Hey all. This devlog is just a brief overview of the development process behind our second-most important feature: item collection.

This devlog was written by Blake Miller, programmer on the game. "We" may refer either to the development team as a whole or me individually.

Version 1

When I first joined the project, collection looked a little something like this :

It certainly wasn't perfect, but it showed some early promise. A few things popped up here that we wanted to emphasize:

1. Make the plane transparent while vacuuming.  This let our players actually see what they were vacuuming, which, in a game about vacuuming things, is pretty important.
2. Have a clear visual indicator of what is being vacuumed. We weren't able to get a visual that actually looked like a vacuum, so here we have... a giant, white, opaque cone that is supposed to represent wind. It didn't exactly clearly communicate information to the player.
3. Apply a motion to the object rather than just deleting it. The player has to know what is being sucked up through their vacuum and the sucked object's movement. Here, we just deleted the object and added it to the inventory when it collided with our cone. Certainly not ideal!
4. Time needs to slow down while collecting objects. It works well here, allowing for slow-motion moments of action. We later call this mechanic "time dilation," and it's present with every subsequent collection method.

Version 2

So, Version 1 wasn't the perfect implementation, but it made sense and looked like the player was actually vacuuming things up. We were able to pretty quickly switch from this method of collection to a similar version that fixed issues 2 & 3 by making the cone transparent and applying a force to objects that were being collected.

This method of collection worked pretty well, but we didn't get great playtesting results from it. It was overall a bit inaccurate, and would sometimes go off-center from the plane, making it hard to aim in the proper direction. 

You may also notice that there are three cones coming out of the plane instead of just one. This version of selection had three levels of intensity -- if an object was in the centermost cone, it would be pulled in with greater force than if it was inside the outermost cone. This mechanic wasn't clear to playtesters either, and eventually got scrapped.

Since this form of item collection was a bit inaccurate, we experimented a bit with our next implementation in hopes of having clearer game-information communicated to our players.

Version 3

This version of collection was known as the "gravitron" system, and served as a replacement for the previous implementation. The core concept behind this version was to remove any ambiguity with item collection by removing aiming entirely. For our players, this just meant that instead of using a cone to collect objects...

We used spheres. Pretty neat, huh?

We got some positive feedback on this collection method -- it was certainly easier to pick up objects. However, its range was difficult to communicate to the players, and it was hard to pick up objects when there were many in a small area. We ultimately decided that the emphasis needed to be on clear communication with the player. 

Version 4

This is our current item collection method.

Even with low GIF fidelity, this item collection method immediately communicates information clearly to the player. A line is cast from the plane towards objects, marking them as "selected" when the line collides with them. Items can also be unselected. When the player exits time-dilation, all items that have been marked as selected are pulled into the plane and added to the inventory.

We've received positive feedback on this item collection method. It communicates information and adds functionality by removing ambiguity and allowing for distinction between the collectable items.

We're planning to keep this item collection method for subsequent builds and as we move to release the full version of the game. Let us know in the playtesting survey how you like this item collection method!