Its rocking time! Grab the gun and lets make some robot zombie gibs! I'm pretty freaking proud of this prototype. If your not in the mood to play it (or are saying to yourself "I'm a big wuss and this game looks like it would rock my wuss core to much"), then at least look at the pictures.
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I'm getting to that point with Shooter where I start to freak out that I can't make a game. Its a mixture of not focusing on a constant vision, letting things get to piece meal, and my own doubts. I decided last night to jot some notes down but take some time to play some games to reset myself and remember why I am trying to do what I'm trying to do.
The Crackdown 2 demo came out this week (I think on Monday) and I could not be happier. While I'm not a big sandbox game guy, Crackdown always held a special place in my heart. The number 1 thing I wanted was zombies...and Crackdown 2 delivers vast hordes of mutated freaks to pulverize. Mix that with you super powered agent carrying massive guns and I'm more then sold. The demo is pretty solid and offers a chance to get a taste at the possibilities. Truly with Crackdown 2 they took everything in 1 and ramped it up. The only major complaint I have is that there is a terrible lack of music in the game. The ambient noise when you are powering through a wave of zombies really does not make the game any better. The moment I started playing some music over the game, it literally went from 10 to 11. Can't wait to get my hands on the full game - I'm so happy they are dropping this for the summer cause everyone knows we need more friggin summer games!
On the development front, I'm going to go outside (gasp!) with Laura to hangout at the pool. I think the fresh air and a notebook will do some good to figuring how I can redirect shooter development to stay on track. Maybe I'll get some work in tonight and put something up. Maybe.
While this weekend was rocking fun and busy (thanks Mike and Theo!) I was able to sneak some work in on my game. So following some advice from Laura, I'm making sure to start introducing elements from my "design doc" early so I don't get to caught up in tech stuff or small demos the don't fit into the whole. This proto shows off the 'power' system that will hopefully be the core mechanic in my game.
All attacks take the form of powers. All powers cost some about of energy. You slowly regain energy but the best way to get it back is to use powers in conjunction with one another (this is NOT working in this proto).
Controls:
WASD to move, Mouse to Aim, Left Mouse Button to fire. 1/2/3 to swap powers
Cheat with R to refill energy.
As always, stay tuned.
So here is an early tech preview of my new shooter game. Use WASD to move the lil robot and mouse to aim. Press the left mouse button to fire and use 1 and 2 to switch between a 'gun' and 'twin-linked ultra lasers'. Download is on the right.
As always stay tuned.
On my quest to create something that for at least 5 minutes makes someone go "damn that was fun" I am going back to the lab. This time I've been spending a bit of time working on a new idea and this time taking some more effort into fleshing it out before hitting the code sauce to strong. I will go into a bit more later with a prototype but for now I'll tell you that it will be a top-down 2D arena-based shooter. What you are seeing in this pic is the first bit of tech I had to add - a special case emitter behavior that places particles along a path between 2 points (vs having them come out from one spot over time). This is the tracer bullet effect that most of the weapons in the game desperately need so I wanted to make sure that I could mod the current system to do so. It was a bit ugly but I was able to get the new behavior in without breaking anything (and opened up doors for stuff in the future). I don't feel I am a strong engine programmer but I am finding this system (on top of the oh-so-lovely xna) is going to allow me to get results.
As always, stay tuned.
