How long has it been for this one, 2 months? Well, one way or another, here we are with another devlog entry. To be honest, I kinda expected this one to take a long time. Being a solo dev, things inevitably take all that much effort to pull off, and in my case, that’s specially true when it comes to art and graphics (sprites, animations, special effects, you name it). And the cutscene system had a hell of a lot of that. Speaking of cutscenes, let’s get into them!

INTRO

So far, I had a functional gameplay structure that allowed me to build my own levels, with their own enemies and assets. I could just keep building level after level and, quickly enough, start walking the road towards having a full game. But for me, that didn't feel right. I know that this game has a very arcade-like gameplay, like something you’d see in classic arcade machines: you start a level, you get through it killing enemies and avoiding obstacles, and then you get to the end and a score shows up. In essence, that’s all it is, and that’s okay.

But I feel like I need to tell a story in the process. In the end, almost every game has some semblance of a story being told, a message at the very least. Some are astounding, jaw-dropping cinematic experiences, while others just give you freedom to build your own story, One way or another, the concept is always there, which is why this game didn’t feel complete unless I had a story to tell, and the means to do so. And I did have a story to tell, I just lacked the means. Until now, that is.

That was a couple of fragments of the starting intro cutscene of the game. Let’s see how this works.

CUTSCENE STRUCTURE

There are 3 different types of cutscenes that can trigger, and all of them can fit quite smoothly into the actual progression of a stage. Despite having slightly different mechanics, all of them share a similar structure:

The entire cutscene can be represented with a sequence of localized dialog blocks, with events in-between. These events can be anything: sprite animations, UI changes, script events, etc. These dialog blocks can sometimes be a dozen lines long, and sometimes they are just a single line. Each block also contains data about the “speaker” (as in, who is talking that particular line of dialog), their voice (the sound that plays when each character shows up on the dialog box), and the speed at which the text appears.

CUTSCENE TYPES

SIMPLE CUTSCENES

A simple cutscene happens in a special kind of chunk, an “Event Chunk”. These chunks can be included in the level structure like any other ordinary chunk, and when entered, they loop over and over until something marks the end of the event (typically, the end of the cutscene). This type of cutscene triggers seamlessly, displays some dialog or some simple animations, and lets you go. Simple and quick.

COMPLEX CUTSCENES

A complex cutscene also happens in an Event Chunk, but they are, as the name suggests, a bit more complicated than the previous ones. Once the player reaches the event trigger, the screen fades to black, and the camera switches to a whole different scenario located directly underneath the playable level.

Once down there, the world is a canvas. Everything can be done without any concerns, and without risking interference with the actual player/level above (which would inevitably cause gameplay issues along the way). After the deed is done, the screen fades to black again and the camera returns up, to let the player continue on their way.

CINEMATIC CUTSCENES

These are the most complex type of cutscene. They usually involve interactions and animations that simply don’t fit at all in the structure of a playable level. The intro cutscene you saw above is a prime example of this type.

These happen in their own separate scene, and they usually trigger at the end of certain levels. Also, they can be watched again from the level selection menu, where they show up in their own, distinct format.

It should also be noted, that every single cutscene can be skipped by holding the spacebar! Actually, it’s very likely that a “No Cutscenes” option will be implemented into the Game Settings menu eventually, which will prevent cutscene chunks from spawning at all, in case the player seeks a true arcade-like experience without interruptions (or they simply don’t care about the story or have already seen it, and don’t want to be bothered by it, I understand there’s all kinds of players, and that’s okay).

To be honest, the game could’ve easily gone without a tutorial. I mean, it doesn’t really have complicated mechanics or anything, it’s mostly moving around and killing stuff. But I fancied the concept anyway. Besides, it was a great way to play around with simple cutscenes, which is why I’m including it in this particular devlog entry!

The very first time the player hits the START button on the main menu, they won’t be taken into the level selection screen as usual. Instead, the game will automatically get them into the initial intro cutscenes, and afterwards, they’ll be thrown directly into the tutorial stage.

It’s a completely scripted stage, with none of the randomness the level generator usually creates. It’ll guide the player through 4 different events, each one offering the basic guidelines for movement, melee combat, ranged combat and shield usage, as well as some simple trials to put those abilities to the test.

Also, the tutorial can be skipped at any moment from the pause menu.

Once the tutorial is either completed or skipped, the player can never play it again, and the START button will always lead to the level selection screen from that point on.

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To be completely honest, a lot more stuff was done over these last 2 months, but I didn’t want to extend this entry more than necessary. Besides, those new additions are totally unrelated to cutscenes or events, so that gives me even more reason to leave them out. I’ll save those for the next entry, which will probably come out in a week or two! 

So, stay tuned for future updates if I managed to pick your interest. Any feedback, no matter how trivial, will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading!

Full Threaded Games, out.