the direction has changed though. This was going to be a straight forward, blast through levels in order type of affair, but now it's about delivering goods between safe hubs, by picking your own route through a map peppered with dangerous arenas.
ah, yeah it's eventually going to be an in-cabin view of the driver with a bunch of stuff flying about his head still haven't got around to fleshing that out...
in order to add a little more non-vanilla gameplay I'm adding in a tractor beam which you can use to swing about objects behind the car, with the ultimate aim of taking out enemy buildings bowling-style
Allo! Rich know what you wondering: 'smiley face landscape look amazing, but how you manage to make many levels to such high standard?'. Simple! Rich bend computer to his will, make it do the work..
Main method goes like this: fill folder full of random squiggly images; Rich figure about 20 is good. Now, choose at random several images and mash together using operations like add, subtract, multiply, lerp ( blend 50-50). Out come new images, with some general characteristics of originals, but also new.
Squiggly
When fed into existing terrain generator, it give results like this:
Pretty! Now, new feature added with help of fantastic cheap image tweaking package on Unity3d asset store: FilterMe . This allow for all sort of Texture2D operations like saturate, invert, edge detect etc, but one Rich interested in is Gaussian Blur. Now blur tool is added, Rich can smooth out random generation result at will- (this different to 'Mesh Relax' function btw, and much faster):
Image slides a bit the more it is blurred. Not sure why yet..
One last feature added to terrain generator: detail zoom. This mean that only portion of generated image creates terrain, and give effect of larger terrain features:
Detail gets bigger on mesh depending on setting.
That is all for update! next task is:
- change aspect ratio of landscape (eg, make into oblong) without squashing features
Allo! Rich work on non-destructive editing of landscape now. Normally Rich in favour of anything called destructive but in this case he make exception. Non destructive mean he can make changes to structure of landscape and not start again from scratch. For this Rich start with unity example project: procedural generation ( http://u3d.as/content/unity-technologies/procedural-examples/3zu ) and use height map script. This mean one image control how high ground is by light and dark colour. Then he generate UV coordinates for mesh and end up with result:
Allo!
next problem- mesh look kind of jaggy in some places . This can be helped with higher mesh resolution, but also by relaxing mesh vertices.. Rich use Laplacian Filter from Unity Wiki ( http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=MeshSmoother ):
Same polygons, smoother!
Notice Rich just mention mesh resolution- if Rich made landscape in Modo or other 3D package, he stuck with mesh resolution unless he redo from scratch. Now Rich generate landscape from image, landscape features persist when mesh resolution change:
looks like Rich after ale
what is point? what if Rich finish game and realise all landscape too high detail for physics or graphic card? or he realise he can use *more* detail? each landscape can be re-made easy. And now image is used for landscape height, next step is creating image by random...
next task list:
- find method of randomly creating image for use with landscape generation. Main idea: pick several pre-made base images at random and combine in various ways ( flip, rotate, invert) to produce unpredictable result
- change aspect ratio and size of landscape without squashing features and keeping scale consistent - eg smaller landscape area does not produce smaller hills
Alaw! welcome to RichMakeGame development log, where Rich talk about progress of new game: Car-Tank
Car-Tank is game about car which is tank, on far away planet- a new home for humans (one of many!). Things go badly for humans on new planet, but very well for robot rebellion and thinking plant monsters. So humans call in only man who can save day: Sheriff-Cop, driver man of Car-Tank.
Let's see some video and pictures of new game!
Let's look at new tasks for development of CarTank :
- Switch from plugin Antares Universe to UnityScript- most of Antares is replaced, now finish the switch-over and re-organise project for easier development (project getting messy)
- develop in-editor level editing tools. This means ability to edit terrain directly in editor and not rely on modelling tools (modo) for level design changes. Fast editing essential (non destructive if possible- eg, can change landscape polygon resolution at will)
- create new enemy spawn logic- able to randomly spawn certain groups of enemies but keeping to a strict difficulty curve. Levels and areas will have certain enemy types available to spawn, and code decides how to use them to create fun varied experience- not quite the same each play.
- develop level progression structure. currently thinking of some outrun-ish idea of branching routes, some hard some easy.
finally got to play sorry for coming late to the party with feedback!
I've not got too far (about a world and a half so far I think)- just jotting down first impressions
the mouse control helps it a ton I think. I could get around much easier
if there's one source of frustration for me, it's jumps where there's a block placed at the top of the opening I'm trying to get through which means if I hit it and stop dead I fall back down a pit, need to climb up and try the jump again. I wonder if you don't notice these occurrences because you're already an expert at the game mechanic, but I was having difficulties with some jumps 3-4 levels in which for me was still super beginner territory.
one thing which I feel might help these instances is mid-air chain firing. Apologies if it's already come up in the thread, but I'd love to try a version where you can fire any time you like.. I understand this was deliberately avoided by design but it's what I'm dying to do
I love the art and music- the whole presentation is very charming
thanks all! sorry poe it's single-player only.. multiplayer was just too ambitious for my first full game. a few people have asked though, I ought to put it in bold somewhere so no-one's confused :S
cool start! I think for me the biggest thing that sticks out is your linear up-down jumping, it'd feel a lot more natural if you jump up fast, slow down towards the top of the jump arc, and accelerate back towards the ground. I reckon you'd see a big improvement to the feel of playing the game.
keep it up! I was a big fan of Crystal Caves back in the day, which had that same Commander Keen feel to it
Thanks folks! If I don't get in touch with everyone immediately it's because I want to stagger new testers a little bit so when a new version appears I have some testers who are playing for the first time. I have enough keys to get everyone involved though so I will be in touch
Hey, while my topics back up near the top... I could use some volunteers to playtest the latest version on Steam, i have some beta keys so I need Steam users... please reply here if you would like to be added to my tester list! thanks
Aha, yes sorry for lack of updates on my site! I'll do a Christmas update soon, promise but things are still ticking over and you should see a Steam release in the new year :D woot!
I'm having a bit of trouble controlling the 2d one (not tried 3d yet)
I'm wondering, is there any time I'd want to *not* aim? ie, why not just have aiming on permanently? I'd like to try one with the aiming a bit stronger too (so the gun tries harder to stay pointed at my cursor) - I'm finding sometimes I don't notice a lot of difference between aiming or not
I found I could do better if I used the slow mo a lot, but I felt like I was abusing it a bit.. like it should be possible to fight without it and use it as a boost, rather than rely on it completely to fight. That's my thoughts anyway .
PS- the music sounded really distorted.. I can't tell if it's meant to be like that (glitch-pop kind of distorted sound) or if a 'slow-music' effect is bugged
anyway, keep at it- I see loads of potential! will try the 3d one soon
I don't really understand the intent, does it just flash numbers until you get your lucky number? then the game ends? it's almost backwards, i get my game cut short if I get my 'lucky' number? maybe I'm not fully understanding
one thing I *love* about the game is how you can use your head to grab ledges. That's pimpin'
2 things which stand out to me as far as things to improve:
1- I didn't understand how to use inventory items at first. Maybe I read it and forgot, but the intuitive way is to be able to click on the inventory icon so I would add that as a way to use things
2- no saving? I don't know how long the demo is and I don't know if I can play it in one go. Saving/checkpoints seems like an important missing feature.
D: think I need a refund.. so many awesome entries!
edit: and kind of a tedious view entries system :/. How many games with titles later in the alphabet are even gonna get seen? I wish I'd called mine '0000000000000 a reckless disregard for alphanumeric sorting'
Show Posts
still haven't got around to fleshing that out...
Squiggly
. This can be helped with higher mesh resolution, but also by relaxing mesh vertices.. Rich use Laplacian Filter from Unity Wiki ( 
