The Adventures of Orb (Action, Adventure, Stealth)

The Adventures of Orb is an action, adventure, stealth video game situating the player, a spherical-shaped robot who sets out to retrieve several artifacts scattered around the world. The player will also be accompanied by his human companion, a technical computer genius named Garrison Williams. The duo have committed justified crimes (thieving) from "villains" in the past and now plan to "retrieve" five different artifacts from around the world, at any cost. But what starts as a quest for glory turns into the struggle to save the world. (not final story)

Initially I planned to render the game with cell-shading, however I may change my mind on that. The game is supposed to remind you of a comic book or a cartoon. The game will be split into episodes, each episode contains hub-based levels which are split into sub-hubs, that the player can travel to from a nearby sub-hub.

At first this was only supposed to be a learning project, but after I saw some potential and a few friends who played the game during the 0.1.3 (weekly update 3) development I started to try to wrap a story around it.

At the moment I have four weekly updates, the reason for the hiatus between the third and fourth weekly updates was due to some heavy testing and a few research projects at school. Now that the school year is almost over and I have time again, the regular weekly (saturday) releases will resume, save this week.

Currently the game contains no artwork, just royalty free textures and primitives. For now I'm just scripting and setting up visual effects and such.



Progress Journal:

0.1.0 (Pre-WU1) - I feel like playing Marble Blast Gold (taking a break from my other project). Hm... I want to make a game like this. Let's get something going in unity...

0.1.1 - Basic Movement, Health, Fall Damage Jumping/Double Jumping, Weapons (Machine Gun and Grenade Launcher), Invisibility, Melee

0.1.2 - Improved Movement, Magnets, Sprinting, AI, Weapon Ammo, Main Menu, Character Customizer, Checkpoint System, Shield (not functional at the time), Operable Machines

0.1.3 - Improved Fall Damage, Generators, Electrical System, Buttons, Underwater Physics, Improved AI, Enemy Damage, Working Shield, Binocular Camera

0.1.4 - Fixed Controls (Yay!), Explosive Damage, Broken AI (being rewritten), Hub World, Safehouse, Explosive Disks (guns removed), Hazards, Mission Saving Loading System (not shown), Improved Binocular Camera, Hacking Minigame, 3 missions (only one was shown)

0.1.5 - Improved Underwater Physics, Redone AI, True Saving/Loading System, True Re-spawning System, Ammo Crates, Monetary System Prototype, Loading Screen,

0.1.6 - Laser Prototype, Character Upgrade System, Fixed Invisibility, GUI fixes, Better Loading Screen

0.1.7 - PLAN: Fully Operational Laser, Grappling Hook Prototype, An Actual Storyline, Realistic Underwater Physics, Improved Flashlight, Landmines, New AI, More Upgradable Content, Better Loading Screen, Monaco (For Real This Time), Orb Texture


I will be releasing a playable, public, prototype demo of the game soon.

The 7th Update will be released when the planned objectives are finished, instead of weekly progress.

Update 4 (any jittering or lag is because of screenflow):

Update 5

Update 6

What do you think of this project?

Cool Concept?

Original Idea?

Stupid Idea?

Vacuous Idea?

Post your opinion below.

 

With this weekly update (I already stated that there wouldn't be one last week), comes a new saving/loading system, a redone AI (that works much like the old AI), a new underwater physics system and the ability "swim" on the surface and below water, and a very simple loading screen among a few other underlying features and bug fixes. There still are bugs but I removed most of them. The AI is very jittery and glitchy (failed attempt at obstacle avoidance), I wasn't working on it that long so it has a lot of bugs (like committing suicide).

One thing demonstrated that you probably won't notice in the video is that the player can collect money from enemy corpses. The amount of money they have is generated at random, shown by the player entering the triggers of the floating pillars (in the video). The money can be used purchase upgrades for your character (the purpose for the character customizer shown in WU2). The upgrades include shields, laser emitters, grappling hook (something that I didn't get to), liquid storage tank (allows the robot to store a substantial amount of water before it overflows and reaches the electrical systems [causing the player to lose health]), and many more gadgets.

The video below's jittering and "choppyness" is because of Screenflow.

 

With this weekly update I have created a gadget/upgrade system which the player can use to upgrade their character or buy new gadgets for them to use. Many of the pre-existing features were turned into upgrades or gadgets. In the future some of these upgrades or gadgets will be already on the market, other, more useful ones will have to obtained by finding blueprints scattered throughout each episode. Once all the blueprints in one episode are found then it will unlock a new gadget. Each episode has a gadget which is something pertaining to its theme. The flashlight will be used in low-lit areas (you already knew that). The laser is a prototype still, but it does actually affect rigidbodies, it also doesn't just penetrate solid objects. Everything else was bug fixes. There were some features that were scrapped which wasted time.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get started on the level yet. Enjoy the video!

 

Update 6.5

I know it's been a while since the last update, that's mainly because of the following reasons: I went camping for a couple of weeks, I'm working on the demo, and I'm working on the story of the game. I'm going to quickly finish up all of desired the features by next week. Anyhow, I just wanted to ask anyone who reads this to give some honest feedback. Any feedback! I'm just unsure what anybody thinks of the game so far.

The demo planned to be released along with the eight update will feature a level where the main character, Orb, has to break his human companion out of a space prison. This will also be the first level of the game, it is titled "Pilot" (which can be compared to a television show's very first episode). I will post a few screenshots of the level and cutscenes along with the seventh update.

 

Working tirelessly on the new features and the demo, I wanted to keep anyone interested, somewhat interested. For the first time there is a quick demo of the player in a room with a bunch of boxes (sounds fun, right?). All of the features from 0.1.6 are there, the 0.1.7 features aren't. The controls and the link to the webplayer can be found below.

Controls:

WASD: Movement

Space: Jump (press again for double jump)

Left Control: Movement Stabilizer (breaks)

Q: Toggle Cloaking

C: Toggle Flashlight

Z: Nuclear Pulse Device

Left Mouse: Disc Weapon

Right Mouse: Laser (only works in fullscreen)

Middle Mouse: Toggle Binoculars

Middle Mouse Scroll: Zoom In/Out


Link to webplayer:https://dl.dropbox.com/u/88635652/Player Demo/Player Demo.html