Friday 29 March 2013

The Tags

After some references from other games, I realized that one of the most user-friendly thing to do in a game is to have a visible link of game objects. Take for instance, a chamber from the game, Portal:

You can see how there is a red button with a blue circular chain up to a sci-fi door. The smart thing about the blue chain is that you can clearly see what elements link up with what. So if you stand on the button, the blue cross will turn into an orange tick and the door will open.
It is very useful in levels with a whole lot of different buttons connecting to different doors.

So I wanted to do something like that but original. That is when I invented, color Tags.


Color Tags are color-coded tags for different elements which tell you what connects to what.
Color tags are made up of:

The Starting Tag:
This is the tag which tells you what element you affect, e.g. Button.
In this case, the starting tag is connected to a cylinder (Draft Object) which you fire your laser at.

The Pointer Tag:
This tag is usually connected to a platform and it points you to the the Ending Tag.
You can see how the Ending Tag is popping out of a wall and it is pointing to the ending tag.

The Ending Tag:
This is connected to the object which responds to what you affect in the Starting Tag.
The ending tag is connected to a door which slides open.

What in total happens is when I shoot the cylinder, the door will side open.

The most significant part of these tags is that they are color-coded so you know that the red and green tags aren't connected.



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