Can we climb the rope prototypes we were working on, especially the grappling hooks that latch onto objects? Let’s make it happen.

To start, we have to generate climbing points onto the rope instead of interacting with the rope directly. If we grab the rope’s existing particles directly, the interaction between the different rope particles next to it will cause a feedback loop between the grabbed and neighbouring rope particles. 

We generate equally distributed climbing points onto the rope that allow Auto Hand’s climbing function to control the player’s grab movements. The gathering points are visible, but easily hideable. The player’s hand also has some control over rope’s movement, due to the interaction between hand/rope colliders. (↓)

Looks pretty good. However, there are two issues that are not shown. One, the angle of the grab can make the player’s hand move erratically. Two, gravity does not affect the rope when the player grabs it, which is unrealistic.

Next, we add the climbing components to the rope to allow for throwing and shooting of the grappling hook. Now when the grappling hook sticks onto the beam, it will generate points that the player can climb onto, allowing for throwing and climbing. using the same rope.

The first clip is with the generated points visible, and the second clip is with them hidden. (↓)

Although the mechanics do seem to work as intended, it’s actually quite difficult to throw the rope for it to latch onto the beam. Our success rate is once in every ten tries, which is not very consistent.

Finally, we decide to change the way you throw the rope itself. We’re trying to see if you can swing the rope around in a circular motion while also grabbing onto another point, as illustrated below. (↓)

In the future, we do manage to successfully spin the rope, release it, and have its momentum carry it to latch onto an object. But that’s for another week.