Games Clash of the Cubes (Trailer)

EDIT:
the bottom of the thread has the most recent updates!


About 9 months ago I started this game (here was the dev log I made for it), I originally had wanted to make it in about a week (over spring break) and release it then. Turns out I'm just like everyone else and can't estimate time at all. My summer and fall where heavily clogged with college applications and only recently have I been able to bring this project out of the depths of my E: drive.

Over the last few weeks I've added a bunch of things:
-2 new characters (Ray and Shadow).
-Proper UI.
-Polishing to every character in the game.
-A bunch of bug fixes.
-Probably more, I've just forgotten.

Over this weekend I decided to have a go at video editing. I use VSDC as it's free and easy to use and it's pretty quick to turn stuff out. This is my first attempt at actual video editing, my first attempt at a game trailer, and my first attempt at a game. What could go wrong?

I'll be adding some more updates as time goes on (hopefully weekly).

 

Nice work Raven! How many hours do you estimate you've spent on the game so far, including video editing and other promotional stuffs.
I know how it is regarding - getting stuff done - wanting it to be done and out in the wilds.

I do video editing (a lot) at work so if I could make a couple suggestions;
Audio usually always enhances visuals - unless the video also includes narration, then it's 50/50.
The games visuals (polygonal models with high contrast) and what is happening on screen (action) calls for jump cuts (hard cut), or other fast type transitions rather than slow dissolves.

For the next trailer (with time permitting) consider transitions that match the aesthetic and what is going on in the scene.

 

Thanks! Anyways, I've probably spent somewhere around 70-90 hours. I haven't exactly tracked much of anything electronically yet, as I use a notepad to record the stuff I do/need to get done. I'm going to try and get at least 30 mins every night to work on the game, plus a few hours on the weekend. Hopefully this should speed up my progress in releasing the game.

Yeah, I need music for the game (probably gonna sit down and make my own sometime), I've just gotta get around to learning how. I've also gotta do sound effects, but I didn't really want to do anything like that until I got a bit further in the actual game side of things.

Thanks for the tip, that makes a lot of sense. Should I also try and cut down on clip size (more clips, but shorter length)? I feel that would make the trailer feel more active/action packed.

 

It would make the trailer more action oriented but at the cost of clarity, so it is a balancing act. If the clips are short you have to make sure the overall premise of the scene is understandable.
For instance twin stick shooters can get away with shorter clips and more transitions becase the general premise is the known.
If a twin stick shooter wants to show off some innovative original mechanic - the clips will need to be a little longer, but probably still use hard transitions, because the genre is "action" oriented.

 

Definitely agree it needs hard cuts. Music wise you could probably find something free for the trailer like here: http://freemusicarchive.org. There's a few sites out there like that but if you do download a track just make sure it has the right licence. Would you be able to zoom in on some of the characters performing attacks? Just thinking something a little like the Super Smash Bros trailers.

 

Weekly Update 1:

-Added shock debuff
-Added a new character
-Added a new map
-Started working on polish effects (screenshake, freezeframing, etc.)

Shock Debuff:
The first thing I did was do some experimenting with more particle effects and I ended up creating a shock effect. I realized this would be perfect for a set of electic themed characters so I added it. It basically makes the player immobile for X seconds. This differs from the freeze effect by Shock still allowing the hit player to attack. Here is a gif with the new effect which can be seen after Ion hits Ironstrike with his ion cannon.

New Character:
The new character (seen above left) is called Ion. He's about 80% done, I'll post a video of his completed moveset next week. I've still got to finish him up and add his own hair model. I'm trying to increase the complexity with this character, as I feel the gameplay could use a bit added to make the play ceiling higher.

New Map:
After this I worked on the new map called Stonehenge. I had this idea for a long time and after accidentally making a grass particle effect that looked decent and performs well I decided to give it a go. I definitely like how it turned out, but I might add a bit more to it later on. Of all the maps, this one and Hall of the King are the two I will definitely be putting in the final build. My other 4 maps, I'm not super sure. The main reason being they either hinder gameplay or look bad (sometimes both).


Screenshake and Freezeframe:
After this I began adding screenshake and freezeframe effects to my hitbox script. This was fairly easy and I was decently happy with how it turned out. The screenshake is great, the freeze frame kinda sucks, so I'll have to redo it.

The screenshake, while I'm pretty happy with it, does bring a problem. I find it slightly nauseating, which is something I don't want for a casual game. Yet, with it my weapons have more weight to their hits, which is something I want... so I'm not exactly sure what to do. I'll be play testing it a bunch this week to see if I can get a satisfying way to make hits feel better. I've looked at a bunch of AAA fighting games and sound/animation is definitely a major component, but it's not everything. I'm not sure if maybe some small hit effects would be good? Any advice?

 

Stonehenge! Take my money!

 

One year later, yet still going as strong. Keep it up

 

Thanks man, I wish that was the case . I've been slowly working on things here and there over the last year and I'll probably try and get around to posting an update on here soon.

 

Well it's been quite a while, over a full year since I last updated this thread. In the last year I've started college (majoring in CS woot woot!), I made and published another game, and I also have devoted a massive portion of my free time to swimming (20-30 hours a week), but it's the off season now so hopefully I'll be able to focus again on making games.

Map Update:
Fallout and Rome were both added to the game. I really like how Rome turned out and it plays very well with the characters. I'm still unsure if I want to keep Fallout in the game, I keep removing it and then adding it back a few days later, as I like the look a lot but not how it plays.
Fallout:

Rome:

In this process of creating the last few maps I realized that complicated maps don't work super well with the way the characters fight so I've started to just make simply square shaped ones. Now you might think that that will mean all the maps are just for aesthetic, but you'd be very wrong. I've found that the size of these rooms plays a big role in certain characters effectiveness. For example, Ray is pretty awful in every map, except he is insanely good in Hall of the King. In my AI test his stats went from 0 wins with only 6 kills on the smallest map, to 1 win and 8 kills on the middle sized map, and 3 wins with 15 kills on the largest map.

I'm currently in a sort of a map crisis as I find that some of the maps are completely unplayable. There is 8 maps that I've created and currently only 3 of them are definitely going to be in the game. There has been a lot of content that was dropped in the creation process once I realized it wasn't good. On top of 4-5 maps there are 2 functional characters that didn't fit the game very well and had to be dropped.

First up is a massive UI upgrade:
The UI is (hopefully) intuitive to use, looks nice, and has a lot of features packed in. The game now supports things like being able to select which characters the bots play as and team battles.
Bot Selection:

Team Selection:
Sounds:
I finally started to add sounds to the game. It's very early in its stages, but 2 of the characters have working sound effects and the rest shouldn't be too hard to add. I should make a video in a few weeks, it'll hopefully showcase the sounds then.

AI:
I did some work on the AI so they work better as well as actually work for all the characters. I actually did a test run of all the AI to see which need improvements and who was the most OP and recorded their stats. I only did this for 12 games per character, 4 on each map. In the future I'll try and do this again with a bit more data, but the data it did give me was very telling about the different characters. As you can see below, Flame definitely needs a nerf!
AI Stats:


Major Bug Fixes:
Prior to this, there had been a bunch of small bugs in the code that made the game unplayable for a standalone. The respawning code had some glitches and a lot of other small errors with how objects were reset after being pooled made the game virtually unplayable for a long period of time. However, now that's the past and the game runs great!

Polishing:
I have done loads of small polishing here and there. I don't remember nor do I really care to write all of them down, but basically it looks and plays better now than it used too.

That's all for now! I've got a list of things to do before release, but hopefully it shouldn't take too long.

Things I've still got to do before release:
-Finish adding sounds
-Revamp input system
-Quality settings
-Tutorial
-Trailer

Things I'd like to do before release:
-Add 3 more characters

Things I'd like to do in the future:
-Add a campaign

 

Update Time!

So over the last month or so I've added quite a few new things to the game.

2 New Characters!
I new the menu looked pretty weak with that gaping hole in it. It was just screaming for more characters, so naturally I added them! First I added Angel, a pretty weak melee player who focuses on healing. Second, I added Torch, who is a moderatly powerful melee character with a powerful ranged attack as well.
Angel:
Stats:
Health: 25
Speed: 3.5
Jump Height: 5
Attack:
Angels base attack is a 2 damage sword strike. It's pretty weak, but if timed properly it's great at keeping enemies away.

Special:
Angel's special is actually not the first healing move in the game (that would be Flame's special), but it is the first that can heal other people. It lasts for 5 seconds and heals 1 hp per/sec.

Up Smash:
Angel has a powerful up smash, but one that is quite hard too hit. It has a very small hitbox, yet deals 4 damage and slow on the opponent.


I'm going to post Torch in the thread below, as it won't let me add any more media to this post.

Input System:
I did some work with the input system and now more 8 players can play at the same time! I also did some work with the bots and an 8 player mode with bots is now possible too! The first time I played this it was 7 bots and me in teams of 2. It was really fun! I'm definitely excited to keep working on the team mode capacities. I ordered a few controllers on ebay, so hopefully I can get some 8 player brawls to fully test out the system soon. Look out for a gameplay video!

Map Update:
When I was messing around with larger player counts, I realized that larger maps work better for it as it allows more 1v1 / 2v1 content which is the most fun part of the game. So I gave a quick go at making a much larger map. It's called Pyramids and is still WIP, but hopefully I can fix it up and get it into the game.


Quality Settings:
When I went home on spring break I decided to test the game with some siblings/friends and I knew that my laptop wasn't as powerful as my desktop. When I tested it out it ran 1080p, high settings at 60 fps just fine. However, it did start to get hot really quickly. Thus, I added in 3 levels of quality settings (low, medium, and high) as well as lower screen resolutions to help protect against overheating or poor performance. This resulted in the game being able to be played comfortably on pretty much any device.


That's it for now. I'm posting another quick post right after this with Torch gifs as the forums only allow up to 5 pieces of media per post.

I'm updating my list of things I've still go to do. I found out that Ion is full of bugs when I played with him some more. He is also not a very fun character and spends more time just being annoying. So I'm going to have to do a major rethink on him and change a few of his moves.

Things I've still got to do before release:
-Finish adding sounds
-Test Input System
-Fix Ion
-Tutorial
-Trailer

Things I'd like to do in the future:
-Add a campaign

 

Here's all the Torch gifs:

Torch:
Stats:
Health: 25
Speed: 5.5
Jump Height: 4
Attack:
Torch's attack simply drops a 3 damage torch. It's unique in the fact that the melee attack is persistent, meaning it can hit players after it's been used and not just at the time it was used.

Special:
Torch's special uses the same 3 damage weapon, yet this time it's thrown at a very high velocity at the nearest target. It has a recharge of 5 seconds.

Up Smash:
Originally this was going to be another attack, but I realized Torch has little to no vertical mobility due to his very weak jump. Thus, it was changed to be a powerful leap upwards.


That's all for now, please feel free to leave feedback!

 

This game looks like a fantastic party game if you ever decide to port it to consoles! I'd definitely give it a go =) not much of a PC player here unfortunately...

 

Thanks man! I've considered a switch port, but I haven't given other consoles too much thought.