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[AsmCoder8088]

Hello everyone.

I've been working on a new game called Spiders on a Starship for about three months now and thought I would put it up here for some ideas and feedback.

The basic premise of the story is that you are the lone survivor onboard a transport ship that has been overrun with spiders.  Your goal is to collect enough fuel cells to power the long range radio system and alert Earth of the impending invasion.  Along the way, you encounter a number of spiders, some that have to be trapped using force fields, and others that simply must be popped using your phaser.

Each level of the game features multiple decks and corridors and is generated randomly "on-the-fly", meaning that each time you start the game, the layout of each level is completely different.  This helps with the replay value.  In each level, there is exactly one fuel cell, and once you find it and capture it, you advance to the next level.  As you advance, the levels grow in size and get progressively harder.  I anticipate requiring the player to finish 100 levels to reach the end scene.

To start with, I will explain the force field.  I adopted this gameplay mechanic from a favorite old time game of mine called "Lode Runner".  In essence, you create a trap for the bad guy who is chasing you, but the caveat is that you cannot pass through the trap (the force field) until it either catches a spider or it expires.  So, if you are not careful, you can wind up backing yourself into a dead-end.


http://i.imgur.com/hnJgObF.png

[AsmCoder8088]

Now I will explain the phaser.

Only certain kinds of spiders can be blasted using the phaser.  Others require that the player uses the force field.  As the player, you learn when to use the force field and when to use the phaser based on which spider you are looking at.


http://i.imgur.com/wXr9Go5.png



http://i.imgur.com/m5D4QiJ.png

[AsmCoder8088]

The game environment features several decorations, one of which are the vents as seen in the lower half of the walls along the corridors.

The player can at times encounter a spider crawling out of these vents.


http://i.imgur.com/XnG8QED.png


http://i.imgur.com/74IJNYX.png

[AsmCoder8088]

The player captures fuel cells in order to advance to the next level.


http://i.imgur.com/IDXY64b.png


http://i.imgur.com/odKSTmx.png

[AsmCoder8088]

Upgrades are available to the player.  These include force field, phaser, xray, and path marker.

The player acquires an upgrade by paying a visit to the Upgrade Bot when available.


http://i.imgur.com/1OrppCy.png


http://i.imgur.com/J8iHvdy.png


http://i.imgur.com/9cHAqcr.png

[AsmCoder8088]

The spiders are able to navigate the three dimensional maze.

They can descend and ascend the decks as necessary to hunt the player.


http://i.imgur.com/GKyYydT.png

[AsmCoder8088]

Some more screen captures.


http://i.imgur.com/Cm93JcX.png


http://i.imgur.com/j1ZerkE.png


http://i.imgur.com/4N67iCA.png

Additional items to be done:
1) Improve the HUD artwork
2) Enhance sound effects
3) More/better music tracks
4) Other items tbd

[AsmCoder8088]

And a brief gameplay video:

[Biter]

Great and fun gameplay, good work!

[Pineapple]

It looks interesting, but what if I would prefer befriending the spiders to annihilating them?

[AsmCoder8088]

It looks interesting, but what if I would prefer befriending the spiders to annihilating them?

Ha, well I had to choose some kind of bad guy/creature and I thought spiders were neutral enough.

I suppose you could try befriending them and see what happens!

[jctwood]

Looks really neat, What platforms are you targeting? For some reason at first glance it looked like it would work on mobile but maybe not with the ascending/descending.

[AsmCoder8088]

Looks really neat, What platforms are you targeting? For some reason at first glance it looked like it would work on mobile but maybe not with the ascending/descending.

Great question.  For now I am targeting PC and Mac.  I would also like to target mobile, but I'm not sure the controls would work all that well, so maybe that's something to try after getting PC & Mac version finished.

[AsmCoder8088]

I've recently added a trim around the access areas that lead to the upper and lower decks, so that the tiles don't look paper thin:


http://i.imgur.com/5YAFasW.png


http://i.imgur.com/vnLsUdk.png

[AsmCoder8088]

And also recently added a new spider model that I created in Blender:


http://i.imgur.com/3PxPx0a.png


http://i.imgur.com/3MGyQ7m.png


http://i.imgur.com/FJ5JUlW.png


http://i.imgur.com/CncPGZm.png


http://i.imgur.com/NrgPuUG.png


http://i.imgur.com/XgSt5Kv.png


http://i.imgur.com/3Ze9pWU.png


http://i.imgur.com/BwebOwn.png


http://i.imgur.com/9S27vT2.png


http://i.imgur.com/28Yi3Jt.png

I also made it so that this one requires a longer dwell time to pop than other spiders:

[AsmCoder8088]

Worked on refining the heads-up display (HUD) graphics:


http://i.imgur.com/QN5BxSa.png

I've also taken some time to optimize the game.  I had been using forward rendering until a few days ago when I noticed that the frame rate began degrading noticeably on more complex levels.  After reading up on a bit I realized that with the number of lights I am using, deferred rendering is definitely the way to go.

Case in point, the number of draw calls (SetPass calls in Unity) were reduced by a factor of ten, and the frames per second went from less than 30 to over 160.  I did have to make some adjustments when switching from forward to deferred, namely the "Edge Detection" image effect I use was wreaking havoc on the normal maps for the floors and walls when in deferred rendering.  So to compensate I wound up converting the normals to grayscale images in Photoshop and using them as albedo maps in Unity rather than normal maps.  I can then add color to them as needed (as shown on the walls).

The resulting display is what you can see in the above screen capture -- it looks just as good if not better than when I was using forward rendering, and much faster!

[AsmCoder8088]

Several people have told me recently that they want to be able to befriend the spiders they encounter.  While I took that as a joke, I recently decided to explore the idea of allowing the player to convert ("befriend") a spider and deploy it as an ally that would attack the other spiders.

So, now it is possible to do just that.  After trapping a spider (it has to be the kind that can be trapped), you can then befriend it:

[AsmCoder8088]

Drawing inspiration from the somewhat recent addition to the International Space Station, I decided to see what it would look like if I added windows to my starship.  Well, having done so, it now looks more like a space station rather than a starship.  I'm not really sure what the distinction between the two is, but suffice to say that I like the new look and so I'm sticking with it.

As usual, I used Blender to create the model:


http://i.imgur.com/6UTlhkS.png

http://i.imgur.com/ovUzn3h.png

http://i.imgur.com/XsgBa0a.png

http://i.imgur.com/jQUWHnU.png

http://i.imgur.com/GEmtAXx.png

http://i.imgur.com/HypxQhw.png

http://i.imgur.com/QXXCIN6.png

http://i.imgur.com/bolHGXD.png

http://i.imgur.com/DGHOpOD.png

http://i.imgur.com/yRIdt1h.png

http://i.imgur.com/1pcTpKH.png

http://i.imgur.com/XtJsQae.png

http://i.imgur.com/NRonKlT.png

http://i.imgur.com/b4IbEWs.png

http://i.imgur.com/T43b0LR.png

And a video to demonstrate:

[AsmCoder8088]

Spiders on a Starship is now up for vote on Greenlight!

Link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=862121103

-Daniel

[AsmCoder8088]

This weekend I took the time to work on an aspect of the game that has been sorely lacking, in my opinion, namely the heads-up display (HUD).  I rearranged and redrew the icons in Photoshop and Illustrator, and I think the result is a pretty decent improvement from what it was originally:


http://i.imgur.com/xbdnwuR.png


http://i.imgur.com/dmU3Wy3.png

Also, if you're interested in trying out an alpha build drop me a line.