Game Design Challenge (PC)

Ok thanks for the advice, the reason I used timer's is because some attacks like a "tornado" or "mist" attack don't really have like a missile that you just attach on that dissappear's after hitting something. Plus I wanted the option so the tornado attack could be 1-5+ hits ( but just play tornado effect)...it wouldn't matter it just needed the timer when to land each attack.

 

Why shouldn't @Asvarduil quit? The only argument against it seems to be "you-should-keep-going-at-all-costs". This article seems relevant: "Quit Already - 7 Ways to Know When It's Time To Cut Your Loses".

Gigi

 

I think what's important is for @Asvarduil to assess whether he/she is till interested in this challenge, and whether it is still possible to gain something overall from the experience. Since presumably a lot has been invested into it already I think it is a good reaction to first look for a way to get a positive outcome, which I think is what most replies have been about - namely dropping the procedural part. If not, then yeah no point wasting time.

That said, I think the overall timeframe for this challenge is probably a bit small, but let's face it, I don't really expect to finish it and probably neither does anyone else, I expect it will be a case of 'see who got the furthest' and maybe this will spawn some interesting WIP threads.

However this challenge is still new and finding the right setup will take a few iterations, props to @ShadowK. I really don't want to see it die out as there has to be a section for fanatics and dreamers to burn themselves out and hopefully find out what they're capable of, not all of us want to be saved and sent to the Learn section

 

Actually, maybe we could have a '6 month MMO challenge' with the theme being GTA 5. Then instead of the usual roasting people could just be directed there.

 

That's like asking why don't you quit the games industry, or why don't we all just quit? But anyway here are some reasons for:

• Learning to touch on all aspects of game creation on a grander scale and seeing it through to completion. Whether they fail or succeed, you can be proud you did it and add it to a portfolio that can build a fan base.
• Advanced workflows and techniques with community members backing you up. It's never a bad thing to extend your skillsets and face challenges you never normally would.
• What would you gain by quitting and staying within your comfort zone? Are you happy to stick to the basics and mediocrity?
• Increase chances of success, quality games with decent promotion will always attract attention (check out Allison road). The market is flooded onto itself with basic small games, let's reach for a bigger target.
• Your lowest point will dictate whether or not you have what it takes to finish a game like this, bouncing back and trying (as you say) is an important step.

Reasons against:

• Might not find it fun, that's a personal thing so sure.
• Takes up too much time.
• Might be too complicated and requires a couple more years to train (even if we do provide help).
• Not really that interested in games as a commercial venture, more of a hobby thing.

End of the day, it's not up to you or me.. I presented some pluses and some guidelines how to improve, if that's not a selling point then that's fine. As much as I think @Asvarduil is cool it's no skin off my nose..

The biggest thing is, DON'T JUST RAGE QUIT.. Weigh up the pro's and cons, then if it's still a no go then you made the right choice.

 

Two weeks of deliberation was hardly a "rage quit." It took me two weeks to realize I prototyped myself into a corner. I think you're cool too, but try to avoid speaking "for" me, especially when I clearly laid out my thoughts before. In fact...go back and read that post fully. I laid out an in-depth analysis, with much self-directed sarcasm, about where I am. You'll find there's less rage in it than you'd expect.

I still haven't decided about the whole "F!@% it" thing, either. Could I do something awesome in 4 1/2 months? Maybe, maybe not. Am I finding it fun? Not as much as I thought. Am I content to stay in my comfort zone? No, but there a profound difference between staying in my comfort zone, slowly creeping out of my comfort zone as I become more familiar with everything, and flying out of my comfort zone, throwing all caution to the winds. I never do the first, and only do the third when I think the second isn't working too well for me.

Conversely, and on a more positive note, as I said before: "Worldseeker" is as generic of a title as I've ever made, and this isn't my first rodeo. I've got the following things under my belt:

1. Third person space shooter
2. Top down strategy game
3. Side-scrolling action game
4. JRPG

Should I decide that continuing isn't a bad idea (somehow), I'm actually considering dropping the whole FPS thing, as well as the procedurally-generated thing. Maybe, when I was taking option #3, I failed to consider, maybe one of those four setups I've already done, could be done better, but in space! (per the contest parameters.)

I'm thinking about what I want to/"should" do. If I decide not to continue, I've got a game that I put aside that could stand to be continued. I haven't lost a thing, and in Worldseeker, I actually improved some of the tech that I ripped directly out of Sara the Shieldmage, as well as got a good check on the ol' ego. So, no harm done. Quitting isn't always a bad thing, and prior to my grandest fail yet, I was getting a bit cocky. Some would say, and rightly, that this has deflated my head a bit. They'd be correct.

Anyways, still thinking.

EDIT: Also, my quitting won't doom the contest. There's some very bright people duking it out here, still. That doesn't make me less bright, it merely means I've practices/processes/stuff that doesn't work as well as I need it to, and if I quit, that is the grand takeaway from all of this. Besides - I'd rather give up than put out another mediocre game. I came here to improve.

 

I see this as the main reason for this challenge. Now more than ever we have the tools such as Substance Designer and World Machine, not to mention a million other tools on the asset store, that take a big chunk out of the time needed to make assets so we can focus more on gameplay and mechanics. Pretty soon mobile phones (or tablets at least) - which are the usual target of Unity devs - will handle the graphic level of Crysis 1 or the first COD and the mobile game market will essentially become a desktop one, not to mention VR. You'll have to be Picasso to get a proper hit with a 2D game in 5-10 years. Since the mobile market has been the hideout for 99% of indie devs I think we have to aim high, not be afraid to take advantage of new tools, or risk getting left behind.

 

I wasn't speaking for you, it was a generic statement aimed towards everyone. I've been frustrated so many times I have rage quit and found it a mistake later on, what you do and how you deliberated is of no consequence to me.

Not to say I wouldn't like to see you and other Indie's succeed, hence why I offer to help people. Which I don't necessarily have to..

Ironically I went a little OTT for someone I believed did that to me today, the beauty of text.. You don't actually 100% know what the other party meant.

 

Ok so I suppose this is week #4 (as I've had to put things back due to various reasons):

I've been mainly doing artwork as we know, instead of Maya dumps I decided to try some of the outputs in the engine to see how they looked.. Find any issues and get a real scale of what I want to achieve. In short I'm building a city and an underground section, enough to keep players busy for quite a while..

It's still VERY ROUGH (I don't even have smoothing groups or anything on them yet and lots of things to fix).. But I'll post progress anyway, it's no good looking at a final product if you don't know how someone got there (it's better than looking at Maya's grey butt anyway)..

Expect fancier looking stuff next week..

 

Looks excellent. Great shapes and forms. For some reason I think it would be fun to run through there firing a gun that paints the walls with solid color splatters. I know there is that new paintball turf war style game. Kind of interesting nobody has made a 3D single player game where you run through and face enemies while trying to paint all of their base with your colors. Many different 2D games along those lines.

 

Thanks , yeah it's an interesting concept.. Not sure how the concept would work in a big(ish) 3D game, maybe decorator Jim lives in a blank canvas and finds the brush of infinite colour?

Thing is the artwork changes so quickly, around 15 minutes after I'd posted that the models have been bevelled and smoothed out, in the end I'm looking to create a scene like the Infiltrator demo. I was going for that ages ago anyway.

 

So final update until next week, I'll not keep spamming small pieces of art.. But it makes a couple of points, firstly I decided to drop the terrain and I'm going with a mesh base, simply because the amount of art and detail is getting bigger quickly and I'm starting to make rapid progress..

So I could do with a bigger art budget as I don't want to make the artwork process any more difficult. Plus I don't really "NEED" one anyway..

Ok bridge done (mainly, needs a few bevels).. Six buildings down, 20 more procedural ones to go.. Then I need 5 variations of crates, I need various holographic terminals made, an elevator, billboards, holographic signposts, plenty of light sources (street lights) etc. and I finally need to make a road infrastructure.

COOL!

 

Looking good! How are you doing your procedural buildings? Sorry if I missed a previous post...

 

Sorry I meant modular, it's been a long week ..

I'll just create a base mesh you can tack addons to in variations so they look different.. Do around 25 of them and you can easily build a city..

 

There are still 3 to 4 people participating in this challenge I think... ?

Looking forward to some early play-testing hopefully in the near future! I can't bash for lack of frequent updates on the projects because I haven't done a damn thing on my shmup in over a week. Tonight I will put an hour or two on it. I guess I will start outsourcing the real graphics this weekend since one of the artists I work with contacted me and asked if I had any idea when I'd have more work for him. lol

Anyway.... looking forward to seeing updates on all of these projects! Keep going you guys!

 

Well after doing a lot of work on the space combat programming I've been practicing a lot of my modelling, trying to get a good workflow and a sense of routine, and work on those things that I find tedious and annoying so that I can keep a good pace. Here's a high poly render of a player ship, done in a couple of hours (no unwrapping yet):




and some junk I made while trying to get a sense of style for the cyborg enemies:



I'm working on a first/test scene where you defend a space station against some enemy ships.

 

Still working through it, I was just doing a bit of research because I packed the city out with buildings and it didn't quite work as planned.. So I've been playing BF4 to get a better understanding of spacial concepts and how the city's come together..

Also I needed a day off lol!.

Nice ..

 

What phase is the project in? Is it possible to join late? Will this be done again?

 

There's roughly 4 months and 3 weeks left of the challenge, so it's still open although I think when were on the last three months there will be no chance of catching up. I'm currently in the artwork phase, although there is no real strict limit on where you should be.

Some games will require more art, or more mechanics. It depends really!.

As this is quite a huge undertaking, I'll be releasing a demo (whatever shape it's in) at the end.. Looking forward to seeing what you have planned.

 

Or more power tools *insert Tim Taylor grunts*.

I'm currently in the UnityEditor Jungle, wading through ankle deep documentation, in search of the elusive serialization puma; an animal so difficult to handle, it will bite you in the ass if you dare to look at it from less than a sixty degree angle.

 

So, I had a change of heart. I'm giving the whole contest thing one more shot. But, it won't be easy.

There is something I can do with the whole space theme, and it's based on my old space shooter game. Having played a little bit of Star Trek Online (which, isn't actually as bad of a game as many have been led to believe), there are some concepts I haven't tapped, that are more than doable in 4 months 3 weeks.

I've began prototyping the space combat already, the prototype should be in a showable state in about two weeks. Also, I've figured out a way to do this that will require controlled, high-quality bits of artwork out of me, instead of rushing to make a metric crapton of art assets at a time.

However, I'm also doing one thing I should have done before - I'm starting with the music, to ensure I get the right feel from the game from the get-go.

 

Design:
I want to make an action dating sim. Sci-fi environment and weapons, but average modern people.

Concept:
The game play consists of three different components. Combat, gun play, and conversations. The conversations will be closer to a turn based combat system revolving around words. Other big components will be stats, leveling, and collecting objects.

Storyline:
The main character is a failure at everything, until he meets a girl. He wants to be a better person so he does missions to raise stats and become worthy of her.

 

Interesting. So how are you going to tie the combat in with the dating, like who will you be shooting and why?

 

Crazy ex-girlfriends? Penalties for cheating?

 

There are NPC's you get missions from, which are also girls you can date. You fight enemies in missions to raise stats. The stats help you while talking to girls.

The exact enemies aren't decided yet, maybe robots.

 

I think it would definitely need a good reason, otherwise it would just be too random. What girl would date someone just for shooting random robots? idk maybe you can fight your competition...anyway looking forward to seeing how your project pans out

 

@Asvarduil

Sounds great, I'm doing something similar. Easier to get what you need an make it look the best it can, than doing a metric crap ton of assets just in case.

@RockoDyne

Looking forward to see what you find out, if you need a second pair of eyes let me know.

@Tsukubane

A very interesting concept, can't wait to see how that plays out ..

 

Ok, about time for everyone to update ...

If you look at the screenshots showing what I'm what I'm trying to achieve, I'm relatively sure you'll think I've completely lost the plot, even for me. Not only are the amount of buildings piling up, quite a few you can walk through. On top of that there is quite a massive underground as you've already seen.

This is piling up not to be ambitions, but sheerly OTT massive this is one person taking on large studios and it's a dumb idea,. BUT! On the bright side, there is no way you'll get through this game in 10 minutes, hell I doubt you'll get through the demo in a couple of hours..

I've implemented some of the gameplay mechanics, tried an FPS style setup, added some muzzle flashes, tested artwork scales etc.

P.S it's only me working on this, part time.. I've got another game I'm working on as well with the team. Ironically this is turning out to be a bigger project than the game were working on..

I love it, if it wasn't a ridiculous challenge I'm pretty sure I'd of lost interest around three weeks ago.

 

I may have a problem and it's name is coffee. Drinking it makes me want to program, and while programming I want more coffee. The problem is if I want to go to sleep, I then need alcohol, but I don't stop programming. Then I'm hung over in the morning and need coffee.

I've got the first of at least two custom editors in the testing phase. It's always fun to finally run something when it's basically gone untested for two weeks. I got 999+ serialization problems, but a bitch ain't one. Actually it's a type mismatch error that becomes a null ref after restarting, but I'll work around it instead of tossing a bunch of one pixel textures into the project folders.

At least what I've got should make it easy to extend.... yeah, I'm already starting to regret it all. Tonight's gonna be a strong drink.

 

@ShadowK you aren't the only raging lunatic around here, wait until you see what I've decided to do. In fact, I won't say anything about it until I post a video or prototype demo sometime in the next week

About the last week, well I spent a lot of time practicing modelling, I'm really trying to nail down a clean, low detail look. Most of this stuff I've done isn't going into my game, just very low poly mostly for texturing practice, like this:


Regarding the space combat, I've been working on behaviour trees for enemy ship AI, using a fantastic hand-on tutorial I found here, as well as a great overview from the AI dev on Halo. I started off with a simple state machine but decided to switch after things turned into an if/else porridge. Since my game is singleplayer only, I need to have an engaging AI and SMs wouldn't cut it.

Anyway, here's a screenshot (WARNING placeholder art) of the space combat, I got rid of most of the the hud for the time being because it looked annoyingly cartoonish and I don't want to work on it right now:



I just discovered that the Standard Assets has some color correction filters and I'm considering them for a more unsaturated, stylized look, like MGS4. It would really suit the story atmosphere.

Anyway, like I said I'm working on a totally stupid idea right now and will post some media within the next week

 

I started smoking again recently, bad idea.. Tried to stop over the last two days and had a slurry of unwanted side effects. I've been in your cycle too, it never ends..

At some point you'll just have to suck it up and go cold turkey, which will put you out for about a week.

 

Once I got in the habit of drinking coffee after a meal is when this became a bit excessive. Thankfully I don't smoke (I don't have the money for it anyway), I prefer poisoning my liver rather than my lungs.

 

Same here, coffee is my vice, never had the urge to smoke ... but everyone's got to have at least one bad habit. Though if I have too much it just trips me out and I can't work anymore, so I've learned when to stop and hit the tea. If you want to cut back I definitely recommend having some tea instead every now and then

 

Well, next up for me is working on one of the human outposts.. In game order it pre-dates the City, so I might start working on that bit instead. Had enough of working on the City for now, it would be nice to do some more simplistic things for a little while and then come back to it.

It's going to be interesting trying to balance the worlds together, one is basically an old human settlement. One is a 23rd century city (originally colonised in 2153) and then there's a space ship.

I suppose it gives the universe a grand sense of being, instead of a closed off populous. P.S here is the start of level 3 ..

 

@ShadowK:
On my cell phone and first thought was "looks like a photo". Is this Unity? If so I think you are knocking your abilities in making Unity look great for no reason. This is an awesome looking scene highly detailed from the trees to the folds in the snow. Maybe you've been too close to computer monitors for too long man. lol Or like most of us always striving for more and more and better and better in one way or another.

 

Thanks I appreciate it. It's not really the ability to make Unity look good which gets me, it's the development hell you get put through to make it look good. The amount of time / trial and error / hacky workarounds is insane. Give an indie bro a little hand competing Unity!!..

I suppose I'm cheating a bit here but that's a years worth of research and development into lighting / rendering tech that got ripped out of our failed to launch title.. Still haven't got the shadows quite right, but it's not a priority.

You think I'm going a bit OTT with the graphics? I could make it look even better, but it'll quickly become unsustainable without major improvement.

 

Nope. If you can make all of this great looking stuff this quickly might as well do it. I think my biggest gripe with people starting out on graphics and more graphics and more graphics is often there never is any game done. lol I've seen many projects over the years where they shared excellent looking art for months and then it all just died off without another word.

But heck no man. You have the skills and the ambition to do great presentation so surely do it. I do think it would be cool if you released a little mini demo at some point. I think many of us would like actually experience being in the game and exploring those environments.

 

The irony is I'm not an artist primarily, I'm a coder.. Even though for this project I'm doing all the art, it's a necessary evil that you have to get out the way even though it's a massive time suck. You can't really test characters without characters, your design on paper might block light so things look off. In which you have to do the AI / Pathfinding again, so I get it out the way first..

But it's a good thing, I see a lot of coders or one man bands who avoid art.. In some way it proves all is not lost you just have to do it.

The issue I struggle with is trying not to become obsessive about it, I'll tweak here / there and before I know it I've spent months on things I probably shouldn't have. But of course a game will come out of it.!

P.S I will be posting a couple of blockouts and then that's me done for a couple of weeks, I'm out until Tuesday and I'll be cracking on trying to get together something worth showing .

 

Update
Critical failure while making the prototype, but I do have a playable system. It's not very fun so I decided to change the game to an action RPG style game. New Concept: Dating sim with action mechanics like "sleeping dogs" or "fallout"

This week

• Made a proper Game Design Document.

Next Week

1. Title screen, HUD, Character portraits (All 2D stuff)
2. Character placeholder models
3. Storyline / Flowchart of paths

Game Design Document (Updated as I Work)
Click to Veiw

 

Asvarduil's Last Contest Update
So, this time, I'm out. Note that I didn't phrase that, "I'm out?" No, I'm pretty sure that I can't salvage the Worldseeker idea. It's less because "I can't" do something but more because my inspiration and perspective are wrong. I need to correct those to make anything worthwhile, regardless of whether or not it's "A", "AAA", or "OMG Dirty Casual".

On the other hand, this contest has been important to me. It showed me where I've gone wrong, for so long, why games have earned and deserved the 2.5-2.7 ratings. While I lack a tangible result from this - which, bothers me, I like getting stuff done as you can see from the finished games in my signature - this is far from a wash.

It also deflated my head; I'm no longer a green newbie, but then too perhaps it's going far to call myself intermediate. Specifically, the things I've learned are:

1. No matter how complex my game, I need to have a single core mechanic that everything else builds on. This needs to be introduced almost immediately. Neither version of Worldseeker did this.
2. Active mechanics (player doing stuff) far outweigh passive mechanics (stuff happening without the player doing stuff.) In other words, game rules need to introduce some form of gameplay.
3. I got farther with my game design, when I actually paid attention to what actions I wanted to have the player do as a manner of course (in other words, designing the game loop.) My second Worldseeker draft was far stronger than the whole Metroidvania thing.
4. Doing those things makes it much easier to prototype the right thing.
5. Inspiration and perspective matter. I was jazzed about the competition's space setting, because of a game I have a love/hate relationship with called StarMade. That game shares many of the same problems as my two drafts of Worldseeker, but with balance problems due to there not being enough limits. I spent a lot of time trying to "beat" a broken game with my own inherently broken game, when I should have shook my mind free of StarMade altogether, and designed an actually interesting space game. Only time, and mental distance, will help me solve this.
6. One as a result of earlier things, and today's epiphany - while ragequitting is bad, quitting for actual reasons is not, and doesn't reflect badly on me. I realized that there are problems with my design and the things that underlie the design that at this time, I cannot fix. I need to fix those. Then, I need to get back to the work of shipping a finished - and, higher quality game. Finally, while there were remarks I interpret as attempts at peer pressure earlier in the contest, however well-meaning those were, those were a distraction from doing what I should be doing - creating the best game I can as a statement of my ability, not for some extrinsic reward. TL;DR - screw any financial outcome, it's not what matters. Creating something good has a way of paying off, whether financially, or in any other way.

So, I'm out. There's quite a few contestants making good stuff. I'm still cheering everyone on. I'm going to take some time away from video games (about a week, and that might be pushing it), and some time after that away from making games (also about a week.) I'm going to fix what needs to be fixed and make an awesome game.

I'm glad I gave this a second attempt - while the particulars of failing sucked, I finally found out what I need to do to stop sucking, which is what I joined this contest for in the first place. So, in my own way, I've actually won - about three months ahead of schedule, to boot. You'll be seeing more of Sara the Shieldmage shortly.

 

Of course I wish you the best of luck and I'm glad you got something out of it.

1. I'm not so sure, I like to build an atmosphere or concept that defines the game as opposed to a core mechanic as such. It's about balance, something like Last of Us does well.. You play the game (which is fun and tense), but stay for the story..

2. It sure does and it takes iterations to make sure it flows well, I'll not have anything good by the end of this six months but you have to start somewhere right?

3. Awesome, again re-iteration is the key.

5. Ever played the Mass Effect trilogy? If you have a week to sit in your pants and eat Cheerio's I'd highly recommend it. It's a series that provokes a reaction which is a rare thing in games.

6. Nope, it's nothing to do with peer pressure.. End of the day everyone does what they believe is right to be successful, I'm glad you took part and gained something from it. If it wasn't worth spending the time to encourage, I wouldn't of said anything. I was told by a "mentor" as such, "if someone takes the time out to teach and help it's never a negative. Be worried when they don't believe you're worth it."

You're correct, the whole purpose of this was to help each other and encourage / push as a community not for fiscal awards.

Again glad you gave it another shot, you have won (not the money ).. Looking forward to playing your game!.. Peace!

 

I appreciate all of it. Your contest worked out for me, and I think the other contestants are going to get a head-start on some great stuff, whether it be a game or a technology to make their dream game (or just to sell, even.) I'm particularly stoked about the space game from @Billy4184 - the visual style of Halo plus a space shooter has some serious promise.

Something else I learned from this contest is I work the opposite of you - for me, I'm stronger when I take a mechanic and spin it out into something, like I did in The Hero's Journey (though, in that game, I screwed up so many things with the exception of the visual style that I'm still getting compliments on, and the soundtrack, that it sort of evened back out...so that's a thing.) Still, it's a good lesson, and it was good to try things from the "setting first" perspective; I gained from it.

So, I'll just back away now and keep an eye on this thread. When prototypes go up, I'll give some play-test reviews in my standard fashion. Good hunting/developing to you all!

 

Weekly update 2
I've really hit a wall here but I think it's fine for now. I have a good starting point for the prototype the main mechanics are in place. I want to duke it out with the best of you but it seems wrong. I'm not gonna spill my methods cause it's embarrassing. The games I was inspired by kinda bore me after a while. I'm still gonna make the game but I'm feeling pessimistic about it.

I have the concept feels stronger than ever before but I'll maybe have some trouble with the combat, animation and scripting, the modeling could also pose a problem down the road. The game is an action RPG now so I'm wanting to make cut scenes but I have no experience with 3D animation hopefully my 2D skills will transfer. The fact that it's so animation heavy excites me but it also worries me.

The dialog might be more of a turn-based time-based combat systems. Where a battle of words determines the outcome? Time.deltatime don't fail me now.

What I'll be working on this week
This is where it gets exciting. Posting Concept art, models, and animations. I have a working prototype of the game with no clue where to go. The story is short so I don't want to put spoilers in. How long should I prototype be?

Combat prototype
Dialog prototype (It's not what you think)

Advice Please
I'm pretty. Pretty new here. I don't really know what I should be posting where. I also have a bad attitude and joke sense so I'm also worried about getting isolated on the site. I'm usually curious about game design methods and examples of it done right. Also stress and psych concerns.

 

Well change the attitude then , simple.! Do what you can whenever you can do, don't push yourself into a pit that get's you depressed.

Take it one step at a time, that's all you have to do. If you don't make a game out of it, really doesn't matter as long as you learned something out of it.

Need any help? Post back. We'll take a look.

 

Allright, I've been hard at work but haven't got a playable prototype of the space combat yet, which is what I really want to get done as a sort of milestone. It's on the way though!.

So that crazy idea I had was to add third person space station combat to the game, and that won't be happening. The first and most obvious reason, it has too much work associated with it. I started putting together a third person controller but I just don't have enough animation experience to make it look good. I tried to get a rifle going with inverse kinematics and it wasn't smooth, and I didn't feel like editing keyframes for a whole bunch of animations. I really don't want first person as personally I don't like it very much, and it doesn't fit with the sort of game I want to make. I had in mind more of a personal, rpg feel.

The second reason, is that I felt that third or first person combat would undermine the core space combat, in that it is inherently much more natural and interesting while space combat can sometimes feel restricted and boring and takes some work to make it interesting. Obviously focusing on it would help the player remain interested. On this note, I can't really think of a game that nailed vehicle and foot combat together for me, probably because one is slightly better and steals the show, making the other look second rate.

So, feeling the pressure, I went the other way and decided to simplify my game as much as possible while still making it do what I want it to do. So here's the revised mechanics:

UPDATED GAME DESIGN

What do I have now? A lot of space combat stuff. How do I leverage that as much as possible? Add more ships. So now the game will be a battle group campaign in which you start as a lowly fighter pilot and work your way up to capital ship captain as the story progresses. To increase replayability, the game will be playable from any rank that you've achieved downward, e.g., if you played a mission last time as a frigate captain, now you can do it as a torpedo bomber or fighter pilot. The AI will take over every role except yours.

That sounds like a big, complicated idea, but actually for me it is easier. Because now I just have to focus on ship combat and ship AI for all of the ships, which will probably be pretty easy once I have one of them done. Most of the control components and AI behaviours will probably be compatible between capital ships and fighters. Also the game art will be easier as once I have the form and style for one ship it will inform the development of the rest of the ships.

To that end, I've been porting that fantastic AI behaviour tree tutorial to C# and laboriously debugging trees to make sure I understand how it works. I think I have it down pat now and will just have to rework it a little bit to purpose. A noodle node editor and debugging features are almost certainly in the works as well, so I expect to spend at least a couple of weeks on the AI tools. I know I could get something from the asset store here but I can't pass up the opportunity to make my own, this area is something I not only enjoy but I want authentic large-scale battles to be one of the highlights of the game.

So nothing too exciting to show since last post, although I've been practicing with Spacescape skybox generator which is a lot of fun to use and a big help, as well as practicing my modeling as always, and have added some sounds to the game.

Thanks for reading

 

Also, I'm in the process of putting together a pretty simple Android space combat game as a side project and warmup, I'll be posting it in the next Feedback Friday thread. I think this might be generally a good idea for the folks who haven't released too many small-scale projects but want to participate in this challenge. It will help motivate me to continue as well as giving me a chance to deal with some of the usual late-stage hiccups before I get too far

 

ALLREEET>>!

I have my basic City together, yes the art sucks because of time constraints.. I really need to crack on with the bulk of the game, at least I have a template in which I can just swap meshes out.. It's SOOO important to have a point of reference or I'd just get lost.. I've done basic gameplay interaction, template for basic gameplay I used came with muzzle flash decals and I've already started working on baddies..

Although I might just use capsules or a pre-made Unit to speed things up for now?? Anyway: CITY!.

 

Lighting is incredible!

The only criticism I have is that it somehow lacks a bit of style, it almost looks like an architectural render. I think it would help to dramatise the style a bit more.

Can't wait to see more

 

Yeah, it's something I'm struggling with.. In my attempts to push GRFX to the limit for a game, I'm loosing some of the "pop" and wow that a game is usually associated with.. It's something I'll look into later as I want the lighting to almost "glow", I need to get the game working properly at least at a base level..

Thanks though .

 

If you could get the style a bit more like this (Crysis 4):



I think it would blow a lot of people away regarding what Unity is capable of. Because it looks to me like there isn't a hell of a lot of difference with the lighting quality per se (though I'm not a lighting/environment artist at all so I may be wrong).

That said, of course, most important thing is to get the game done