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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsCHAMBER 22 - Vibrant Twin Stick Permadeath Shooter
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Zenvalley
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« on: August 09, 2015, 08:52:37 PM »

CHAMBER 22 - The Vibrant Sci-Fi Twin Stick Shooter!




This chamber will influence the fate of mankind before the 22nd century, You have been sent back from this dawn to the year 2072 to stop that fate becoming a reality.



Welcome to the developers log for Chamber 22! the permadeath action driven twin stick shooter set in a stylish, mysterious world with focus on emergent gunplay and exploration where you roll and run your way through an underground maze in hopes of reaching the deep unspoken chambers of a tech research facility.  

The game is set in a future based around a mixture of modern and 80s Sci-Fi themes, with a beautiful 2.5D style centered around high technology.
 
I am one man working on code, sound and art solo. I have been developing this game for nearly 3 years now. I will be doing  posts that are larger that are less frequent here. Posts done this way are generally more interesting and have more informative content.



I dont know when i will have anything valuable to show. The engine is still being developed.


« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 08:29:24 PM by Zenvalley » Logged

Zenvalley
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« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2015, 08:06:17 PM »


So this game is being made using the farseer physics engine (which is a C# port of box2D fleshed out in some areas), i love this engine and have used it quite a few times before. This helps with a few various things such as doors and more dynamic movement with the players and enemies and It also gives some nice weapon kickback and can produce interesting melee based combat when i ever need that.

I ran into a few issues initially with the scaling of the world, turns out having smaller sized shapes tends to stress joints more and break and collisions between bodies (which is clearly bad in a game that requires some degree of precision) I managed to migitate this issue just by scaling the bodies up a bit, and this actually fixed alot of the problems i was having which thankfully a relief. Just a heads up for anyone else using a similiar physics engine.



I also am going with a tile based approach for world building, so walls place in small sized chunks individually at a set distance (and also have to deal with corners and such). This is a slight problem as the body count increases quite dramatically with many rooms in a level (and i dont imagine the AABB checks in the physics engine like that so much). Currently im working on improving the world building and generation.  

I have ran into a few issues raycasting and doing various collision checks but hope to work around them by doing it myself.  

Check back in a few days for some concept art and ideas i had for the original theme!
(Teaser:)
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Zenvalley
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« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2015, 05:30:46 AM »

(old logo iterations:)



CHAMBER 22 never used to be a retro sci fi ish style game until i realized the limitations of the previous setting for the type of game feel i wanted.

The game used to be set in a prison during the 1970s era that had become overrun by gang members, and you as the sole surviving detention officer had to escape alive.

The environment was probably the biggest issue regarding this theme. Damn prisons, they are open spaced minimal clutter style institutions with few nooks and crannies that would lend themselves to interesting gameplay, sure the game was setting during a trashed prison so i could have thrown in some strewn desks and beds but it still wouldn't address the overall architecture of the place. I could have taken liberties with prison design.. but it just never felt right.

(Various old theme concepts:)


There was a limitation regarding the types of weapons and rooms that you would come across. As time went on i realized the flaws in my setting and had to rethink accordingly.
Thankfully with the new theme i am still able to retain the core gameplay elements that i wanted to include, but the new cyberpunk based theme is going to allow for heaps more variety graphics and gameplay wise.

I have a few concepts regarding the new theme also. Unfortunately i don't have my tablet yet so everything is pencil illustration, i can promise much higher quality assets and images in the future.
 
(New Environmental Concepts:)


Starting this devlog late, i have to catch up on a few things that i would like to document, so these posts and the next few posts will be on some earlier stuff i have already done quite a bit earlier.

Thanks for checking this out! More to come in the future, hopefully more relevant.
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Zenvalley
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« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2015, 07:00:44 PM »

So recently iv been rewriting alot of the world building code (determines where walls, doors and objects are spawned) to work in a more elegant and effective way for when procedural generation gets implemented.

The current state in all its debug glory - 4 rooms all dynamically connecting:


I want the games rooms and areas to have some degree of familiarity but i want layouts to be unique and procedural, so i went with the approach of having rooms be pre-built areas that will just click into place relative to their door positions when i spawn all the rooms and need to connect them up.

How rooms are defined, a simple 2 Dimension array:


I have written it in such a way that things are done in 2 main steps. Initially, rooms are spawned relative to the whole level array. The room array and the level array are both simple integer 2 Dimensional arrays, this level array is iterated upon changing each index value to the value each room defines (relative to where i placed the room in the level). The next big step is the placement of physical walls(farseer static bodies) where the level array is iterated upon again and depending on the current index's value, and its neighboring tiles, defines what kind of shaped wall will be placed.

The power that comes of doing things in 2 steps is that, i can apply rotation to the room array and drop it in the level array, and the walls will just build out dynamically with no extra fuss. Its important to note that this is easier than placing the static bodies and rotating them all around a given point using some trig functions, it was really messy. Its quite nice so far and definitely suits the needs of the game world at the moment so i am decently happy.

Early image of worldbuilding rewrite:


In terms of more technical aspects, i have implemented proper gameplay specific input support for Gamepad alongside Mouse + Keyboard. I am still unsure what i want the main input device to be.

The game uses SlimDX for its gamepad support, because for some reason Monogames gamepad support is horrible, i ran into many odd case issues where thumbstates and button presses were not working as intended. Maybe its just the way my input system is setup but eh whatever. Either way, player specific state switching, camera operation etc all works really nicely now for both control systems.

In regards to assets, I recieved a new tablet recently (Cintiq 13hd). So now i can finally get started on proper asset creation (level textures at the moment.)

Stay tuned for more updates in the future.
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Zenvalley
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« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2015, 12:43:18 AM »

Unfortunately i did not get a great deal completed this week, iv been struggling with getting a suitable line of sight code implemented with my bounding boxes. Iv finally managed to do it, enemies cant see you through walls anymore!

Line Of Sight:


Currently enemies have a vision cone type thing that polls for physics bodies that collide with it, and does a check to see if it belongs to an agent as to decide whether or not to target it. You can also slightly hide around a corner and they will still shoot if you are slightly visible.


Some code regarding AI and behaviour:


All AI works due to a behavior tree system that i had implemented a few months ago. Routines poll for certain states within agents, and if the conditions are met, then that certain behavior is executed. I don't think this is the proper way trees are normally used, but it works for now so that's fine.


Some Assets!:



I did some work on a few assets also, a simple handgun and a few floor textures. That grated type texture will probably be used for maintenance type pathways that break off from storage and power rooms.

Thanks for stopping by, follow social media links below if you want to stay updated.
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Zenvalley
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« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2015, 03:49:57 AM »

Been working pretty much only toward assets and code for using assets this past week or so. Finished up the current character look from top down, done some idle and running animations. I still have a decent way to go for getting the total amount of animations and assets completed, but im getting there.

Game feel and atmosphere are probably the 2 most important things im taking into consideration when making this game. I think asset cohesiveness and nice gameplay flow will be important for making the game really come together.

In game forward running and idling


I have to do alot of specific animations for some things, like for raised weapons, single arm and double arm for each weapon type. Head, arms, torso and legs are all separate though so i can combine things and hopefully have a nice fluid animation playing once i get them in game.

Idle on it own:


Shotgun pump animation:


I like to think out the more detailed aspects of objects and characters so i tend to do alot of concept oriented design. I think i just have a habit of going back to it since i spent 4 years doing it in high school, I think its a great skill to have though.



So here is some of the eyepiece design work i did for the main character. This is actually inspired by Inuit style snow goggles. This style has a really unique but badass feel to them, so i like it alot.
Reason i did this was because i plan to show the character in short cutscenes and have plans to possibly use his face as a UI element.

Stay tuned for more cool stuff.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2015, 05:41:51 AM by Thrustwolf » Logged

Zenvalley
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« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2015, 03:30:37 AM »

Skipped last weeks devpost for this time round, i didn't feel like i had enough to show and il only do these posts if theres something somewhat substantial to post up. Most of the work the past few weeks have gone into assets. I have done some gameplay tweaks and also worked on some sound design so that's news i guess.

Here is a collection of most of the in game props that iv been working on, along with some floor textures and a shotgun texture, just for some variety:



Ingame props will play a mechanical roll as cover items for combatants to peek in and out of. Because each object is somewhat destructible as a cover item, i have to draw each intermediary damage states for every single asset. Its really fun just mashing an asset and making it look absolutely shredded, but it takes alot of work.


I spent a full day ironing out the final in game HUD, with all new health assets that play off the theme much nicer. Things are always subject to change so i can never say this is final, but i can definitely say its not going to change too drastically from this style:




The health and armor should be very clear to read at a glance, this goes along with quick flashes when taking damage. Its important because of the low health the player will have by default, along with the fast paced gunplay that will drain you pretty fast if you dont have the proper indicators, or just aren't paying attention.

Iv only implemented health and armor at the moment, because i already had that system in place so adapting it wasn't too difficult.  Here it is in action:

New health and armor assets:


Here is an animation of the player raising a shotgun into a non aiming state, this would play just before or after you raise / lower the weapon. Unfortunately i have to draw each weapon on the same sprite as the arms, just for alignment and timing reasons.

Arm raise / lower shotgun:

 
Last thing worth mentioning is some sound design i have been working on. Thematically the main menu is actually set surrounding terminals which control a time machine sitting in the background, and the idea is that the main character experiences travelling through time the moment you hit "start game". I had alot of really neat ideas for how i would audibly convey this as a kind of pre game experience that would give the player a good feel of the atmosphere.

Check out the Soundcloud and give it a listen.




That's about all thats worth talking about this time around. It actually turned out to be a pretty big post, so that's awesome  Smiley. Oh yeah, there is a new slightly improved game logo (not too different from the current one) so i will just leave that here:




Thanks everyone.   Gomez



 
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Zenvalley
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« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2015, 01:29:59 AM »

Have not made any logs in a while, this post is to make up for that. I Have been hard at work on some nice new assets that i am excited to share with everyone.

Before all that good stuff, in codebase news, i have recently made a few tweaks to the game so now it runs uncapped rather than a fixed 60, this should satisfy those with higher refresh rate monitors. The game physics loop still updates at 60 frames but almost everything else is uncapped. There are still a few issues i have to iron out but the game benefits pretty well from this change. Game runs around the 700fps mark in my tests, surely overkill but no point having it capped right? (The game can still be capped by enabling vsync)

Enough of the boring talk, time for the new eye candy!  Grin


New Death Animation:


Shotgun Shell inserts


Pistol shot:


Probably one of my favorite assets that has been produced so far, sweet pistol reload animation! (this took days.. Hand Pencil):


So thats it for the quality animations.. now time for some fancy stills.

A few weapon icons:


Weapon ammunition pickup icons:


Enemy concepts:


I figured enemy variety is going to be important, so iv started working out a few ideas welding various weapons and attributes that you will encounter along the way. Some fast, some more slower type. Ideally your tactics will have to change up for each enemy.

A few boss concepts:


Here is some random stuff im working on at the moment that is unfinished:

Pre game Main Menu Time Machine Droop



Possible main character frame for boss encounter: (eek, nasty unfinished work)



Things may be getting a little repetitive around here in terms of content being posted. I know not much has been shown game wise, but bare with me here as i grind away more on assets so i can show of some more neat gameplay in the future. (that doesnt look loaded with silly debug textures)

Heres an extra image, For those who are interested as to where these assets are made:


Hopefully this stuff is interesting, if your here thanks for having a look!  Gentleman
« Last Edit: October 06, 2015, 02:07:47 AM by Thrustwolf » Logged

Zenvalley
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« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2016, 05:54:11 AM »

Chamber 22 lives on!  Smiley
 

Been a while since the last post. Alot has happened within the past 8 months. The biggest being that Chamber 22 is now being written in C++ with SDL and FMOD. The C# XNA/Monogame codebase was becoming cumbersome, and I wanted to move away from heavily tied down OOP language structures.

This means I spent a few months getting up to speed with writing a new engine, dropping Box2D in favor of handwritten physics, and re-aligning my goals for what i want out of this game.

I learned a great deal over these past few months, I know the game will be far better off with these decisions.

Narrative and Lore is in a better place than its ever been. Having a solid narrative in place is extremely helpful in defining themes which influence certain artistic styles and connections within the world.

I have been working on music and art tirelessly, but nothing to show yet.

That's it for now! Until next time.. (here's an illustration of the Protagonist..)

Deacon
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 08:35:25 PM by Zenvalley » Logged

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« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2016, 05:57:26 AM »

This is cool. I like this.
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And yet, still not satisfied...
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