What game projects are you working on?

edited in Projects
<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I thought it would be a good/interesting idea to post a summary of what each of us are working on here (if you have decided not to take the secretive approach). I'll start off with what I am doing. Feel free to tell me what a bad idea it is :P</font><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">So the game, yet to be named, I am working on, is a 2D Zombie survival game programmed in Unity + C#. I am trying to take a different approach from your average zombie shooter. I'm trying to make it more to the likes (though not exactly) of what I believe a zombie apocalypse will be like. No I do not believe the few survivors would run around with guns. Most of it will probably running away and hiding! I will have some weapons though, maybe even some sci-fi, but I'll probably tend to stay away from that.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">At the moments I have hordes and hordes (1000's ) of zombies on my map. The map is really nothing yet - just a big tarmac with an equally ugly warehouse building in the center. It also features some stupid survivor AI, just running around, etc. They tend to run away from zombies when chased, but gang up on zombies when they believe it is safe (which is wrong most of the time :P ). Working on making smarter AI at the moment.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">There are still some resolution issues which I want to work out before posting a version online (don't want to make you guys downloading ~30mb just to discover it doesn't run on your monitor size). Can't wait to do this so I can get some criticism and opinions from you guys.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Now, what are you guys working on? 

Update:
Here is a link to my game's thread<a href="http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/76/grave-days-game#Item_1">Grave Days</a>
</font></div>

Comments

  • edited
    <font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">So I'm working on 2 games at the moment. Both in my spare time and I just want to see where they could go. I'm not a professional dev or anything but I hope to make something worthwhile from this (or painfully throw it away if it's not that fun :p)</font><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">Game 1: RTS OpenStreetMap, Real-Life tanks/zombies in-yo'-hood game</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/8b/dcc30d541606f796c6dbaa64618856.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">So in the image is the Cape Town region as extracted from an OpenStreetMap file. I've got a newer version of this with swarming zombies/rioters (but actually little spheres) running towards a spot on the N1 road. I'll post a video when I get the chance.</font><br><br><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I am trying to get real terrain height information because it doesn't feel 'Cape Town' enough owing to it being so flat. If this goes anywhere I would like to stream map data from a server to allow one to view anywhere in the world. After that, if anyone is keen for simulated global warfare I might have the game for you! Might want to do this on a tablet and have a battle across the city that you use the tablet as your view screen into the war-zone version of your home city.</font></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">Possibilities are wide on this one but I'll see where it goes.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">Game 2: PPLS (I'm trying to come up with an acronym for this, "Passively Provoked Life Systems" ... or something) basically a rapid evolution/training puzzle game</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/f0/6abbb662b337a99743092507c30320.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Mind the crappy textures, I'm just using unity's standard. Essentially that platform on in the middle can be raised and lowered. The little red squares are little 'creatures' and are moving/jumping towards the right, each has their own jump height and jump frequency. So they just randomly jump, hopefully over the platform, and they survive. If not they, unfortunately, disappear.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">The remaining ones continuously loop back to the start and get to breed to create more little dudes, now hopefully with better jumping ability. Once the population is good enough at jumping over the platform, you raise it a bit and 'natural' selection makes more better jumping baby red blocks, and so on. So far it takes like 5 mins to get them jumping almost at the top of the screen. Also going to make traits for jumping more/less frequently or to be faster/slower stronger/weaker etc. But proof of concept works! Probably make it very open for users to create their own training course to evolve the little dudes. And then add some form of task that needs to be done with the population.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">The theme I'm thinking of going for a lemmings/world of goo sort of vibe, but I'm a coder so I'm going to focus on making an evolution toolbox before artwork ;p</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I'll def post a video of this one soonish, since it's kinda fun to train your population (by natural selection) to jump higher or less often</font></div>
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  • Cool, both of these sound interesting! Your first game sounds particularly difficult to implement. You should keep as updated. It will be interesting to see where you go with this. Best of luck!
  • \o/<br><br>what are others working on?
  • I'm taking screenshots of DD levels and documenting events in each of them for our composers.<br><br><img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/f0/f71e963d29e81a4d58d79e6fae6399.png"><br><br>In my spare time I'm messing with an idea for a deck-building card game. Currently it's a steampunk exploration and research game where you undertake adventures and invent fantastic machines in order to gain glory for your empire/house/patron. Trying to deal with some of the mechanics that I don't like in deck-builders, like getting stuck trying to deal with crappy starting hand cards, endless screw-player-over loops and lack of general progression sometimes. There's probably going to be a common invention deck that gets built as players research stuff and then anyone can use things in it. Rather like the face up cards in hold-em poker.<br><br>I have no idea what to do with a card game when it's done though...<br>
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  • Might as well post this - I took a "vacation" day off work to hack away at my latest creation, "Barrage". It's a fairly simple shooter with a small twist, but my original plan was to make something very small and finishable, though as always, it's grown into a writhing mass. Even though it's somewhat lacking in mind-wrinkling innovation, it's turning out to be quite fun and I find myself really getting into it when testing and whatnot.<div><br></div><div>@raxter: PPLS looks dang cool man, really interesting idea! I love that notion of extremely rapidly-evolving intelligence, and then throwing in a puzzling/arcade aspect. Very nice!</div>
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  • <p>Outside of the day job (NDA), and the gotta-do-it-for-myself painting and sculpting (which is more generic art, as opposed to being game-specific), I've been working on fx for a game on the side. Been writing some simplish shaders that my fx would need to do (scroll, fade, various blending, maybe other stuff when the need arises), as well as scripting a little framework that makes it easy for me to string various effects together.</p><p>It allows me to grab various effects (usually a combination of particle systems, meshes and lights), change their properties (time the effects, turn stuff on and off, animate, etc.) pretty easily to match each character's animation and their abilities. Quite fun to do, because fx always add a lot of life and KAPOW to things, as well as being one of those fun cases where I get to do a little programming and a lot of art.</p><p>Also been working on a Unity tool that I've often wished existed. Hoping to reveal it at the Joburg meet next week, and then here afterwards, but we'll see how life works out!</p>
  • edited
    <font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">"Living in here in Jersey fighting villains from afar.  You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car."</font><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">"I dig giant robot, @Gazza_N dig giant robot, we <b>make</b> giant robot."</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">"Nice!"</font></div>
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  • <span style="font-size: small; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"It also features some stupid survivor AI, just running around, etc. They tend to run away from zombies when chased, but gang up on zombies when they believe it is safe (which is wrong most of the time :P )"</span><div style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></span></div><div style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">HAHAHA sounds funny. @Denzel, is there anyway that you can post a video of this survivor vs zombie scene?</span></div>
  • When I'm not working with @aodendaal on Nameless Mech Game (I'm on 3D model/animation and terrain generator duty, with other responsibilities pending), I'm working on a Unity remake of the Gears of War JRPG I built for a Game.Dev comp two years back.

    I'd be further along on both projects if I didn't have a fairly demanding day job. :P
  • edited
    "I'm working on a Unity remake of the Gears of War JRPG I built for a Game.Dev comp two years back.

    Unity remake of the Gears of War JRPG I built for a Game.Dev

    remake of the Gears of War JRPG

    Gears of War JRPG"

    ... Fuck yes.
  • image

    Yes I am actually still busy with my tank game.... I am being pummeled at my day job but that should soon pass and then I hope to put in some good focused effort again :) In the meantime I'm trying to just build levels so that I can get ~20 finished for the game's campaign.
  • So, right now we're working on "Rooks Keep". It's a Deathmatch, fantasy combat game with Chess and various other game-modes. Maybe best described as UT with swords :)
    It's built in UDK, and the game's in private beta right now. We've got a bit more to do on it, but it's coming along very well I think :)

    Anyway, for my part, I handle animation, texturing, level design, environment art, sound and music. @DarkCarnivour handles the programming, character modelling, FX and art.
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  • @raithza Cool!!!
    and
    @ShadowBlade Cool! :D

    I would like to try these games. I especially like medieval/dark ages type of games. Defs wana try this one out!
  • edited
    I'm working on a game, officially named Fling Fu. It is a simple third person fighting game in which you fling your ninja-foot into some other ninja's face. Fun!

    Here is the link to the, very incomplete, game ;). /https://www.dropbox.com/sh/i80d5kfevhytz76/9WFSAKRj8E
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  • ^ That game. So much win.
  • @notsimon207 Was great to get a look at Fling Ninja last night :) I'll drop you a message with my email so I can get a test on device for you as discussed.

    Outside of that, I thought a bit more about the "what it needs to be launchable" thing:
    * Content: So you have a great gameplay demo now, and you've made it clear you don't want to do levels that need to be progressed through, but you'd at least need some varied arenas to give your players some reason to keep playing. You did mention obstacles and traps, once those are in you're talking more of a real game.
    * Motivation/Progression: Again, as a gameplay demo it's fun, but other than killing all the enemies there's no real reason to play. So it's kill all the enemies, play once again maybe to kill all enemies, probably delete from device. So some kind of endless spawning of enemies perhaps? Starting with just a couple and ramping up to crazy. Maybe the enemies get bigger and tougher somehow?
    * Scoring: Builds on the motivation, score per hit perhaps? With higher score for certain hits? Perhaps this could be tied to the energy recharge, giving a bump in energy for high quality hits. How about a combo counter with energy recharge rewards based on chained hits? Ditto for varied hits.
    * Leaderboards: Once scoring is figured out, adding something like OpenFeint would be essential for devices.
    *Visual Juice (yay for talk reference :P): Simple blood particles or other effect on impact, swipe trails. As discussed your minimal monochrome look is AWESOME, so need to be careful to not detract from it, but splashes of colour from effects over the generally monochrome world and characters would stand out beautifully IMO.
    *Audio Juice: Was there audio? Need impact sounds at least and music.
    *Menu and UI: @Elyaradine had a good suggestion about UI inspired by Japanese paintings (Okami Jono?), I could see something simple like that looking great. Simple brush strokes behind a clean font for score, etc. Menu wise, again simple could be perfect, and trust me after spending couple of weeks on menus, you want to keep it simple :)

    I know you said you'd rather be watching TV (seriously!?) but if you are one of the few people that actually have the luxury of spending a full 6-8 hours a day on this, you could probably get it launch ready in under two months.
    Thanked by 1Elyaradine
  • Oh, and sadly the name Fling Ninja is taken: http://goo.gl/LXLYt
  • @notsimon207 I really want to see a video of that!
  • edited
    @mattbenic That is sad, oh well I'm sure I can come up with something else. Thanks for the heads up.
  • edited
    @raithza if you come to the JHB community session you could play it :)

    Edit: It is online now :)
  • Hey guys,

    I am new to this web site and the game design community as a whole. I thought I would start posting here and let you all know what I am working on. I am currently in matric in Nelspruit and part of the IT project we can do whatever we want. I decided to try and design my own game engine as a learning experience and I am loving it! The one problem is it is in Delphi (I know, ancient language) but school only uses Delphi. The cool thing is I am using OpenGL so it should not be too difficult to translate it to another language like C++, if it turns out to be an alright game engine. Currently only have 2D texturing, working and state management, memory management and a few small things but hopefully it will turn out to be something good.

    That is my story. Looking forward to getting to know all of you, the game design community in South Africa.

    Cheers :)
  • "The one problem is it is in Delphi"

    Hey, nothing wrong with using the tools you know, at least the first time around :)
  • "Hey, nothing wrong with using the tools you know, at least the first time around"

    Yeah definitely :) its just a bit annoying that it has missing features compared to C++ such as Templates for example or in Delphi 7 you cannot have a constructor or other method within a record (structure). But otherwise it is going alright :)
  • Wait, what!? Delphi certainly has generics and from what I've read of Delphi 7, records can have functions as well as constructors.
  • Ah, delphi 7. Brings back memories. Here is a silly little game I made in Delphi 7 a long long time ago: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53328234/TheLineGame.rar

    It's pretty much a copy of Achtung (die kurwe!). It's a multiplayer only game (on one pc, different keys). It has LAN that doesn't work well and I never finished it. The reason I made it was because me and my friends used to play Achtung together, and here I just added some power-ups (which Actung didn't have back then.

    Keys: Spacebar to start the game (or new level, something like that). You can define keys for each player in-game. End key to escape.

    Sorry for being a little off-topic with this one :P
  • @aodendaal I believe Delphi 7 does not allow for constructors / methods in a record, but the later versions of Delphi have that feature, unless I am totally missing something!

    @Denzil Nice! I have never played Achtung before but this looks pretty awesome! :) Maybe one day when my project is complete I will show anyone who is interested.
  • IIRC Delphi 7 does have constructors. This is me trying to remember highscool IT though :/
  • In records (structs)?

    BTW everything everyone is working on sounds awesome!
  • Working on "Doodle Space Defence" for android. It was majorly inspired by "Doodle Jumper".

    It's still in the very early stages of development.
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  • edited
    Hello all,

    I've been dreaming of dungeons again... Sorry I can't help it.

    My little nameless monster can be viewed/downloaded here:

    www.webapple.net

    [Oops, image removed as it broke this site]

    It's a +- 45MB zip and it will also get the Microsoft XNA framework during install.

    It is more a game tech experiment than a demo, so drop those expectations...

    I created it with Microsoft XNA 4.0/C# in Feb/March 2012. The art assets and sounds are placeholders for now.

    The interesting bits for me were learning about how tiled terrain can be made to look more natural using transitions, the dynamic lighting aspects added some atmosphere
    and how to get those baddies to attack me using an AI state machine was fun to explore.

    I am currently developing a boring business web app for a large national company in Cape Town to sustain food and put roof ;)

    Hopefully i will find time/inspiration again to turn this demo into something else...

    Peace.
  • Hi Guys,

    I am working on my own iOs side-scroller game at the moment. The main character "Lupe" will try and run away from the chasing Luchadores. As he runs he can grab various cacti from the landscape and hurl them back at the Luchadores, to try and disable them, and slow them down from catching him. There will be various different cacti with different powers for each level. Lupe will also be able to collect different powers such as “time warp” or “jetpack” etc.

    I still have to work out some of the gameplay dynamics, but allot of the artwork is already complete. I will eventually need a programmer to put this all together, so hoping to get some funding from Indiegogo.com, so that I can actually pay someone. But so far, no luck on that route!

    imageimageimageimage
  • Why not make an animatic of the gameplay you're after in Flash or something? That way potential coders can go "Oooooooooh" and join you :)
  • Hey, that's a brill idea. Ill try that. I don't think my pics uploaded?
  • This mite work.
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  • That looks really cool, have you thought about any methods for showing "progression" (apart from scrolling of course) such as changing time of day, increasing difficulty, more obstacles, etc?

    Also, have you decided what you want the programmer to use yet or not? (Im sure quite a few people would shy away from Objective-C for isntance, and the same would go for Unity or Game Maker) If you arent picky it may be easier to find someone to join up with you.

    I would offer to join up but I probably wont have time until later on in the year to dedicate to working speedily on any project. (All of my projects are crawling forward at a snails pace) If you dont mind the time I could always work slow, or barring that if you want to take a stab at it yourself there are more than enough people that could help out when you get stuck or have questions?
  • @edg3, To answer your first question, ya, I have been playing around with some ideas for that. I am thinking of having a few different levels, that have different scenes. So that once you complete a level you go onto another area. Also time of day would change. And obstacles would be harder and more frequent, but that will all have to be worked out with the programmer, so we can see how it works. I am thinking most of it would be allot like "run like hell". I don't want to get too complicated tho. I am thinking about having different "luchadors" for each level.

    What I am struggling with now is how the controls will work, and how fast the Luchadors will catch up, and how "lupe" timing in throwing the cacti bombs will work. I can see it in my head, but that's were I need a programmer to work closely with. I could use the same guys I used with the "bush pilot" game. They recon they can do it for about $3600, or collaboration with percentage profit share. But they are in Italy, and I would prefer someone locally.

    I would like to get this first level working as a prototype, so I can get a feel for how it will work, and then iron out the gameplay.

    The other problem is payment. I was hoping to raise some funding, but I am useless at the marketing side (typical artist!). It's also possible I could go the collaboration route, and share profits, but that's not always easy for anyone here at the moment.

    I have been trying out "Spriter" for the sprite animations, and it looks awsum, especially if the programmer I work with can use the pluggins!

    As for doing the programming myself, no thank you. I am not that way inclined, although I was playing around with Gamesalad, pretty good program. I would rather leave that upto someone who knows what they are doing!

    Ultimately, from a time point of view, I am planning on getting a new game out every 3-6 months. I am purely aiming at the growing iPad/Android tablet market. I would love to have a small team of 3 doing this fulltime, but it's difficult to find a way to do this and keep paying the bills. I have studied the market intensively, and most games never make it big, that is why I want to get more out quickly. It's all about marketing, online, reviews etc! And keeping at it!
  • I have recently finished a 2d side-scroller game for pc using XNA.
    I am currently busy making a 3D game using Unity.
    I will be creating the same game twice, one will be a full 3d space game, and the other game will be the same but from a top-down view.

    These are two videos so far, and I will keep them updated.
    I might make a small tutorial from the top-down version(not included)


    (Particles have a force driving them to the back, will fix it)
  • Not sure where to post this, but here:
    http://www.learn3d.co.za/HomeGrown_Competition2012.html
    The Rage of the Squirrel is my game. :)
  • Just a quick update on my game.

  • Interesting, will there be a playable version to test and give feedback on? :)
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