E: Reservoir - Build 0.4

Comments

  • edited
    Okay! I've got the first "Runnable" build up:

    Build 0.2 - Drone Tester

    I say "Runnable" because it's not playble yet - all you can do is walk around while the drone hunts you. There is no penalty for getting caught and the level is very very basic.

    What I'm looking for is feedback on the controls - is the mouse too insensitive? Can you move fine with WASD or cursors?

    Also, play around with the drone, there's a little bug in it now that every time you move while in sight of it, it stands still - clever I know :P. This gives you some time to move away from it and hide around a corner!

    It also tends to get on the corners quite a bit. I threw together the navigation network, so it probably needs a lot of tweaking. I have however, built in a little un-sticking mechanism - see if you can spot it.

  • @Nitrogen cheer for the first build! :D

    1. pretty O.O
    2. mouse was a bit insensitive om my mouse's normal speed setting
    3. could use both wasd and arrow keys just fine
    4. and you guys said my monster was brutal ;)
    5. PRETTY!
    6. drone NEEDS beepy noises :D
    7. not sure if this is what you are going for, or if you just have not had a chance to get to it yet, but i could not hide behind a corner. It would race into the room, turn, and stare at me.
    8. changing the droid's light colour based on it's state would be really cool, but then again you probably already have something like that planned

    going to keep an eye here to see how your droid develops
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • Thanks for trying it out!

    Beeping noises have been made and are awaiting integration! :D
    Mouse Sensitivity.. I may need to make a settings menu for it.

    And I never even thought about changing the droids light colour! Reminds me of bioshock! Could be very cool!

  • @Nitrogen - like where this is going. I do not have any real critique to give as @Pixel_Reaper has already mentioned the same things I would have. Nice.
  • @Nitrogen Know what would be cool? if your droid had some limbs that could fold out into a threatening pose when it goes into the sighted state. also in the roam state, if you made it pause for a bit, look in a random direction and then have a rapid clicking sound of a camera with some flashes...and how about a scan line thing across the room? haha just throwing out some ideas :)
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • Some good ideas there @pixel_reaper, I'm definitely thinking the drone will kill you by rushing at you and chopping you to pieces - makes things more interesting than just shooting you from afar.

    And looking around in the roam state is probably a good idea as well - right now it rushes from one node to the next without pausing.
  • edited
    @Nitrogen - Okay so played a bit more and just wanted to add a few comments:
    1. You need to lock the cursor to the screen. The sensitivity was fine, but I think the problem is that the controls start to feel wonky when the cursor moves of the playable screen. Maybe have a look at this:
    http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Screen-lockCursor.html
    2. The purple light in one of the rooms is too "disco-y". The other colors were softer and less noticable.
    3. Love the material on your drone.
    4. Is there going to be some interaction between the player and the drone, or is you main strategy against it to RUN!! ASWD and arrows felt fine.
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • Thanks for the feedback @FanieG,

    I'll lock the cursor asap! The room lighting and material on the drone is all very much placeholder art at the moment - there's supposed to be proper level pieces and a properly modelled drone to be put in.

    The interaction between the player and the drone is planned out like this: The drone will be alerted by things you do in the level - I have an idea about light switches, and having to turn lights on and off while balancing the power draw. When you turn a light on, it will alert the drone who will come investigating and you can thus draw the drone away from an area you need to be.

    When it comes down to a face to face with the drone, there is a slight chance you'll be able to avoid it if you are quick enough or can sneak quickly behind it, but dont count on it!
  • edited
    Build 0.3 - Sound Tester

    Build 0.3 is up! The game has sound! I spend quite a few hours piecing together stuff from freesound.org and FL Studio, but enjoyed every minute of it.

    Sounds added to the drone, footsteps and ambient noises.
    The drone behaviour, speed and movement has been completely revamped
    The cursor locks now.
    And there's a mouse sensitivity slider in the menu now.

    EDIT: Okay so the footsteps are not working. For some reason, my script variables arent being saved and carried across to the Web Build, but they work fine in the editor. Any ideas?
  • edited
    Okay I fixed it and updated Build 0.3

    I had to rename my script class to something else before it would pick up the extra public fields I added. Strange. Could be to do with having a Javascript class of the same name as a C# class.
  • I find it a good practice to keep all my scripts to one language ;) just saying, besides I won't touch javascript with a stick...
  • edited
    I find it a good practice to keep all my scripts to one language ;) just saying, besides I won't touch javascript with a stick...
    I agree 100%. It was the FPSCharacterController.js file that ships with Unity. I wanted to modify it without dealing with the monstrosity that is JS in Unity, and duplicated it into a C# class with the same name.
  • Ah makes sense then, could just have deleted the javascript one then since you have replaced it :P I'll give your 0.3 build a go when I get home. I saw it last night (very early this morning?) but had some performance issues needing attention on my entry.
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • @Nitrogen - I had a similar issue with a script (where new public fields weren't registering in web build), but couldn't figure out how to fix it. Renaming worked, as you suggested. Thanks for that.
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • It's coming on very nicely; very atmospheric and I think the sound is very effective. I also like the interesting spaces (although the more you can push it the better; and also, I feel an interesting corner should have something interesting in it as well... but that;s just opinion).

    With these kinds of mazes, it's difficult to have a sense of "spatial progression", making it less interesting and harder to navigate. One trick (just as an example, not necessarily a suggestion), would be to sample your light temperature from a perlin noise map; that way you get pockets of cool and pockets of warm; helping with both navigation and interest. (You can use the same to adjust sound, items, texture variations, etc. to get nice spatial coherence algorithmically).
  • Thanks Herman!

    The way I originally planned to deal with the "spatial progression" problem was to make a number of vastly different rooms the entire game - perhaps connected by similar walkways.

    Games like Half Life 2 have levels that are completely bespoke, where rooms are not often, if ever, duplicated and reused. That was what I was aiming for.

    Games like Oblivion and Skyrim have the same cookie-cutter template pieces so dungeon crawling is much more boring than navigating the sewers of HL2.

    As for populating the level with interesting things - well that would be nice but I doubt I'll have any time to add in anything, but I do agree with you.


    I've just finished modelling the escape hatch valves.
    image
    These are what you're trying to reach at the end of the maze. Once you turn all 4 valves, you have a limited time to get back to the start and escape before the sluices open and you're drowned (that part wont be in the game)

    I wanted something that would be slightly more time consuming than just flicking a switch, as all hell will break loose when you do activate the escape route.
    13.jpg
    1336 x 763 - 80K
  • Competition Build

    Okay it's been a hell of a month, but my competition entry is done - or as done as it's ever going to be at 3:30am :/
    Naturally I ran out of time and couldn't implement some cool ideas.

    Apologies for the *horrible* level design, but making your own level pieces is ridiculously time consuming so I only made a handful of pieces.
    I also didnt get a chance to test the victory conditions, so there may be some unexpected side effects.

  • Very cool :) you gave it a nice atmosphere. sorry that you could not implement your other cool ideas, but thats what happens with a deadline hey, have you seen how ugly my entry is? :P

    well I got one valve open before I had to run...and get choped to bits. so I can confirm that atleast the lose condition works.

    are you going to keep working on this?

    ps. I like what you did with your main menu. thumbs up!
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • Yeah, I'm going to keep working on it, if only just to put in a cool idea I had for a timer.

    And tweak the AI again.. Tweaking AI can take as long and developing the whole game did.

    I've now seen first hand how time consuming it is to make a 3D game, although Unity makes it hell of a lot easier. I cant imagine doing this and having to write the engine on top of it all...

    I havent played your entry yet! 4am bed times for the last two days have turned me into a bit of a zombie. Will play everyones during the course of the week.
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