Games Dig It- Archaeology exploring game - [WIP and Steam]

Just some more screenshots to share

Is that a village to visit?


Valley of Kings?

Is that the Nile river in the distance?


Some night time driving:

Maybe I'll find something here:

 

Oh no Sandsorm incoming:

Working on Notebook some more for all important clues that lead to treasures/dig finds. No screenshot here, don't want to give the clues just yet.


Ha, some tumbleweed rolling past:

 

Been adding some cobwebs:

 

This looks really cool.
I want to look for dinosaurs though.

You're a very brave man. I've been a volunteer on dinosaur digs and I can tell you that it is the most boring thing you could possibly imagine doing....99.9% of the time. The 0.1% where you actually find something is the most exciting thing imaginable though....which is why people do it.

 

Hi Peter, thanks for taking a look! There are places where bones may be found (or what I class as other non valuables currently). I do like the idea of digging for dinosaurs (specifically just that), that could very easily be an added option or extra package, I have all the game mechanics in place.
It could be a "boring" type of game, searching for treasures, it might take time which not everyone may have patience for..it's in the eye of the beholder. Hopefully the notebook and clue solving parts, exploring and the odd dangerous animal / thief will help make it a bit more fun!

 

I finally got grass removing working at runtime when digging, tried to make that work for a long time now...I am happy!

 

Just toying with this a bit, who knows what to find, hiding under the sand:

 

Alright! A spinosaurus aegyptiacus with an intact skull! Very rare indeed. A great find. Now we need to protect the site from poachers - those teeth are worth 2000$ each!

 

Looking forward to working on the next Jungle scene, thinking Incas/Percy Fawcett.



Slowly starting to think about asking for beta testers, let me know if you are interested to try (I know adventure go , you might want to try it ).

 

That environment looks really good!

 

New environment looks really nice! I think it will be a great addition and gives the game some well needed variety.

 

@alexanderameye and @virror, would you both be interested in beta testing (through Steam)?

 

I would, but I'm very busy right now so I don't know if I would be of that much help. I would only be able to play-test the game on a Friday.

 

Sure : D

 

@alexanderameye , no problem, how about just giving it a play and if you have any feedback I'd welcome that. ~
@virror, many thanks, I'll send you a pm once ready.

 

Sure!

 

Can I toss a fun idea out at you?

About 10 years ago I was on a cool dinosaur expedition where we were trying to find the site of an older dig that happened almost 100 years previously. The only clues we had to go on were a few paragraphs of text and a single black and white photo taken from the site.

So we were basically just exploring, climbing hills and then comparing what we saw to the photograph until we got something that matched.

Something like that might work out really well here. Sort of an alternative to maps. Have the player try to find the location from which a picture/drawing was made.

 

Hi PeterK,
In actual fact my game does yet include a map... there is a minimap / top down style camera to turn on but am not sure if that will actually be of any use..
Good idea about the photos. I have a notebook that contains a reasonably large amount of research "you have made over the years in libraries etc", which includes sketches (made by me with much love and care) of important things like old tablets / pyramids and other bits/bobs, also of some sites of importance where you need to get clues of by e.g. deciphering hieroglyphs.. there are other drawings which give clues too. Old photos might be another way to add to this. Thanks for the suggestions.
Would you be interested in beta testing, I think you might like my game ?

 

Sure. I've never tested through Steam. Let me know what you need and what I need to do.
I'm working on an app that is just about finished - would you be willing to give me a playtest on that in return?

 

Of course, that sounds like a great plan, is the app for mobile/android? I'll send you a PM once ready, ok?

 

Perfect.
My game is Android/iOS, but I can send a Windows/Mac copy too.

 

Yay... got camera clipping / object avoidance working better now, check it out:

Still working on other levels/scenes which takes lots of time.

 

Getting Horse riding enabled (Thanks to Horse Animset Pro), cool just what I wanted, next camels:

 

What about holes getting filled up with sand by wind and storms? And footprints and tire marks that slowly disappear?

 

Awesome idea! Tiretracks and footprints do disappear eventually, it will be possible to slowly fill up the holes but not sure how to simulate sand, yet! Some form of long lasting particle system? Any ideas would be great

 

Await the Ubisoft GDC talk on AC Origins.

I just ran through about 30 minutes of it. One element I noticed was the foot prints in the sand stay longer than in past other games. Kind of a nice effect. Great reference material.
No tire tracks though - not in that version.

 

Thanks for the info, AC Origins has some amazing quality and neat features! For my game the mesh deform options I use can slowly revert back to original mesh so I can see how this can work over time, I'm just not sure yet how the sand effect would/should look like, perhaps some random spawning of sand particle (with noise) blowing over the deform/dug areas for a while until the mesh is back to original state. Hmm, could work.

 

Hi, after a looong time of buying a new computer (old one got bricked!) and restoring my machine/project I have been able to update some more:

Added Super Dig option, now only have to hold mouse button down once to dig, much easier on the fingers , now players can save/load the scene, added more specified NPC clues to help with finding treasures, and a help/demo section:

Thoughts any feedback would be most welcome of course!

 

Slow progress on the Mayan/Inca level, some screenshots:

What is this, an entrance to something?

One of the many rock pool areas:

Through some thick jungle, is that a Mayan Temple?

Rapids and waterfalls make traversing terrain a tad more challenging:

Would very much welcome your thoughts on the above.

 

First thought: how about a modern remake of “Heart of Africa”

 

Thanks for taking a look and your thoughts!
Nice idea, might be ambitious (for one indie dev) to fit so many scenes in, I'll be happy to complete my plan of three for now, it is a long process. I'll keep it in mind, can always extend later.

 

No biggie.. but thought to share that I'm adding lots of details, e.g like dynamic cave volume lighting in caves according to time of day, see:

The cave light/light volume adjusts according to how bright it is outside.

 

Mayan scene is nearing completion at long last, been adding lots of caves and treasures, getting all to work, e.g.:

Working on/optimising jungle areas more (would you consider this thick vegetation?):

 

Really lovely, Khos. Makes me miss the days when I did field work all the time.

 

I like the progress a lot!

 

Hi @khos, Awesome project! Definitely following.

For the environments are you using Vegetation Studio or just the normal terrain system?

 

Thanks Baldinboy! Without your amazing asset the Inca/Mayan scene would not be as I wanted it
I tested vegetation studio before it was released, unfortunately did not get on with it so well so ended up ditching that,, also due to time limitations. I use a system of colliders the player goes through in certain areas to turn on/off the dense object areas, this helps with performance. Also have other systems like MeshCombineStudio in use.

 

Oh alright cool. How is performance in the scene on that last screenshot in the dense jungle?

 

Could be better but that screenshot is probably the worst case scenario in my game in terms of performance.
In the game menu options I have low and high camera angles that an be set (high is default), the low option allows the camera to rotate very low so the player/camera has that view to the horizon and rendering much more, but performance drops to around 20/30FPS (note I have a gtx 1060 3gb card, not bad but not the best either), on the high camera angle it is more of an angled top down view where less objects are shown, with that the FPS is much higher like 50/60 FPS and up.. it varies. I gave the option in case players want to see all the details, but by default the high camera angle is used.
I can improve more by refining the amount of jungle to enable in any given area, still working on that. Also on the jungle areas/objects I do not yet use any culling/MeshCombineStudio optimisations, I am also setting the LODS..I also have scripts/options to set for different layer and their draw distances, still need to set those. So lots of options.
Sorry for going on a bit on this but it is important to get stuff like this to perform well.

 

Yeah it is a very continuous struggle to get performance right with natural environments. I do recommend using VS or ATG for at least the grass and plants. TFP Trees with VS are not the most performant at the moment because of the set billboard distance. Would recommend using Vegetation Studio to control the grass, plants(Instanced Indirect), and lower tri trees, place the Kapok as gameobjects since you need collision, and place simpler higher res LOD0 trees like coconut palm 003, 004 as LOD terrain trees, or gameobjects if you are not using traditional terrain.

Sorry that sounds complicated but is the best setup I have been able to get in my test. Other environments like the desert should be quite a bit easier but VS or ATG instanced indirect for the grass should still get you quite a bit more frames to work with.

 

Thanks for the info.
Having another look at changing LODS of the tree objects, that jumped the FPS up by 10... then I disabled shadows in quality settings, FPS went to 60/70 FPS. I plan to check the LODS and shadows more, how they affect performance.

 

Yeah shadows play a major factor in performance. Adjusting LODs should definitely help too, Looking forward to updates!

 

I can vouch for Vegetation Studio and it's performance.. with unity trees/terrain I was getting as low as 20 f/s but with VS, I get 50+ with triple the coverage. I have a GTX 1050 so even worse a card than you it seems Performance can make or break a game!

 

Thanks for the info!
I did play around with it during the beta testing phases, but did not look into further.
Is it easy to integrate to an existing large / complete scene? I guess I can read the docs/review tutorials.

 

Yes! It's practically just click and go.

 

Long to do list is making progress! Whohoo, e.g. adding numerous npc's/animals/dialog//villages/settlements/relics/treasures/bug fixing (including performance in the jungle areas)
Would appreciate your feedback on some screenshots of paths and old buildings/ruins I have been adding:

Would welcome feedback on the look of these, open for critqiue.

Also do you think the cobweb too big in this screenshot:

 

Looks good, but increase the bias on your shadows a bit. You can see wavy dark dotted lines in your pics. That's causing that.

 

Thanks for the feedback, would you mind highlighting this, I want to be sure I see this correctly.
Is it like the circular lines in this screenshot:


If yes, then I am aware of this, on my scene(s) I notice this is more apparent depending on the angle o the sun (light), if midday (then light is directly above) you see these lines, but if any other time of day then there are no lines.. is is a shadow related issue, changed bias and other settings, not sure what helps yet ( possibly 32bit shadow maps), any ideas would be most welcome .

 

Yes. It's 100% a shadow bias issue. There are two or three settings for it on a light. Change them so they're slightly higher and it'll disappear.

 

Wow, you were right, different bias value took the lines away.. Many thanks! It's strange as I did check those before, maybe not correctly.