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

Not progressing as quick as I'd like, but finally adding the back pack, not finished though:

 

Still on the rucksack , adding some hinges and physics (mostly water bottle and ropes) to make then sway around some:

Now what else can I pack in there!
I'm going to try make the chaps hat flutter around a bit too.

 

Hope it's ok to share some updates.
Your comments and feedback are most welcome! E.g. thoughts on cave paintings?

Been working on Ruck Sack animations/features some more, water bottle levels change according to how much water you have stored/drink:

Look after yourself out there, if not you'll get the death animation:

Been adding various cave paintings:


Working on Inca Home Screen:


Big dig area or small, just go for it:

 

I would like to ask for this communities feedback if possible please, does the following recording of the tutorial scene I am working make sense? Basically to follow the red arrows to try out more important gameplay parts:

E.g. would this be easy to understand /follow in your view? Or can you recommend another way for a tutorial level/scene?

Your view or feedback would be much appreciated.

 

Yeah, it works. Make the arrows dinosaur-claw shaped to add a little character and go with the game's theme

 

Thanks for your reply, good idea of making the arrows more themed much appreciated!

 

Like to share two scenes I'm working on:

A cave discovery scene I'm working on, it'll be real time, not sure if to use it yet, maybe as an intro or in a cut scene:

Testing out some sand/digging mesh resetting, but performance is not great so far (reverting mesh vertices is not working fast for me):

Feedback as always is most welcome.

 

Great work, I like the idea and the way your implementing all the in game systems. I enjoy games like this and look forward to seeing more updates.

 

Thanks for the comment, very much appreciated. Fingers crossed I'll be able to release soon, it's been quite a long (but enjoyable) journey so far! I am sure many others in this group know the feeling.

 

Interesting game!

I think to make this game great, you'll have to focus on the details like the spider webs in the cave needs to be more realistic, the writings in the notebook needs to be more legible. You might want to hire actors to voice the writing and speaking parts with locals.

In terms of a narrative, you might want to add some sort of conflict. In story telling conflict drives the movie/game forward. Possible conflict would be locals that hinders your goals or on a rival archaeologist going after your treasure. Think Indiana Jones

 

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated! Will take points into consideration some of those points have already been covered/updated. Anyone know of a good place to go for voice actors?
The game is not intended to have a huge story, which is going to other exotic countries/places of interest and exploring/discovering things..it might sound boring to some (which archaeology is?) but the main aim is archaeology really and digging for treasures, saying that...there a couple of NPC's that might try to rob you though already implemented. When you do find a treasure it will be rewarding (is my hope). I recommend you to try the game. I can send a beta stem key should you be interested.

 

I'm on OSX. Does your game work on OSX?

Not sure where to find actors but you can do it all online and shouldn't be too expensive.
ps. Make sure to get good sound/voice quality. You can clean up buzzing & hissing sounds but it's best you start with clean sounds.

In terms with conflict in a narrative, you have them inherently in your game with environmental survival like water level, food, etc... , maybe dangerous animals too. Think on other types of conflicts. A narrative isn't necessarily a traditional linear 'story'. We're dealing with game narratives.

 

Ah, currently on a Windows build. Thanks again for your input with this, always appreciated.

 

What app are you using for the 3d models & animation?

 

Hi, blender mainly and Unity (pro builder/polybrush for example), why do you ask?

 

Oh, I was playing with making a simple 3d game and was going to use blender as well.

 

Yes! Finally got sand reset to work well on terrain (without lag!), with some dust particles (still testing the Alpha value of the particles) generated in relevant places with relevant times:

 

Updated Unity (I know it's a bit of a risk with a large project sometimes) , but wanted to see how aura looks in my game and I think some of the areas look amazing (to me anyway), what a cool/free plugin aura is!

Would very much appreciate feedback on this, is the lighting too much, look good?

 

Some more:

 

Hi,
Great progress! i think the lighting is great! maybe the contrast is low cause we don't see the character easily. Maybe it's because the camera is far from the Character!
Anyway it's very very nice, love it! Wish i could get a bit of those results!!

I suppose you use enviro? if so what does Aura bring to you that enviro does not??


cheers

 

Cool, thanks for looking
You can zoom in / out to the player. I have DOF and AA set by default, I recently added options to disable those, probably will make the person much easier to see from far away. Not using enviro, but a mix of other ones, e.g. fog volume, HBAO and other effects, seems ok so far. Aura does give it a very nice touch! Fingers crossed the multi camera updates is out soon for that.
Currently I'm working on a simple swimming mechanic as I have some water/ponds in game, the to do list seems never ending! Any tips on that would be much appreciated.

 

i understand that ! i decided not to go into any swimming in my project fighting was enough for me! sorry!

What is your third person controller solution?? homemade ?

 

I don't have any fighting ... just running away from some bad guys.. But my player does need to explore so swimming is a good idea.
I'm using a SimpleLocomotion script mainly with final IK with animations. I have not focused on that part much though, the main thing (which I'm reasonably happy with) is being able to dig in almost all parts of the terrain for archaeology related stuff, that is where the whole game idea came from.

 

I see! Swimming would be a great thing!
I'm not a programer but i would be happy to check at this locomotion code structure, and see what would be possible.
Did you code it yourself?

There are always many many ways to get things done so it depends on the main structure and then add some animations and states layers.

You could (very summerized)

-detect how deep is your Character in water (raycast is great but only if do not put in update like checking every frame even on ground would be very bad idea) Put a collider (let's say at the player stomac "On triggerEnter or Stay with water collider then you do your raycast from top of the player to down and return distance)

-then at a certain height your character would get into his swimming idle state
-At this point you need to hack your locomotion move and create your own

-move the rigidbody and synchronize the move input with the swimming forward animation in your Animator
the easiest way is to use one forward animation and smoothly rotate the player in the desired direction.

And that is a great part of work you've accomplished man! congrats!


So feel free to pm me or to show some of the code here, simply give us more details

 

Hi there,
If you have final IK you will have much of the locomotion script I use, I have changed it somewhat, added my animations etc, but that is the most of it, I have quite a few other scripts for other gameplay aspects... I'm sure any FPS controller is similar, are you looking for something to use?
I think I got swimming working now, overview: I disable my player's rigidbody gravity while in the water collider(trigger enabled), set the Y axis at a certain level, change the animation states according to what swimming you're doing and that's it, change it all back when exit the water, use aura volume to give the water some fogginess. Seems to work.

 

Sorry i don't have full IK!

Glad you made it!! Let's go swimming!

 

Have not been back on the forum for a while, would very much appreciate any feedback on the swimming controller I've implemented:

Kind of simple, but seems to work. E.g. are the splashes ok?

 

Finally getting around to one of my to do list items, hat flutter (when running):

I'm experimenting with mesh vertices animation (via C# script) on this particular hat, thoughts most welcome of course!

 

Looking awesome, i have been following this as a lurker but i wanted to pop on and say the game is looking great and the progress is astounding.

 

Many thanks for stopping by, appreciate the comments! Spurs me on do more/finish it.

 

I've started putting together a short game trailer, I'm no video expert, also this one below is nowhere near the final version, but would like to ask for your views on this one, e.g. if you watch this do you get a sense of what the game is about?

 

Hi there,

Does this updated trailer look a bit more up to scratch? Comments/feedback would be most welcome, good, bad or ugly!

 

Bit of a different post (bug).... this horse is not funny folks, I did not realise horses can be such bullies to cars:

 

Hi everyone,
Been a bit quiet of late. Nervous times ahead!
I plucked up the courage and posted this on steam as coming soon, link to store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/724630/ArchaeologyX/
Any feedback on the page would be welcome, or thoughts.

 

As an update, the game has just been released, I welcome you to visit, URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/724630/ArchaeologyX/

The end of one chapter, start of a new one perhaps ?

 

Congratulations!!

 

Sorry to re-resurrect an old thread, but thought this might be interesting, to know that Unity can actually handle this.
A player on steam posted a screenshot of playing the game, but a very wide screen resolution, using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 > 5760 X 1080 widescreen , see below , I think it is pretty cool! :

 

i missed the release of your game!! sorry!! Just finding out now it's on steam!! Congrats!! You've managed your game till the end!! wish you a lot of sales!!

 

Thanks, it has been my most successful game yet, I am proud of it, but it is probably nothing compared to other titles, I tend to struggle with the marketing side to get the game known.. I wish you lots of success with any games you may release too.

 

Great game! Would love to be in private touch with you about my own long term project called Trail of the Ark, which includes real time archaeological excavations, as well as semi-fictional concepts to keep it moving.
https://www.trailoftheark.com/
Here's an additional product that merges virtual tourism with eduction. I'm currently learning Unity to develop gaming functionality to the project.
https://www.discoverersworld.com/

 

Hi, no worries, sure thing, if you want to you can send me a private msg through this forum.