[Prototype] Fireteam

edited in Projects
Fireteam (Created for a game jam)

Gameplay video


Download playable demo here (Fireteam-PC)

You can contribute if you want, make a mission: mission kit
All you need is the Tiled editor to start painting.

"Congratulations Commander, you are finally in charge of your own fireteam of our finest space marines.

Your mission awaits. Take the initiative against overwhelming odds.
Will you cluster your team together for superior firepower or spread them out to have greater visibility of the battlefield?
Each marine is unique. Utilise them wisely.
Under your command the fireteam will achieve glorious victory, or perish miserably.

Remember, we are watching..."

[end of transmission]


image

Level design
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Concept & scope

Player must manage a team of marines and eliminate infestation on spaceship, deck by deck.
Player chooses 4 marines from a pool of 6 (unique personalities).
Each marine has single unique weapon and ability.

Enemies:
spawn pit
ship automated turret

Weapons: (varying range, firerate, damage, ammo)
1) fist (short range)
2) pistol/blaster like (medium range)
3) scatter/ricochet type (medium range)
4) lazer snipe thing (long range, low fire rate, penetrate multiple)
5) machine gun (medium range, high fire rate)
6) shotgun/flamer like (short range high damage)

Marine abilities (all are passive, ranged and/or intermittent)
1) auto heals nearby marines + has higher health
2) slow nearby enemies
3) reveals unseen enemies
4) fast marine + buffs fire speed of nearby marines
5) shield dude perhaps?
6) ammo dude (in the rear with the gear)

General gameplay:
Field of view & line of sight visibility limited on map
Player manages team movement and positioning
Keep marines alive
Clear level, move on to increasingly difficult scenario

Out of scope: maybe procedural levels, if concept works, with stacking difficulty ala Devil Daggers.
Making use of static levels using the Tiled editor. Makes for easier placement of mission objectives.

Comments

  • edited
    I have art too! :) Would prefer a local source though... ;-P
  • Dev Update:

    Level creation (tiled) and pathfinding (A*) already works. Ripped it from previous prototypes to save time.
    Currently working on team management (move here, all move there, follow me, tie your shoelaces)
    Hope to have first demo up this weekend sometime.
  • Uploaded playable demo. See original post.
    I would love to hear any feedback on how the controls feel when commanding the squad.
    Suggestions welcome :)
  • Hey man! Wanna try your game, however the itch.io link takes me to a 404 page not found page. Make sure you are linking the public page and not your edit version of the page? I am not sure but hope you can get it sorted.
    Thanked by 1konman
  • Thanks @vince, I've made the page public. Should work now?
  • Yeah it works now. I like what you have going so far. The squad controls are working decently well I would say. You could maybe have the target locations of the marines following you be set to form a triangle/line next to the marine you are controlling. As to form sort of a offensive line or formation. You could look at taking the controlled marine's right vector and offsetting from that. I would use that as a base offset and then random a small offset from that location, so that is not a perfectly straight line or triangle formation, but still clearly visible.

    From moving them around the ship I get taken back to StarCraft 2 blasting aliens. So that's what I wanna do next! Can't wait till there are some enemies to shoot at. Combat wise will it be aim to shoot or will all the marines auto-fire at enemies?
    Thanked by 1konman
  • edited
    @vince I like your idea of having formations when following. Currently it's just random. Will definitely add it to shopping list, but need to focus on adding core stuff now to test fighting mechanics.

    Combat wise the marine you control you'll need to manual fire. I think the others will need to auto-fire?

    Blasting aliens? You got it. Coming up in next update in an hour or so. I've added a basic enemy alien that uses some pretty simple AI to locate the marines. It will prioritise targets based on closest for now. I've also been adding some better looking level tiles and some moody lights. Thanks for the feedback :)
  • Hi, an updated demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.2.zip) is available. See original post.

    The new update adds basic level tiles & lights, but more importantly...
    there's an alien in there somewhere too.

    Unfortunately you and your pals have no way to defend yourselves yet. Sorry! :)
    All you can do for now is...RUN! Lol

    If you're the curious type, hold down F1 to see the alien and the antics it gets up to in its efforts to get to you.

    I will be giving the marines weapons next update to get some payback after this v0.2.

    For that I don't just want to do a Instantiate(bulletPrefab) in some direction, but am looking to
    create a reusable class that deals with shooting projectiles in general.

    Stuff like firerate, ammo, range etc must be considered, if I hope to add those 6 weapon variations quickly in the near future.

    With potential bullet hell happening soon, I'll also probably have to consider some type of object pooling
    for performance reasons. All this will require a little more work upfront, but well worth it for future flexibility I think.

    I hope to have the next update up for download tomorrow sometime.
    Would love to hear any feedback on what is here currently.

    Your suggestions always welcome :)
  • Nice progress so far! I agree the formations are more like a wish list feature, focus on getting the core stuff completed.

    I tried the new version now, I like the mood lights and the fact that all my buddies got shredded by the alien and I ended up running away alone. One thing though, I don't know what pathfinding system you are using, but the alien does get stuck on the other-side of the cross if you manage to get into one of the other corners, as in he tries to go straight for you, instead of around obstacles. If you are doing this yourself I'd say don't stress about it, you can look at A* or unity's NavMesh later, for now it won't be game in terms of your jam game. Focus on getting some bullets flying and closing out a basic game loop. Spawn, Run + Shoot, Die, Retry.

    Best of luck to you!
    Thanked by 1konman
  • Thanks for playtesting and feedback @vince, appreciate it.
    Yeah I'm trying to find that elusive basic game loop as quickly as possible without focusing on superfluous stuff. The marines use A*, the aliens some simple avoidance thing. Might need to change them to use A* too in future.
  • Hi, an updated demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.3.zip) is now available. See original post.

    Added:
    1) Multiple aliens! New spawner that send an escalated sized wave every 10 seconds
    You can eliminate the infestation by running over the spawner.

    2) Team mate AI: marines not directly controlled by player can now aim/shoot (you can set fire mode to "Fire at Will" or "Hold fire").

    3) Player controlled character has a new accuracy thing (see cursor).
    If you move or shoot, your aim accuracy degrades. Stand still for better results.

    Up next I want to add that first unique ability (radar) to one of the marines to see if it adds value to marine placement as a strategy. I also didn't get to make my reusable gun class yet...
  • Hi, an updated demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.4.zip) is now available. See original post.

    Added:
    1) A few basic sounds
    2) Green dude has a unique ability: Radar (show hidden enemies)
    3) Blue dude has a unique ability: Statis field (slows enemies)

    Mr. Yellow and Red have auras that don't do anything yet.
    Maybe red one will heal and yellow one will recharge energy used by weapons and abilities?

    This is the last update for the weekend, I am shattered. It's been really productive and I'm happy with results.
    Next up I think maybe add weapon/health/energy functionality and visuals along with Mr Red and Yellow's abilities?

    Thanks for your feedback. As always all suggestions welcome :)
  • You make me envy your progress haha. Good work on the consistent updates and new features. I'd say you are going at a good pace and should be able to finish a game loop out in the coming week. One thing that I'd like to see soon is just a sound effect on weapon fire, usually makes a big difference and only takes a few seconds.
    Thanked by 1konman
  • edited
    Thanks @vince. I am currently working on closing out that game loop. I hope an objective based mission system will give the player a reason to be there and some things to do. Luckily I am on leave this week so I have the time. :) Just added the weapon fire sound effect too. I have a huge sound archive to assist (www.sonniss.com).
  • Hi, Updated demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.5.zip) is now available. See original post.

    Added:
    1) Weapon sound effect.
    2) Improved visibility of selected marine, cursor colors, off-screen indication and gave them names. (from old prototype)
    3) Initial mission objective system added (chatting dude is also brought in from older prototype to save time)

    Trying to get working mission objectives in next.
  • Hiya, new demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.6.zip) is now available. See original post.

    A configurable objective based mission system with a single demo mission is now implemented.
    It's fairly quick to add more missions.

    Missions give much needed purpose for the player being there, some things to do and perhaps a bit of story.

    A mission can have up to 10 objectives max currently, each with configurable text, expiry time, sprite and sound. There's also some new sound effects added, although a stereo effect eludes me
    even though the listener is on the cam and the audio sources are positioned correctly?

    Next I might flesh out the unique marine personalities a bit more and maybe add health and energy usage. Also the enemy AI is still terrible...

    At the end of the week, if there's time, I'd like to see how to get that level/map to feel more like a spaceship and less like something from 1983 :)
  • edited
    Hey. Haven't tried all the new things, but I believe you are looking for the Spatial Blend slider on your AudioSource components. Slide them over to 3D. If I understand correctly.
    Thanked by 1konman
  • Thanks @vince, that works like a charm :D
  • Hi, new demo (Fireteam-PC-v0.7.zip) is now available. See original post.

    Lots of new sounds and weapon effects added to make each marine feel unique. Fixed canvas to render better for different screen resolutions. A few minor nips and tucks and quality of life items added. Stereo sound, thanks vince!

    I also cheated a bit... I've taken away sharp corners on the map near enemy spawn to prevent them getting stuck on their way over. It conveniently hides my bad enemy AI :) Games are just smoke and mirrors anyways, right?

    Today I might add turrets and making the marines feel much more individual.
  • edited
    Hi, Another update...Fireteam-PC-v0.8.zip is now available. See original post.

    I spent all day getting the marine UI in to make each individual feel unique while also displaying vital information and stats.

    I got some awesome weapon and portrait art on opengameart.org that I used.

    The UI is 99% done, just really been struggling to get the gun reload image to work properly...
    Image.fillAmount need to go from 0 to 1 using firerate somehow...

    Currently you can take damage and use up energy(ammo) when firing.
    The red dude (medic) and yellow dude (energy) is meant to recharge the marines, but that's not in yet. Will happen tomorrow.
    There's currently 100 rounds of ammo per marine. That should surely be enough to finish the mission, right? :)
  • Hi, I've updated Fireteam to v0.9. See original post.

    The medic (REM) now has the "stimpack" ability and the engineer (Eiffel) has the "tesla coil" module equipped.
    These passive abilities now recharges the health/energy of any marine within range.
    The recharge rate is slow but constant.

    I think that all functionality is in now. I might add a turret and some exploding barrels time permitting.

    I will now start focussing on cosmetics and want to use SpriteLamp to add Ambient Occlusion to some of the sprites.
    I am going for a dark and gritty horror vibe , so I'll also add some lights that will hopefully make the gunfights more spectacular.

    Final update will be tomorrow before our deadline.
  • edited
    Hi, Fireteam v1.0 is done! and ready to be submitted. See original post for download link.

    There's only one mission due to time constraints, but it is fairly easy to add more. There are also quite a few optimisations and improvements I'd still like to make. Overall I'm quite happy with the end result and think this prototype is ready to be incorporated into a larger one that I've had in mind.

    I would love to hear your feedback if you do find the time to give it a play.
  • Here's some gameplay...
  • edited
    If anyone wants to contribute and take a stab at making a mission, here's a mission kit to make new levels and objectives.
    All you need is the Tiled editor to start painting.

    Please PM me if you need more info.

  • Hi, Fireteam has been updated (v1.02). See original post for download link.

    Added:
    Fog of war
    Health/Energy indicators for team
    Weapon recharge indicator fixed (thanks @vince)
  • edited
    I've done some more work on this prototype this week. (Download link in original post)

    Added better level art, improved shadows, particle effects, explosions etc. I am trying to establish a more claustrophobic feel to hopefully add to the horror/sci-fi vibe I am trying to create.

    Here's a short gameplay demo vid:


    Any gameplay feedback is much appreciated as it will allow me to improve :)
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