UPDATES
Both ways (Client/Server) entity control and creation.
This bring my Game engine up to 20%.
Controls + Collisions:
Babo basic material (Ya.. they are just spheres..):
INTRODUCTION
I started working on a new Babo. I have had many little side projects for years, but I never really went back to Babo.
Here is a brief history of Babo before talking more about this one:
Babo Violent (BV1)This one was only a prototype with very unstable networking code. Shared it with couple of friends but that's it.
Team: only me
Babo Violent 2 (BV2)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0Gro1GXTgThe community was very active. We had clan matches and tournaments. The game was very competitive because of the game types and each sides could select from the same pool of weapons. The music was catchy and fit the gameplay. We had special permission from Lamb of God to create a medley of their music.
Modding was not possible directly, but the community found ways. Texture packs quickly became a thing. Then someone had the idea to read the log every second, then clear it. Catching events like: Player X killed Player Y. Being then able to inject commands into their server: Move Player X to team Z. So simple modding like king of the hill were possible.
Then we finally made the game open source, giving modding a little bit more freedom. Like floor decals and custom wall textures like in this example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvu93lb50SETeam: My friend and I + help from the community
Madballs in... Babo:Invasion (BV3)http://store.steampowered.com/app/25700/This one was done in a real indie studio, with artists, programmers, audio engineers, etc. The quality of this product is high. But went a bit unnoticed. We can try to blame it on a lot of things. My personal reason is: We tried to please too many people. Some say it's the branding with Madballs. Some other balancing, unmoddable, the launch of battle field on xbox arcade the same week, or just worse name ever for a game
But in the end, it's a high quality game, that plays very well, with a good solo campaign.
Team: http://playbrains.com/
Babo Violent 4 [code name] (BV4)This one, I want to go back to the roots (BV2). Purely indie, made only by me as side project. And this is the game I will show off in this devlog over the next few weeks.
Primary Goals:- Fully moddable
- Multiplayer Only
- Competitive gameplay
- Gory
- Better graphics (DX11)
Fully moddable:This was the primary complain on BV2. It was hard to mod. And madballs didn't have modding capabilities at all. So I am building this one with LUA scripting.
I have built a small Babo Engine that allow scripting on almost everything: Weapon, Babo, Mod, UIs, etc. Even the map itself is written in LUA and can have logic to it.
Multiplayer Only:As I am alone on this, I won't waste time with Single Player. Coop was very fun in Madballs. Probably the best aspect of the game! But I don't want to spend all my time on AI, and big maps (needs culling, efficient loading, etc)..
Competitive gameplay:Weapons and abilities are accessible for both teams. This ensure maximum balancing. I also intend of having more clans feature. Like special tags, custom babo skins, etc.
Gory:BV2 was violent, with blood splatters all over the place. I want to go back to this. Not that I am a violent person, but I think blowing up your opponent into pieces is cool. Madballs had a more "childish" look. We went away from red blood completely.
Better graphics:I built my engine in DirectX11, and I intend to implement fully Deferred Renderer. I just find it easier to deal with lighting that way. BV2 had tons of dynamic lights (each bullets), but they were "fake". Basically overlay sprites. BV4 will be fully dynamic. Map scripting could even turn on/off lights in the level.
The general shape of the level will be more like BV2 + extra features and better texturing. Ground texture splattering in the engine allows for more than just smooth painting. It now allows features like hard edges and UVs rotation. Some mods were doing it in BV2:
This also means: Integrated map editor. Obviously. One of the strongest point of BV2!
Team: Just me, for now
That's it for now. I was able to load the first level this morning into the engine, I will post a screenshot later on this week.
My devlog might be a bit slow, as I have a real job to attend to, and I am a new father.
I consider the project already at 10%, even tho I have no gameplay yet. Because part of this project is also to build the engine and I have done a big part of it already.
Cheers!
- Daivuk
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