if they are mindless zombies or has any capacity to actually think or remember their past life. They have some dark, ectoplasmic particles around and on their bodies, but they maintains a fully physical, shadow like form.

I try to keep things as simple as possible to make the most out of the 2 week timeframe. So far, it seems like the shooting will work.

Detection

As for enemies detecting and chasing the player. I've been working on a prototype of a 2D game where I implemented a "patrol | notice player | chase | search | back to patrol" flow and it worked - with minor bugs.

In 2D I used ray casting to detect the player in eather to the right or to the left...but since this is 3D things get a bit more complicated.

Because I don't wanna cast 360 separate rays or doing 360 casts for the same ray I think enemies will have a detection area. If the player steps in, the enemy casts a ray right in the direction of the player. If it hits a wall or something else that can hide the player, nothing happens, but if it hits the player, then the player detection is basically done.

"Roadmap"

Speaking about a roadmap in a 2 week project is a little bit exaggerated, but I want to have an overall idea what and when I should implement.

For this first week prototyping will be the focus and on the second week I'll focusing on modelling the levels and basically placing together the implemented pieces. I want to start the second phase on the weekend right after the prototype is done - or sooner if everything works out really fast.