Today I installed a state where you hit the ground hard and stop in your tracks. It’s a little of a leftover from Castlevania and a replacement for the taking damage thing. This will also be useful in the next step which is the Stagger state. The only difference is the stagger forces you forward almost like a short, crappy dash. Well it will, eventually. That last sentence was in the totally wrong tense. I also created a placeholder sprite.
This will also be used for the Combat push you see. When certain enemies hit you they will throw you, which will make you go into the Doomed state (where you thrash around like a spaz) and then into the kneeled state. It should look good and do what it is supposed to. Different enemies will Stagger you to push away, which is the other half of the kneeled state effect. So I get a little glass and candy and something that is very useful later in the combat system. Two birds with one stone and all that.
-Definition : Glass and Candy
This is all the crap that isn’t useful and could be cut from the game without affecting it much. Specifically, “Glass” is all the pretty graphical tricks that don’t add anything. Transparency, ragdoll physics and crap like that don’t do anything useful. Not glass is a useful and well designed HUD, since it is important to the gameplay. “Candy” are game elements that add nothing to the overall experience like the Kneel status, or an inventory system in an action game, or most maps. In all, they’re nice, but you don’t lose anything from not having them.
This is not to say that those things are all stupid, just remember that you can’t build a house out of glass since it won’t stay up, and you can’t just eat candy without getting sick. So add them at the end of the project – or when you only have a few minutes to code and want to get something done.