B: BB

Pomb

Horay for posting a prototype.

[url = http://www.mediafire.com/?jgffbdwpwjh1btd]Download[/url]
I'm not sure what BB stands for... Boom Blocks? Black Boys, Beastly Bling or something. Boom Boom.

My attempt to make something that is a 2 player, real time pvp. Controls are horrible, so if you have suggestions hit me.
Thoughts are that you need fine grain control to be able to shoot in any direction, or else you limited to axis and diagonals which then means you have to be in the right place to hit the other player? not cool, not what I wanted. My guess is that it would play better with the mouse and a network, but the idea was 2 players 1 keyboard, so going to try stick to that, and make it work/fun. Also I want xbox controllers :)

Objective : Kill the other player by shooting a block at him! 2 players ONLY.
Warning : Not suitable for those allergic to particles and T-Poses.

//Controls
Player 1

movement = WASD
shoot = J

Player 2

movement = Arrow Keys
shoot = right Shift

//Bugs / awesome features
- teleporting (because my code, yuk.... ><)
lesson: don't code at night when not fueled by coffee?

Fengol

Just a note, if you travel too far to the side the floor disappears and bombs fall through. I suggest building done walls to hem the players in.

Speaking of walls the level really needs an arena layout with walls or obstacles to hide behind and chase you opponent through. Walls could have different heights to bounce bombs back or just prevent blast damage. Then you could have ramps which give launch height and dips that shorten the range.

Since the bombs are physics based what about other weapons that react different with the scenery? You could have them as pick-ups with a limited ammo and you revert to the default bomb.

I look forward to seeing this progress but it needs scenery to make the bombs interesting

Pomb

Cool thank you @aodendaal for playing and for the comments.
Walls : I tried implementing them, but the controllers didn't want to collide with them for some reason, will have a look at that again.
Other weapons : I like your idea of other weapons and the height varying the range, not sure how to go about implementing that...

I've just implemented a larger blast radius to double! which changes the fight dynamic quite a bit, but it is still lacking a sense of strategy.
was thinking of adding a random drop that your next bomb is double radius and a entangling roots effect on the opposing player if hit, or maybe guaranteed. So you just shoot, he's ensnared and then that gives you time to try aim up and blast his face!

also added a trail, so to help easier identify your and your opponents movement direction, seemed to help the battle too.

tbulford

Some ideas :)

Would love to see terrain that effects the physics bouncy pads for players and physics perhaps a short use shield you can call on at a time.

Different weapons would certainly be good. And perhaps terrain where you can get above on ramps and things like that. Explosions could push the players back causing them to fall off edges into nasty spikes :) (although that probably wont work well with the scoring engine)

Keep us informed.

Pomb

Cool thanks @tbulforf, I'll definitely add the bouncy pads! that sounds awesome :) It's just given me a teleporting idea: where there's a random item drop, upon collection of said item, your character gets sucked into the block he's standing on, you then get to travel around underground at 2X speed with perhaps a light that blinks periodically showing what block you under, then after X amount of time you auto emerge, or upon fire, SURPRISE! haha.
Thanks for the suggestions.

Pomb

Hey so here's this evenings new [url = http://www.mediafire.com/?pmwvotucctfiuj9]Download[/url]
I've added:
- Bouncy walls
- AOE bomb damage + damage display
- 5 second purge pick up
- changed character movements from rigid body movement to unity’s built in character controller
- 1000 point win condition
Would like to take on the varying heights ideas, and have that effect the throw distance and then also underground travel, or teleporting!

EvanGreenwood

We played this a couple times (I demanded a rematch when I lost). (By the way, you have to restart the program to reset the timeScale, otherwise you are playing in super slow-motion for the second round).

BB produces some interesting spacial challenges. There was a definite sense of outsmarting your opponent. The bouncing off walls mechanic and judging the time until explosion seems like it could produce a lot of gameplay.

You could probably make it 3 player with the current controls. i.e. Include the mouse as a possible player, drag left and right to rotate, left click attack, right click forward. (Though admittedly that might be a bit awkward, but it might produce some new strategies).

Some stuff I'd suggest you work on improving:

It's difficult to tell what direction you are aiming in (especially when you are facing upwards). A more identifiable character, or even just a line drawn along the path the projectiles will take would be nice. If you wanted to be fancy the line could bounce off walls like the projectiles will, though that's maybe a bit much so soon in this prototype.

More pickups, that spawn randomly etc. I suspect the game may become very standoffish once both players understand the system. So encouraging them to move around the map to gain random advantages will help the combat dynamics evolve. When we played we never had the dynamic of one player having to run away and use the terrain to hide (due to temporarily not being able to shoot), but I suspect this is what you were going for with the pickup.

Also:

I'm not 100% convinced in the style of controls. I know the fire rate and the range of explosions and the map layout are based on the playerss ability to move. I guess I just feel it might be a bit slow. Slow to turn and slow to move. However changing the turning and movement might reduce the strategy, it might become more like a bullet dodging game if the players move too quickly.



What I like here is that, similar to BB, the player just presses forward to move and left and right to turn, but once going forward the player can turn and shoot. Because Luftrausers is about flying a plane through the air obviously maintaining velocity while firing in another direction works well, though I don't know whether it'd fit in BB. I feel like I'd like BB to be a little more action orientated... though I wouldn't want the strategy ruined.

This game did local multiplayer shooting-at-each-other-strategically quite well:



(Which also has a lot of traveling in one direction while shooting in another, though the 0Space controls are much more complicated than those of BB)

Anyway... those are some ideas. Not sure if they fit. Looking forward to where you take this!

P.S. I also like the idea @tbulford suggested. Bouncy pad and things that allow the player to move around the map faster would add more meaning to player positioning.

P.P.S I'd like to try a BB fight in an arena that has solid walls all along the outside edges, that way bullets will never go off into space and winning will be quicker. It would be a bit faster and a bit more chaotic, but I like that kind of thing.

P.P.P.S If you do do different kinds of weapons (like @tbulford suggested) then a weapon that has explosions that cause knockback might be wonderfully chaotic.

EvanGreenwood

Ack! I keep forgetting what the competition is meant to be about! Not adding lots of new mechanics but instead refining what you've got...

I think? ...Though dynamics that affect player movement and the shooting probably fall under refinement??

skinklizzard

I have yet to try this but from reading the thread it reminds me of the manga btoom which was about a first person shooter
where the weapons are all different types of bomb and strategy came in with knowing how to use the different types (players would spawn with one of the types at random)
one of the weapons was a delayed trigger mine type bomb, which might fit with your game, so a bomb that can be triggered again to explode but bounces less and
has a lower throw range.

Pomb

@BlackShipsFilltheSky thanks for that dude! Your input is greatly appreciated. For some reason the movement in the build is slower than when playing in the editor, something that now isn't a problem anymore, not sure why that happened. Time scale is now fixed. Random pickup buffs, noted and will implement! like boots of speed or rage which doubles everything! I've added the bouncy walls, made them as bouncy as I know how and is pretty fun, shooting arrows/ bombs into the portal seeing them come out the other side. Difficult controls, agreed, not sure what to do to them to make them work better. The asteroid controls where you float in a direction is good for flying games but less so for BB, as you said not sure if it suites it, one strategy is to move backwards and shoot :) Games are indeed now a bit faster, also involves blocking play, BUT you have to toggle to your weapon or shield to use it, also you can run out of ammo! balls. There still some things I want to implement before uploading the next iteration, such as collecting an Item you already have just adds ammo instead of an extra item in your inventory. 3 cheers for a working array! The explosion thing : I had that working!!! it added explosive force to the player depending on how close they were from the center of the blast, looked freekin awesome! then I changed my player code to use 1 player class for both players, and the effect vanished, definitely going to get it back in!

@SkinkLizzard, those are cool ideas too! I like the mine bomb a lot! also I think i know how to do the power throwing of the bomb, that would be awesome too, 3 cheers for awesome community help! Horrah Horrah Horrah.
I know prototypes are supposed to serve as getting your game idea out as fast as possible, but it seems it presents a good opportunity to an artist ( aka me ) to practice those skills too, modeling, rigging, painting etc. More practice is more practice, rather than watching tv. Here's what some painting practice turned into:



The plan is to have two or three textures that I can blend between for different parts on the ground specially areas where buildings meet grass.
Was watching some guys playing Diablo 3 at work, and the destructible environments really made it all that more juicy. I'd like to see if I can add in trees that if you shoot with bombs the leaves get affected and blow off, but also just ambient wind movement on leaves, could be a cool exercise, and will add life, something I really take pleasure in doing... giving life to pixels.

Thanks for playing and taking the time to comment, the help is appreciated.