Games [WIP] The Starving Tournament

Hi,

I wanted to show you my first Unity project. After years of no game-making i rediscovered my old passion and decided that Unity would be a good Editor/Engine for my project:
The idea was to create a "Hunger Games" fan game, for copyright purposes I named it "The Starving Tournament"

At the moment the game is in the alpha status, a playable demo is available at http://gjtp.jimdo.com/english-1/download-starving-launcher/ (Windows only, at the moment)

I thought it would be a simple project to get to know the Unity engine, but it turned out to be not simple at all
After some researches I found out that there have been some other "Hunger Games" projects before, but at this time it was too late to quit the project. What I think is fascinating about the concept of a "Hunger Games" PC game is the combination of FPS and survival elements. I hope my game will make a good combination of both types when it is finished.

Enough said, here are some screeshots:


Implemented Features so far:
- survival/FPS Basics (Fall damage, self healing, swimming, hunger, stamina)
- melee and range weapons (bow & arrow, spear, sword, throw-knifes, dropping weapons)
- Medikit "gifts" (from sponsors)
- Multiplayer (via PUN)
- Minimap
- HUD
- Day/Night Cycle
- Statistics panel for Kill/Death/Ping
- chat
- Game launcher
- Bots (with prototype "AI")

planned features for Beta and Later:
- Traps and other dangers
- More gifts from sponsors
- climbable trees
- Food
- Different characters with different characteristics/attributes
- Weather
- Improve Bots
- (Maybe: Gamemaker mode)

I would be glad, if some people try out the alpha demo and post their opinion.

Greets and sorry for the poor english
Gary

 

As a huge fan of the Hunger Games books (and even bigger Jennifer Lawrence admirer...), I'm all for this.

However...

I don't want to see it be just another shooter. (I'm on a Mac, so I can't try your Alpha, sadly!) Ammo (and weapons in general) should be scarce, and ingenuity should be rewarded over straight up firepower and reflexes. I think it's super important to have a great melee system. One that doesn't result in fatalities with every encounter, ya know?

Also, what if one player was the Head Gamemaker? He controlled the traps and such, and his job was to keep things exciting, but paced properly. Not sure how the balancing works out, but I think it would be pretty neat. And he could also decide which camera shots were used for the live Twitch streams, where people pledged money to sponsor players.

Good luck! Keep us updated!

 

I really like your ideas! And I can relate to your Jennifer Lawrence admirance

At the moment there are many weapons at the start point (aka the Cornucopia) and ammo and weapons get rare in the rest of the arena (which is kind of big for 20 players allowed with PUN free)
I just have to figure out how to force the players to not stay at the start point an just play hack&slash but to go into the woods and hide.
This could be a difficult task to get the balancing right and make it more simulation than FPS but I'm confident I'll figure that out.

The idea of the Head Gamemaker was exactly what I meant by (Maybe:Gamemaker mode)
Maybe the gamemaker will "sit" in a different room and watch the game like in the movies (that screenshot is not from the game of course)


I made a quick MAC build: http://s432458114.online.de/gjtp/Starving_Tournament_MAC.zip hope it works

Greets Gary

 

The sponsor/gamemaker system could be really cool if done right, with real people spectating, betting, providing support Sounds cool. It's almost midnight here but I'll try to pop back and have a play of your alpha later!

[edit]
Oh also, totally agreed w/ Schneider about the importance of it not being hack'n'slash right at the beginning. I guess you'd need to make combat punishing to discourage people from it, so that they'd rather use strategy/stealth where possible. Which really means modeling it more on reality, because that's exactly how it should be. I guess something like persistent wounds/risk of infection/long healing time would help? Interested to see what you come up with!

Good luck

 

Obviously only one life per game is a good incentive. Players that killed can be brought back as mutts at the Gamemaker's discretion.

Limiting actions through stamina would be a good way to prevent mass murdering at the cornucopia. Gotta fall back and regroup to be most effective.

Thanks for the Mac build! I'll try it out here shortly!

 

For a singleplayer mode I added bots to "The Starving Tournament", but the AI is a little bit buggy in the Alpha version as you can see in this short clip:

So currently I'm trying to improve the bot AI to make singleplayer mode fun as well as the multiplayer mode

 

Great idea. Another equally great idea is to have a timed event "All competitors within the area of the cornucopia after 30 seconds will be shocked to death!

One other thought - you mentioned the self healing is already implemented, but isn't this the type of game where health is the ultimate commodity? So possibly self healing defeats the goal of the player "wanting" to find a different avenue of victory rather than face to face all out brawl tactics.
Was there a discreet reason to incorporate self healing rather than giving the characters a set amount of health which is precious and should be guarded at all cost?

Another possibly more complex mechanic, but interesting, would be a degradation of the character abilities as health is lost. Reduced speed, strength, more time needed to accomplish things, etc. This would probably unbalance the game quite a bit, but would be an interesting mechanic and also add to the concept of your health is the most important commodity in the game.

 

I interpreted self-healing as "ability to heal yourself when injured," not "regenerating health." I could be wrong, but I agree that your life force should be the most precious thing you have.

I actually wouldn't mind a system where degradation of abilities was the only measure of health. If you are injured in the leg, you can't run. If your arm is injured, you do less damage. If you're bleeding, your vision dims over time until you pass out or die. Stuff like that. You're right that balancing would be crazy tough to get right, but it would definitely be interesting.

 

In the next Version of the alpha the spectator mode will be implemented. In the first implementation you will fly around in "free look mode" and you have a limited amount of money. With the money you can spawn medikits, weapons etc for the "fighting" players. Your money will increase very slowly with time.
(Later there will be a betting system to get money, for example you can bet that player XY wins the round)

My thoughts on your thoughts:

Self healing in this case is a simulation of "recovering from small wounds". At the moment it's a very simple implementation, if your health is more than 80%, your stamina is full and you are not hungry, then your health increases.So if you get hit by someone with fists than you will recover, for example.

That was totally my plan. This will be divided in two groups: Limitation of abilities with stamina (right now you can't run without stamina, but there will be more), and losing of abilities with health, but you are right, the balancing might get difficult

 

Today I have a small update on "The Starving Tournament" -
First of all: Unity 5 is AMAZING!

The postprocessing Image Effects gave me the idea to get a blurred and black/white vision, when the player-health gets low. Also there will be heartbeat and perhaps tinnitus sounds, when the player is near death.
I like this new "health indication system" so much that I'm thinking of removing the Health-HUD or even the complete HUD. But in this case the selected weapon and number of ammo screens would be missing.. maybe I gotta think about that.

You can check out the new version of the alpha with the launcher (see first post) or get a direct download:
http://s432458114.online.de/gjtp/starving0.3.2.2.zip

 

Yes it's true! After 5 years I finally had the time to bring this project back to life within the new version of Unity.

The XMAS Version was the biggest mistake I ever made... (But can still be checked out on indiedb... sorry for that Sh****) Because I didn't make a backup of the "normal" arena and I just didn't find the time to remove this XMAS stuff... Moving to a different city, building a house (in real life) and two kids got in the way, but "thanks" to the corona lockdown stuff I found some time to work on it again.

There are even some small improvements:
- Changed to PUN2 for networking
- Changed character to rigidbody
- This helped me to start some hitbox conditional damage, you now can hurt feet or arms and a headshot, well almost kills instantly
- Added Hunger and Thirst System
- Improved Stamina System (Stamina recovering dependent on state: running, standing, crouching and even on hunger and thirst)
- Scaled down terrain for better looks (the paths and stufff were just too wide)
- Graphic level in options actually working

So enough talking, would be glad if some of you like to check the new version of "The Starving Tournament" to celebrate my comeback to the unity developers

https://www.indiedb.com/games/the-starving-tournament/downloads/starving-tournament-0-5



Greets
Gary