[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/19822220459b12d3dbf3d1382de80e7785057b09.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/d908aee0ecadf6bb1065b701660b5e29baf926ba.png[/img] [h1]HELLO![/h1] Welcome to our first Behind the Scenes of Leximan! A tiny round of applause, please. Thank you. I'm Max, the programmer behind the magic, and I'm going to show you a little sneak peek at what's going on behind the screen and inside that mystical little box you call a 'com-pu-ter'. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/6752485ff0da5f87ea5d9d1443183b4ac9696c0a.gif[/img] [hr][/hr] [h1]JUICE[/h1] When it comes to games, there's a little thing we call 'game feel', or 'game juice', or just 'juice' for short. It's the satisfying '[b]snap[/b]' when you drag and drop. It's the crunchy, clicky '[b]click[/b]' when you press a button. It's the gratifying '[b]bleep-bloop[/b]' when you score a point. It's the things that stimulate your senses and get you [i]feeling[/i] something when you do something on your computer and it shoots an effect back at you. When it comes to games, there's nothing worse than a static, unmoving screen - you may as well be staring at a spreadsheet! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/67cfba753a90faa6b8e314eabb4f7f5d44d10414.gif[/img] [i]He-heh... 'Squaag'...[/i] You may not conciously notice it all the time, but when it's [i]not there[/i] you sure do. Something will feel 'off'. Think about those janky, crusty games you sometimes play on the internet. They feel 'empty', right? Now 'juice' normally translates to the game giving solid, heavy feedback to your direct actions, like that clicking a button example. But other times, it's just about seeing things happening. Things that help you to understand, and make you feel something. ...And with that said, let's talk about the juice of Leximan's dialogue. [hr][/hr] [h2]ANIMTEXT[/h2] Leximan is a game about words. You make words to cast your spells. You read a lot of words. Words are everywhere. Remember what I said about game juice? We spend a lot of time with those words, so we want them looking and [i]feeling[/i] as good as possible. So, I put together our super ultra special Animated Text system, or what I call Animtext! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/38520a4b32f6a9cba4707172393e43a2b31475d2.gif[/img] For you game dev fellas out there... [expand type=details]We use Unity, and plugging into the TextMesh Pro system is REALLY handy for messing with those [b]text meshes[/b], believe it or not. If you put the time and work in, you can get some really incredible results. Get your custom markup solution going for animations, and use their built-in rich-text formatting to do the rest (bold, italics, solid colors, align, text-size etc.)![/expand]...But that's all boring stuff. Let's talk about the shiny bits! We've made a whole [i]bunch[/i] of crazy animations that we can throw on any word in the game. We can make 'em shake violently, float up and down, jiggle around, grow and shrink, teeter from side to side, stretch and warp, and all sorts! The way we actually throw it into the game is surprisingly simple! Each of those crazy animations has a special [b][/b] linked to it. Let's take [b][/b] for example. Everything between [b][/b] and [b][/b] will wobble and pulse like, um... Well, like this! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/3ec3f6e5f9fa42432a7dfe199b5c846f6ce0d29f.gif[/img] Pretty neat, huh? Let's take a look at another example. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/0cc51e5df0387173f8e97a7c40cb873a5bc325d7.gif[/img] All of [i]that[/i] dialogue looks a little something like this behind the scenes: [code]"GRRRASTY WIZARDS! GONNA EAT YOU.\r\nWAH-AH-AH..."[/code][code]"I don't know if brewing our way out of this one w-will do much, but we have to try something!"[/code][code]A puff of flame breaks apart your word fragments into single letters![/code][code]"Oh, froglegs! I don't have any water left to put out flames! See if you can come up with a distraction while I gather some ingredients!"[/code] [hr][/hr] And there you have it! Leximan's Animtext, behind the curtain. If any of you found this interesting, make sure to drop a cheeky comment below and I'll make sure to spot you some more [b]top-secret[/b] information [i](don't tell the other guys...)[/i] Until next time! [i]- Programancer Max[/i] ✨ [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43838474/19822220459b12d3dbf3d1382de80e7785057b09.png[/img] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2017200/Leximan/