Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411279 Posts in 69323 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 04:17:33 PM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsChopper Mike 2 - PC/Mac Helicopter Arcade Game
Pages: [1]
Print
Author Topic: Chopper Mike 2 - PC/Mac Helicopter Arcade Game  (Read 2052 times)
VAMflax
Level 0
*



View Profile WWW
« on: October 08, 2014, 08:32:29 AM »

Welcome to the devlog for Chopper Mike 2, a PC/Mac sequel to Chopper Mike, which was developed for touch devices and ported to desktop. (You can check out the first game and numerous prototypes at http://vamflax.com/).

The aim of this project is to design and produce a higher quality game than the first, hence targeting desktop and dropping phones and tablets.

The game will still have helicopter agility at its core, but the level flow will be more positive than in the first game. Emphasis will be on bonuses rather than penalties. The game will follow a more traditional format too, with level playlists replacing the pick-any-level structure. I will be introducing an energy system and lives, and so the player's first goal will be to complete an entire playlist without losing all their lives.

The current build is a copy of CM1, stripped back down to basics...


I prototyped a post effects test a while ago, (video here:

), and intend to better the image quality of that, and expand the levels to be far more populated and full than before. The first game was rather empty out of necessity, due to the rendering capabilities of my worst supported devices, (iPhone 4).

The stripped back version is a conscious decision to concentrate on the core gameplay game flow, and structure. I've spent a lot of time on various prototypes, which has been useful learning time, but a lot of that time was spent messing with fancy effects. I know I can make pretty things, now is the time to design and code a rock solid game!


As you can see in the shot above, I've added gates. They're the core of the new level system. You must hit the gates in order to unlock the landing pad, which you then must hit to complete the level. Gems are now optional pickups, increasing your score, and awarding bonus lives when you pick enough up without dying. The energy system is functionally in, but there is no UI for it. You will have a number of hearts per life. You lose one each time you touch a red object, or when an enemy successfully attacks you. When you're out of hearts you lose a life and have to restart the current level. Run out of lives and it's game over. Out Of Bounds is still present, to prevent the player flying too far away from the level, but instead of disqualifying you from the level, it will reset you back to spawn or the last gate you passed. Positive design! Lastly, there will be no penalty for bumping into non-hazardous level elements, instead you will receive a time bonus by completing the level quickly. Less bumps should mean a faster time.

Right now I'm concentrating on game flow, and then I'll start developing level features such as enemies and puzzle elements. Once I have enough features I'll begin designing the actual levels.


The game is written in Unity 4, and I shall be moving to Unity 5 once it's released. I'm using NGUI for UI and Skyshop shaders for the majority of the in-game models.

I hope you find this devlog interesting and perhaps even helpful!
« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 12:49:26 PM by VAMflax » Logged

Jamie Lowes - VAMflax - Chopper Mike 2 Devlog
LateTide
TIGBaby
*


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2014, 03:12:21 AM »

What are your plans with the camera control? PC/Mac games are usually more lenient with the camera handling, and in some cases I also feel that the single camera view CM1 forces on me is hindering me.
Logged
VAMflax
Level 0
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2014, 04:02:16 AM »

It'll have a similar camera to the one in the Super Something Squad prototype. That camera looks ahead, based on velocity of the chopper.

I think it'll stay side on though, as the chopper would obscure the level if I implemented a chase camera.

The VR prototype, which I will try to upload soon, has an onboard camera. And is bonkers! :D
Logged

Jamie Lowes - VAMflax - Chopper Mike 2 Devlog
VAMflax
Level 0
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2014, 10:00:46 AM »

This week's progress has been designing and implementing a *partially* functional in-game UI.

These are the things I want to communicate to the player, but not in their final form. For instance, hearts and lives will probably be a row of icons.

Next step is to get all the bits working, so that the very core gameplay works. After that I'm going to get the game 'session' working. The session is the level playlist and life/game over/game complete logic flow working.

Click for bigger...

I made the font in BMFont and imported into Unity/NGUI. I decided to go with a white font with black borders as it'll work on any background. I used the font Asap from Google Fonts, (https://www.google.com/fonts). A great site, lots of good fonts, and they are all free to use!
Logged

Jamie Lowes - VAMflax - Chopper Mike 2 Devlog
VAMflax
Level 0
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2014, 02:52:23 PM »

Okay, I've hooked up all the UI, in a functional form, and I've started work on the asynchronous loading code. The Game Session is implemented, it's a playlist of scene names with a bit of game state that steps on level complete. I'm pretty happy with it.

I've been researching classic arcade titles such as Bubble Bobble and Super Monkey Ball, and I'm super inspired to create a rich system of unlockable play features based on the things you do in the game. Those games used so many aspects of the player's performance to spawn secrets and collectables. I recommend reading good GameFAQ FAQs for inspiration. It's surprising how much logic was packed into seemingly simple arcade games.


The Unity 5 Beta was released, so I thought I'd spend an evening porting it and trying it out. It was working within 30 minutes. There were a few scripts that required a bit of attention. But most things reimported from the Asset Store and worked immediately. High five to the people responsible, great job. I'm also using UnityVS/VS2013 and I can't recommend it enough.

I've added a vignette and a little vintage filter for the time being and it feels nice. The default skybox popped into the scene once I started asynchronously loading the level, and I love it! The chopper body is the same geometry from Chopper Mike 1, but with a mesh smoothing modifier applied. It lets the specular highlight slide all over the model, and the reflections catch all over the place. It's lovely!

All the materials in the scene are using the Unity 5 Standard shader, and I'm impressed. Specular takes a bit of getting used to, it blacks out the material if you set it too high, and there's interplay between specular colour and Smoothness that'll take a while to get used to fully, but I like it.

I'm applying anti-aliasing as a post effect as the game is using the deferred rendering path, (I plan to make good use of lights). I've also enabled Linear colour space, it adds to the general loveliness. I had planned to add a subtle DoF effect, but it's such a pain to manage with transparent effects that I'm probably going to avoid it. Unsure right now as it does add a depth cue, although I am going to experiment with simple fogging, perhaps that will give the player enough of a cue. Cues, I'm obsessed with notifying the player of *everything*. I want to make a game the player can tune into and totally 'get'. We'll see how I do.

Game looks like this at the moment, although the drive isn't the looks, despite my ramblings. Although I am super hyped about the image quality. If you look at the small square section containing the bottom of the chopper, the skid, and the chopper shadow, that part of the image has all the elements I'm aiming for: high quality metals, soft, nicely realised shadows, and the softened legs of the chopper, all looking like an image, rather than polygons and pixels...


I'm a great fan of fixed aspect ratio games, and CM2 is presently fixed to 2.35:1. This is not for performance reasons, it's so I can control what is presented to the player.

A small aside, as I stated on Twitter, (follow me: https://twitter.com/jamielowesdev), ASCII Art comments make your code run 20% faster, fact!  Grin


I'm going to get the game session working fully next, so that I have the playground set for level-to-level bonuses and secrets, and then I'll probably work on scoring. At that point I'll have a core and secondary game loop.


Take care, and go make cool stuff!! :D
-Jamie
Logged

Jamie Lowes - VAMflax - Chopper Mike 2 Devlog
Pages: [1]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic