Continued with basic implementation today. We have a collectible blue diamond with various animation states, plus the skill panel icon now responds to whether or not they have all been collected (this is also reset correctly if the level is rewound beyond the point of the final diamond being collected). Note that
the icon won't appear at all if the level doesn't contain collectibles.
Here's a demonstration gif:
Obviously, the animation needs to be improved - I'll get on that later. Some questions in the meantime:
1) Should the diamond itself be smaller, or is it good that it's the same size as the one in the skill panel?
2) Should the diamond disappear when collected, or is the greyed-out version OK? My thinking here is that players may wish to still be able to see where the collectibles
were, in the same way that pickups and buttons remain visible even when no longer active
3) Should something happen when all are collected? I'll likely soon begin work on
Invincibility mode, which could work as a possible reward for obtaining all of the blue diamonds (yes, I realise how strong the Sonic influence is here
) - do people like this idea, or should Invincibility be a separate feature obtained some other way? Or, should it be up to the level designer?
4) Any other thoughts?
I'm going to rule out keeping count of the collectibles in-game - I don't want to clutter up the skill panel any more, and it's possible to display a total number on the Window caption if necessary. We'll still track the numbers in preview, postview, and the level select menu as per other level records and talismans, etc (I also want to
add the talisman icons to the postview screen at some point).
EDIT: We now also have Editor support, with a method for counting the total number of available collectibles and adding this to the level file. This will come in handy later when tracking records, etc.