The wheels are turning, but they're doing it all wrong

I found a script that can make the car go back and forth, but it moves very slowly and the wheels drag across the ground unless they're moving down the ramp, so I'm clearly not doing it right. I also tried to make an object that always rotates in the direction of the player. This would be used as a gun that shoots slow-moving bullets at the player that are moderately easy to dodge but would still provide a challenge combined with platforming elements. That didn't work either, as it rotates in 3D instead of just 2D and the script is so simple that there isn't much to play around with to get it to work right. 

Lastly, I tried to make a ferris wheel platform, a large "+" shaped structure that rotates with normal-sized child platforms on all four ends that move with the structure but retain their original rotation of 0. This would allow the player to board one of the platforms and move in a circle to reach another platform, possibly another ferris wheel that's moving in the opposite direction. unfortunately, this didn't work either. I tried to add rigidbodies to the platforms and check "fixed angle" so they wouldn't rotate with the parent structure, but they developed a mind of their own as they drifted off the main structure and started rotating in all sorts of weird ways. My next attempt was to apply the rotate script to the misbehaving children and set them to rotate at the same speed as the main structure but in the reverse direction, canceling out their rotation. Now they appear skewed and misshapen and I have no idea why. 

So that's what I've been breaking lately. Tune in next week when I cause every game object to form a deadly alliance and beat the player character senseless for no readily explainable reason.

My design thus far

Well, my broken mess of a level design was at least entertaining, but needs a lot of work. It's incredibly easy to break and some aspects of it, such as the swinging pendulums that launch you to the higher platform, only work once. I do hope that this speaks for my ability to come up with interesting level designs though.

The biggest thing I have to fix is the vehicle. It would need to go a lot faster to make it off the ramp with enough force to be impressive, but it already goes so fast the player passes right through it. I need to figure out a way to make the character stay attatched to the vehicle so it doesn't fly off due to the momentum. I'm thinking if I can create a script that temporarily makes the player character a child of the vehicle, it won't get flown off, but I don't know how to do that or if that would even solve anything. It'll be a tough problem to solve for sure.

Level design stuff

Well, I basically played around a bit with the physics of the 2D platformer and came up with a few interesting results. I created a pendulum in the shape of a giant hammer and that hits another giant hammer which the player starts on, allowing them to reach the spinning platform onto which they can reach the trampoline platform, which allows them to access a high ledge leading to a ramp with a vehicle-type thing I made out of rectangles and circles, which rapidly accelerates down the ramp and barely jumps off it. This level design has a ton of problems and I'll get into that next class, but I did manage to play around with it and get interesting results. Getting through what I have so far is challenging but it's not entirely due to it's dysfunctional flaws, so that's good at least.

homework

For homework, I'm mostly going to work on some of the platforming mechanics as opposed to reskinning the art for a while. I know how to do the art component, but as for figuring out Unity, that's what I have to focus on right now. I'll be working on getting the collector script working and I'll see what I can do with level design, but until I get something playable, the art will be put on hold.