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[io3 creations]

New Concept Art
Thanks to wise advices here I created an ad more clear about the comic's adaptation,
and more clear about the War between men and droids.
What do you think?

And I also completely updated the game website :

>>> Visit the New 3571 The Game Website <<<

This poster is a bit better but there are still questions.  It looks like that those are 2 separate groups but what are they doing? Based on the characters' poses, it looks like that they meeting each other for the first time.  Since you mentioned that they are in conflict, certain things could help with that.  Instead of their neutral poses, characters could be in a "ready to attack" pose or already attacking (running or jumping toward enemy).  The guy with the shield could have his shield raised to defend himself.  Just like in the recent trailer.  

The trailer does show the conflict well.    One thing that seemed strange was the dragon's walk.  I only remember giraffes having a similar walk cycle where both legs one the same side move almost at the same time.



However, most animals (lizards being the closest to dragons) have an alternating walk cycle.

[Frappa Studio]

World Procedural Generation



I've added lots of details and content to the world procedural generation. My gameplay choice is to create a small world ( around 1 km2 ) but very rich and dense in events and characters. I thinks this gives the gameplay a very particular feeling and it also matches the main 3571 Comics storyline, where humanity lives on the last islands still emerging from the Big Ocean a thousand years after the Big Disaster.

I've also managed to handle a runtime navmesh calculation allowing the player to build walls or shelters while still using a convincing pathfinding AI for the non player characters.





Here some exemples of the thousand worlds you can play in 3571 The Game:







And I took a screenshot of the most awesome TIG devlog views count ever: 3571 views! Thanks everyone!

[nathy after dark]

I'll be following along with this, and definitely will go back and take a look at your old posts. I'm doing a multimedia thing, so I could use inspiration from how other gamedevs handle that stuff.

[Frappa Studio]

New Concept Art
Thanks to wise advices here I created an ad more clear about the comic's adaptation,
and more clear about the War between men and droids.
What do you think?

And I also completely updated the game website :

>>> Visit the New 3571 The Game Website <<<

This poster is a bit better but there are still questions.  It looks like that those are 2 separate groups but what are they doing? Based on the characters' poses, it looks like that they meeting each other for the first time.  Since you mentioned that they are in conflict, certain things could help with that.  Instead of their neutral poses, characters could be in a "ready to attack" pose or already attacking (running or jumping toward enemy).  The guy with the shield could have his shield raised to defend himself.  Just like in the recent trailer.  

The trailer does show the conflict well.    One thing that seemed strange was the dragon's walk.  I only remember giraffes having a similar walk cycle where both legs one the same side move almost at the same time.



However, most animals (lizards being the closest to dragons) have an alternating walk cycle.

Hello again io3! Thanks again for your interest for my project, I give all I've got doing everything on my own, and when it's hard it's good to feel support and advices. By not having a team I also wanted to be able to receive comments and advices like yours.

On your two points about last updates and multimedia content :

- For the dragon walk cycle you are absolutely right! I animated his legs really late one night and when I saw I made the right-side legs move synchronously, I decided not to restart hoping that I wouldn't matter. The good new is that in the game itself, dragon walk animations are fine, I took more time to animate characters as it is for the game and also because I only need to animate short cycles one time each. For the trailer I animated every bone by hand ( by mouse) like in a traditional animation ( but with the help of keyframes still)

- Concerning the poster I really want to keep some mystery, as I want to translate the comic, and I want the game, the comics and every other support to complete each other. So the characters are like: oh, you again, we fought in the comics. But this time we have a real videogame player controlling someone. Working in advetising, I don't like to ad unnecessary details, for exemple putting characters in an attack pose would look like a Marvel cover which isn't the spirit of 3571. Regardless, I tested this image and everybody seem to understand that droids and humans are waiting to fight each other.


Once again, 3571 The Game cannot be a REALLY AWESOME game without feedback like yours, so thank you very much and keep asking me questions like that if you feel some weird things or see possible improvements.

[Frappa Studio]

I'll be following along with this, and definitely will go back and take a look at your old posts. I'm doing a multimedia thing, so I could use inspiration from how other gamedevs handle that stuff.

Thanks very much, I hope it can help you! You can also ask me more details here on TIG if you think I may solved a problem you're facing. My answer can then be useful for others! What kind of "multimedia thing" are you thinking about?

You can also see more constructed articles on the IndieDB 3571 The Game profile page :

http://www.indiedb.com/games/3571-the-game

[Frappa Studio]

Today I am glad to present you a new ranged weapon: the Bomb! It works basically like a grenade. Once throwed, you have a few seconds to hide behind a wall: everything around it when it explodes have absolutely no chances to survive. Let's discover the technical part of this weapon in game, and after that, we will meet two new characters of the year 3571.

First Bomb model



Like Small Stones or Coal Blocks, I made the bomb be a "hand-throwed" ranged weapon: this means you can adjust the strenght of your shot by holding the Attack button longer. Creating the bomb itself wasn't easy. Finding the right timing for sounds, lights, explosion colliders and particle systems was harder than I thought, but the result seem pretty OK now.

The first damage system I imagined worked like this: the bomb was simply creating a wide sphere collider when exploding. Every character within this sphere at the moment of the explosion looses health. I also added a distance damage modifier script: the damage inflicted diminushes as your distance with the target increases. This worked pretty well! But I was unhappy with something: I couldn't hide behind a wall from the explosion. That's because the sphere collider just appears, it cannot define if an object is behind another. This means you get killed if you are inside a solid house, and if a bomb explodes right behind the wall you're next to. I didn't like it. Let's start again.

Second Bomb model





I needed a system to map the explosion strenght, and therefore I had a very simple idea: I placed a lot a small sphere colliders on a big sphere surface around the bomb. When it explodes, the global sphere expands, as all the small colliders gets bigger. Colliders that hit walls or ground are disabled, and the others are not. Then you can finally be protected from explosion behind a wall. Yeah!







Bombs are a very rare item to find, but you can craft them easily with on a Work Table with metal and coal. A dangerous weapon with high range damage is very fun with a rogulike death system. Lots of deaths, lots of fun.

I am very happy to have bombs to kill droids now. This required efforts, but a fun gameplay is always a fine reward! Next update will be about another new weapon, my favorite weapon of 3571 The Game so far. A weapon with 3 exclusive functions.

Bonus: new Non Player Characters!

Exclusive! Here are the Dirty Guy and the Girl, two new NPC characters that you may encounter in one of the many parallel versions of the Earth in the year 3571. Cute, aren't they? The second one looks like my little brother when he was 3 and wore his winter hoodie. Thanks to Cloth Renderer in Unity and lots of patience I've been able to make the hair of the girl feel more alive and move naturally like real hairs.





Survival, RPG, procedural open world, permadeath... So, do you want to play 3571 The Game already? And do you still believe in single player indie games?

Thanks for reading and see you in the future!

[Frappa Studio]

I was sick this week meaning I couldn't go to work in my design agency. I was happy to work on 3571 the Game with so much time! I'm working on a new Droid Enemy NPC I created in the Episode 27 of 3571 Comics, this is the most powerful in the game for now, the only one capable of defeating a dragon: the Tripod.

I struggled hours to find walk and run animation cycles as it have only 3 legs



I'm now working on the droid Transport Ship, appearing in the Episode 20. This will sometimes land on the player's map, and drop some deadly droids on you to be sure you never get bored. I'm thinking about making the number of Human NPC still alive a kind of second goal of the game, the extinction of the human race as you are supposed to be on the very last island on Earth.




See you next time!

[Voltz.Supreme]

Looking pretty good! Would be pretty cool if you could pull off the genre combo.

[Frappa Studio]

Looking pretty good! Would be pretty cool if you could pull off the genre combo.

Thank you!   I feel so much responsibility now! Seriously, you accurately pointed my main goal. Achieve the ultimate creative combo:

- First of all, I'm creating in parallel a soundtrack, comics, films and a videogame for the same story

- Each of these creation in particular has been made to combine a maximum of references and narrative items: this is why you have zombies, robots, dragons, spaceships and medieval castles on the comics, or you can play 3571 The Game like a FPS, a Roguelike, a sandbox a survival... etc The music also completely and freely mixes classical harmonies and ugly synthetic bass sounds for example.

Every time I test a new function on my game, I feel the need to implement more possibilities because they a virtually infinite. I can't regret to have drawn and played music all my life, but I'm glad to have discovered 3D, C# and game development 5 years ago because with a videogame you can create more freely than with any other medium. I mean, videogames are sometimes more like a movie, or purely musical games, or card games, or graphical experiences. But most of the time they are all of this on the same artwork, but with life in it thanks to interactivity and gameplay. Which makes them fantastic. I am always amazed by the diversity of the projects emerging here on TIG too. Anyway, thanks again!

[Frappa Studio]

Let's discover my favourite weapon in 3571 The Game so far: the Fishing Rod! I spent long nights on c# coding to make it more than a simple fish-catcher. A new development video will present you the Fishing Rod in action! Let's go fishing!






Function #1: Fishing

Of course, the main function of the Fishing Rod is to catch fishes. So if you find a small fish hanging around, you can aim at it and shoot it with the Rod. You can then take the dead fish back to you and eat it to avoid starvation.



Function #2: Grabbing

I decided then to add more functionality to the Fishing Rod and I thought: what could I do stupid with a fishing rod? I could catch every object I need without getting off of my sofa! So I added a grabbing hook function to the rod so that you can catch items or objects that are out of reach.



Function #3: Hook jumping

The most fun of all: you can jump everywhere and move faster using your Rod like a hook on buildings! Once it collides a wall, your character will get some serious speed according to your distance with the impact. I had to activate and desactivate the Unity Character Collider at runtime in order to add a rigidbody for realistic physics, according to the player's speed.



I can't wait to have player's feedback about the fishing rod, as I am very proud of it. I think it makes the gameplay very particular, like all small details.Thanks for reading and see you in the future!

[bombjack]

hook jumping looks fun

[io3 creations]

Regarding explosions:

It looks like the space between the small spheres increases as time goes on.  Wouldn't that mean potentially missing enemies?
Also, have you tried RayCast?  That could tell you if there's something between the explosion location and target.


Regarding the fishing rod swinging:
I like web swinging in Spiderman and similar games where it is the main mechanic.  However, my first impression is that it doesn't fit into your game (at least based on what I've seen in the devlogs). 
-From a gameplay point of view, you already have fast movement, there will be vehicles (?maybe for enemies only).  Plus, if your character can use it, will enemies and NPCs be also able to use it?
-From a game development point of view, given the rather large score of your game, adding it will need more development times due to testing and increases the potential for bugs.

[Frappa Studio]

Regarding explosions:
It looks like the space between the small spheres increases as time goes on.  Wouldn't that mean potentially missing enemies?
Also, have you tried RayCast?  That could tell you if there's something between the explosion location and target.


Regarding the fishing rod swinging:
I like web swinging in Spiderman and similar games where it is the main mechanic.  However, my first impression is that it doesn't fit into your game (at least based on what I've seen in the devlogs). 
-From a gameplay point of view, you already have fast movement, there will be vehicles (?maybe for enemies only).  Plus, if your character can use it, will enemies and NPCs be also able to use it?
-From a game development point of view, given the rather large score of your game, adding it will need more development times due to testing and increases the potential for bugs.

Hello! Very good questions:

- I started to use raycasts, but when a lot of NPC agents throw raycasts a the same time, it slows down the game really too much, I don't know why. Maybe because I based most of game interaction with OnTriggerEnter() functions. Raycasts maybe can't be optimised with collisions?

- Anyway, on these pictures you are right, spaces between spheres are increasing, leading to collision bugs. But I managed this thanks to a proportional increase in sphere collider sizes during explosion, making no miss in hitting enemies ( you can see in the video an updated version of the explosion where spheres goes bigger with time )

About fast movement vehicles, unfortunately you can only ride mobs for now, vehicles will appear later. Dragon riding and Wolf riding are pretty fast, but it demands hours of playing before you can find the right items to tame the mob and find a dragon for example. I think the rod is the first motion fastener you can get early in game, and it also gives the game a non-static ( character controller ) way of moving (with a rigidbody and realistic gravity), which adds another gameplay style and fits the concept of "all-in-one"( FPS, RPG, ... )

I guess I will wait players' feedback to decide about the Rod, as for now it works pretty well and seems to have no more bugs. I would be happy to have you feeling when you'll test this! Thanks again for you interest, IO3, I would feel really alone without your remarks. 

[Frappa Studio]

hook jumping looks fun

Yes that's the point, a little bit random, but it's a way to give a little more "sensations" while in game, as normal movements are classic and very straight. Thanks!

[Frappa Studio]

3571 The Game Steam Store Page is online!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/723020/3571_The_Game/

3571 The Game is on Steam! You can add it to you wishlist right now! Early Access will be out in January 2018. A lot of improvements have been made specially for the Early Access. Let's discover the brand new version 0.6!

Rideable dragons, horses and giant wolfs, new GUI design and improvement, new buildings, new complete controls tutorial, world generation stats and population quantities management, automated in-game tips system, new character customization models (fit or loose models, male and female), new hairs and shirts, new dialog system and GUI, and much more! I'll detail all of these changes in the next updates. For now, let's visit the Steam page here:

As the game isn't out yet, you can still vote for it at the STEAM AWARDS! Please select the category The “Whoooaaaaaaa, Dude! 2.0” Award , the future cult crazy game nobody knows yet! You can also add the game to your wishlist and share it!
So many improvements! What does the game looks like now?

Let's have a look at the exclusive new in game screenshots of the version 0.6 I prepared for the Steam Store Front page!











I will work on the demo soon and I have a question: would you prefer the Free-to-play Demo to be limited in time, like one day maximum, or have a very small map and limited NPCs and items?

Future is coming soon. Thanks for reading!

[io3 creations]

Hello! Very good questions:

- I started to use raycasts, but when a lot of NPC agents throw raycasts a the same time, it slows down the game really too much, I don't know why. Maybe because I based most of game interaction with OnTriggerEnter() functions. Raycasts maybe can't be optimised with collisions?

- Anyway, on these pictures you are right, spaces between spheres are increasing, leading to collision bugs. But I managed this thanks to a proportional increase in sphere collider sizes during explosion, making no miss in hitting enemies ( you can see in the video an updated version of the explosion where spheres goes bigger with time )

About fast movement vehicles, unfortunately you can only ride mobs for now, vehicles will appear later. Dragon riding and Wolf riding are pretty fast, but it demands hours of playing before you can find the right items to tame the mob and find a dragon for example. I think the rod is the first motion fastener you can get early in game, and it also gives the game a non-static ( character controller ) way of moving (with a rigidbody and realistic gravity), which adds another gameplay style and fits the concept of "all-in-one"( FPS, RPG, ... )

I guess I will wait players' feedback to decide about the Rod, as for now it works pretty well and seems to have no more bugs. I would be happy to have you feeling when you'll test this! Thanks again for you interest, IO3, I would feel really alone without your remarks. 

I noticed that OnTriggerEnter() seems to fire more than once for certain collisions and you have to check that.  In that case, as you mentioned, that would do RayCasting multiple times.  As an optimization, did you check if the NPC was close enough to the explosion?


Regarding the fishing rod, can it be used on any vertical surface - i.e. not just buildings and walls but vehicles, dragons, etc?  Can you also use it on the ground?

When I meant bugs and testing regarding the fishing rod, I meant more than just the basic function.  Have you tested situations where something gets between the character as it is moving - e.g. a dragon flies in the path.

So, what is the game about?  Is it basically "survive as long as you can" type of game? Or is there some kind of story or quesst or objectives?

Regarding the demo, I prefer to keep things "simple".  That way, if you there are issues, it's easier to check things because you don't have to worry about the things that you know are not in the demo.  Also, maybe it's just me but some people might be able to hack the game by disabling the timer.   Having said, it's good to show a variety of features that people can get a good idea about the game.

[Frappa Studio]

I noticed that OnTriggerEnter() seems to fire more than once for certain collisions and you have to check that.  In that case, as you mentioned, that would do RayCasting multiple times.  As an optimization, did you check if the NPC was close enough to the explosion?

Regarding the fishing rod, can it be used on any vertical surface - i.e. not just buildings and walls but vehicles, dragons, etc?  Can you also use it on the ground?

When I meant bugs and testing regarding the fishing rod, I meant more than just the basic function.  Have you tested situations where something gets between the character as it is moving - e.g. a dragon flies in the path.

So, what is the game about?  Is it basically "survive as long as you can" type of game? Or is there some kind of story or quesst or objectives?

Regarding the demo, I prefer to keep things "simple".  That way, if you there are issues, it's easier to check things because you don't have to worry about the things that you know are not in the demo.  Also, maybe it's just me but some people might be able to hack the game by disabling the timer.  Having said, it's good to show a variety of features that people can get a good idea about the game.

Yes I love using colliders OnTriggerEnters are quite fine and I avoided using OnTriggerStays functions. How can I check if OnTriggerEnter() is throwed once or multiple times? In the profiler, OnTriggerEnter() functions seem to use a very low proportion of the calculation time.

About the bomb system: Every sphere collider throwed by the bomb has my Bullet Class script, which contains a "power" value. As time increases, power value decreases and the gameObject is destroyed when power value reaches 0. So if any character ( player, NPCs... ) is far but close enough, the damage is relative to the distance to the bomb.

About the fishing Rod: For now you can only use buildings, and I will add trees, to use the Fishing Rod as a hook. During the "Hook Jump", I replaced the base character player collider with a sphere Collider and a Rigidbody, which is pretty fun without writing any code: the player rebounds using the physics engine, and any object with non trigger collider or other NPCs ( even dragons :D ) will simply make you rebound till you reach a certain speed (which is low).

And yes, basically the game is just about surviving ,with a steam leaderboard keeping track of the time survived record in minuts in game of all the Steam players. However I added random events happening, and also a secondary game goal related to the comics: You can check now droid and human still living entities counters, and making all the droids disappear and try to protect the human race. But when the proportion between people/droids is too low, droids send spaceships to fill the last islands on Earth with new droid units I also plan to add for the final version some stories and quests, like find the King, secret bosses, etc...

Thanks for your advices about the demo, I will keep it really simple! However I would like to have a different feel which would give the demo interest even for players who bought the full game. I think I know what I will do: The demo graphics will be pure black and white lines cell shading to match perfectly the 3571 Comics style, and feel different from the main game. What do you think? I did some tries on Unity last week:

[io3 creations]

Yes I love using colliders OnTriggerEnters are quite fine and I avoided using OnTriggerStays functions. How can I check if OnTriggerEnter() is throwed once or multiple times? In the profiler, OnTriggerEnter() functions seem to use a very low proportion of the calculation time.

In my case, I noticed it because certain things that were supposed to happen once happened multiple times.  A simple check would be to add Debug.Log() in  OnTriggerEnter() with displaying the object's name or something unique.

Thanks for your advices about the demo, I will keep it really simple! However I would like to have a different feel which would give the demo interest even for players who bought the full game. I think I know what I will do: The demo graphics will be pure black and white lines cell shading to match perfectly the 3571 Comics style, and feel different from the main game. What do you think? I did some tries on Unity last week:

Actually, I have a similar situation where I'm thinking that certain things will be different from the game than the demo.  However, my game is shorter and is mainly about exploration so it fits if well if people play the demo and then still experience certain things differently when playing the full game and not just "I've already seen this".  However, the changes are minor and I wouldn't expect those that play the full game to play the demo since it's not likely that many people would do that.  I wonder about going with a different style for the demo.  That could be just more confusing for a number of reasons.  After seeing the full game screenshots, some might think that come kind of error occurred and that's why they are getting different visuals.  That should be consistent to both.  Having the cartoon style as option would be a good idea though.

If the demo is mainly about surviving, then it might be better to have a time limit.  Especially, since the main idea of the demo is to give a "quick taste" (perhaps up to half an hour to an hour). 

[Frappa Studio]

3571 The Game Evolution since 2012

[Frappa Studio]

5 years of development in one minut and a half
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo8SotuTfeQ&feature=youtu.be