Grappling (Again), Teleportation, and Other Fun Stuff ... Dev Update 11/14/19

Hi again!
Yes, once again there's more news about the grappling hook--who knew something so simple would generate so much blog content!  Also, in the future, I hope to structure blog posts in mini sections like you see below:
Enjoy!

Grappling Hook
Anyway, after messing with it some more, I struck a good balance between using the grappling hook, and climbing the environment.
Now only certain objects can be hooked onto.  These include things you wouldn't be able to reach by just climbing.
The way I limited this is as follows:  When holding the grappling hook, the hook part will be either red or green.  When pointing at an object that can be grappled to, the hook will turn green, and the object will highlight yellow.  This makes it clear what can and cannot be grappled on.  This works perfectly.  Because now you can't use it at any time (and therefore the object is listening for a controller trigger press at every frame), there is less bugs with the other inputs--though it still needs to be worked on.

Jumping
I also changed the jump controls from the grip buttons to the touchpad buttons.  Now you can hold one of them to move (walk in place, to put it simply), and immediately push the other touchpad at the same time, and pull back to launch yourself in the air.  This makes it much easier to run, jump, land, and continue running immediately after.

Enemy AI
All of this, in combination with the enemy AI, works really well to get around the environment, and hide from the enemies' field of view.  Depending on the enemy's range, you can run away from a melee attack (sword slashes), or try to dodge projectiles being fired at you.

Teleportation
The primary way of getting around in this game is by walk-in-place movement, but I'm also working on a mechanic that relies on teleportation as well:  Being that it's a stealth game--Oh, did I not mention that it's a stealth game yet?--one of the objects you can have in your inventory are Flash Bangs.  Kinda like Batman.  Or ninjas.  Or both.  Whatever.
The way they work is as follows:  You grab one from your inventory.  When you grab them, time slows down to 0.25 speed, and a teleportation cursor appears.  You chose where you want to go, and warp there in a cloud of smoke, and time goes back to normal speed.  This is essentially a special ability that will allow you to get to places you otherwise wouldn't be able to.
 . . . 
Once all of these are fully prototyped and work the way I want them to, I will be moving onto the actual level design, moving all the mechanics into what will be the actual game.

P.S: The image in the last post is a screenshot from one of the test scenes I made. It's cool, but the final game will look even better. :D

Thanks for reading!
​- Judah