It’s week 7 and we are coming up to one of our major milestones; we need to make a decision about what we are going to be working on for our final project for the rest of the year by this weekend. Sword Dancer/Rhythm Fencer turned out to be a handy little prototype that came together into a proof of concept pretty quickly, and now the whole team is working on a prototype we are calling Trust Climber. The premise is that you play as one of two climbers who must work together to scale a wall, with one player leading and belaying, while the other catches up to them. We are trying to implement a rhythm element, which will most likely be negotiated by the player/players themselves, as opposed to requiring them to adhere to some underlying beat.

Climbing is achieved by pressing one of the WASD keys to grab hold of nearby handholds labeled with the same letter. When the Climber switches positions with the belayer, they control the rope with the left and right mouse keys. Some of the rocks fall after they have been grabbed in order to make the player keep up a pace of climbing, which we hope will translate into the rhythm negotiation mentioned above. We are also looking into implementing Xbox controller input, with both players using one controller. There is a definite progression that is developing through these last few prototypes, and we are hoping the underlying concepts in this prototype and the last two will all fit together organically into our final idea. The climb continues.

Matterhorn Ascent, Gustave Doré, 1865
Image Source