ImpactO game project [Multiplayer arena combat]

Hello everyone on the Unity forums!

We are a small indie development studio situated in the north of Sweden. Currently our team is made out of 6 guys out of which 2 are graphical artists and 4 are programmers.

We are currently working on an ambitious title called ImpactO. This is a multiplayer action game with focus on close combat gameplay! Play with your friends against other teams in a new turn on the "capture the flag" game mode. Or fight against them in a free for all deathmatch frenzy.

Mechanics and gameplay
The most effective weapon that the players have is their own character. Using momentum and speed to slam into enemies, sending them flying is often the best way to end them but be sure not to run head first into collisions or into enemies that have powerups active!

The main playable character is a 2 ton steel ball that the players can customize and equip weaponry to further improve their combat effectiveness.



We currently support three game modes, two being the standard DM/TDM in which players fight fiercly trying to gain the most points by crushing their opponents.

The other game mode is more focused on team based play and is our own take on the old CTF game mode. In this mode, players play in teams of 3vs3 and fight to the death on different maps. The twist for this gamemode, is that when a player picks up the Battery (our flag) he will transform into a robot! In this form, the player will be more vulnerable but also more manuverable in dodging incoming attacks. He will also gain the ability to jump which creates new scenarios in how to avoid your enemies.



While holding the battery, your team will periodically gain points. However, if you manage to bring the battery to the designated capture zone and hold it there for a certain amount of time, you will be rewarded by gaining bonus points! This however, is not easy as the enemy team will do anything they can to take the battery from you!


Demonstration

Here is some early footage of the game

And our old trailer that is a short gameplay demonstration. Note: This is after 6 weeks of development and is quite old by now.

Development
We are currently around 3 months into development working hard everyday! We write all of our code in C# and have recently been looking at creating a Steamworks wrapper for the game and hopefully getting access at a later stage.

As our game focuses a lot on player to player interaction rather than using weapons, we have implemented a client-side prediction model for the unity network to increase stability for playing with higher latency.



Social media and contacts

If you are interested in our game, or would like to give some suggestions / feedback or just get more regular updates of the game, check us out at:

http://www.facebook.com/ImpactOtheGame

https://twitter.com/ImpactOtheGame

http://www.youtube.com/ImpactOtheGame

http://www.indiedb.com/games/impacto

Thanks for now!


Update 1:

The Mine Dispenser!

Update 2:

Ground Pounder Laser Cannon artwork

 

This looks awesome!
Really unique and interesting idea

 

Thank you so much! When we try to explain for others about the game, we generally say it's a crossbreed between Quake, Unreal Tournament, Mariokart and Carmageddon

 

This looks so cool! great work

 

This looks fantastic!

Care to tell us a little more about what you used on the GUI? First pic looks especially great. Maybe Scaleform for Unity?

 

This game looks like serious kick-ass fun

 

Thank you everyone for your kind words!

For the GUI, we actually purchased NGUI when it was on the Unity asset stores summer sale a few weeks ago. It really does wonders in helping cut down performance issues related to the regular Unity OnGUI functions, although it takes a while to get into it. The way the customization is set up right now, is that players can choose what they want to equip in 4 different categories.

• Right
• Left
  Left/Right is your main offensive slots but you can also get some utility if you choose the Mine dispenser.
  
• Chain
  Chain's provide you with different passive effects such as increased impact damage or more health.
  
• Engine
  The Engine is your most vital part as this is going to be your go to item when looking to increase your speed and getting different booster effects to traverse the map.
  

Also a neat trick we found and decided to implement is the big TV screen in the background on the first picture. It actually changes depending on what item your are currently hovering over plays a short demonstration of it showing you how it's meant to be used. This is inspired by League of Legends where you can view heroes abilities right in the launcher when inspecting heroes.

Thank you! Be sure to check us out at our social medias

 

very nice, i like the concept.

keep up the good work.

quick question:
which networking backend are you guys using?
unity networking?
Smartfox
photon?
ulink?

or your own inhouse?

 

Thank you!

We are using Unity's own networking with some modifications. On top of this, we created our own implementation to sync clients better over network. That said, we have been looking into using either uLink or Photon at a later stage if we deem it viable.

 

This game looks fun, cant wait until I can play it

 

Thank you! We are also really anxious for you to play the game

The Ground Pounder is extremely fun! If you manage to use it just when someone is going to ram into you, they will actually fly over you instead, creating some awesome scenarios and reaction based combat

 

who did the sound design to this game? its excellent.

 

very well done

 

Have you considered adding a racing game mode? Seems quite suited for it.

 

We are actually looking for a sound FX creator right now for our game and we have a couple of potential takers. As for the music, we recently got our main themes (menu and ingame) from our composer that has not been shown to the public yet (might post a soundcloud link later).

Thank you so much!

We have indeed! One of the earliest plans was to create a racing mode similar to that of MarioKart but instead provide players with procedurally random generated tracks to keep things fresh, every single race! But as time passed, we realized it would take too much of our resources to get it implemented in time and be of as good quality as we are aiming for.

Here is a link to an early stage in development for the PCG race mode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyGKUeZlZrU

 

Updated the OP with some more concept of weaponry!