Disaster Slap Tower
In this blog, I’m going to talk about how I made the almighty weapons that all players can wield in my latest project. The Slap Hand.
If you haven’t seen the previous blog, go ahead and check it out by clicking here.
Slap Hands
These tools are a core mechanic of my game – its in the title for a reason!
Not only does it add a lighthearted way to mess with your friends, it also creates a layer of tension, having to strategise who to attack, when and where!
This mechanic also keeps the game from getting too stale and repetetive, adding a dynamic layer to the experience that means no matter what you do, your play session will always be different.
Modelling The Hand
I’m gonna be completely transparent here.
I could not be bothered opening Blender, spending an hour trying to model a half-decent cartoony gloved hand, so…
After digging into Roblox’ toolbox, I found just the model that would suit my needs.
I know, I know, it seems lazy, but that’s what the toolbox is there for! And besides, if I need to change it, I can always do that later down the line.
Always take caution when using the toolbox, as some people may hide malicious code that could completely destroy all of your hard work!
Animating The Hand
Now to animate this glorious model which I totally modelled myself, I used a popular plugin – Moon Animator 2, made by @xsixx.
Using some simple reference footage from other similar animations in other games, I came up with a product that I liked and decided to implement it to play when the player presses their LMB (left mouse button).
Scripting
This was simple enough. All I had to do was code it so that during the player’s “slap” animation, if it were to connect with another player, it would execute a given code affecting that detected player.
That code would then “ragdoll” and be thrusted away from the hand, as if they’d just been hit so hard they jumped up and got carried away!
Obtaining The Hands
Now, I needed to work out how the players should unlock these hands.
I decided to have 3 total hands that are completely free to unlock, and do not require any form of payment/microtransaction to unlock, making it appeal more to free-to-play users.
Platinum (Group) Hand
I locked one of these hands behind a barrier that meant you needed to join the game’s Roblox Group in order to access it!
This would be a great way to slowly build a community based around my game, allowing me to have playtesters and other fantastic things that a fanbase would bring.
Glacier Hand
In order to unlock this hand, players must hop on extremely narrow platforms that are super slippery, like ice, and if they make it to the end, they unlock this chilly hand!
And if you didn’t notice in the previous image, I also built a futuristic container to hold these slap hands, and made it so that if a player touches this container, they would receive the item in their inventory
I had to take a precaution when making this, having to check if the player had already received this item before, because having a player running around with 100 slap hands would not be so balanced, would it?
Now, if you want to know where the third and final hand is, you’re going to just have to play the game and find out!
Don’t worry, I’ll give you a hint: Ladder.
