July Dev Log - Introducing the Dive Valve

We're pretty far along in development on Echo Weaver, so most of your core systems, tools, and level design widgets are done. But recently, we added a new one: the dive valve.

Steam post image Dive Valve (Note: asset is FPO and environment is not decorated)

Most you probably know of "one-way platforms", a staple in platformers. These are platforms that freely allow passage from below, but not freely from above (sometimes not at all, like in Echo Weaver). The dive valve is the inverse. It prohibits passage from below, but permits from above. To use it, the player must perform a "dive" from above to open the hatches.

PC performing a dive through a Dive Valve

This is a useful tool for gating in order to keep a player locked in a region until they understand a concept or accomplish some task. In Echo Weaver, we needed a way to teach dive, so we had to lock the player in a region, not with a lock and key, but with a dive valve. The player must learn how to dive in order to progress. We have a few of these in a row to really make sure the player understands the relationship between the dive valve and player movement.

We've actually been sitting on this idea for some time now, and the biggest reason we pulled the trigger was to finally lock in some of the tutorials and by chance one of the artists had a mockup of, funnily enough, a one-way platform that we thought would be a better fit for the dive valves. In this case, the waiting paid off because we're really happy with the mechanics and visuals of this widget.

If you are interested in Echo Weaver metroidBRAINia, then consider wishlisting! Echo Weaver Moonlight Kids have weekly developer streams in their Discord, and I would strongly recommend joining to get some behind the scenes in the development of Echo Weaver.

-riv otter