next »

[8-Bit Ape]

Frank’s Day Out will play a little bit like The Secret of Monkey Island crossed with Zelda. In the game you take on the the role of Frank, a guy that owns his own island, but decides to go on an adventure to find a shirt…

With 3D cel-shaded characters and objects designed by illustrator Billy Mather, it will offer players a chance to explore a world full of unique creatures and environments whilst using crazy transports such as the GO-Kopter™.

Frank’s Day Out – Web player demo

Hi all! I have just started work on a 3D adventure game. Currently I am using the following tools: Unity, Blender and GIMP. The main character is called Frank and you can see the animation cycles for the main actions below!

Not entirely sure what kind of game this will be, but it will have a healthy dose of exploration and Dinosaur ghosts!

Feedback welcomed!

[8-Bit Ape]

We now have a brief gameplay video where I talk about the idea behind Frank's Day Out and demonstrate some object animations, collisions and lighting:



Here's a still from the game demonstrating some new game objects and lighting:

The actual gameplay idea has formed itself over the last couple of weeks; exploration! That will be the single concept to this game, to explore. Different environments, across seas, the skies, jungles, underground, overground taking with you always your trusty pop up tent. There won't be any combat in the game, instead it will have character interactions that test the player in different ways. Perhaps morally, with puzzles or with a classic conversation face off!

Any feedback or ideas welcomed as always!

[8-Bit Ape]

Finally finished the camera and controls! A short demonstration of how objects are rendered transparent between player and camera:

There is a short demo that demonstrates how the camera and controls work (currently only available for desktop browsers): http://8bitape.net/demos

Please share any feedback you have. Thanks!

[lobstersteve]

The character reminds me of muscle man from regular show 

[Gueib]

The character reminds me of muscle man from regular show 

my MOM reminds you of muscle man from regular show

[8-Bit Ape]

The character reminds me of muscle man from regular show 

I have never heard of that show so Googled it. Yes you are right, Frank does have certain shared characteristics!

[8-Bit Ape]

A quick update. There is now a day / night cycle in game with a pretty sunset and sunrise:

This highlights that I need to create some models for the sun and moon, which I am really looking forward to!

Also, a quick glimpse at what the starting area of the game will look like:

Any feedback as always appreciated!

[8-Bit Ape]

New screens! I've worked on the in game renderer quite a bit, as well as the first island, Title Screen and GUI.

[Birkeman]

Looks good. A suggestion I have is that you might want to tweak the shader, It seems like you are using the standard toony outline shader included with Unity? Since a lot of games use that it can be a real benefit to modify it to make your game look more unique. As far as I remember it uses a cubemap for the cel shading which you could just modify to alter the look somewhat. No coding required

btw why is Frank trapped in a forest filled with dino ghosts?

[8-Bit Ape]

Hi! Thanks for the comments. You are correct, I was originally using the standard unity Toon Shader which you can see in the earlier in-game screenshots. I wasn't happy with it though, so tweaked it to use a different lighting ramp similar to the Toon Shader in Blender 2.6 (very first screenshots in this thread). If you compare to my last post you should find they look pretty much the same.

I'm also using a custom diffuse shader with outline for the Terrain, as I felt it looked better. All the objects will use the edited Toon Shader.

What exactly do you think should change?

Edit: typo

[Birkeman]

Ah okay I did not pick up on. That either I did not take a close enough look or the change is quite subtle. You might want to try and push it even further so it looks even more different from the standard shader. How to do that depends on what kind of atmosphere you want in the game I guess. Right now the feel I get is quite cartoony but your main character has red eyes and is lost in a forest which to me conveys elements of horror.

[8-Bit Ape]

I am very much going for a cartoon style look. Think Zelda Wind Waker crossed with Secret of Monkey Island... The game will be about exploring; sailing and flying mostly. Not so much horror!

This is the illustrator who is providing the concept art: http://billymather.co.uk/
Very much want to try and preserve the feel of his style.

[Birkeman]

Okay I see. In that case you might want to disable the shadow cube map completely since he don't really use shadows. You could also experiment with having the shader produce outlines that are of different width since I think that would be more in line with his style but that would require some shader coding

How come Frank has red eyes?

[8-Bit Ape]

Regarding outline thickness, I agree. Might be fun to update thickness based on object distance from camera, or different thickness for terrain and characters.

Regarding the eyes, that's how he was drawn by the illustrator:

We when first started we decided to use a very limited palette of colours. We're not sure about red sea at the moment though... Perhaps it will end up being black with a red texture. Not sure yet!

[8-Bit Ape]

We've been working on a GO-Kopter (TM) for Frank to travel around in. Uses the same colour palette as previous game objects. Do you think it's a little too crazy? Here are some WIP pictures!

The idea is that this will be a multi terrain vehicle - land, air and sea. A little bit like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...

[kraed]

This is very curious and different. The look is peculiar, who or what exactly is Frank?

 Shows us a render of the vehicle!

[8-Bit Ape]

Thanks! Frank is a Frankenstein style character, but he is rich and owns an island. A little background...

Pirates have invaded Frank's island and have stolen all of his most valuable modern art and designer clothes! Quickly, help Frank catch up with them using the GO-Kopter (TM). But, oh no! Frank has lost the keys! They must be somewhere on the island. Quickly find them so that he can pursue the pirates!

I really like the idea of a non-violent adventure exploration style game, like a 3D Monkey Island. Frank is the perfect anti-hero for that style of game. He isn't heroic or athletic, he just wants his clothes back. Travelling and exploring will make up a large part of the game, with unique narrative driven mechanics (I'll be honest, I'm not sure what will or won't work, just going to try a whole load of ideas I have and then cut the bad ones).

Definitely expect an insult driven sword fight, a cavern of singing dwarves (where you have to join in with the singing) and some wacky races...

 

[8-Bit Ape]

The GO-Kopter™ is complete! Pretty happy with how the model has turned out and I am very much looking forward to programming the flight controls. I've never created a flying vehicle before, so any pointers would be appreciated!

[8-Bit Ape]

Just a little update, the first time I tested Wheel Colliders in Unity made me chuckle!

Totally going to have to update with one where Frank climbs on board and flies off into the distance!

[8-Bit Ape]

Another quick update. Have been working on the camera and vehicle controls recently. Here's a very early gameplay demo of the GO-Kopter™ taking flight:

You may have noticed we have finalised the colour scheme. Can't wait to get buildings and stuff in game!