This is the fourth devlog of the Final Major Project, which would mainly discuss the ending and some partial effects in-game.
Ending
There will be two main endings to this game. The players’ actions once they board the ark will greatly affect the course of the game.
If the player chooses to sleep five times and they will enter the first ending, which is primarily a reference to the story in Genesis, where Noah and the rest of the creatures calmly escape the flood on the ark, which eventually fades away and most of the beasts die due to the flood.
The idea of the ending is also made in the way of Noah’s diary, which is to echo Noah’s diary that can be found in the game and at the same time strengthen the integrity and story of the game. In it, I have taken some extracts from books such as
The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD is enthroned as King forever. (Psalm 29:10)
The rest is adapted from the Genesis account. (Genesis 7 to 8).
Meanwhile, according to the description in Genesis, the rain lasted for forty days and forty nights, so following Noah’s diary forwards for forty days, the fifty-first day was taken as the time of this ending.
Now for the second ending. The second ending will be triggered when the player has collected all five phases. The second ending is set for the twenty-first day, and unlike the other ending, this one will describe the aftermath of Noah’s success in stopping the Great Water. It is worth noting that this ending is actually split into two segments. The first paragraph has a different textual description depending on the player’s interaction within the game.
There are a total of five objects within the game that will each trigger a hidden message for the ending.
- Mr Shark (by talking to the shark chasing you in the lake)
- Uncle Ryan (by interacting with the cross in the confessional)
- Rocket Rooster (by interacting with the cross in the confessional after gaining the ability to talk to animals)
- Mickey mouse (after gaining the ability to talk to animals, talk to mickey mouse)
- Bruce Bat (after obtaining the fire elemental stone, read the letter left by Bruce at the bottom of the passage to the right deck)
The above five parts make up the first paragraph of this ending. The reason for this is to reward the player for exploring more in the game as well as trying to make the story of the game more lively.
The second paragraph of dialogue in this ending is not affected by other factors. The text is mainly a description of Noah’s situation and reflections after he has successfully stopped the great flood.
Particle Effects
There are many particle effects in the game, including different sizes of rain, falling leaves and fog. Here I would like to mention mainly the design of the rain. At the beginning of the production process, I always felt that even with the different frequencies of rain (as reflected in the number of particles generated per second), the rain was not impactful and three-dimensional enough. So I made the rain in the project three-dimensional. This made the effect making the rain falling on different z-axes so that the rain would cover all the different layers.
The main reason for writing this article is to remind me that we cannot be limited in our thinking and that we understand that since there is a different sorting order in two-dimensional games, some of the performance can be created from this point of view.