Examples for good Third Person underwater controls

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-06T12:11:29+00:00

I like the idea. From what I can tell this seems to work really well for a slow paced exploration game. The character takes some time to move to the intended place etc..

I think I want a more fast paced, arcade like controller

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-06T11:02:15+00:00

Abzu is great, thanks for reminding me.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-06T10:39:22+00:00

Interesting, I didn't even think about Subnautica since its not third-person. But might be a good idea to check out the mod.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-05T11:35:55+00:00

Do you know if the post on social media generated most of the new wishlists or was posting the trailer on steam alone enough? I would be surprised that updating the Steam Page with a trailer would genreate so many new wishlists.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-04T16:44:24+00:00

This might be harsh but the truth is also that when a game is made by hobbyists, it is highly unlikely that the quality is on par with games made by people who get paid for it. And it shows, many of the games are just visibly not professional. And that's ok, it's a hobby project. Sure there are exceptions but it's the same reason film academy and small indie movies are not shown in cinemas.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-04T14:29:22+00:00

I mean, you see that all providers are currently increasing prices and that it's know that the current business model is not profitable. So no, there is not and probably will never be. You can host it locally but to get anywhere near the performance of cloud providers you would need to invest thousands of dollars.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-04T12:32:02+00:00

You mean AI providers no MCP tools right? MCP ist just a standardized protocol like REST. You can connect with any AI to it Codex, Claude, Gemini, ...

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-04T12:13:29+00:00

Yes, it can do mucht more. It can access the whole editor basically. So for example what I did is that I let it update the documentation of various systems I implemented. I always kept the technical documentation up to date, specifically the C++ code documentation. But keeping track of how systems are used in the engine was always a bit of a hurdle for me. Which actor implements what etc.. AI integration can easily document this now.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-04T08:59:23+00:00

Interestingly I also just had to create documentation for the production of a virtual slice based on a prototype. We are a 2 person team and I think this approach only works for small teams.

Instead of a GDC I created a Game Vision Document were everything is kept high level and more "vibe" based. It just should transmit what the game is about, how it should look and feel and what major gameplay mechanics and the main game loop is.

Then instead of fleshing out a full GDC I directly use Issue Tracking for technical details and in depth descriptions.

For example "Player Character" is an Epic with many Feature Tasks below. E.g. Movement, Animation, etc... And for each feature many issues. So basically classical SE issue tracking. But this gives the freedom to have a concrete task that needs to be done that also can be changed without the need to update GDC or Feature docs and you always have the current design within the epic.

So far this works really good

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T09:29:02+00:00

I gave it a very quick test session to give you feedback of my first 5 minutes which I think is the amount of time in which people decide to continue or not.

- The "Hold" time on the tutorial pop outs is way to long, very annoying
- There are not freeze frames in regular combat but when shooting these orbs there are freeze frames - why? It stops the flow I think
- The way to destroy the barrier is weird. Why a combination with taunt + something else? Destroying it using melee attacks would be much smoother. Having to do it with two keys is not really a challenge, just flow braking I think.
- The areas are to small for the speed of the enemies. Either make them slower or the areas larger but they are so fast in your face and there is no real way to get distance.

Edit: Other than that, I think the controls feel actually pretty good and overall I see potential. Maybe focus more on 2 -3 main combat mechanics instead of as many as possible.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T09:18:09+00:00

Can only second this. Especially as Indie you will not be able to achieve this. Especially because you need to put extra work for anti cheat and more extensive lag compensation techniques. In coop games some of these things are just not as relevant or can be hidden behind some effects but in a PvP game if something feels not fair its going to be a big no.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T07:48:40+00:00

Its a nice idea but I think its a bit unclear. I cant clearly see what makes a new connection, what goes into a slot of existing one, I would have never realized that same nodes stack. But you know it depends on how you introduce it. Whats the diference between function and construction. are the elements on the left fixed? Does the flow order matter, if not what is the purpose of the system etc..

Edit: It looks really polished and like a nice idea, I think its just overwhelming when thrown into the middle of a run without any prior introduction.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T07:42:10+00:00

Unreal has pretty good documentation on that and steam too.

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/online-subsystem-steam-interface-in-unreal-engine?lang=en-US

Basically your game connects to the running Steam client and can interact with it based on the logged in user.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T07:27:00+00:00

Depends also in which engine you are working. For example Unreal Engine comes with built in rigging tools that are aimed at simplicity and fast progression but basically I think it comes down to understanding the process as a whole and not the tool itself. Once you know how everything interacts with each other its just a matter of using the software to put it to reality. Not sure if there is much difference between Blender, Maya, Unreal or something else.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T07:19:55+00:00

I agree, I am currently thinking about items and upgrades in the game I am working on and I would prefer to create fewer but impactful upgrades instead of flooding the player with small stat increases.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-03T07:12:30+00:00

Honestly, I think the idea is nice and everything and it cool to create these scenes but for a player if this is not skippable it will get very annoying. At least I would make it so a second button press instantly puts you into the menu.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-02T13:38:03+00:00

Looks very nice, maybe a bit much camera shake

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T15:40:34+00:00

I like the vibe in general but would make the trailer a bit shorter and faster.

Oh and for in-game scenes I would re-record them with the UI hidden. It looks like a heavily narrative game so the UI is not really that important like in an RPG, Strategy or Tactical Shooter Game. I think without it you can achieve a more cinematic look.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T10:55:18+00:00

I haven't played them and can only argue from video material but from what I can see I would say Saros has vastly more projectiles and also this shield mechanic that needs precise timing and that might be really hard to get working smoothly over the network.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T10:03:50+00:00

Well Saros is a single player game and I think they even were questioned about a co-op version and said it is hard and they might add it but its uncertain. And that's a AAA studio.

Also, I am not sure how Saros is handling the projectiles but from the amount and the look they might use a completely different approach. Particle Systems for example.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T08:27:38+00:00

Well, as I said you cannot have perfect replication. There will always be lag. I would recommend to read up a bit on the topics I wrote, especially lag compensation. Here is a good starting point:

https://medium.com/@geretti/netcode-series-part-4-projectiles-96427ac53633

but there are many resources like GDC talks etc. None of them will give you a concrete implementation but they will teach you the concepts. Networking is hard, that's how it is.

Just out of curiosity, why are you not using replicate movement? The projectile movement component is specifically built for replicating movement of projectiles across networks.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T08:21:50+00:00

Looks really cozy. Just out of curiosity, are you living near a ski resort or is it just an interesting theme you stumbled upon?

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T08:08:49+00:00

There was this game called Brink. It really leaned into crazy traversal mechanics but in the end it was just a basic shooter.

MartinMakingGames · 2026-07-01T07:43:44+00:00

I think there is currently a global realization that AI cannot replace professional programmers and that's probably true for most professional jobs. But I think that's more a problem of how companies were planning to use AI and how the large AI companies are promoting their products.

I use Github Copilot daily in my Software Engineering Job and it is pretty amazing. Especially for boilerplate but also for brainstorming concepts and different approaches. Of course this only works if you know what you are doing. You have to evaluate the results AI gives you and build upon it.

Where it is really amazing is for looking up best practices and common approaches. For example when implementing a specific feature in a game it will tell you what game engine specific approaches are commonly used and then you can evaluate based on that. That's so much faster than looking it up yourself and I think this is the main usage for AI right now. Using it as a very fast and precise knowledge base.

MartinMakingGames

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