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[phillipfoshee]

---EDIT September 21, 2015---
HEYYy, it has been a while! I took a LONG break and worked on another game for a while, but B-12 is still alive and kicking. Progressing rapidly, actually. Ignore most of the stuff below in this post. I've gone back to my original, on-paper (November 16, 2012 to be exact) vision of this being a third-person only game made for screens, not VR. I was trying to include first-person and third-person and support VR etc etc... It just wasn't working, and my attempts to 'force it' burned me out rapidly. But after a long break, I have been working furiously, with a seemingly bottomless supply of motivation to finish this game. The gameplay and controls are distilled to their essence. The levels are now procedural/randomized, and I coded a much better, unified AI system that will make finishing all the enemy robots a much more rapid process. I should be able to have this game finished before the end of the year.




----EDIT 5-29-14----
This took way longer than it should have, but here is a new trailer showing the current state of the alpha!



----EDIT 2-20-14----
First gif!


----EDIT 2-11-14----
Newer screenshots! I realize that I didn't really feature the enemies in these. I will post another batch along with gifs and/or a new video soon. See my reply to this thread from 2-11-13 for a detailed development update.


----EDIT 10-07-13----

There's still a lot more to add in terms of content and mechanics, but here's the first alpha footage. I am very interested in any feedback you might be gracious enough to give. =]

(2-11-14: This is very outdated now. New videos soon.)

----EDITED 08-03-13.----

I originally started this project to learn Unity & Blender with the sole intention of developing for the Oculus Rift. I thought I'd finish the project before I finally got my pre-ordered Rift dev-kit, but it turned into a much bigger project so I finally ended up receiving the Rift a few weeks ago. After some tinkering I realized I'd much rather redesign this game from the ground up for first-person VR. It will still be fun and playable in third or first person on a regular monitor, but the primary focus will be on making a great VR game. Here is a quick screenshot below. A bigger update with more screenshots and info will appear at the bottom of this thread soon.


----END EDIT. BEGIN ORIGINAL POST----

Hello everybuddy! Although I barely just started posting, I've been looking at the devlogs and Screenshot Saturday posts for a good while, slowly building up the nerve to be a part of this place that I find so encouraging. I'm making what will hopefully be my first completed game, and I'd love to share the process with you and welcome your feedback.

B-12 is a first/third-person platform shooter with game-play inspired primarily by Mega Man X, featuring 3D platforming influenced by Mario 64, Papo & Yo, and Journey. It's being developed with Unity Pro, Blender, and Gimp and will be released for Windows/Linux/Mac and more hopefully.

The overall idea is to make a modern-yet-minimalist shooter with much simpler controls than most of them have these days, with a heavy emphasis on platforming and simple, intuitive controls. The player has persistent control of the camera/aiming. Most-likely no aim-assist or lock-on. (The game will definitely require precision with the mouse or right thumbstick.)  Only three (or four) buttons to worry about. Right now those are 1.[shoot/charge], 2.[jump/wall-jump], and 3.[crouch/dash]. I haven't decided whether or not to have an activate button yet. There may be no need for it.

There will be little to no emphasis on story in this game. Just platforming and gratuitous robot-on-robot violence.

The art and look of the game are inspired by 70's and 80's sci-fi, namely minimalist stuff like '2001'. I want a cinematic look, but I don't want it to seem like it's supposed to be photo-realistic. I could definitely use some input on this particular issue. I'm pretty happy with the overall look as it is right now, but feedback is very welcome.

I guess that's it for now... Thanks for having a look! There are screenshots below. The next post will have more background and technical info.

---I removed the original screenshots, but they can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/wfwi8

[andy wolff]

this looks like it'll be pretty cool

my only comment is that from your screenshots, the environments are looking a bit sterile and colorless. if the 70s and 80s are your inspiration, you should consider adding a bit more of their funk. 2001 had a very clean color palette for most shots, but it usually had a range of vibrant hues.

sometimes they got away with having few or no colors in the environment because the space suit was so bright, but they still had a lot of contrast in the values


other times they had loads of colors



anyway good luck with the project

[phillipfoshee]

Thanks, Andy! Dammit, I could just look at screencaps from that film for hours! 

I agree that the environments are looking a bit bland at this point. I've actually been debating between more color and more geometry to liven things up. It'll probably end up being a bit of both. The lighting is also temporary and not as dramatic as I'd like it to be in many areas. Unity has some limitations/rules with lighting and shadows that have me a bit stumped, but I think I just need to tinker a bit more.

[devi ever]

I especially love the look of this environment :

[i-kari]

^ what he said. Very nice perspective / lens.

There's some grain in all of the pictures, I believe that's on purpose?

I thought of a bomber plane when I saw the title "B-12".

[phillipfoshee]

@devi ever: Thanks so much! But I've got to give credit where credit is due. It was based on the space station near the beginning of '2001'. Granted there's not nearly as much going on visually in my scene.. I made some of the pieces in my kit for the first few levels bright red (like the awesome chairs below), but I haven't used them yet.

@i-kari: Thank you! Yes the grain/noise is on purpose. However, I dialed it back a bit after taking these screenshots.. I'll have to find a balance. Unity's noise filter seems to be VERY pronounced in stills, while it's only subtly noticeable when the game is in motion. Perhaps that's normal when it comes to noise?

[Sarge]

Brain, nervous system, formation of blood...

B-12 has my complete support.

[phillipfoshee]

Thank you kindly! Frog Sord looks like great fun. Looking forward to checking out your demo. =]

[siskavard]

Wow, keeping an eye on this one for sure! Love the look of it!

[Mattline1]

I love the graphics style, very clean and nicely stylised. I'm looking forward to seeing some game-play.
Good luck with your game!

[phillipfoshee]

Thanks again, everyone! I should be ready to present some game-play footage fairly soon; I'm just not very happy with how the wall-jump and some of the particle effects are looking. Hell, I dunno.. The game is still subject to many changes, so maybe it doesn't matter at this point... Besides, everyone here knows what pre-alpha means. =P  Should I just present the goods?

PS, @siskavard: My sentiments are definitely likewise for Cloudface. Everyone go look at CLOUDFACE nowwwww!

[phillipfoshee]

I had no intention of going a full two months without updating this Devlog, but here we are. The truth is, I originally started learning Unity & Blender with the sole intention of developing for Oculus Rift. I started educating myself back in November and odered the Devkit in January. I thought B-12 would be done before I received it, and I'd just move on to the next project.  But a few weeks after my last post I started to become very anxious about receiving my Oculus Rift Devkit to the point where I couldn't be productive any more. I had a feeling I'd be reworking a lot of stuff to make this into a VR game, so I decided to put things on hold.

I'm very happy to say that the Oculus Rift, as a devkit, has surpassed my expectations, and developing for it is quite rewarding. Being able to see environments and characters at the proper scale, as if they're right next to you is very surreal, especially when you've created them yourself.

Before I finally got my Rift, I managed to get quite a bit done:

--Relearned basic modelling with Blender (I'd played around with it in years past)
--Supplemented Blender knowledge with level-kit design, UV unwrapping, texture/atlas design, character rigging and animation, etc.
--Learned basic Unity engine stuff and taught myself UnityScript/Javascript
--Developed my own physics-driven character controller script
--Modified the default mouse-orbit script to add collision-avoidance and other small features
--Created a level-load and in-level teleportation system
--Coded some basic enemy AI
--Coded player abilities like dashing, kicking off of walls, weapon-charging with multiple energy levels like Mega Man X, etc
--Implemented the old HeadLookController script and modified it a bit**
      **(I didn't have Unity Pro when I started, so no access to Mecanim's inverse kinematics)
--Built menus and HUD using Unity's built-in GUI system and realized it's completely useless if you want to have gamepad support
--Added the ability to swtich between first and third-person views (in preparation for the Rift)
--A ton of other stuff like learning Unity's lighting and particles, playerprefs, input handling, etc etc etc


From the list, it's probably obvious that I am VERY opposed to using pre-made or purchased code/assets. As much as possible, I am creating all scripts, art, sounds & music myself. Anyway, once I got the Rift here are some more things I had to do:

--Implement Oculus Rift support (obviously) and rework controls as appropriate
--Remove all use of Unity's GUI-system and build my own VR-ready GUI-system from the ground up
--Make telportation and level-loading more seamless (fade to white) to avoid motion-sickness when the screen freezes momentarily
--Remove ledge-grab is it just didn't work right from a first-person view
--Rework my wall-jumping as it also didn't work very well for VR
--Other minor changes to make it *feel* right in VR-mode
--Switch back to standard monitor, third-person mode every now and then to make sure it works and is FUN both ways

Here are some things that still need to happen:

--Make projectile/plasma/particle effects look better
--More enemies
--More levels
--Bosses
--More variety in level-building assets; make some of the existing ones more interesting
--A proper level-hub area
--In-game settings menu, more options for VR controls, etc
--Weapon/ability upgrades
--Various other tweaks and small features

That's a pretty thorough summary of everything so far. I have learned a lot, and I don't think I've ever worked so hard on something in all my life. It's been a very rewarding eight months! Here are some OVR screenshots:

[karlozalb]

I especially love the look of this environment :

Agree, this looks really cool 

[phillipfoshee]

There's still a lot more to add in terms of content and mechanics, but here's the first alpha footage. I am very interested in any feedback you might be gracious enough to give. =]

VIDEO:

[phillipfoshee]

Finally working on the third enemy type.. A miniboss probably. Working out the overall design before I start adding details and normal maps, etc...

[lowpoly]

This is looking pretty cool, especially the first person gameplay. I'd love to see a video of the Oculus stream if you can

[nss_aries]

I like your references, and I think you might consider to turn up the lights and turn off the bloom Look how sharp these Kubrick's stills are.

[phillipfoshee]

Thank you for having a look! =]

I'd love to see a video of the Oculus stream if you can

That's definitely something I plan to post soon. First release will actually be an Oculus-only alpha demo, with a non-VR release not too long after. I want to have that out before the end of the year if at all possible.

I like your references, and I think you might consider to turn up the lights and turn off the bloom Look how sharp these Kubrick's stills are.

I've been sort-of debating that too. I love that hint of softness the bloom adds, but it might be a bit heavy-handed right now. The warp, vignette and grain will definitely stay to keep a filmy look, but I agree... the bloom should come down a bit. All post effects will be optional in the final version. Below is another shot of work-in-progress enemies from the Unity editor for a hint of what it looks like with all effects turned off. The architecture will get quite a bit more interesting soon, I promise! 

[phillipfoshee]

/////Just cross-posting from #screenshotsaturday.

Over the past week I got the new enemy/miniboss (posted last week) working with basic AI. Needs another ability besides shooting & pursuit if it's to be a miniboss though.  I also finally made some blocky prefabs and started prototyping level ideas a bit more playfully, including wall-jumps and more spacious areas, which I'd been neglecting.

[migrafael]

Keeping an eye on this one for sure. Need to get me an oculus rift as well