With the Unreal Engine 4 version of Photon I have made some fundamental changes to the gameplay. This is still early work in progress stuff and I’m still not completely sure where I’m going with this game yet, so some constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated. So without further ado here are some of the main gameplay changes in the new version of Photon.

First and foremost is the existence of multiple photons. Each photon has a color, and can only move along beams containing that color. The red photon can travel on red, yellow (red+green), magenta (red+blue), or white (red+green+blue) beams, but not on green, blue, or cyan (green+blue) ones. You can switch between Photons by pressing Tab on a keyboard or “Face Button Top” on a gamepad, as Unreal Engine 4 calls it. (Which is “Y” on an XBox 360 controller)

Gone is the inventory system previously used to manage items. Instead, each photon has a single ability. One might place & remove mirrors, another might “melt” blocks as shown here, or perform some other mechanic. The amount of melting or placing or whatever will be limited in most situations, but not always.

Another new feature is the photon now has a little bit of freedom to move around the beams it is attached to. This makes switching between beams and movement in general much nicer than the old hard snapping used in the past.

In addition to the button based rotation that rotates 11.25° (Which allows for beams at angle that are at multiples of 22.5°) there is also an axis based precision rotator, currently mapped to the triggers of a gamepad. (Button rotation is mapped to the bumpers, or “Q” and “E” on the keyboard.) Here’s a demonstration of the button based rotation for reference:

Anyway, I have a nice long weekend coming up. Monday and Tuesday are mine, ALL MINE! MUAHAHA! More time to make stuff! 😀

‘Till later

-chip