This is a personal project of mine that I hope to build in the next few months. This blog will act as my personal archive for documentation on the game, but if it gains some followers, that would be awesome too! If anyone finds this blog and/or my idea at least semi-interesting, feel free to leave a comment.
The core concept of the game takes its foundations as a dual-analog shooter. This is where players use one thumb-stick to move, and the other thumb-stick to fire their weapon at various incoming enemies/obstacles. It is a very simple concept, and something I found do-able under a limited (read: no) budget, a one man development 'team', and a relatively short development time. The codename for the project takes after Sony's original dualshock controller for the PS1. This controller was amongst the first of its kind to have 2 analog sticks, and arguably, was one of the first to do it right. I find this a fitting name for a project about a dual-analog shooter, paying homage to a controller that makes this type of game possible.
Inspirations
My main inspiration for the project has been the XBLA title Geometry Wars 2. It is a very addictive, colourful game that is an absolute blast to play. The concept for the game is very simple: shoot colourful shapes, and avoid touching them at all costs. But this simple concept goes a long way. Each different shape behaves in its own unique way, and expert use of colour coordination reinforces the unique aspect of each different enemy. But don't just take my word for it, watch some gameplay below:
Video not made by me.
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdL-l10XJ68
An honorable mention should be the game 'I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT!!!1'. This game shares mechanics similar to Geometry Wars, but offers powerups, different weapons, zombies and many other things along the way. I admit, I only played the trial version of the game, so I haven't experienced some of the powerups/weapons firsthand. However, seeing the gameplay is enough to asses that the game has a little bit more depth in terms of interactivity than Geometry Wars. Gameplay video below:
Again, video not made by me
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5T6qenbdUc
Despite my praise towards Geometry Wars, I feel like there were a few things they could have improved on. One of the biggest things was that the action got too much to handle too fast. While I understand that the game was supposed to be 'tough' and reminiscent of the old-school impossible challenge of traditional arcade games, I still feel like the game should have stayed in a less intense state before really making things impossible. It comes to a point where there is so much stuff happening on the screen that it obscures your vision, and therefore, you don't even know where you are on the screen. This, in turn, causes you to simply die immediately, as there is no health to act as a buffer against your mistakes. I feel like forcing the player to die like this to end the game just evokes feelings of frustration and hopelessness towards improving your skills. I feel like Geometry Wars also could have benefited from having powerups and different weapons, similar to the honorable mention game (I guess this is my abbreviation to the long silly title). Even though there are a great variety of enemies, the way you could dispatch them didn't change, and eventually got a little boring/frustrating at times. The default weapon was sometimes not enough, as there were just too many enemies from too many sides.
I'm taking these criticisms to heart when making my game. I feel like slowing down the pace and also having a slower rate-of change towards intensity would give players more time to get themselves together. I'm going to make the pace ramp up much slower, and more incrementally, rather than exponentially (as Geometry Wars seems to do). This extra time would allow players to learn more mechanics rather than just moving and shooting. Now that some learning space has been created for players, this allows me to experiment with a few simple, extra mechanics that can add depth to a dual-analog shooter.
Game Mechanics
One main thing that is different from both Geometry Wars and the 'honorable mention' is that I want to introduce health and armour into the game. This allows the player some room to breathe by making mistakes not as punishing, but this also goes the same for enemies. Enemies won't be insta-killed by most weapons, so the player will have to work harder for their kills. Armour works differently for enemies and players. Enemies will have a value from 0-100, indicating their armour level. When enemies that have armour are damaged by any source, the armour has a chance to deflect all damage depending on the level. So if an enemy has 40 armour, it has a 40% chance to deflect all damage. If the damage does go through, it is reduced by the armour level's amount. For example, if an enemy has 40 armour and was damaged, it reduces that damage by 40%. I'm debating on letting armour deteriorate when it completely deflects damage, but that is something I'm going to have to experiment with after I have my first play test. As for the player, they don't have armour that ranges from 1-100, rather, they can summon up a barrier in their chosen direction by holding a button. This barrier automatically deflects any projectile or enemy away from the player, albeit being relatively small, so aiming is required to block enemies/projectiles.
Another resource I'm adding is an energy meter that the player has to keep track of. This energy meter is used up by special mechanics (coming up in the next section) that the player can execute. Energy re-charges itself quickly after a short delay so the player can quickly use it again. Energy consumption is determined by whatever ability the player has chosen, as they all have different energy requirements.
Special Abilities
Boost - By holding down a button/trigger, the player can get extra speed for a short time. Depletes energy very quickly.
Block - The player can block enemies from a specific direction by simultaneously holding the direction they want to block with the shooting thumb-stick, and holding down the block button. Depletes energy at a moderate pace
Alternate Fire - By pressing a button, the player can execute the alternate fire for a weapon. Energy consumption varies by weapon.
Grapple/Vine shot - The player can shoot a special shot in their direction of movement. I haven't quite figured out what this will do yet, but I know I want to have some sort of 'always-available' mechanic to the player, just in case they find that their current weapons are not up to the task. Energy consumption is low.
Weapons
A player can have two weapons in their 'inventory' at any time. The player has 2 slots for weapons, and can switch between them at any time. I don't know how these weapons will come into the hands of the player yet. I'm probably going to flesh this out more when I get to creating the enemies and levels.
Modifiers
I want to have certain abilities the player can pick up and use that modify the behavior of the player's current weapon. The player will have 2 slots for modifiers and can switch between them at will. For example, if the player has a laser beam in their current weapon slot, and also has a 'Fire' modifier, then their laser beam will set enemies on fire. They can then switch to their other modifier, let's say 'Force', and their beam will now push enemies away and also doing more damage.
I have a complete list of weapons and modifiers I want to add to the game, but that will be saved for another post.
My Current Progress
The engine I'm using is the free version of Unity. I already have experience in this engine when I built Magic Duel, and a bunch of other assignments, games for class, and other personal projects. I'm also using Adobe Photoshop CS2, as it's free and available to download on their site (which is awesome news for me).
Anyways, what I have implemented so far has all been code. No art assets or any sort of visuals, so any screenshots are going to be just cubes shooting at other cubes. Now that I have the disclaimer out of the way, voila:
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| May not look impressive, but every game starts out like this |
In case you can't tell what that screenshot is about, the player is the blue cube, and the enemies are the red cubes. The cyan rectangles are shots fired by the player. With each successful hit, the shot 'sticks' into its target, as if it penetrated its armour. If the shot has been completely deflected, it bounces off the enemy.
I actually have quite a few things implemented so far. All of the things regarding player movement and special mechanics are implemented. This means you can move around, shoot in any direction you want, boost, block etc. The weapon system and the ability to switch between weapons have been implemented. I have 3 weapons done already, they are functional and do the appropriate amount of damage to enemies and have alternate fires coded as well. The ability to switch between modifiers has been implemented, although I don't actually have any modifiers coded yet. A base enemy class has been made, and the ability to push around/damage enemies is already coded, with the proper armour mechanics.
That being said, I still have a long way to go. I am personally excited to start making particle systems for both the player, weapons and enemies. Considering I did a pretty awesome job making particle effects in Magic Duel, I think this is going to be the next level for me.
Controls
Below is the control scheme for both the 360 controller, and PC. These controls have already been implemented into the game.
Xbox 360 Controller
Left Stick - move
Right Stick - shoot
Left Trigger - boost
Right Trigger - block (need to be also shooting)
Left Bumper - grapple/vine shot
Right Bumper - weapon alternate fire
A - weapon slot 1
X - weapon slot 2
B - modifier slot 1
Y - modifier slot 2
I tried to group actions together by sides. So left side of the controller relates everything to movement. Both boost and grapple/vine shot (this uses movement as a direction of fire) are on the left side. The right side relates everything to the shooting action. Blocking uses the shooting direction to spawn a barrier, and alternate fire is self explanatory.
Mouse & Keyboard
W - move up
S - move down
A - move left
D - move right
Q - switch weapons
E - switch modifiers
F or Middle Mouse Button - Alternate fire
Left Mouse Button - shoot (direction is chosen based on mouse position)
Right Mouse Button - block (direction is chosen based on mouse position)
Left Shift - Boost
Space - grapple/vine shot
Conclusion
Anyways, if anybody was actually reading this, thank you for sticking around for this long! I hope to post updates regularly and eventually release the game at some point. In my next post, I'll be talking about what kind of artistic direction I want to take with this game, and some project management stuff that I'm trying to do to keep myself organized. I'll periodically upload photos of the 'project-at-a-glance' from the software I'm using.
Thanks for reading.
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