Games Project Mantis

Hi!

I'm Johnny and I recently decided to make a video game. All I can say for now is that it'll be my rendition of an old-school Silent Hill or Resident Evil. I have plenty of ideas that I'm eager to share in form of a DevLog and I'd like to document my progress with Unity, Blender, C#, etc. as well (I started using these programs less than 3 weeks ago). My goal is to update the DevLog once a week every Sunday to keep me focused and on schedule for this ambitious project and most important to get feedback on ideas, protoypes, design, etc. so don't hesitate to let me know what you think!

You can also find me on:
itch.io (https://johnny-rodriguez.itch.io/project-mantis) and
GameJolt (https://gamejolt.com/games/projectmantis/398410)

 

DevLog_001

The first DevLog entry, time to explain and present what I have in mind:

My idea is to make an action-adventure game that unfolds around the core mechanics of the Playstation 1 Silent Hill and Resident Evil games. So fixed camera angles, limited ammunition and health items, puzzle-solving, emphasis on atmosphere and ambience, psychological horror and everything else I love about these games (and is worth keeping) will be implemented.

I also opt for low-poly models and low-resolution textures (128px 4bit) to create a graphic style that is reminiscent of the PS1 era but I will obviously take as well advantage of modern technology so it won’t be rendered in low res, will have better lighting, a higher scene poly count, a more pleasant (or optimized) gameplay system, and so on. I like to think of it as a Playstation 1 on steroids.

I won’t tell much about the story at this point or why I chose “Mantis” to be the project title, because for now I only have the main concept in my head that will be the core of the plot and I don’t want to give it away just now. I’ll give updates at a given time. For now there are only ideas in my head that need to be sorted and worked out. Don’t expect anything too crazy though.

Now to the current status:

I started working with Unity and Blender just about 3 weeks ago and for the most part I learned how to work with these programs by watching tutorials and practice what I’ve learned so far as well as learning how to program in C#. At first I thought it will take quite a while to achieve what I have in mind, like modelling and texturing assets, animate, building prototypes, etc., but was surprised to see that both programs are quite user friendly and intuitive so even just after a week I was able to create a scene in Blender that met my expectations. I know… it’s low-poly and low-res texture stuff… simple things… but I’m still proud of myself. And I know that there’s still a long way to go and that certain things will be more complicated but this got me hyped up anyway but I won’t underestimate the effort I’ll have to put in.

I then continued to create my first game assets and put together the following simple scene in Blender.



This is supposed to be a lobby of a police department (possible 2nd level of the game) and it’s sole purpose was to establish the art style and to see how the game might look like. Walls are obviously missing and the lighting is just a generic point light.

I also tried to model and animate my first character but in the end and with the texture of dear Harry Mason it looks more like a possible monster than a main character so I’ll definitely need to improve on that.



In Unity I started to create the first couple of prototypes that include the basic movement, camera controllers and the flashlight.

In the video you can (hopefully) see that I’ve implemented Tank Controls as well as 3D Controls that are mapped on the D-Pad (Tank) and on the Left-Stick (3D) so the player can choose whatever he prefers to use or can switch between them in an instant so you can have the best of both worlds. The flashlight can be toggled with the B or Circle Button and the camera controller works as desired (even though the trigger zones are not placed optimally but that’s fine for the prototype).

By the way, I will most of the time refer to a controller as an input device because it’s my preferred input device for this type of game but I will also make sure that everything works good on keyboard and mouse as well.

So what’s next ?

Since I plan on writing a DevLog every week I will set myself a couple of weekly goals to achieve in my given time. This week I want to work on my character modelling and animation skills, so I want to create a couple of monsters with walking animations as well as giving my dummy a running and walking backwards animation.

In Unity I will go on with a couple of new prototypes that will feature the running as well as the transitions between rooms, interaction with objects, etc. It’s really hard for me to measure what I can possibly achieve in a week but I think that sound about right.

The most important part is to start develop the story and plot because it’s essential to create the actual game and to work on environments, design, puzzle / game architecture, etc. Even though I will need quite some time to learn and improve on techniques in Blender and Unity before I actually assemble and develop the game I feel for now that the story might become a bottleneck sooner or later so it’s best advised to start working on it early and give it the time it needs to become a solid, well-conceived story and nothing rushed.

That’s that with the first DevLog entry, next one will follow next Sunday.

Now if you’ve made it through here, thank you for reading and for your interest and if you have any advice, opinion, question, critique or anything else to say please let me know!

See you next time!

 

Sounds like a cool idea! As someone who loves low poly games I approve!

 

Glad to hear that

 

Awesome work man! My brother and I were talking the other day while I was showing off my current project and we both were thinking about how we miss these style of games. Resident Evil 2 is what brought it up with the remake which was fun and all as a zombie shooter game. But didn't appeal to my nostalgic taste nor stay true to its predecessor we felt. What made a survival horror back then was the cinematic style of camera and controls. You were horrified because of how much you were not fully in control.

A good game to check out similar to this idea is Ecstatica. It had the same idea and concept behind it with a low detail to its characters that actually added to the immersion.

Anyhow, enjoyed seeing your post. I don't get onto Unity Forums that much these days due to my own projects and outside work, but I'll be keeping an eye on this as long as you keep going. Thumbs up man!

 

That's exactly what I think! The cinematic camera, lack of control, anticipation of danger are key elements. Same goes for the atmosphere these games create. The low-poly models / low-res textures are only capable to depict things to a certain degree, this leaves space for the imagination of the player and the simple use of music and lo-fi sound effects seem to be soothing / calming on one hand but at the same time create tension and suspense. It's weird to describe but I think you understand.

I'll also have a look at Ecstatica. I remember hearing about it quite some time ago and even though it's a little bit older than the type of games I have in mind it seems to be one of the precursors of the genre along with games like Alone in the Dark so it's definitely worth checking out.

So thank you and I hope I'll see you around!

 

DevLog_002

OK, it’s the second week.


After a slow start the first couple of days I hopped right back into Unity to start with more movement functions and animated and implemented the running movement (see video). It’s definitely not perfect and is way to fast in relation to the movement speed but it’s a placeholder and will later be changed to a jogging-like animation and speed to fit a lot more the style of the game. Another problem is that the flashlight throws a shadow of the players arms on the environment while running. But then again... it’s a placeholder so I’ll take care of it when it becomes final.

I also tried to implement a 180° quick turn for the tank controls but had the problem with the Slerp / Lerp functions and was a little bit overworked with rotation methods and quaternions and what else there is that can rotate things so I put that aside for a while and decided to work on other ascpects. I’m only working with Unity and programming in C# for 3 weeks now so I guess I can’t really expect that everything works right away.

I then tackled the transitions from room to room. My initial idea was to have every floor with its multiple rooms in one scene and let the player teleport from room to room while pausing the game and having a fade to black so the player won’t notice. But for the sake of simplicity I chose to have every room to be one scene. I then fiddled around with my code and set up triggers in the scenes and everything works fine.

By the way: I will implement a door “loading” animation just like in the old Resident Evil games. It will be an option to turn this on or off so the player can chose the level of nostalgia he wants to have.

Another thing I added are notes, documents and infos. Very simple UI stuff that requires knowledge of how to pause the game and how Unity handles input when the game is paused and so on. I’m still not very pleased with the way I managed it but I’ll mention my cancel / menu enabled problem a bit later.

I also learned some about instances and DontDestroyOnLoad when I implemented a LightManager to remember whether the light in the lobby or the flashlight was on or off in the previous scene so there won’t be continuity errors. And I’ve implemented some sounds from freesounds (also placeholders) and a background music. I chose a track from the Dino Crisis soundtrack to get a feel for the mood I’m going for.

And that’s pretty much it. Yesterday I spent my given time to rewrite and clean up the scripts so the foundation is solid. It can be pretty wild on my side to write the scripts so it’s better to take the time and tidy them up. I still have a couple of problems though. I have a method that checks the direction the player is looking which is used in every trigger so the note for example can only be read when the player is actually looking at it. I use this method like in 3 or 4 scripts right now and there will be a lot more so I think I’ll rather add this method to the player object and make it a property of the player or something like that. Another thing that bugs me out is the flashlight in combination with the cancel button when the note or info is active. Most of the time it seems to work but every now and then the flashlight gets the input of the circle button even if the UI is enabled. That results into the flashlight turning on or off when the player closes the note or info text. A minor bug but I’m sure I’ll be able to fix that.

Sadly I wasn’t able to practice any modeling in Blender like I wanted to do but I still can say that I’m really hyped right now with what I have achieved after a month even though it might seem like very little to an experienced game developer but I’m hungry and motivated.

The next couple of thing on my list are the already mentioned quick turn and an inventory system. In the video you can see a bit of foreshadowing. On page three of the note it says “Use the key to open the door.” That’s really the thing I want to start working on this week. Having an inventory system, picking up items / keys, having a DoorManager, etc.

I’ll keep you updated on that next Sunday.

Until then thank you again for your interest if you’ve made it so far and please leave any advice, questions, critique down below!

See you around!

 

A short update because unfortunately there isn't much to show today.

I've managed to implement the 180° quick turn as well as the backwards walking animation. I also started with the inventory system and so far I can open the inventory, pick up items, move them around and that's it. I spent most of the time reading, watching and learning about UI elements, arrays, user inputs, etc. A real learning week but I didn't want to rush things nor copy tutorials and even with better understanding the code is still pretty wild and needs to be rewritten and improved a lot. It's a rather big system and is intertwined with a lot of other systems, therefore it was clear that it would take longer but I'm on it.

So I will use the rest of this DevLog to write about some basic ideas and concepts I've outlined over the course of this week.

My main idea is to have a hybrid of a Silent Hill and Resident Evil game. I like the atmosphere, music and stories of a Silent Hill game and I like gameplay mechanics like puzzles, limited inventory or metroidvania-esque level design. I recently replayed the first and second Silent Hill and realized how "bad" the level and gameplay design is. I love these games. Don't get me wrong. But everyone who played the games knows that the gameplay isn't challenging and that the levels are really monotone and full with useless doors and you'll visit most of them only once and then never again. In comparison I prefer the level design in Resident Evil, whether it's a big mansion or a museum turned police station. Rooms are more unique and you need to know your way around in the places, go back and forth and most notably think about your route. You can only carry a limited amount of items and in combination with the scarce ammo you always have to decide what you'll need and take with you and which way is the safest. I would say these elements are what make a Resident Evil game feel more like an actual game than Silent Hill. So I want to take both of best worlds.

I also thought about the enemy design. In Resident Evil and Silent Hill neither the regular enemies nor the bosses were challenging. They acted more like bullet sponges and especially in Silent Hill, where the ammo wasn't as scarce as in RE and monsters can be avoided more easily, they weren't a real danger. I came up with a couple of ideas of monsters that stalk the player, are temporary passive and in general a little bit more clever than the zombies or monsters in the mentioned games. I want the player to deal with the enemies in special and different manners to create a more diverse gameplay that requires the player to put a little bit more thought into his actions rather than just clearing rooms and collect the items. Same goes for the bosses. I might break the established run and gun mechanics and go for more

(for the genre) unusual boss designs with different phases and gameplay elements. I'm a big fan of the Metal Gear and Souls like games and in general a fan of games with good gameplay and boss design so I'm confident of creating something to my gusto. Time will tell. I need to also mind the tank controls though. The game should be completely playable and doable with them. But fights be a bit more difficult with them I suppose.

I worked as well on the story and it takes more and more shape. But I won't say anything regarding this for now. All I want to say furthermore is that I'll continue this week with the inventory system and the prototype in general. I've set myself a goal of 6 months to finish the prototypes and pre-production and I think this is still a realistic time frame.

Like I said this is just a short update but if you've read this so far thanks again for your interest and if you have anything on your mind regarding this project please let me know.

See ya around!

 

Will you have a map system? I think Silent Hill had one of the best maps I've ever seen, the way it was just a normal map that was annotated by the character over time.