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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsNot Their Will - Devlog Thread
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Geosphere Games
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« on: February 23, 2020, 11:26:19 AM »

Hi everyone.

We are happy to be here at TigForums to show our game and the desing process that we are going through. This thread will be updated with the upcomming posts of this Devlog.
The game that we are working on is called Not Their Will, and it's a top down shooter with a metroidvania style map. You are minding your own bussines in your planet when humans arrive to extract the planet resources. The main goal is to get rid of all this annoying humans and recover the peace your planet had. The twist in our game is that you can't harm anyone in your alien form, so you must jump on the head of an enemy and control him to fight against them.
In this first post we will be showing our main mechanics. In further posts we will cover desing problems and how we overcome them. All feedback and comments will be appreciated.

Our main mechanic, as we said before is the possession of enemies. You can jump on top of an enemy and control them.

To stop controlling an enemy you can just jump down, this will throw the enemy away from you and stun them for a bit, but they will survive. You can also consume the enemy that you are on, causing a lot of pain and eventually killing them. This way, using the NPC's, you can also heal yourself . They can't shoot, but if you consume them, you will recover some health.

Our last core mechanic are the blocks that you encounter through the level. As in all metroivania type games, in ours there are some paths blocked and you must find the way to cross them. Given that in our game the player doesn't have skills, our blocks are based on the enemies that you can control. One example is the bomber block. In the first zone of the game, one of the enemies that you encouter is a tiny robot that explodes when it's near you (we will show the different zones and enemies in upcoming posts). You can possess this robot and throw it to the block to break it and continue exploring the map.

This is all for our first post. We hope that we piqued your curiosity and that you liked our game. We are working hard to get the game out for free in Steam on May 25th, 2020. Feel free to comment and give us feedback. We will try to improve our posts as we go.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2020, 08:23:15 AM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2020, 11:58:02 AM »


Hi all again and welcome to the second post of this Devlog.
This time we are going to show you the first of our three map zones.
You start in the deep caves of your planet, this is a place where humans haven't taken full control yet.
The walls are made of rock and there are valuable crystals all over the place.


The humans go into the caves searching for more resources to extract and try to gain control of the zone.


You see more human presence as you get out of the caves and reach the laboratory, the second zone of the game. You can see machines mining crystals or collecting data.


There are two types of room where humans can not enter due to a mysterious fog that is at the entrance: the room where you save and heal yourself, with red crystals, and the room where you find upgrades that make you more powerful, with blue crystals.


This is all for this post. We hope that you like it. We will talk about the enemies that you can find in this first zone in upcoming posts.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2020, 02:15:06 PM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2020, 01:49:32 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to take a look at some of the enemies that you will find in the first zone of our game.

The first enemy that you will encounter is the Pistol Enemy. I know, we are still working on names Wink. This enemy shoots at a medium distance and they are not very dangerous.


The second one is the Shotgun Enemy. He shoots 3 bullets at the same time and can be very powerful at short distances.


The last enemy we are showing today is the Rifle Enemy. The bullets he shoots are less dangerous than the previous ones, but he fires 5 in a fast burst. Be careful if there are some of them together.


This is all for today. We will post this Sunday talking about some of the difficulties that we found working on this game and how we overcome them.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2020, 02:29:45 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are gonna talk about the other two enemies that you can find in the first zone of the game. We will also show a non aggressive character.
The first enemy that we are showing today is the Bomber. This character is a small robot that tries to get close to you and explode. You can possess and throw it to make it explode and open one type of block.




The second enemy that we are showing today is the Flamer. This character has a flamethrower and can open the second block of the caves.




To end this post, we are gonna show the Healer. This is a pacific character that will run for you. If you consume them, you will heal yourself a lot. They are walking first-aid kits.

This is all for this post. Hope you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2020, 04:01:52 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to talk about our design process for the levels. We had some trouble in the beginning because we didn't have a guideline for the design. After the vertical slice, we decided that we needed to define a structure.
We decided to divide our level in gameplay beats that last from 10 to 30 seconds and to create four documents before creating the level: the pacing chart, the progression chart, the diagrams of the gameplay beats and the diagram of the layout.
The pacing chart is created using 4 more charts. These charts represent the movement, the threat, the tension, and the tempo. The movement is how much the player is moving. The threat is the danger that the player can see. The tension is the danger that the player can sense. The tempo is the concentration that the player needs. For creating the pacing chart, you have to make these charts first. To make them you can give the gameplay beats numeric values following the flow theory, incrementing the chart gradually with rests between peaks. Once you have these charts you give them a weight for how important you want to that factor be in your game. For example, in ours, the threat has a weight of 1.2 and the tension have a 0.8. To create the pacing chart, you add the charts multiplied by their weight.


 
The progression chart is easier Wink. You take an element of gameplay that is a challenge and you make expansions and evolutions. The expansions change the metrics of the challenge and the evolutions add a new gameplay element. This way you can keep the gameplay beats interesting. This is the progression chart for the first three rooms of the second level of our game. In the evolutions, we put which new element we are adding.

For the diagrams, you follow the progression chart and take a gameplay beat and make an evolution and expansion. You need a diagram for how each beat is going to be. We use draw.io for that purpose. In this example, we take the electric floor with basic enemies as a base and we make and expansion and an evolution adding a new type of enemy.

The last thing is the level layout. In our game, as it is divided into rooms, we take two beats for each room. Then we put them in the order that matches the pacing chart.

Following this process, we were able to create more interesting gameplay and we didn't have to redesign levels from the beginning.



This is all for this post. We hope this help someone.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2020, 06:49:58 AM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to show the first idea of our game. This is the One Pager that we make for it. A one pager is a great way to show the basic idea of your game and you can make an elevator pitch out of it. As you can see, the game started being a 2D rogue like with a western setting. Let's say the concept went through a few changes Cheesy.


This is all for this post. Hope you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 10:31:24 AM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2020, 02:08:24 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we didn't have too much to show you, so we are going to talk about what we were doing this past weeks.
We have finished the blockout of the second level of the game. Also, the enemies of this level are almost done. When we finish them we will make a post showing them. When we place the enemies in the blockout we are ready to test it out.
This week we also polished the first level in terms of design. It is ready to have the first pass of decoration.
We have also finished the logic of the final boss of level one. When the visuals are done we will show it here too.
This is all for this post. We want you to be updated on what we are doing. We are probably going to post only Wednesdays and Sundays from now on.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2020, 02:36:53 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today, finally, we are going to show some of the enemies of the second zone of the game.

The second level is located in human laboratories. You finally reach the end of the caves and you are committed to destroying all the facilities. In this zone, you will find some soldiers of the first zone, but you will also find some improved soldiers with special abilities. In this post, we are showing two of them: the shocker and the shield officer.
The shocker has a powerful electric weapon that gives him an aura that prevents you from possessing them. When they shoot, they lose this aura and it won't come back for some time when they will be able to shoot again. If you get hit by some electric damage you won't be able to possess nobody for a sort time.


The second enemy that we are showing today is the shield officer. This enemy has a shield that can bounce bullets shot at him. This shield is deployed when they stand still for a moment. When you possess them you can also bounce projectiles that let you open some doors. This enemy also has a small gun.



This is all for this post. Tomorrow we are going to launch the first teaser of the game. Keep an eye on our twitter.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2020, 01:34:37 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. First of all: we finally have the first teaser out!!! Check it out:



Today we are going to show the remaining enemies of the second level. The Acid Grenadier and the Railgun.
The Acid grenadier is an enemy that uses one of the other mechanics of our game. In our game, there are some zones of the ground that have harmful effects like being electrified or deal acid damage. This enemy throws a grenade that does damage on hit and leaves an acid zone in the ground for some time.


The second enemy of this post and the last one of this level is the Railgun. This is a turret that targets you and after a short period lock the position and then fire. This turret is used to open one type of door in level two.


This is all for this post. We are still working on visual feedback for all the enemies and levels. We will be able to show the first boss very soon, stay tuned.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2020, 07:07:36 AM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2020, 01:38:58 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. We are going to show the first boss of the game.

Reaching the end of the caves, you encounter a giant machine operated by humans that prevents you from exiting the caves.


This boss has three main attacks. A sweep and a frontal attack with the drills. He will do it randomly until he spawns enemies. After that, he will do the laser attack. If you come to close to the machine he will push you back. In order to burn him, you have to wait until he gets exhausted.




To defeat this boss you have to use the enemies that he spawns. He has a heat bar that you have to rise to the top to burn the man inside the machine. To do that, you have to use the enemies that shot fire.



This is all for this post. We hope you like the idea of the heat bar.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #10 on: March 22, 2020, 02:47:49 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. First of all, we hope that you are all safe in your house.
Today we are going to show the controls of our game.
We use Unity's input manager to manage our control system. We have implemented controls for keyboard and mouse and Xbox and PlayStation controllers.
For the keyboard and mouse, we use the mouse for aim and WASD for the movement. To help with the aim we have a crosshair that shows where the bullets are going. Also, the camera goes a little further where you are aiming to help the player see the room better. To shot we use the left click of the mouse and to possess enemies you have to press the right click and release when it's red, this means that you are in range of this enemy. To do the dash we think that the spacebar is a good choice and the E to interact. Finally, for consuming the possessing enemy, you have to maintain pressed the right click. We did it this way because we think it is easier to remember and more intuitive.
For the controller, we use the left joystick to move and the right one to possess and aim. When you push the right joystick in one direction, the possession ray shows and the camera moves in that direction. To possess an enemy you have to release the joystick when it is on top of an enemy. To dash, we use the B button in Xbox and the circle in PlayStation and to interact we use the A button in Xbox and the X in PlayStation. To shot we use de right trigger and to jump off an enemy we use the left trigger. Finally, to consume an enemy the player has to press the left trigger for a while.

This is all for this post. Hope you like it. We are opened to suggestions about our controls.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2020, 03:00:57 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to show the last enemies of our game. We have decided to make the third level smaller than the other two because we think that we don't have time to do it before the release. The last enemies left to show are the Meathead, the Sniper and the Grenadier.
The Meathead is a heavy enemy with a minigun. Being a heavy enemy means that you can't possess him for a long time. There is a timer that appears when you jump on them and when that timer is over, you get kicked off. He is slower than the rest of the enemies and had significantly more health.



The Sniper is the last enemy of our game. It is similar to the railgun that we showed in a previous post. He targets you from a long distance. After a short time, he shot a very fast bullet in your direction. He has less health than other enemies, but it can be dangerous in narrow areas.


The Grenadier is similar to the Acid that we have in level two, but instead of an acid vial, they throw a small grenade that explodes after a short time. You can see the time left to the explosion in a small timer above the grenade.


This is all for this post. We will explain what we are going to do with the third level in further posts. We hope you liked.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2020, 01:49:27 AM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2020, 11:59:51 AM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to talk about the last playtesting that we have made.
Since we are confined in our houses, we can't gather a group of people to make them play the game. So we had to send the build to the testers. With the build, we send a survey to answer about some aspects of our game. With this survey, we gather data about what we want to know about our game.
In this last playtest, we asked about the design of the second level because it was the first time that we include this level on a playtest. We also asked about the first boss as we also include it in the build.
About the second level, we realize that some encounters with enemies are not clear enough and seems artificial. We also see that players didn't know what to do in some situations so we think that we need more visual feedback. To sum up, we need to redesign some rooms of the level two and give much more information about what is happening in the game. On the other hand, the cinematics of the game were very liked for all the players, so we are proud of them.
About the first boss, we realize that, as we see in the level two, that the players are lost and didn't know what to do to defeat the boss. This confirms that we need to work on the visual side of our game. Some players also told us that the boss attacks are too easy to dodge and make the fight boring so we are going to think about raising the difficulty here.

To sum up, in this playtest we confirmed what we already know. We have to improve the feedback that explains what is happening and try to improve our level design. Furthermore, all the players liked the feel and the art of the game so we are happy about that and motivated to continue improving.


This is all for this post. Thank you all for your time and see you in the next post.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2020, 02:32:57 PM »



Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Since we all are confined in our houses we had to change our work system to keep going with the devlopment of the game. Today we are going to talk about what we are doing to keep the comunication fluid.

First of all, we do a daily meting were we told the rest of the team what we did the day before, what we are doing that day and what prevents us from doing that. This way, all know how are we doing in our daily task and if we need something to be finished by other coworker, we didn't have to wait to a weekly meeting to solve it.

Besides this daily meeting we do a weekly one where we plan the work for that week and how many days do we need to complete the tasks that you have. For this we use the HackNPlan tool were you can keep track of all the work done. Usually, we do this meeting with the product owner so he can also see our work.

For this meetings, we use the Discord App, where we have diferent voice and text channels to talk about diferent stuff. For example, the programers are talking in the programing channel and the producers in theirs. This way, we keep the information about diferent departments separated and you can easily find what are you looking for.

We also make a build of the game in the middle of the sprint and all the members of the team play it and give feedback about it so we all know how we are doing and where do we need to improve. Also, we try to keep very organized documentation to make sure we all are working in the same direction.


This is all for this post. We hope that you all are safe and don't hestitate to ask any cuestion about our work.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 02:39:08 PM by Geosphere Games » Logged
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« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2020, 12:49:07 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to talk about the different states that can be in the ground. There are three different ground effects: Fire, Acid, and Electric.
The Fire effect is most common in the first level. It can be pipes that broke or vegetation on fire. It is always on and if you step over, it set you on fire. This effect causes you some damage during time.


You can pass through the fire with an enemy who has fire protection like the Flamer.


The Acid effect is at the second level and does a lot of damage when you step on it.


It can be already on the floor or can be caused by the Acid enemy. This last one disappears after some time.


Some floor tiles are powered and cause this type of ground effect. This effect can be on all the time or during intervals. If you touch this ground it throws you off the enemy that you are possessing and make you enter the electrified state where you can't possess nobody.





This is used to block some paths, and enemies will try to go through it when it's off. You can also go over these tiles with the Socker since this enemy have electric immunity.


Enemies will try to avoid this type of ground if there is another choice. But you can use it to kill them if you move correctly.

This is all for this post.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2020, 01:44:56 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. A quick post today talking about what types of blocks we have in the second level.
We have to blocks here. The first one is the electric one. You can open this block with the shocker. You have to shot the generator near the door. This will give power to the door and open it.


The second block of this level is an upgraded shield. This can only be broken with a Railgun bullet and sometimes you won't be able to reach it while possessing the Railgun, so you have to bounce the bullet with a Shield enemy.


This is all for this post. We hope you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #16 on: April 08, 2020, 12:58:29 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. We are polishing the decoration of the first level. Today we are going to show how we are doing that.

We think that environmental storytelling is very important so we are trying to show the background story through the decoration. In the first level, The Caves, it is too deep for humans to have full control of it and they are trying to understand how the planet works. For example, in this first room, we show humans experimenting with the plants that they are finding there and they are not doing a very great Wink.


Humans are also trying to gather energy from the crystals and experimenting with different types of resources that the planet gives. The presence of human activity grows progressively since you go through the level and finally reach the laboratories.


We'll show how we are decorating The Laboratory in upcoming posts when we have made progress on it. We finally decided to cut the third level to polish as much as we can the first two for the launch day, May 25th.

This is all for this post. We hope that you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #17 on: April 10, 2020, 02:21:25 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to talk about how we are doing the cutscene of our game.

First of all, and I don't think this will surprise anybody, we decide what we want to show in the cutscene. It can be a mechanic of the game that we want the player to learn or some context for the story. When we have our main concept, we think what action can show better the concept. We will create the scene around that action. To finish the first part of the process, we create a basic storyboard for the shots of the cutscene. Sometimes we do this storyboard by hand on paper. It does not need to be pretty or accurate it only needs to show a general concept of the shots is enough.


When all of that is finished, we jump into Unity. There, we open the scene where our cutscene is going to happen and we place the cámeras to match the storyboard.


We look at how this shot looks without movement. If we like it we start including objects and characters with a little movement.


When it looks good we start animating the character models and objects. When all is fully animated, we start illuminating the scene and giving movement to the cameras.



When it all added to the Unity timeline we add the sound.

And that's all. When the cutscene is finished, we put a trigger to start the cutscene in game.


This is all for this post. We hope you find it useful.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #18 on: April 12, 2020, 12:36:37 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to show you how we have updated our HUD.

We had our current HUD since the beginning as a placeholder and we thought that we already need to create a final one. We need a health bar for the player, one for the enemies and two crosshairs. These health bars have three parts, the icon, the modules, and the end. The icon is the start of the bar. The modules have different states, full, half full and empty. These modules can be stacked one after the other. And the final part closes the bar. We are going to have one crosshair for the alien and another one for when you are possessing an enemy.

First of all, we create some sketches in the paper by hand where we did a little brainstorming for what we like.


Then we go into Photoshop, where we try our sketches. Then we polish that sketches and create the final ones. There is no much to say about this is just hours changing colors and shapes until we feel that is looking great for the game. Here are our final HUD. The player health bar, the health bar one the enemy that you are possessing and the two crosshairs. We are thinking about animating these health bars. If we have time before the launch we will do it.




To finish, we have made a speed paint of the alien icon. Check the video on our twitter.

This is all for this post. We hope you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2020, 12:49:36 PM »


Hi everyone and welcome to the new post of this Devlog. Today we are going to show how we got our alien 3D model.

Since we don't have an experienced 3D artist we decided to make our game with low poly models. We search a model for our playable character but we couldn't find a low poly model that we liked. We came across this high poly model full animated so we decided to do a retopology on that model. We used Blender for that purpose.


We did it with the tool that Blender has but we had to adjust some parts manually. We created the new polygons over the old model.



Since all the polygons are created we had to attach the new polygons to the skeletal mesh so we could use the animations that came with the model. Here is a comparison between the two models.


Once this is finished, we created de UV maps and apply the new textures to the low poly version of the model.


When it's all done, it is all about tweaking some animations and a proper lighting and a good environment.


This is all for this post. We hope you like it.


Thank you for your time.

Regards, Geosphere Games.
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