Greetings!

Here is another update to my final project, Beneath. First, check it out. Just click on the window and move around with the arrow keys. Also, turn up your speakers or put on some headphones.

There were three majors changes in this version: music, lighting, and triggers.

• Music This is courtesy of Kevin MacLeod. He has some great atmospheric pieces that I am hoping to incorporate into the game.
• Lighting The lighting system allows you to set an ambient level for the room, and you can also attach point light sources to objects. This can be seen both in the light that follows the player around, and the flickering torch in the room.
• Triggers These are what you might imagine: if a certain event occurs in the game (the player walks over a switch, a certain amount of time passes, etc), then some behavior can occur. Behaviors could be a switchplate on the floor that closes a door or triggers a trap. They could also be something more subtle, like the flickering light in the demo above. For that, the boundaries of the room were defined as a trigger, set off when the player is within those bounds (which is always). Whenever the trigger fires (often), a bit of code is run that toggles the light for a random interval.

These three additions will be fairly important in creating an atmosphere for the game. For example, imagine a scene where the player is being chased down a dark, narrow corridor by some unknown threat, guided by only a dim, flickering light. There is is intense music in the background, and perhaps some sound effects mixed in like footsteps and creature sounds. Triggers could be used to introduce sound effects at particular locations, cause the player’s light to extinguish, etc.