{"id":222,"date":"2025-05-15T12:35:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/?p=222"},"modified":"2025-05-15T12:35:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T12:35:39","slug":"considering-the-mechanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/2025\/05\/15\/considering-the-mechanics\/","title":{"rendered":"Considering the Mechanics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DIRECTORY:<\/span><\/strong>
– Choosing what mechanics to include
– Revisiting climbing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choosing what mechanics to include <\/span><\/strong>

Deciding our main mechanics in the first week of development was a must, because it would set the precedent for what to create in the weeks to come. The G.D.D. had laid out “jump”, “climb”, “chew”, “swim”, “waste”, and “squeak”; each affecting embedded systems such as Respect, Energy, and Stealth. Picking which ones to keep and which ones to set aside would affect these embedded systems. But we couldn’t keep all of them on our short time limit.

Jump<\/strong>
Obviously a keeper. It’s a staple of videogame movement, and how else was the rat going to get on the furniture?

Climb<\/strong>
More difficult to decide. Climbing would be awesome – if we could implement it in time. But making a good climb mechanic is hard, especially for a four-legged creature. We decided to scrap it for now, with the idea that it should be returned to outside of the vertical slice.

Chew<\/strong>
Chewing would be fun, but what to chew on? We would add it if we found a way to design it.

Swim<\/strong>
Not needed for the level we wanted to make; easily scrapped.

Waste<\/strong>
Waste directly affected Respect Levels in the NPCs, and was initially going to be added. After considering the time crunch, however, was laid aside. We found a different way to affect the Respect Level through the rat quests instead.

Squeak<\/strong>
The squeak button was cute and, for the most part, ineffectual on the embedded systems. We kept it for fun.

Additionally, the “Respect” embedded system was modified for the vertical slice.

The original GDD also described a skill tree<\/strong> system where these abilities could be upgraded with branching paths. In our original scope we simplified this to simply a choice between 2 upgrades to each ability, but ultimately we scrapped this feature entirely in the interest of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revisiting Climbing<\/span><\/strong>

Halfway through the game we revisited climbing, as Parker felt it would be beneficial to add to get a wider range of movement, even if it wasn’t going to be fully developed. This will most likely be worked on to some extent later after the vertical slice is submitted, but may need to wait until player animations and movement is given a second pass.

There is also potential for the jump mechanic to be revamped, as rats have much more control over whether they jump high up or over long gaps. Some kind of charge or jump control mechanic, maybe even connected to our sprint mechanic, would be super unique as long as it doesn’t feel too clunky. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DIRECTORY:– Choosing what mechanics to include – Revisiting climbing Choosing what mechanics to include Deciding our main mechanics in the first week of development was a must, because it would set the precedent for what to create in the weeks to come. The G.D.D. had laid out “jump”, “climb”, “chew”, “swim”, “waste”, and “squeak”; each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dev-hell","category-dev-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ohrats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}