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[Zireael]

That's really cool, I can't recall many games that let you play a robot. And it looks really nice!

[Kevin G]

I still have a ton of coding to do, but creating character types is really addictive. Take for instance this laser-gunslinging blue-skinned cyborg Valkyrie.  

I need to add particle effects to her wings, but this should do well for the game's first flying race.








I can't imagine not allowing the player to build a creature such as this.  

Regardless, flying is a major component of my game, so I really need to create a few flyers to get off the ground next year.  

[joey4track]

Ooh this looks wonderful. Just adding the Z levels is a simple way to add so much more depth to the gameplay. And I love character creation porn too 

[Kevin G]

Did a bit of work on the context menu system and implemented laser guns.
Now that I've decided to add sci-fi guns, I have a ton of animation work to do to ensure units are moving in and out of cover.  Originally.  my plan was to keep the game more melee focused.   


In this case, yellow might not be the right colour for this weapon.  



While I toy around with the visual atmosphere of the game, I've started making my own environment assets (floors and blocks)    At this point, I've decided that I'm going to keep the environment simple and strange looking. In this case,  the blocks and the floor were created with procedural Blender scripts.    As a programmer, all I need to do is make it all look deliberate. If that's art that people like then it's good enough.   

   

[Kevin G]

Ooh this looks wonderful. Just adding the Z levels is a simple way to add so much more depth to the gameplay. And I love character creation porn too 

It's funny you mention character porn, because I'm strongly considering adding a re-purposed sexbot as a playable character type.  I just need to find a design that isn't too obvious. Mechanically, it will get bonus to charisma and a few agreeable default character traits.

[joey4track]

uh.. that was character CREATION porn, haha 

[Kevin G]

As it stands now,  I can put together small scenarios and play them through to completion.    Of course, at this point the combat mechanics have yet to be flushed out.  Regardless it's starting to be rather fun.    I'm really enjoying how much the flying units are changing the the game play.   

 
The next six months are all about playing combat scenarios and trying to make them fun.    I'll be adding features, optimizing, adding basic content,  and cleaning up code along the way.  I think it will be this phase of the development cycle that I'm going to really enjoy.   

[Pixel Noise]

That Valkyrie looks awesome! Very cool to see the progress you've made over the last year, excited to see what the coming months bring for the game 

[Kevin G]

That Valkyrie looks awesome! Very cool to see the progress you've made over the last year, excited to see what the coming months bring for the game  

Thanks! She's still rather unfinished.  There is more animation,  rigging and weight painting to do her wings, which should open and close when she moves up or down.  The wings have a few parts to them that allow them to unfold.  The exhaust is a little long too.

At this point, I'd rather get something working that is half-assed then have nothing at all.

[Kevin G]

With the right tools and tricks programmer art isn't that terrible anymore.

Here is a unique dwarf/hobbit like character race I created last night.  This will be the last character for a while unless I get distracted again. 



Anyway, I need to stop creating creatures and just focus on the AI.  My next goal is to finish off a playable prototype with extremely limited options.  Hopefully, I'll be able to demo the game a bit with my first youtube video and start to gather a bit of a following.   

[Kevin G]

One of the features I've been working on is allowing creatures to make half square movements.  Not only does this allow for more smaller sized creatures to attack a medium sized creature(in melee reach), it also improves the granularity of the level, making it less "squarish".

This feature may go unnoticed by people who are not turnbased game enthusists, but the solution I designed actually allows for variable granularity.  At the moment, I'm only using half squares, but I can turn the dial up and use 1/16 squares.   Creatures can also be designed to be any number of squares. and perhaps even shapes (1x2x1, 3x2x1, etc).    I'm not sure how this would work in practice, but I'll have to give it a try.

With that said, I think I'm rather happy with the system so far. The path-finding system is truly 3D, it's real time and doesn't require a pre-baked navigation mesh.  The level is scanned when it loads and hardly takes anytime at all.   The layout of the level can change and be updated on the fly.


Of course, I really need to focus on making the game and not the engine.   What I have at the moment is certainly good enough and it fully addresses all the pain points that, IMO,  exist with turn based games.

[Pixel Noise]

That does sound like a nice feature - it would definitely make the movement/grid feel much less square. Only thing I can think is if you make it too fine, and players get confused/frustrated on why they aren't able to make a melee attack (because they are 1/16th too far away) but don't realize what's going on.

[Kevin G]

That does sound like a nice feature - it would definitely make the movement/grid feel much less square. Only thing I can think is if you make it too fine, and players get confused/frustrated on why they aren't able to make a melee attack (because they are 1/16th too far away) but don't realize what's going on.

So far having 1/2 squares is working out just fine. This way rats don't take up so much space and you can get surrounded by a lot more of them.    I might go down to 1/4 squares for tiny creatures, but at the moment I don't see the need. 


Actually, one of the features I've implemented is to fully explain why certain actions are not available. For example, when you hover over an action that is grayed out, the tool tip contains all the reasons why it's not available.

[Kevin G]

After a long coding effort refactoring the camera and inventory systems  I'm finally ready to work on the first demo.    The backdrop for the demo will be a simple desert planet with several obstacles. The party will be pre-made and the game play will be infinite warfare, in which random encounters are spawned in waves.  The hex grid, story, 4x features, and all that good stuff will not be part of the demo.  





As for what I've completed thus far.  

First, I realized that the 3D nature of the game will require a very unique camera design.   At this point, I've settled on a hybrid rts/orbit camera.    With this camera system the player can rotate around the current character (like WoW) and break off into an RTS camera at any time.   It smoothly translates between camera modes and maintains the players desired camera angle.   While in RTS mode, the player can hit the space bar to translate back to the orbit camera.  The camera system is complete now, except for a strange bug with the the zoom feature while in orbit mode.    In addition, the camera will automatically fade objects in and out that are in-front of the camera and the focus point.  

Second, I rewrote the entire inventory / item system.   The inventory system is designed with multiple layers.  There is a data layer, logic layer, model layer,  and UI layer.    This means that the source of truth for what items are equipped is completely data driven.   This design makes updating the Paper Doll on the character sheet and the figure easy.  



(this is what happens when you refactor too much code at once.   That little robot is exploiting! )


For the love of inventory, I looked at several RPG games (old and new) and I really don't know how I want to approach character inventory.   On one hand, I really want to create something innovative with a serious nod to realism,  but on the other hand,  I really can't see how the player can manage a large amount of items without icons.  One idea, is to allow the player to attach the actual 3d objects directly on the character.  For example, a sword could be placed on the back, the belt, or in the right hand, and the paper doll model would automatically spin around to the correct location.  A backpack / container would work the same way, but it could be opened to reveal its contents.   Of course, containers within containers is actually something my inventory system supports,  but I'm not exactly sure how to create an UI system that supports it without using icons, or a tree view. Until I figure this out, or scale back my inventory system ambitions (and yes, I love rpg inventory),  I've decided to stick with the icon system for the demo.

[Kevin G]

There is nothing more fun than using Zombies as test subjects.    

Last night, I finished work on the Spawning System.   It spawns both creatures and items at randomly selected spawn points.     The spawning system is activated at the start of each new round. A round occurs when everyone in the initiative has acted.    

 


My thought process on this is similar to how a typical D&D game is run.   Most of the time new events happen at the start of each round; new creatures are added, the environment changes, etc. By grouping events together changes are much more dramatic.  
 

In addition, I've also started work on various unity editor screens to help speed up the creation of items, creatures,  levels, and various data sets.    I've also dropped the SQL lite database in favor of prefabs.  


I'm getting close to having a very basic playable demo that features the combat system and a pre-made party.  

[Kevin G]

At this point, I've created a short list of about 50 bug fixes and changes that need to be completed for the prototype / demo.  Once that list is completed, I can then move on to tweaking game mechanics and completing the design of the demo level.   The goal for this stage is to make a highly focused playable prototype that is reasonably fun.    

The demo will be missing the exploration and interaction tiers of play, and it won't have a story or any of the 4x survival elements I have planned.    Professional assets and animations will also be missing.      

To that end,  I've made significant progress.   Over the last two weeks, I fixed a large number of issues and added a few new features.


Piggybacking in a TBRPG?

My first round of testing revealed that my path-finding system allows you to piggyback on top of other creatures.  I could work on this a bit more and make it into an actual feature, opening up unique solutions to combat encounters.   Of course,  I'll have to be sure that if the flying creature dies and falls to the ground so does everyone standing on top of him. Lastly, I might have to limit how many creatures can piggyback on top of each other.  Should I allow all six characters to stand on each other's shoulders?


Regardless, I'll be disabling this feature/bug for the demo.




Object Interaction / Realism

One feature I'm going for is a high degree of object interaction.    Characters can now spend action points to  pick up and equip items directly from the ground.   This might seem rather standard, but it was a ton of work to get it all functional.   Over half a dozen different sub systems all have to talk to each other in some way or another.    

 
This feature will also allow me to create disarm and fumble actions.  In the case of a fumble,  weapons can go flying in random directions and possibly hit other creatures (causing damage).   Targeted disarm actions and explosions can do the same.     In fact, I can't wait to program the AI to disarms you and tries to kill you with your own weapon.




Content Pipeline

Lastly, I'm now starting to build editor tools.   One tool I created creates item icon assets directly from 3d objects.    Unity's post processing effects (boom, grain, ambient occlusion, etc) work quite well for this purpose.  

[Kevin G]

One Rifle at a time

One of the major features that must be completed for the demo are rifles.   For some reason, I decided to tackle this feature last.   Melee weapons and single handed ranged weapons have been my primary focus for a while now.

Looking back, I wasn't expecting rifles to be much more complicated than single handed ranged weapons, but it turns out they are the most complex weapon types to implement.   The system I created thus far aims the head, body, rifle and arms at different rates.  To facilitate this, the rifles are not attached to the hand, but associated with the position of the shoulder bone.   This allows the character to aim the rifle at any target without having to always  perform a rotation animation to face its target.   It also makes makes aiming seem much more natural.  


(this is my initial attempt at creating an aiming system.  I think the head and the rifle should move before the body, it's good enough for the demo)

For the prototype / demo, my plan is to have created at least six unique rifles that each use a different energy type.  At the moment, I'm working on creating a plasma rifle, blaze rifle , freeze rife, oxidation sprayer (yes robots can get rusted), laser rifle, and energy blaster (no bullet based rifles in this game, only high sci-fi). Thus far it's taking me about two nights of work to complete a single rifle and its corresponding effects. It's all very tedious work, that I'm sure if I had my own game studio, I'd get a student / peon to complete it.  

The marriage of game mechanics and physics.

For ranged weapon attacks, the character's modified attack roll is used to determine the accuracy of each shot. Characters who are very skilled will hit their targets more often, but characters who fail to hit will end up shooting their rifle at random offsets from their target, potentially hitting their own party members and/or explosive objects. The size of the offset will vary depending on the characters attack which takes skill, ability scores, weapon properties, conditions, etc into account.    The challenge in this case is to write game mechanics that work well with the physics engine.  In other words, let the physics engine do half the work.  


(The plasma rifle fires three bolts and the first one hits the gas canister, killing everyone with its blast radius)

For explosions, I had to ensure that the system automatically disabled the character's ragdoll once physical movement stops, and  re-position the body / victim to the nearest grid square.  Of course, there are a ton of potential problems with this that have to be resolved, but for the demo I don't think it maters much if characters get stuck once and a while.        

It's all about blowing shit up.

After testing my game for a while, I have come to the conclusion that I really want to create a game that allows the player to lay waste to the battlefield each turn.  This might help differentiate my game from games like XCOM, which focus on single tactical shots that either hit or miss.  For my game, I want the player to be elated as multiple enemies are killed each turn by a single character, and like wise,  I want that player to cower in fear during the AI's turn. In fact, it may be that the word "tactical" isn't appropriate for this turn-based game. Of course, my game isn't using group initiative, it's using individual initiative, which I've noticed makes it feel far less tactical anyway.  


(Added line of effect lines to the movement selector)

Optional features

One optional feature I'm considered including is allowing the player to disable / enable the cinematic camera.  I've noticed that sometimes it just gets in the way and takes up time.

Another optional feature I might implement is allowing the player to switch between group initiative and individual initiative.  

[Kevin G]

Well, I haven't posted here for a while now, but I'm still actively working on the game.  I've completed a ton of things and there is still a ton more to complete.





I recently took a break to play a few turn based games (including XCOM and Battletech) and found myself dying for my game's camera system.   I'm not sure if it's the freedom it offers or if I've just become very accustomed to it.    




Here is a quick video of the camera system in action.  It's mostly complete now.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1009976904995262465


Unlike other turnbased games, this camera is unlocked and allows the player to pan, orbit, and return flawlessly.  It also maintains the 180 degree line of action.

[Kevin G]

Well, I'm moving the completed status up to 50% as I'm currently reviewing proposals from artists for the games first demo level.

My hope is to have a crowdfunding campaign going by the start of next year. Rather than come empty handed to the table, I've decided to commission the artwork for a demo level.  I plan to spend the remainder of the year integrating the demo level into the game. To this end, I created a 10 page design document that describes the level in detail.

As for the progress of the game, I've been mainly focused on cleaning up the code and working on my studio's website.  Running a crowdfunding campaign is going to consume a ton of my time, so I really have to get as much as I can completed by the end of this year.