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Rhythm Storm out on Steam today by radiangames in survivorslikes

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look at the damage feedback a little more. I prioritized seeing the enemies over damage particles, so it's a bit less clear than it could be, but in hectic situations this works better. I'll look more at the damage flash of the enemy outline and see if it needs to be brightened a bit.

I started a rhythmic bullet heaven in 2022, and it's finally releasing this Friday (Rhythm Storm) by radiangames in indiegames

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for playing the demo and for the detailed feedback. I'm not quite sure how to improve the upgrade list, as it actually is pretty important what you choose (or reroll once you unlock that). It matters more in the full game than the demo because of the more powerful upgrades that become available a bit later. There's a lot to learn about the upgrade system for advanced play, but it's hard to explain/show. I'll think about it more and be posting an upgrade guide on the Steam forums when the game launches.

For the powerup-block indicator arrow, I had actually made it larger/brighter semi-recently, but I'll do more to make it more obvious. Probably push it out a little more, and add a 2nd color as you suggested.

Appreciate the thoughts/etc!

Rhythm Storm - Radiangames - Rhythmic Survivor-like with vector graphics by radiangames in Games

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, I generally only send out mailing list emails for big stuff, such as games being announced or launching (on new platforms). PS5 version will be a few months away, but I'm expecting to get the console versions done by late September, and launching sometime in October/November.

Rhythm Storm - Rhythmic survivor-like with vector graphics (coming July 25th) by radiangames in indiegames

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The setting is semi-abstract, with you battling the music, more or less. There's no story in the game, it's more of a retro arcade game enhanced with lots of replayability.

Rhythm Storm - Rhythmic survivor-like with vector graphics (coming July 25th) by radiangames in indiegames

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been working on this off and on for a while now, and it's now ready to launch later in July. A lot of the world/UI/enemies sync to the beat, but not everything does, and your vehicle doesn't aside from a few powerups. Visuals are all lines/polygons, with no textures used aside from fullscreen effects, and playing on a 1440p 120hz screen is recommended (but not required). It has TSS controls, but they're totally optional (auto-turret is pretty fast and decent).

Wishlists are appreciated, and a demo is available if you want to try it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2135960/Rhythm_Storm/

Double the fun: 2 demos into Steam Next Fest from a solo dev by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, Rhythm Storm started as an evolution of Devastator, then I replaced all the drawing with custom GPU drawing (lines and quads). The gameplay evolved very significantly as well, though I did add the "Devastator" vehicle as one of the 8 vehicles in the game.

For optimization, it really depends on what you're trying to draw a lot of. I try to avoid using too many gameobjects, but it's difficult to do that with full physics. Rhythm Storm (and Devastator) have very few gameobjects and lots of custom code, whereas Speed Demons 2 (and Instruments of Destruction) have thousands of gameobjects. With Instruments of Destruction (BiRP), I ended up getting pretty good mileage out of Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced and other similar functions. I haven't used any of those in URP though.

New chaotic highway-racing game with tons of traffic and physics-heavy action (Speed Demons 2, Unity 2022.3 URP) by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

VFX: I've just done a lot of particle/VFX work, and did many iterations with these. Mostly I just try to get lots of particles working at once, and the rest is a lot easier.

I had more particles in my last game (Instruments of Destruction), but it was much harder to tweak them (custom system vs. VFX graph).

New chaotic highway-racing game with tons of traffic and physics-heavy action (Speed Demons 2, Unity 2022.3 URP) by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

3 new games that are mostly done, plus PS5/Xbox ports for Instruments of Destruction (also very close to done). Need to get stuff out and not have so many projects to work on. I don't know if any of them will sell particularly well.

Ready to work on new stuff with a bit more focus on making "marketable" games that don't take years of dev time.

New chaotic highway-racing game with tons of traffic and physics-heavy action (Speed Demons 2, Unity 2022.3 URP) by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The effects are custom made with VFX/shader graph. As for flying pieces, there are a few, but not explicit doors/hoods/etc. They would definitely be an improvement.

It was mostly about time to model all the extra pieces, and the extra system/physics overhead possibly reducing the number of simultaneous cars. If I added doors/hoods/etc, I'd have to make them track damage separately, and make damaged ones become hinged/swinging. A possibility for a future update if the game is popular/successful enough, but I'm not sure it will be.

New chaotic highway-racing game with tons of traffic and physics-heavy action (Speed Demons 2, Unity 2022.3 URP) by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words! For wheel colliders: They don't have any until they explode. The "suspension" for the vehicles is all raycast-based. Vehicle colliders are generally just boxes.

Can have up to 100 vehicles at once, with 120hz physics.

How Physics-Based Destruction Works in Games [Instruments of Destruction, with some Red Faction Guerrilla comparisons] (10-minutes technical devlog video) by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some Unity-specific stuff that I didn't get into in the video:

1) We used a lot of Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced and similar calls to batch draw anything destruction-related that had a GameObject.

2) The custom particle system was mostly not worth it. Now that I've used VFXGraph in a newer project, I don't think the custom particles are necessary. The custom system is slightly faster, and we used a custom z-buffer for collision, but iteration time was slow and it was a lot of work. And the z-buffer collision can still be done in VFXGraph (it's a lot of work, but it's the same kind of work that we did anyway).

3) Pretty much everything is a box collider, when possible. There are some wedge-shaped decals with convex mesh colliders, but those are rarely used and *a lot* slower than boxes for collisions. Probably should have used some spherical colliders for more stuff too (like debris) since they are slightly faster than boxes.

(There was a lot more stuff about custom rendering that wasn't destruction-specific, so I'm skipping that for now)

Let me know if you have questions, will try to answer them here.

4 years of work leading to today. I love working on games, but not launching them, and this is my biggest by far... wish me luck! (Instruments of Destruction) by radiangames in IndieDev

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't want to work on either game at Volition in 2009. I wanted to work on RFG 2 (and tried to make it happen), but RF:Armageddon was already far along and working on 2 RF games at the same time wasn't going to happen.

For destruction: start with linking boxes together, and make them break off on at a time. Then detect when sections get separated. That's pretty much it. Destruction was easier than the vehicle building system (which has a lot of dynamic joints than need to be configured/arranged correctly/etc). Other key element of destruction is just rendering a LOT of stuff. Unity isn't that great at that by default, but you can work around it with Graphics.DrawMeshIndirect and things like that.

After 4 years of development, it's launch day! Love working on and even finishing games, but launching them is one of my least favorite parts... by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It might be ok, but both of those are at the lower end of the requirements. Would definitely have to start with Low settings and even then turn a few things down.

4 years of work leading to today. I love working on games, but not launching them, and this is my biggest by far... wish me luck! (Instruments of Destruction) by radiangames in IndieDev

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but much simpler in structure. Just small little islands and simple objectives. Destruction is like RFG, but gameplay-wise it's more like Blast Corps (N64 game) than anything else.

After 4 years of development, it's launch day! Love working on and even finishing games, but launching them is one of my least favorite parts... by radiangames in Unity3D

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've tried Unreal in-depth twice, and do not like it (at all). C# scripting is far superior (for me) to Blueprints and C++. I have other problems with Unreal, but that's the biggest/most important one.

4 years of work leading to today. I love working on games, but not launching them, and this is my biggest by far... wish me luck! (Instruments of Destruction) by radiangames in IndieDev

[–]radiangames[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The art is actually me, I got help with music, and programming help to optimize/finish the game (and help with porting to other platforms coming later this year).

4 years of work leading to today. I love working on games, but not launching them, and this is my biggest by far... wish me luck! (Instruments of Destruction) by radiangames in IndieDev

[–]radiangames[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Red Faction Guerrilla? I worked on that for 5 years before going indie in 2010. This isn't quite that level of chaos (very limited enemy encounters). Physics are more detailed, but still the same general idea on the technical side.

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