It took a while to get the system working how I desired it, but I think it will be fairly smooth sailing going forward! Although the loading screen itself will be remade to look much better (maybe will add a cool fog effect like the skyrim load screen), I am super happy with how the system works so far.

I used level streaming here. Whenever I transition to the next place, I load a few variables into my game instance which tracks what level to open and where the actor should spawn, also fading out the audio for that level and fading the screen to black. I have a persistent level which adds a widget to the screen and I call for the next sublevel to be loaded. Once that sublevel is loaded, I place the player where I want them, give an extra second for any pesky grass to spawn in and fade out the widget via an animation. Works like a charm so far!

Although Juda is light as a feather in the air, he does have trouble underwater somehow... in fact, he sinks like a rock! Watch the video below for a brief look under the waves with a nice blue post-process effect and slowed movement.

All righty wonderful peeps; time to give some insight into my goals and game design plans for Juda. So far I have plans for 4 basic objectives in each of the twelve levels:

1. Primary goal: obtain the major light (one per level)
2. Secondary goal: obtain the minor light (one per level)
3. Tertiary goal: collect all mini lights (many per level)
4. Quaternary goal: Save any endangered creatures in that level (one to three per level)

In each level, there will be some sort of boss defending a major light. Once Juda obtains a major light, he will get a new ability (or a significant improvement on an old ability). Juda will have to collect twelve major lights to defeat the final boss.

There will additionally be a minor light in each level which again grants Juda an improvement on an old ability (the entire game will be completable without getting any of them). Although the world is immediately open, a great deal of the world will not be navigable until Juda gets a major ability from one of the previous levels. I.e., one level entrance might be too high too jump to, so Juda must have the Spring Wing ability before he is able to reach it.

There will also be friendly creatures in each level. Juda is a peaceful guy and loves the friendly animals around him. For the player, there will be optional mini-quests to help save these creatures in each level. This will likely have no effect on gameplay, but will effect how the story plays out in the end, depending on how many creatures Juda saves in each of the twelve levels.

​Lastly, there will be many mini lights collectable in each level (maybe 20ish?). If Juda collects all of them in a level, something good will happen, although I haven't definitively decided what that will be (likely a small health boost, like collecting heart pieces in Legend of Zelda games).

Oh, and one more thing. I have plans for a companion that Juda will find after the first two or three levels. In some of the levels, the minor light will be an additional companion ability (instead of improving on one of Juda's abilities). I have this companion upgrade planned for three of the twelve levels.

Mini Lights - Lots per level so collect them all
Minor Lights - One per level (improve an ability)
​Major Lights - One per level (get a new ability or a significant ability improvement)

Just a quick glance at the localized fog particles I was working on today!

Hey ya'll! Been working on some more back-end systems today plus word design and making the environment better in general. I will share a couple things below.
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One entrance to a level in the overworld. Added some nice snow! Took a while to climb up here, but it seems like Juda is pretty happy about his progress

I have also been working on a simple post-processing blueprint that will help change the atmosphere of certain parts in a level. See a simple version of that effect below as I change the exposure compensation when entering this cave.

Because why wouldn't you want to rip off your wings and use them as moon shoes?

For those interested in the technical how-to's:

1. When spring wings is active and the player presses jump, set a boolean variable to true and set max walk speed to 0 (so player can't move while charging up the jump)

2. Call an event which repeats every .1 seconds and increments a float variable to see how long the player is holding down the jump button

3. When the player releases the jump input action, set the boolean to false and launch the character in the positive z-direction by scaling it based on how long the player holds down the jump button. This way, the player will jump higher the longer they hold the button

4. Of course, you don't want the player to jump infinitely high, so after 2 seconds of charge, force the jump event so the player can't charge indefinitely

5. Add a cool launch particle effect which is just a ring material that grows over time and which scales based on how long the player holds the jump button​

Please ignore all of the other nonsense that is currently in this level as it is my go to level for testing various player mechanics :). Let us know what you think!

For those interested in how the combat system was created, there is nothing super complex here; the system is composed of only a few things:

-A couple transition animations
-A couple swing animations
-A front flip animation
-A ribbon particle effect to make the swing have that cool visual effect
-Animation notifications which tell when the swing particle effect should start and stop
-A launch character node for the front flip animation
-Some trigger box's attached via sockets to indicate if the wings hit an enemy (in this case the enemy being a floating cube)