next »

[Eendhoorn]

Small segment showcasing the shieldbreak, which acts as a counter with knockback.


Small segment playing against my brother. He's not that good of a player, but he was able to stand his ground against the beam quite well.

Background info
Over the last 6 months I've developed some medical issues. Because of that I am unable to use a computer for extended periods ( 1 hour max atm). I've purchased a windows surface, which allows me to work a bit longer. It's just fast enough to run unity, no ideal but it manages.

I have no idea if my situation will get better. Making a game is (litterally) painful right now, but I don't know what the future holds for me so I don't want to sit on my ass and do nothing. I want to keep the development period pretty short because of this same reason.

Origin
I have recently started a new project to practise unity's 4.3 2D features. I liked it enough (unity) to continue the project.

Platforms
Windows, Mac (,Linux?) Haven't thought about mobile platforms yet due to the controls.

Short description of the game
Multiplayer only (2 - 4 players) 2D ball game.

Objective
For the main mode right now the player simply has to get the ball into his opponent's goal. Having several punches and powerups at his disposal.

There are 2 modes; One where you can walk around freely and one where you can only access your own side of the field.

Inspiration
-Samurai gunn
-Super smash brothers
-Windjammers


Current Features

Ball Control
The quality in this game should be it's feel. I want the player to have a nice sense of control of the ball, instead of just slapping it silly and hoping it ends up in the oponent's goal.


(that's a joystick)

The player can hit in 3 directions (up, down, forward). Which will be the base direction of the balls velocity. The player's left control stick then also has a % (differs per character) of influence of the ball's direction. This grant's the player more control over the ball.

Attack Charge
The player can currently charge his attack which enhances it's power.

Dashing
Some sort of dashing to either get that last hit in, or save the ball from entering your goal.

Levels
Different levels features different goal sizes and stuff like that. Some levels will probably have some interaction with the ball.

Characters
Each character will have different stats;
- jump power
- punch power
- movement speed
- ball control

I might just go samurai gunn style and make them all the same if I can't be bothered with this though  

[Eendhoorn]

Had a playtest with a friend and everything I thought worked great was working totally different when playing against an opponent. Doh.
So I've created a very simple AI to help me during development.

I've also worked on the hookshot for a bit. It works pretty nice. It was quite hard to aim the shot, so I've added in some auto-aiming and it feels alot better.

You can pull the ball towards you, which is ecspecialy great for defensive manouvers.



Or you can pull yourself towards the ball, which is a great way sneak in a goal.

[oodavid]

This has a wonderful feel to it, the rope / lizard's-tongue action looks awesome too.

Sorry to hear about your health troubles, like you say, you gotta crack on otherwise you'd get bored stiff!

[Eendhoorn]

This has a wonderful feel to it, the rope / lizard's-tongue action looks awesome too.

Sorry to hear about your health troubles, like you say, you gotta crack on otherwise you'd get bored stiff!

Yeah it sucks, but I'm glad I can work a bit since I got the surface haha.
It does look like a tongue now that you mention it. Now there has to be some chameleon type character in the game :p

[Eendhoorn]

Just learned about the existance of this game.




It's really similiar to smash ball. I hope I won't lose motivation

[oodavid]

Don't give up! There's really nothing new under the Sun, make your game because it's your game!

[Whiteclaws]

Well , that's not all , there's also kungfoot

[Eendhoorn]

Well , that's not all , there's also kungfoot

Yeah I knew about kung foot, but that just feels like a mini game.

Thanks for the support guys. After looking at my planned features I decided that it will become pretty different than baribariball (and kung foot).

I've added some segments from a playsession in my first post. The were some real "Oohh aahh" moments during play. It was pretty fun
I have implemented some new skills for the player;
- energybar.
The player now has an energybar, it fills up each time you hit the ball. (dash and rope only use energy atm)

- high jump
During playtesting I noticed that alot of time was spent waiting for the ball to decent. You can now perform a a high jump by ducking and pressing jump. Creates some badass aerial combat.

- Dash
You can perform a small dash for those close saves, or just to gain in on you opponent. Costs 20% energy.

- Charged punch attracts ball
The charge punch was too hard to hit, the ball now moves towards you during you charge if it is in range.

Ball
The ball now has a damage variable, the higher the damage, the harder it flies away upon hits.

2 different modes;

- Free
Walk around the playfield freely.

- Split
You can only access your own side of the field.

Both were fun to play and work with current mechanics. So I will keep them bkth in


Playtest feedback and discoveries;
- goal is hard to devend. Need to lower it.
- shots are hard to block. Something I already knew, the player is too small.
- hard to gather energy for defending player.

I've also added some placeholder graphics effects to better convey whats going on.

[Conker534]

Looks fun

[Whiteclaws]

I totally want some special attacks

[rundown]

Are you able to swing yourself to something with this zipline?
Like taking a shortcut. Just zip to a wall and gain speed.

[Eendhoorn]

I totally want some special attacks

Yeah I'm still thinking about that.
Atm you have the rope as a special move and also the dash. I think it would be too complicated if you have too many specials to your disposal at the same time.
I was thinking about certain events giving you a special. Like counter-hitting a charged shot from someone might split the ball in 2 or something.
And I might throw in some pickup items which have a one time use. Still have to experiment with that, at this time losing focus on the ball will result in a goal against you :p

Are you able to swing yourself to something with this zipline?
Like taking a shortcut. Just zip to a wall and gain speed.

I was thinking about that, but it would probably be incredibly frustrating if you miss the ball, and zipline to a wall or the ceiling.
If you want to traverse the arena you have the dash to your disposal.

[Eendhoorn]

I was kind of burned out on the constant tweaking, and didn't have any new features that I felt like programming. So I decided to do some art stuff, I still hope to find an artist, but in the meanwhile I should make the game look at least midly presentable. My artistic skills are horrible, but I can at least try.

I started working on a new level idea I had in mind. Even though it's shit compared to other stuff on here, I have to say I'm pretty happy so far.I also animated the frog, I'll add that later. too tired now :p



The scale is still kinda off. I also want to add small pieces of land at the edges of the screen, and a piece in the center. That way you don't have to keep messing around on the lillypads all the time.

The cage is still a surprise :p

[Conker534]

I feel like I wouldn't play on that level with my friends. I hope you include a "final destination" map with no distractions and what not. Its cool to have fun maps too though.

[Eendhoorn]

Haha yea I already realised that there needs to be some kind of final destination level from all the smash bros matches I played. I was already thinking about some way to reference it.

I have the crappy ass level from the gif's for now as my final destination.  but I also want to be able to showcase one of the "fun" levels, which will be the frog level.

But thanks for the feedback

[YetiSeekingYeti]

This looks like a lot of fun from the gifs, really fast and frantic, just the type of thing my brother and I get hooked on and play constantly (the current vice is SSBM actually ).

Have you heard of Lethal League? It's not exactly the same concept, but there's definitely a lot similar there, so it might be useful to check out.

I think special/super moves of some kind would be a good idea if there are different selectable characters. Just to add a more incomparable difference than numeric stat changes. And having more party-style levels is a great idea, but there should definitely be a few solid, no-nonsense levels for the tournament players 

[Eendhoorn]

This looks like a lot of fun from the gifs, really fast and frantic, just the type of thing my brother and I get hooked on and play constantly (the current vice is SSBM actually ).

Have you heard of Lethal League? It's not exactly the same concept, but there's definitely a lot similar there, so it might be useful to check out.

I think special/super moves of some kind would be a good idea if there are different selectable characters. Just to add a more incomparable difference than numeric stat changes. And having more party-style levels is a great idea, but there should definitely be a few solid, no-nonsense levels for the tournament players 

Thanks! You should try out project M, it's a mod brawl for brawl to make it more like melee

Yea I've actually played it with some of the developers on a local indie meetup. It's great fun

I'm currently still debating wether to differentiate on character's stats and abillities. I love it when games are completely skill based. Samurai gunn is a great example of this.
I also don't know if my game design skill's are good enough to balance characters with special abbilities.

For now there are plenty of other things to do still, so I have some time to think about it.
Good to hear some feedback that there is a desire for special skills though.

[oodavid]

If I bet you can get this really fun without character differentiation, because you have gameplay differentiation! Get a prealpha together and I for one will party!

[Eendhoorn]

If I bet you can get this really fun without character differentiation, because you have gameplay differentiation! Get a prealpha together and I for one will party!

Pre-alpha will still be a while, but I will notify you when I get there

I've been pretty busy lately, I'm visiting an anime convention tomorrow and was making a cosplay outfit haha.
In between doing that I've managed to make the water system for the frog level today.



I't's made in processing atm for fast prototyping, so I will still need to port it over to unity. Not sure if I shoudl unity's springs and whatnot for that, but I'll see that when I get there.
I've got completely control over the amplitude of waves, their frequency and all the good stuff.

I was stuck at one point, my water just seemed like jelly (might come in handy later, hehe) so I had to resort to google.
This was a great help if anyone is interested in how to achieve this.
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/44547/2d-water-with-dynamic-waves

[Eendhoorn]

I've been kinda postponing the water port to unity, simply drawing a shape is a bitch.

Instead I've tweaked some of the gameplay and added some graphical effects.
I'm kinda torn between styles, I like the pixely smoke (hard to see in the small preview though) but the glow also looks pretty good.

The green glow represents the ball's "damage" (replacing the ball's red fill it has now), the more damage the more impact your punches have. So it starts of really small and ends up as shown in the preview.

The smoke appears when the ball is close to it's max velocity.
















What do you guys think?