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[mirrorfish]

Monarch Black

Monarch Black (formerly Pollen) is a 3rd person flying shooter with six degrees of freedom and rogue-like-like elements including procedural levels and permadeath.  It's being developed by me, Matt, as a one man team in Unity.

Monarch Black Gameplay Trailer:




12/30/15: A Recent GIF:



Ancient tiny GIF for a taste of where I started:


Enemy designs by Ethan Redd aka Kid Raddical:

[eigenbom]

Rad-ness, we need more laser-butterfly sims!

[mirrorfish]

Thanks man! I am aiming to corner the market on the massive laser butterfly sim audience.    Glad to hear that the idea seems appealing, I am working on it alone and pretty much no one has seen it and I often wonder if it's all just ridiculous and crazy (in a bad way). Really appreciate the vote of confidence.

[mauz]

I think it's ridiculous and crazy, but in a good way. Carry on! 

[mirrorfish]

Thanks mauz, really appreciate the encouragement.

[kraed]

Retrotasty, keep it up, keep it up. I'm interested on some subtle glow effects and predators. Kudos for solo project and for musician turned developers, i'm on the same boat, just started music college but been very interested on game dev for a while.

[Calined]

that's really cool! =D
i dig the "style"
although i missinterpreted it.
i thought it would be like "what would SOTC be like if you would be even smaller and flying!"
but i hope there will be some story/atmosphere driven levels with that kind of architecture and like "working your way through ant tunnels" kinda thing~

looking forward to more^^

[mirrorfish]

Kraed:: thanks man! I do plan to add some glow and depth of field image processing stuff at the end of the project. I want to get things further along and then when I'm closer to finish ill probably spring for a Unity Pro license. I'm working on some predator units now, I want to add them and some herbivore type units and have some interactions between the 3 types. Thanks for the feedback!

Calined: thanks! SOTC is awesome so I'm happy that it evokes a comparison. I am definitely going for that feeling of being in a big space and being small so I'm glad that comes through. I'm creating all the levels procedurally so they're different each time, the focus is more on the player going through surprising situations each play through that creates a "story" so I'm not sure if there will be a lot of scripted narrative. I kind of would like to have some larger story layer though, I'm just not sure how to incorporate it.

[Calined]

yeah i think one of the ways this could work is if you have the story unfold between levels and the only thing they have in common with each playthrough is the "theme". (maybe botanical, mechanical, stone, etc)
i don't know if you can incorporate some placed elements into your procedural generated landscapes..?
maybe have parts of them generated and parts of them "set in stone" (haha)

(like caves where some rooms are generated and some rooms are set to bring the story along like a bossfight or so)

[mirrorfish]

OK guys, here's a Unity webplayer (51MB for those on slow connections):

http://www.mirrorfishmedia.com/v1/pollen/pollen_v031/pollen_v031.html

Controls:

W starts moving (and doesn't stop)
Mouse to steer
1 = fire1
2 = fire2
3 = shield
space = slow time because: coolness

Here's what I've added:

Beginning of power up system: every 300 resources (gold cubes) you collect you get a choice of 2 randomized powerups from a menu of 5 (right now just stats boosts, later more stuff, also debuff tradeoffs for each buff).

Music I've got the first track of music in that I think works, feedback is welcome. I'm going to upload some of the alternates to soundcloud here, one uploading now. http://www.soundcloud.com/mirrorfish

Lots of optimizations This is kind of boring but by starting to use static classes, turning off lots of scripts for AI that are far away with colliders and object pooling I've got the game running around 80fps pretty solidly. There are still a few easy-ish optimizations I've been lazy on but the result is I can get about 300 enemies in a level and the game runs pretty well.

Here's where I'd like feedback:

1) Is it weird making shields and missiles a finite resource that you have to collect and manage?

2) How does combat feel? Is the shield blocking mechanic fun?

3) What do you think of the overall mechanic/gameplay?

Thanks in advance guys!!!!!!!!!

[mickmaus]

WOW! I have to wait a few hours before I can play but this looks awesome.

[mirrorfish]

Thanks mickmaus! I really like what Ive seen from from your project Skelethon too. I was actually riding the subway home thinking of those funny ass dancing skeletons and started laughing on the platform, some guy gave me a weird look.

[mirrorfish]

Here is one of the main tracks in progress for the game, feedback welcome. Does it fit with the vibe of the game? Is it cheesy?

https://soundcloud.com/mirrorfish/pollen-level-one-v1

Also if anyone hears this is and is into it I'm down to collaborate on other people's projects and add music, either as a skill trade barter or on a contract basis (music is what I do for a living so I can't really work for completely free).  I would like to be involved with some cool projects though so let's talk.

More music on my SC page too, and more available on request.

[SolarLune]

Airborne 3D action roguelike shooter. Sounds interesting, indeed! The music fits well, I think; it sounds very PS1 ambient action game-ish, if that makes sense (it seems to fit the style you're going for really well).

[mirrorfish]

SolarLune: Thanks for the feedback man! I'm going for a PS1 era feel so glad that came through.  I was inspired by anime sound track stuff like the Ghost in the Shell main theme. I've got a long way to go before I get in that arena but nonetheless that big spacious vocal in the beginning of that was very inspiring.

It's a very different style musically from what I normally do which is more beat driven so it was fun to branch out.

[mirrorfish]

This is a weird question but should it bother me that there's another action game with a player who's a butterfly?

[eigenbom]

Oh damn, that sucks. Personally I would be bothered, but on the plus side the trailer gives a good idea about what the game is like, so you can adjust your design so your games don't overlap too much.

[mirrorfish]

hey all,

Here's a new build:

http://www.mirrorfishmedia.com/v1/pollen/pollen_v032/pollen_v032.html

I've made a number of changes:

added 2 new enemy types
added a menu and gameover screen
darkened the lighting
added a bunch of new powerup options
added a goal, find the gold boxes, one spawns a boss
added light flashes on bullet impacts
modified the level geometry shapes for more formation diversity

Here's a screenshot of the tweaked level:

[mirrorfish]

Didn't have time to make a new build today but added the following:

New weapon management system to allow player to pick up new weapons after collecting a powerup

New cluster gun, fires multiple projectiles simultaneously but at a slower rate of fire.

Created a bunch of new sound effects and rigged them in, replaced some of the crappy ones and added missing sounds.

Experimented with a multi-track music system to make music more responsive to player state, didn't quite nail it yet.

Added a light emitter to gold boxes you're supposed to find to make them easier to spot

I also painted some new wing textures in photoshop to create some diversity with the units, here's the new player texture:

[mickmaus]

This is a weird question but should it bother me that there's another action game with a player who's a butterfly?

Nope, yours is way more interesting