Journal Entry 1

First of all, I see it very ironic to implement my own design. I was an hour in and already telling myself: "What idiot designed this? oh, right, me!" - just like in that joke. And I thought I thought through every detail. Oh well...

I had to adjust gravity to manage the one jump Player needs a Box to manage it. It was not really easy to hit the right spot (I set it to 30), since at first Ellen couldn't jump high enough, and then she could jump there even without the Box, in which case the Box was useless. But since I specified in the design, that Player should be able to jump with a Box and not without it, I think it is alright. 

Then there appeared a problem with dimensions - some things had to be smaller than default (Boxes, PressurePads, Doors...) and I didn't realize I can adjust scale easily and tried to wing it. Also the placement was tricky. If you put PressurePad too high on a ground, you can't push the Box on it, but if you put it too low, it won't trigger. I discovered suitable constants to realize the design are (to tell exact decimal position) 

Position: X = n.5, Y = -m.3, Z = 0. 

Speaking of Z coordinate, I had some difficulties with placing all the prefabs, because they would have random value as a number in Z coordinate, which did no good. 

One more problem appeared, this time with portals. I manage to get them react to pressing E (by setting Destination Transition to Interact Pressed). But since all the portals there are bidirectional, sometimes this glitches a little and Ellen doesn't actually get transported anywhere (or more likely you get transported away and back, maybe multiple times, I am not really sure). I think this needs to be solved by some sort of delay when starting transportation.

After first cca 6 hours I had a map with functioning Doors and PressurePads, connected portals (which at this moment could transport only Ellen, not a Box with her, which was a necessary option to solve puzzles specified in the design). Lifts were on loop, because I didn't have Lift buttons, there were no Savepoints. I had to temporarily add three "test Boxes", because I needed to test PressurePads, but couldn't due to issues with portals. Also there were no special effects as glowing PressurePads that didn't need a Box, or confetti at the end. 

Confetti was an episode for itself, it is surprisingly hard to make confetti/fireworks etc. In the end I used Particle system, but it was hard to make it look at least decent. 

When I started with transporting Pushable Boxes through portals, at first it didn't work at all. And as soon as it started doing something, it transported the Box inside the floor, although the portal is above the ground and the collider is even higher. Universaly, it needed to be elevated to Y = -m.2 or Y = m.8. 

PressurePads 3 and 5 are those, that don't have to be held by a box. To make them different, I gave them different Material (LitTileRockBG). It made them darker and I hope distinguishable. 

I got switches as elevator buttons (I used Single-used Switches). Unfortunatelly I had issues with the button to the third elevator (next to last door). In design, I intended for it to lift with the platform, but it just doesn't work like that, I suppose. 

Another issue with elevators is that if I connect them to the Elevator Buttons and make them move on enter, there is no way to easily delay them. They have proven to not be easy, but I managed with a bit of help (a bit bigger bit of help). 

For Respawn/Autosave points I used Reusable Switches. The boxes to return with their respective Respawn Point and position: 

Ch1: PB1  (3.5, 0.3, 0) -> (4,1)

     Ellen (2,1)

Ch2: PB2  (9.5, -10.7, 0) -> (10,-10)

     Ellen (19,-4)

Ch3: PB31 (45.5, -9.7, 0) -> (46,-9)

     PB32 (61.5, 1.3, 0) -> (62,2)

     PB33 (87.5, 1.3, 0) -> (88,2)

     Ellen (90,-5)

Respawn points have proven tricky too, although I tried to make things right and teleport Boxes and Ellen to previous Checkpoint, I managed only to get it to do something quite random, but playable. If you get to the first point, it behaves as planned, if you get to the second, it doesn't make a difference, if you get to the third one, it is ok between second and third also before the first one, but between one and two it is quite a disaster... I am not really sure what went wrong here. ID is right, array with locked values is right, I really don't know, what is wrong with it. 

Also there is no floating R above Respawn points, as well as those other rather cosmetic details. Main functionality (except for those respawn points) is working.  

But apart from that  respawn thing, this version is playable. I don't think it is perfect (I know and knew in advance it can't be), but I tried and I think it is pretty close to the best I could do for now.