Skylanders: Shrink Squad

Ch. 6 Reflection

Introduction
I enjoyed my almost month-long break from Shrink Squad and the Spanish Leyendas de Skylands translation following the Garish Gorge, lasting from 7 to 30 August 2023. During that time, I kept my programming skills sharp by following Code Monkey's beginner-intermediate Kitchen Chaos tutorial (YouTube link to his video, and Unity Play link to my adaptation in the comments), and made progress on two of my own stories. Dear Boom Diary: A Skylanders Retelling currently has Flynn go through Mount Cloudbreak in a slightly different way from Swap Force, and Skylanders DPS Analysis now has all nine entries for Lightcore Pop Fizz in place.

I initially eased myself back into Shrink Squad by working on this level in baby steps since the original plan was that I would officially begin adapting it into Unity starting on 1 October 2023. My work ethic surprised me so much that I decided to get it out before 27 September, when my schedule would get busier.

This level stars the reformed villain Luminous, the sun personification Sunrise, the comic relief angel Solar Flare, and a (non-playable) cameo from Knight Light.

I added the Trap Master at the last minute since, while a few Skylanders have made appearances in previous levels like the entirety of the Spyro's Adventure cast in the prologue and the eight Giants in the Rolling Dunes Resort's (RDR) lore dump, none of them have played a significant role in the story. I was also caught off guard by Spyro and Pop Fizz' unexpected appearance in the epilogue, and Eruptor's planned appearance in Lava Land seemingly coming out of left field. I thought the shock factor from all of these characters only appearing in the post-game would not have been as great if the player got used to seeing more Skylanders show up every once in a while, and Knight seemed like the perfect fit for this level. This level's context also had potential for comic interactions between him and Sol, most particularly during the introduction and conclusion.

Even though Knight's role is similar to those of Imaginators' Skylander NPCs, I think his excuse for not directly helping is better than Eruptor's indigestion in the Abandoned Amusement Park, and Stealth Elf's vow to not hurt mutated plants in the Enchanted Elven Forest because he is protecting the Core of Light's shield. On top of that, one of the game over sequences shows him struggling against the Mist's numbers until the King of Chaos blows up the Core with his body.

Kitchen Chaos
While this microgame mostly served to teach me how to clean up my code, I did learn some tricks for the Realm of Light. The duck's idle and running animations are controlled by a flag that is set inside the main player script. Copying this, and slightly adjusting my code with the help of Lost Relic Games' video on escaping the "animator h***" that is complex parameter trees, let me easily transition between everyone's idle and running states, as well as properly extend Sol's Solar Whips animation for his bottom path's Sun Bash.

Deliberately sending error messages to the log was a lifesaver in initially making sure that Luminous' Sky Beam and Beam Me Up (BMU) abilities did not glitch out.

I am no longer turning objects off and on like the RDR's hot sauce key; they automatically move to a set position that is determined by scripts, like keys in the mainline Skylanders games.

More status meters can appear near NPCs thanks to the world space canvas. The ones in Kitchen Chaos are unbound to the main canvas that holds Shrink Squad's UI features like text, health bars, and buttons. This came in handy in reworking the Lightning Fairy for this level, and I am sure I can find more uses later.

On the same thought as meters, I can now update most timers just by using the Update function, which alters their values in real time. This is useful for every Skylander who has at least one attack with, to quote my terminology in their Skylanders Shrink Squad Characters entries, a personal cooldown that prevents it from being spammed.