Underworld Ascendant Post-funding Update #38: Laying the Groundwork

The latest post-funding Kickstarter update for Underworld Ascendant mostly deals with the “groundwork” the developers have currently been laying for the game, and, specifically, it elaborates on the work that has been done on physics-based traps and the game’s lighting. A sampling:

It’s a Physics Trap!

This week Tim has been building deathtraps that are all physics controlled. What does that mean? Well, in most games a trap is built and it has some script behind it. Enter this trigger and it goes off. In our world weight and mass matter. For example if we had a trap with a pressure plate not only would a player stepping on it make it go off, but throwing a large object of sufficient weight would set it off, or applying enough pressure would also set it off.

Obviously in this simple version this creates different ways of dealing with the trap beyond just disabling it. You could Indiana Jones the trap by pushing on the pressure plate with a torch or the classic 10′ pole.

Another example which Tim already built which is my favorite is a spring loaded trap. Watch a video of it in action HERE.

That is a post with these nasty blades around the top of it. When the spring and gears ‘˜click’ the trap spins. The coolest part is when the gears pop back in there is this awesome shake on the motion. Not scripted-not an animation, just the way things react to physics–angular momentum in a damped spring. It is small, and a little detail, but looks so.natural.