Phoenix Final

Since David was good enough to nominate screenshots of my game for use on the Unity 'what's new' page, I thought it would be a good time to make the project a little more public.

I have been showing in-progress builds in the IRC channel for quite a while, and if anyone wants to see a playable build, feel free to drop by and ask. However, I'm going to hold off linking a build here for a little while longer, because I'd like to get a complete level finished before I give it too much exposure.

Anyway, without further ado, here's a couple of screenshots. You can see more screenshots on my website.

Feedback and suggestions appreciated!

(Also, thanks for David, Joachim and the guys for their support and assistance!)

 

I'd love to play test your awesome-looking game, Neil!

Maybe you could post a web build of it?

 

Neil, your game doesn't just look good. It feels good!

Good work

d.

 

You have a knack for designing a look that is visually *fresh*. I was going to say it reminded me of the look of that other shooter you were working on a ways back and then I check out your site and it's also a "Phoenix" game. Can't wait to play!

 

The game is really cool and the gameplay is really fun and well balanced!

But a little more instructions to kill the big ships will help xD

 

Sign me up if you need someone else testing it. Looks brilliant!

 

Hi,

looks nice - beside of the texturing which looks a bit boring to me. And the hud doesn't look final to me. Would be interesting to see how it plays. :O)


Regards,

taumel

 

I think it looks great Neil, and to me the texturing is an aesthetic choice (maybe a tad flat, but it works nicely as an overall style). I've seen other screenshots in the IRC and I think the HUD is one of the strong points of your game. I'd really like to try it out and I keep trying to catch you in the IRC the last couple nights. Hopefully I'll run into you there soon

 

This looks hawt... ....Did you use the cel shader or a variant? At any rate... I like it... Bumpmaps are overrated. As long as it is obscenely hard and runs fast you have a winner. heh.

 

Thanks for the comments, guys!

I should probably clarify... I show new builds in the IRC channel in order to discuss it in realtime, but I didn't want to post or email a link to the download just yet. Sorry if that sounds weird, but I really want to make the game presentable before any proper beta testing takes place. I'll let you all know when it's ready to go!

Quite right, the HUD isn't finished yet. I'm working on that.

The texturing is intentionally simple. As aNTeNNa says, it's just a stylistic choice. If anything, it's not stylised enough yet! That said, I'm still experimenting to find the right style, so the textures (and models) you see at the moment might change.

The other reason for using simple textures is to reduce my workload. If I had to fully detail and texture fifty separate spaceships, it'd take me forever and I'd never get the programming done. These simple textures can be set up in about ten minutes, so I easily save myself several days' work for each model.

All the ships just use the Diffuse shader at the moment, apart from the windows which are VertexLit. I have tried using the cel shader, but it didn't really look right, and since there's also a performance hit for non-trivial shaders, I wasn't keen on using it.

Keeping the game speed up is important to me, so I'm likely to focus on gameplay ahead of visual effects. Once the game is closer to being complete, I'll see if I can add optional visual trickery for high end graphics cards.

 

>>>The texturing is intentionally simple. As aNTeNNa says, it's just a stylistic choice. If anything, it's not stylised enough yet! That said, I'm still experimenting to find the right style, so the textures (and models) you see at the moment might change.<<<

In my opinion the colours don't fit very good together, some hud elements are too big and overlap, the font is too hard to read. What happens if the circle displays the direction of a ship when it's in the horizontal gap? Doesn't this disturb a bit? What i like is the planet if it is one. It looks very detailed while beeing at a big size.

By the way aren't the trails a bit wrong and not centered right to the engines?

I guess you do not use spline interpolation for the trails?

>>>The other reason for using simple textures is to reduce my workload. If I had to fully detail and texture fifty separate spaceships, it'd take me forever and I'd never get the programming done. These simple textures can be set up in about ten minutes, so I easily save myself several days' work for each model.<<<

Personally i would choose another strategy and do less ships but those in a better quality. As the screenshots look right now it's nothing which can't be done in director till now. I miss the " hey look this must be something different than directX7-look but don't feel offended that's just my personal taste after so many years with sw3d...

>>>Keeping the game speed up is important to me, so I'm likely to focus on gameplay ahead of visual effects. Once the game is closer to being complete, I'll see if I can add optional visual trickery for high end graphics cards.<<<

That's what i wanted to suggest: Make it an option...


Regards,

taumel

 

Everything looks a bit funny in the screenshot, but it's quite readable when it's all moving around. I'm well aware that the text and status bars look terrible, and I plan to move the overlapping elements to some position where they don't get in the way. Like I said, I'm working on it.

Actually, that's just the Martian Stratosphere skybox with different colours. I'll replace that with a custom one soon.

Good point, fixed that.

They're just normal Trail Renderers. If they look a bit rough, it's because I reduced the vertex frequency to reduce the polycount. That may turn out to be unnecessary, in which case I'll turn it back up again.

Yeah, visual quality is a subjective thing. I generally prefer games (and other media) with refined, minimal visuals. Photorealism doesn't really interest me.

To each his own, of course.

 

I 1st saw it in the Unity Flash email, looks pretty sick. 8)

Maybe you could do a ship model for this thread then? <hint>:wink: :wink:</hint> If they're not all the same then maybe you could use the models others come up with too.

If you want to get all photo-realistic, save it for cut-scenes or something...maybe replays. If it doesn't distract from the game play, add detail as the host machine can handle it...maybe/depending.

Any chance you'll be able to add lan/online play? That would be far more interesting to me.

 

Hey Neil,

Looks awesome.

Thanks for your help with my offset issue, tried catching up with you in the irc.

Ray.

 

>>>Yeah, visual quality is a subjective thing. I generally prefer games (and other media) with refined, minimal visuals. Photorealism doesn't really interest me. <<<

Oh i also like comic style easy looking games but at the moment i'm not after that and i didn't mean photorealism. There is a wide range between a flash look and full blown shader3 gfx which can have their very own stile. Actually this is one of the benefits which come from shaders...


Regards,

taumel

 

This looks bloody amazing. I can't wait to play!

Super phoenix was damn tasty too... Loving your style

 

I disagree with Taumel. I think the shading, coloring looks great, almost like a realtime Ambient Occlusion.

It's unique and I actually like it a lot. I say stay with the style you have and make the gameplay killer. Keep going!

 

Hey Neil.

You know I love the look and feel of Phoenix (except of-course the fact that your controls are all wrong ).

The simplicity is nicely consistent throughout the graphics and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

When I finally got a hold of this, I was thinking, "How does he get any work done?" If I was developing it, I would neglect working on it and just play it.
I find it that entertaining anyway...

I say fantastic job, it's amazing. I couldn't find any problems with it.
I think you should really consider selling it if you finish it... the way it's looking, you could make some good money :wink: . I know I would buy it.

 

I really like the simplicity of the objects and textures. The colour contrast black/orange on the players ship is really great. Makes it look aggressive and easy to keep an eye on while playing.
But, its exactly that "sharp" look that i miss a bit on the bigger ships. They look kinda grey in grey to me. But thats this subjective thing again and i havent seen them in whole and in motion wich is definetly a biiig difference.
And the overall looks are really innovative and catchy and i really cant wait to play a demo! Well done!

 

Congrats, looks great! Can't wait to play it

Cheers

 

Does look great, nice work. How about a quicktime movie screen capture so we can see it all moving
Cheers
Boxy

 

Was there any further development on this game. I would really love to play a demo or see it running. There were really cool screenshots then nothing more, hope all is well with it's development I was looking forward to playing it.

 

Yes, I'm still working on it. As you might expect, real life, work and other fun things often get in the way of working on the game, but I'm getting there, slowly. I'm aiming to release a proper preview version for the end of the year or so, if I can get enough features and polish in by then to make it worthwhile.

Here are some screenshots of where I am at the moment:

 

mark me down as one who can't wait to see that preview (and would probably buy it once it comes out) - that looks fantastic.

nice work ; )

 

wow, that's sick!

can't wait to fly around in that...

 

Looks like it's already dripping with polish...it needs more?!

--Eric

 

Looks amazing! I can't wait to play it. In my opinion you should offer several control styles (arrow keys aim, aim moves 1:1 with the mouse like a fps, or the ship turns and aims depending on the position of the mouse cursor).

I was never able to really play the pheonix final versions you had before because I just couldn't get past the controls.

Also, the torpedos were horrible. Please at least make them go straight, maybe even turn to hit their target instead of turning away from it.

Geez, I just realized how awful this post was. Sorry, I just can't ignore any problems I have seen and I don't like to just post "Looks nice. Good job." without any suggestions. I need a new "No posts after 10" rule

 

This is... absolutly stunning! Extraordinary work with very unique optics! Well done! And it gets better from screen to screen. And by the way... when can i play it?

 

I vote that it has enough features Preview time!

 

A great example of graphics transcending polycounts and technologies.

I'm not saying that Unity3d isn't capable, I just mean that your style is just good style--not dependent on showy effects.

 

Wow, it looks even nicer than before. It appears as if you've made a lot of progress; I like the new HUD.


Controls always seem to be a controversial topic.
From what I've heard, most people dislike your current control setup, however I on the other hand like the feel of them.
I'm not sure why or how, but I seem to be pretty good with them.

So I agree that if/when the final product is released, it would be cool to support a couple of different control layouts, as Yoggy suggested. Variety is always good.


Keep up the awesome work! I look forward to buying it when it hits the shelves :wink:

 

I have finally released the preview version in this thread. I started a new one as this one's getting pretty long and it's probably best for the download link to be at the top! I'm just bumping this thread so that anyone who has subscribed to it gets an email notification.