{"id":139,"date":"2013-11-05T22:53:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T14:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/?p=139"},"modified":"2014-06-20T14:45:25","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T06:45:25","slug":"introducing-intro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/introducing-intro\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing&#8230; the Intro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The next stretch of development is aimed at improving interface animations to further strengthen immersion.<\/p>\n<p>This means more ASCII eye candy, and better sound effects.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve started at the &#8220;beginning&#8221; by creating an intro for the game. It&#8217;s 34 seconds of procedurally generated particle effects, setting the tone and atmosphere of the game as Cogmind runs through a startup sequence and gets an auditory introduction to what&#8217;s going on around him before the core is fully operational.<\/p>\n<p>Only a video could do the intro justice, but for now here&#8217;s a screenshot from a stage mid-way through the intro (minus the effects occurring elsewhere on the screen):<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_148\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/gsg-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/cogmind_intro1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148\" class=\"size-full wp-image-148 \" title=\"Cogmind Intro\" alt=\"Cogmind Intro\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/gsg-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/cogmind_intro1.png\" width=\"500\" height=\"165\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-148\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The content provides some background to the story, although how it plays in will only become apparent later on.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Parts of the intro will probably make their way into the first Cogmind trailer.<\/p>\n<p>Like the original 7DRL progression will not be XP-based, instead occurring every time Cogmind reaches a new area and &#8220;evolves.&#8221; These evolutions will likely be accompanied by animations in a style similar to the intro, reflecting the current state of Cogmind and adding to the story via visual details (since the story is otherwise told mostly through text).<\/p>\n<p>After the intro, and upon arriving in new levels, the map visualization is also animated\/created gradually with sound effects as Cogmind &#8220;scans&#8221; the surroundings. For this purpose I expanded the functionality of the particle-driven interface, giving it access to map information that can inform particle spawning and movement, allowing them to trace walls, find specific types of objects, and more.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_144\" style=\"width: 251px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/gsg-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/cogmind_intro_map.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"size-full wp-image-144 \" title=\"Cogmind Map Animation\" alt=\"Cogmind Map Animation\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/gsg-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/cogmind_intro_map.gif\" width=\"241\" height=\"293\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It&#8217;s even cooler with sound effects.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve seen them, you can of course skip either\/both intros with a key press (space bar), or turn them off completely in the options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The next stretch of development is aimed at improving interface animations to further strengthen immersion. This means more ASCII eye candy, and better sound effects. I&#8217;ve started at the &#8220;beginning&#8221; by creating an intro for the game. It&#8217;s 34 seconds of procedurally generated particle effects, setting the tone and atmosphere of the game as Cogmind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28,4,29],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","tag-animation","tag-cogmind","tag-intro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}