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[astrofra]

Overview
Lost in a dark undated world, the player will try to escape from a desolated industrial planet. By controlling an armoured hovercraft, he will explore a series of rooms, meet robots, find items, unlock doors ...

Project's History
This is a project I've been working on for several YEARS. It's been under 2 or 3 complete overhaul. It might be possible now that I have the required maturity to finish a simple but playable and decent version. The future will tell

Features
- The visuals are using 3D & shaders.
- The lighting in the game should convey most of the atmosphere.
- The main gameplay is a very classic design of exploration.

Done
- Main graphics elements to build the levels (walls, ceiling, doors...)
- Main graphics elements of the main player (tank, bullets ...)
- Basic level flow implemented (goes in/out of a room).
- Basic Inventory implemented (keys, energy).
- Basic HUD implemented (keys, energy).
- Basic audio (sfx, music).
- Generic AI.

Todo (next milestones).
- Complete the presentation on TigSource.com .
- Render the controls usable, make the tank stable.
- Assemble 100% of the 1st level.
- Get feedback from the 1st level and refine/redesign/re-implement if necessary.

People working on the project
Astrofra, doing the main graphics & development.
Scorpheus, doing the all AI development.
Barr, providing the game engine and his own development expertise.
KidQube, doing some additional models (esp. robots and such)

[flavio]

It looks wonderful, congratulations! Which engine are you using? Have you also done the textures personally?

[astrofra]

Thx
Engine == GameStart3D.com
The textures & models are mine. My textures are usually based on photos I shot with my camera, or files from cgtextures.com, sometimes it's a mix of baking, photos, fotoshop ...
Business as usual...

[nihilocrat]

Looks cool! I'm a little bothered by the static camera angle, for some reason I think it would feel better if it were a locked overhead/isometric view or some kind of moving camera.

I am pretty devoted to Unity but I've always been curious about GameStart. I spent few minutes poking around in it once but couldn't really think of anything to make, I will try to find some time to make a spacewar clone or arena shooter like I do with every other engine/tool I've ever used.

[astrofra]

Nihilocrat

Thx !

Yep, the static camera is a temporary but deliberate choice. I was aiming for a classic Isometric view, somehow revisited with a modern perspective (ok, perspective was discovered in year ~1400). The problem right now is that the view of the player is sometimes hidden by the level & the walls, and it could turn into a real frustration.

My idea was to slowly evolve to a smart camera system that automatically moves to the proper view angle, according to the player's position (ie. when needed).

Regarding the engine, mmmh, it's the only one I really know. I tried Unity a few hours, and it seems amazingly comprehensive. However, I was far too involved into GameStart to think about switching ^^

[deathtotheweird]

Regarding the engine, mmmh, it's the only one I really know. I tried Unity a few hours, and it seems amazingly comprehensive. However, I was far too involved into GameStart to think about switching ^^

That's how I felt when I tried gamestart

anyways your game looks great so far.

[moi]

At least Gamestart has shadows.

[astrofra]

OK folks. Here's my todolist for tonight  :

- Name the rooms ( inspired by this excellent article http://bit.ly/gyoqxx )
- Complete the key system (need more than one type of key)
- Add at least one room to the first level.

Mark my words


Room naming : DONE

Code:

//	Locale
//	locale.nut

g_locale	<-	{
	hud_power	=	"POWER"
	hud_shield	=	"SHIELD"
	room_names	=
	{
		level_1_0	= "The Teleport Bay"
		level_1_1	= "The First Lock"
		level_1_2	= "Turret Assault"
		level_1_3	= "Not That Deep..."
		level_1_4	= "Dual Room"
		level_1_5	= "L"
		level_1_6	= "Enraged Turrets"
		level_1_7	= "Gimme more!"
		level_1_8	= "The Second Key"
		level_1_9	= "The 3 Platforms"
		level_1_10	= "The Drone Corridor"
		level_1_11	= "Timing Paradise"
	}
}

Keys : DONE



Inventory is empty :


... hence, door won't open :


player takes key :


key appears in the inventory :


... hence, door now opens !


Ok, this looks a bit like a "Knight Lore 101", but I don't care ... Complete Key System is DONE o/


Add at least one room : Too tired, will do that another day :p

[astrofra]

Additional Room : DONE !





http://www.astrofra.com/posts/misc/2011-01-06_075829.jpg

You can see one of the keys, at the end of the room. The platform flying above the water will be mobile, sliding from left to right.

(I grabbed a timelapse video of the room edition, I'll try to post it there later today).

[burtonposey]

Look neat. I had never heard of this engine before.

I would recommend that you use your lighting to really lead the player around. The light and color of the room is pretty homogenous for the most part. I don't have a specific recommendation for the water platforms, but that's an opportunity to use some extra color there (maybe deep in the water that you'd only see when you're right up there on the moving platforms) to allude to the tension or any penalty for falling in the water. The key should probably be highlighted with some inviting color light to really draw the player in and make them almost focus on it so much that they get surprised by your skill challenge in the room; they're that fixated on the object of their affection.

Anyways, looks great. I hope what I've said makes some sense. Definitely looking forward to seeing your project come along.

[astrofra]

@Burtonposey

Yes, you're perfectly right. The lighting on this room, and on the overall level so far is quite dull and unfinished. I still have some major interrogations about the game flow on such and such part of the levels, and I'm slowly defining all this.

Naming the room, tweaking the enemies' agressivity, stuff like that, will define the game design more accurately. Then I'll rework the visual aspects, with various props and, as you suggested, a relevant lighting

In the meantime, here's a timelapse record of this small creation session :

[astrofra]

The 3 moving platforms are now animated. They go from left to right, synchronously so far.
I'll have to find a trick to stick the tank on each of them while they are moving, because the physics makes it all slippery for now



Another thing that the screenshot above demonstrates is : Time to implement a dynamic camera system ! 

[deathtotheweird]

nice timelapse.

makes me wish unity had tabs for different levels, that's a great feature.

[astrofra]

Yep. The Multiple scene capability saves you a lot of time, especially with the edition of instances.

[astrofra]

Tonight I decided to address the question of the friction between the moving platforms and the main tank. The tank being an hovercraft, there is not direct contact with the platforms. And because they are moving from left to right, it can be very frustrating for the player, when the tank remains static and eventually falls into the water below.

Thus, I aimed for a non-realistic but probably preferable solution, where the each platform applies an impulse (= the actual velocity of the platform) to the tank, when it comes within reach. Once again, the trigger became my best friend ^^



Here's a video :



And the typical trigger code :

Code:

	function	ItemIsInside(item)
	{
		ItemApplyLinearImpulse(target_item, platform_vel)
	}

Is it convincing and consistent ? You tell me.

[burtonposey]

That seems to look really fluid. You could also take the approach of having to race across all of them in one shot, but I think the way you've done it is more fun (it looked fun when watching it anyways)  and I think that's what really matters.

[deathtotheweird]

yeah that does look pretty good. looks challenging but also not super difficult or frustrating.

[astrofra]

Yep. There's no real challenge so far, for 2 reasons :

- this level ought to be a sort of tutorial section, where the player will learn to deal with the basic mecanics of the game (keys, inventory, enemies, moving platforms, teleporters).
- I haven't been so far able to implement a stable control & behaviour for the main player. Especially, the physics of the tank is not frame independent. As that can prove a real mess for the whole gameplay, one of my priority is to define a proper behavior. Then i'll be able to add some more challenge to the game logic.

And yes, I admit, this is my real first level design, so it might be just *boring* :D

Thx for the feedback !

[astrofra]

A bit of visual R&D, preparing a few shaders for the game ... I know, I should finish the 1st level, and polish the gameplay first :D

anyway, here is it....
http://astrofra.com/posts/misc/gamestart_shader_tree_madness.jpg

[astrofra]

Hi folks,

Though this project was abandonned (almost), I wanted to let you know that I'm trying to fix a working build so that people can eventually test it in its current state.

'should be done in a few days.