"The Barbarian" Top Down RPG Game Play

A small bit of gameplay for a game I'm hopefully soon to be done with called "The Barbarian". It works on mobile, console & desktop (keyboard/mouse or gamepad).

UPDATE: Added a trailer I'm using for a day conference put on by Intel in the city. I've been told I get a 256GB SSD for participating and, if they like me the best, a laptop. Lets hope they like me the best!

 

Nice visuals looks good, but i would recommend getting rid of the camera shake or tone it down because it is quite disorientating

 

Thanks! shortly after this video was made I switched to a different effect for damage over time which puts a lighter vignette & some other stuff, so it's more on the edges and doesn't affect the center play area. Playing the game w/ the normal shake for single hits is still working for me.

 

Looks awesome. Are you developing solo? Great effort.

 

Thank you -- yes, just me and the asset store. I've done all the scripting, and hired out some of the graphics (which are now available at the Asset Store for others to grab and use), and then got a bunch of stuff from the store as well.

 

Camera shake is quite annoying. Further than that the game looks good. Keep it up!

 

I'll post a new video soon. The camera shake is quite fun for single hits, I feel it really adds to the sense of being HIT. But I've already removed it for the damage over time events. Instead that uses a negative vignette and chromatic aberration (which is only seen on the vignette areas), for a more passive disruption.

 

I dig it!

Great Job!

One question, where are the trees that are casting the shadows on the ground?

 

Good observation - they're up on a hill. Right now you can't walk up there, but as the game is almost done and I'm waiting for some art, I've been in the expansion mode, adding new walkways and small side paths. I think I'll add one up there so the player can see them at some point, even if not from that screen.

I do plan on getting this working w/ the Oculus Rift, though, where you are the camera and can look around (and maybe even target enemies by looking directly at them), so they'll be visible then.

 

I thought it was a glitch bug. It'd be nice if you use a classic shake, say vertically or something, it's way too disorienting like this.

 

I thought it was a glitch bug. It'd be nice if you use a classic shake, say vertically or something, it's way too disorienting like this.

 

Do you have an example of what you mean by a "classic shake"? I don't actually play any modern games, so I'm at a bit of disadvantage when it comes to things that may be more stuck in their ways as expected devices.

 

Cool! Such games are highly addictive. Have you planned to release a tech-demo?

 

I have a beta, but every time I send someone the URL i never hear back. The point of the beta is to get feedback (mostly on difficulty balance right now). If you're interested please message me. But please do so only if you have time to actually check it out. it's likely a 15-20 hour game, but works on mac/pc and with or without a gamepad.

 

Added a video @ the top (and here), for a trailer I've made in order to participate in some Intel conference on wednesday. Briefly you may notice the change in the hit-effect when fighting the skeletons -- the brighter corners indicate DOT.

 

This is looking nice, especially for a single developer. I have been working on a similar game aimed at mobile, so I know how much work is involved. 15 to 20 hours of game play is a lot to create. How long has the project taken you?

 

A Long time. Pretty much full time -- that is, more than full time since I don't have a significant other or child or dog to take care of and work at home (And want to keep working at home, so I'm trying to make sure it'll pay for another year or two of working from home!). I think I started in earnest in september, but I'd been playing with this idea since GDC2013. But really september is the best start date. So 10 months now.

I was happy to say I was in "Alpha" in April, and "beta" on May 5th. As it's always stated, things take longer than expected.

A lot of this was a learning experience too, so I'm sure if I was better at programming and understanding HOW to build things, it'd have been faster. The fighting scripts, for instance, are on their 5th iteration. They're good now, but even last week I finally found a bug that I'd been searching for for a while. So good for squashing that, but it took 6 months to find it!

The length of the game isn't so much an issue, actually -- it's kind of easy to build levels after all. The hard part was setting up all the logic etc. For instance, up until this past week there were maybe 24 weapons total (in 5 types), 4 helmets and 5 shields. I decided I needed more, so I got some stuff from the asset store and after one day of setting it all up there are not 60 weapons (12 in each type), 9 helmets (there aren't actually any good helmet packages in the asset store unfortunately) and over 20 shield types. So now the game is a bit less boring, since there's many more steps of weapons. That took one day of work to set it up -- also adding some of the weapons to the enemies so that they're a bit more varied as well. but then of course a few bugs here and there as I play it, having forgotten various ends.

I do keep adding things now -- last week I also added two new paths through hthe main over world. before there was one, and I found myself getting bored going back and forth on the same one, so I added two more. Which meant adding two new enemy types. Which meant my balance was off (and spurred the addition of the weapons/armor). Fortunately the game still seems pretty balanced aside from the ending now, which I'm trying to figure out.

So to end a long answer to a short question (SORRY!), I feel that I could expand the game to 50+ hours by adding new levels etc with a much less amount of work than you might think, only because all the mechanics are already set up. Even adding new enemies or weapons and armor is a relatively small task. The bigger issue would be making sure the balance worked out well.

 

Sweet looking game! Is there a demo we can try out? I really love the music also!

 

Thanks -- I have a beta, but it's been a while since it's been updated. I need to update it before I release it in the wild, but if you message me I'll keep you posted if you'd like to try it out. Only catch: you have to report back on bugs/balance issues

 

Looks great game.
What pathfinding system did you use ?

 

Right now it's a mix of the built in system and just pointing the enemies at the player and increasing the velocity so they walk straight at him. I had for a while just the built in system, but often the result was that the enemies would circle around more than attack, decreasing the number of attacks they'd get in before being killed, which changed the balance of the game.

So now when they're close to the player, they walk straight at him, and use the built-in to run away after attacking, if they do that.

 

Another question, is what GUI system did you use to make your game multiplatform without GUI problems ?
Did you use some specific plugin for the top down map or writtent your own system ?

 

Looks really good so far! I kind of agree with what others where saying about the shake - it's good but it feels a bit disorientating. The section at around 1:12 in the second video is a good example of this.

I think what Hippo meant by a 'classic shake' is one where the movement is based on offsetting, where as yours seems rotational. Check out some of the screen shakes for the melee classes in Diablo 3. Some of them are incredibly subtle, but they do add more weighty feeling to the hits.

Looking forward to playing it some time!

 

Hopefully the shake is less disturbing now -- the video above was the first time I used it, and the most used in that, during Damage over Time, isn't the same anymore.

The GUI I use the 2D Toolkit for the text & just normal for the buttons etc. I'm hoping the new text stuff in 4.6 is helpful, if so I'll likely switch over to that, since I don't like the way I had to set all of this up. However, since the buttons change position/size based on platform and screen size (For tablets vs phones), maybe I'll leave it alone if it's working.

The minimap is one I made, and it's also available in the asset store: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/12053

When I first started needing a mini map I looked @ what's in the store, but none really fit my game, since I couldn't find any that worked with multi-level stages, like if you go up or down in a dungeon and you're below other areas in the game. The rest all worked with top-down only, no depth, while mine works with depth.