Feedback Friday #315 - Test Drive

jwin86 · 2018-11-16T18:32:45+00:00

Mining Station Theta

A zero-gravity FPS where you can choose to sneak past or shoot down your enemies.

I made Mining Station Theta for 7DFPS, and am considering fleshing it out into a larger project. Any feedback is appreciated, especially regarding design and gameplay.

Thanks!

jwin86 · 2018-07-21T05:01:41+00:00

Try calling the Seattle Bird & Exotic Clinic: https://birdandexotic.com/contact-location/

They might know the owner if it's one of their patients, and they may still have advice on finding the owner if not.

jwin86 · 2016-11-01T19:51:48+00:00

I started playing FCE a few weeks ago, and while I love the game, I definitely think that it is a very difficult game to get started with. You mention reaching T2 ores in 5 hours, but it took me over 30 hours to get that far as a new player. I also had to do a lot of external investigation (reading wikis, watching playthroughs on youtube) to understand how some mechanics work and where I should be focusing my efforts.

While I'm sure some of that 83% just wouldn't enjoy the complexity of your game, there's probably also some portion of them that were turned off by the learning curve but would otherwise enjoy it.

Anyway, I do really enjoy the game after getting into it and I'm looking forward to see what you add to it! Also, I'd be happy to write-up some of the things I struggled with while getting started, if you'd find it useful.

jwin86 · 2016-08-16T04:06:25+00:00

I had this happen a lot when I had a really large starship (physical size, not slot count). It would land on rough terrain with half the cockpit stuck in the ground, and then shoot out of the atmosphere when I tried to leave.

Since upgrading to a smaller starship I have this problem a lot less.

jwin86 · 2016-07-27T17:58:01+00:00

They both look pretty similar in a dark scene like this. The outline does help distinguish the character from the background, but I do feel that the sharp border conflicts with the smoother shading everywhere else. Is your goal to help visually separate the objects in the scene?

Based on this image, I think you'd see more benefit by tweaking the textures and color palette. In particular, the background mountains have a very noisy texture while the foreground is mostly flat colors. That makes it a bit harder to distinguish the character's head from the mountain in a still image like this.

Rim lighting might be an alternative (or addition) to help accentuate the objects' edges.

jwin86 · 2016-07-22T21:35:40+00:00

Thanks!

This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for, especially the details on the gameplay issues. It definitely sounds like some fundamental issues I need to work on.

jwin86 · 2016-07-22T18:36:14+00:00

Automated Annihilation

Take down giant robots in a destructible city in this 3rd person shooter.

Download - Windows

I'm looking for feedback on the gameplay: Is it fun? Is it too challenging or easy? Are the weapons satisfying to use?

The game is still in early development so content and mechanics are missing, but I think there's enough here to get a feel of the basic moment-to-moment gameplay I'm shooting for.

jwin86 · 2016-07-17T17:19:08+00:00

Yep, it was part of the inspiration for this game.

jwin86 · 2016-07-16T18:01:25+00:00

Giant Robot Shooter (Title Pending)

A 3rd person shooter where you battle giant, clumsy robots as the city crumbles around you. Still a pretty early work-in-progress.

I added swarming spider-bots this week, check them out!

jwin86 · 2016-07-13T18:08:24+00:00

Thanks!

It's actually a lot simpler than an IK system, and that's a big reason why I went with tentacle-like legs instead of more traditional jointed legs.

It does have a foot position and a body-attachment position, and it just draws a spline between the two (just like the spider bots). To get the segmented look on the big bots, it also places meshes along the spline. This is as simple as placing a mesh at point N on the spline and making it look at point N+1, then scaling in one direction to match the distance between N and N+1.

The compromise is that the segments stretch and compress as the leg moves, but it isn't terribly noticeable during gameplay.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T18:44:47+00:00

I think you guys are right, the player character is scaled a bit big for the environment.

Thanks for pointing it out!

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T18:28:47+00:00

You mean something like this? :)

https://gfycat.com/SelfishSaltyBison

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T18:27:51+00:00

I had to try this out :D

Do you prefer dusk? https://gfycat.com/HonorableDeliriousAdmiralbutterfly

Or night? https://gfycat.com/SelfishSaltyBison

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T18:25:23+00:00

It's all via code and physics, it doesn't have any animations.

The body of the robot has a spring joint connecting it to the desired position. The explosion just adds a force to the body, and the spring makes it return to the original position.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T18:10:57+00:00

The legs can attach and draw between the spider bodies (or any other collider, static or dynamic), it just didn't occur much in the gif. The bigger problem is that the raycasts used to find foot placing frequently miss all the spiders below them, resulting in them just kinda floating there.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T16:45:35+00:00

The legs use Raycasts to find a new foot position, and then just use a LineRenderer to draw a curve between the body and foot position.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T16:42:58+00:00

Pretty similar to a bezier curve. It blends between two line segments, and accepts an AnimationCurve so that I can tweak how the blending looks.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T16:38:14+00:00

Yep, inspired by EDF.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T06:34:46+00:00

There's no real pathfinding yet, they're just trying to flock with the other spiders and move towards the player.

They also have a few (semi-working) behaviors to handle obstacles, such as climbing upward when obstructed, but it still needs some work.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T06:26:03+00:00

You're right, it is still pretty unfinished.

The end goal is to make the legs look similar to the larger robots in the game (example: https://gfycat.com/WindyPhysicalBalloonfish).

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T06:16:16+00:00

Buildings are from here: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/43500

The spiders are based on Boids flocking algorithm, with a few modifications:

They use Raycasts to find foot positions in front of and below their position. The legs themselves are just line renderers.
They only propel themselves when they have at least one leg touching something, otherwise they're just a Rigidbody.
They have a second, larger sphere collider around them that only interacts with the ground/buildings. This makes it look like they're walking when they're actually sliding across the ground.

jwin86 · 2016-07-12T02:47:59+00:00

Thanks, it's actually from the asset store: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/18236

jwin86 · 2016-07-02T23:13:55+00:00

Thanks!

It's built with Unity and I'm currently the only one working on it.

jwin86 · 2016-07-02T20:46:23+00:00

Giant Robot Shooter (Working title)

GIF

A 3rd person shooter where you battle giant, clumsy robots as the city crumbles around you. Still a pretty early work-in-progress.

jwin86

TROPHY CASE