Prototype for my space game
Where do I even begin?
Firstly, I'm having a bit of trouble with Unity3D. I've had no big issues with it per se, but many annoying quirks which make it hard to work with. One of them is that every version of Unity looks slightly different. Different enough to make following tutorials for older versions a huge pain in the neck. Why do they gotta keep changing stuff?
Secondly, I may have gone way overboard with the ideas for my game in the GDD, which I attribute to the copious amounts of cannabis consumed by me that night. In hindsight, that was an awful idea, but here we are now I guess.
I think the best way to salvage my game is to make it in four degrees of freedom, put everything on a flat plane and give it zero friction to simulate zero-g.
Let's do that then, shall we?
Firstly, I'm having a bit of trouble with Unity3D. I've had no big issues with it per se, but many annoying quirks which make it hard to work with. One of them is that every version of Unity looks slightly different. Different enough to make following tutorials for older versions a huge pain in the neck. Why do they gotta keep changing stuff?
Secondly, I may have gone way overboard with the ideas for my game in the GDD, which I attribute to the copious amounts of cannabis consumed by me that night. In hindsight, that was an awful idea, but here we are now I guess.
I think the best way to salvage my game is to make it in four degrees of freedom, put everything on a flat plane and give it zero friction to simulate zero-g.
Let's do that then, shall we?
So here's Level 1 of my game.
The player spawns in and immediately witnesses a huge explosion (purple hexagon). A space station is blown up. To the right there's the two major factions fighting.
The player can help either, none, or fight them all.
The goal is to find a warp drive to leave the solar system. The warp drive is dropped by spaceships with shields or can be found in the debris of the space station.
Only the soviet and american ships have shield systems, though the player will have to see that themselves. Wanting to keep the RPG spirit of my original idea, the player can get the warp drive without fighting anyone, just by waiting until one ship is blown up and collecting the loot. Alternatively, they can fly to the space station where they will be attacked on sight by pirates.
I also wanted to reward exploration by showing the player and unknown beacon on their HUD, which will point them around the star, to a powerful weapon.
This is still probably too complicated but I'll give it a shot
Hello Pawel I just read through your prototype and I think it is really well done. I admire the amount of time and effort that has presumably gone into this idea and how much thought was considered throughout. Your set up regarding how the player character is introduced to the player is very exciting sounding, almost like we are only just catching up with them and that we must have missed something big and impressive that had just previously happened. Something that came up in my mind is when a player makes contact with the enemy ships, does a prompt come up asking them to help out? Or is it a choice the player needs to decipher on their own? I am guessing the game takes places solely within a ship? If so, it might be best to keep them only within the ship as adding the option to wander outside the ship might be far to complex. However like I SAID I do really enjoy your game idea and admire the amount of thought and creativity needed to engineer this kind of game.
ReplyDeletewell a good day to you Pawel.
ReplyDeleteI must say that even if you are having a couple of problems with your Unity Engine (trust me you are not the only one) I must say that your game prototype idea that you have been developing for the last few weeks is coming along great as it is. The one question that I have is something that I have been looking for help with myself and that is that knowing that you are making a game set in space that I want to know where you have found a way to make your spaceships as I am trying to find assets and tutorials to make some of them of my own but I can't seems to find any or that any of them are free. I don't have any other options to give you as I can see that you have a clear idea of what you are going for and I don't want to add too much more to that.
All in all, with every problem that you may face in Unity, I still think that your game idea is coming along great and that I will look forward to playing your game when the time comes with whatever you have created.
Cheerio!!!
-Sam
Hi Pawel,
ReplyDeleteGreat work so far on your prototype, I agree that following Unity tutorials can be difficult and confusing considering how much it seems to change every year and different version that there is. I like that you decided to change things up a little as the other idea may have been too complicated for a beginner. Although this is still difficult it should be easier to manage each stage.
Will you keep it so that you can only use the same ship or will you try add a choice of ships in your game like I think you originally had when you first wrote about your game?
Overall I think you are doing a good job so far and challenging yourself which is always cool to see. I look forward to seeing the next blogs to see how your game develops.
-Dylan
Hi Pawel
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this post it looks like your game is coming along well. I like how your putting a lot of time and effort into your game. Making a space game sounds difficult but it sounds like you have a good idea what you’re doing.
I am a bit confused the image you used I understand what your going far but am I confused on what the actual level will look like and will the ships be like the triangles. I’m wondering what happens if you pick a side or fight them both do you get different bonuses or will the game become harder
I would suggest looking at games like space invader so your able to see what games that use that 2d flat top down platform are like. You could see how they are able to a make that type of game work so well.
Jamie Gannon
Hey Pawel,
ReplyDeleteI see you had the same trouble I did with my Unity being an updated version with a few differences to one used in the tutorials. As for going overboard with your ideas I think that that has a bit of a silver lining so far as you now have tons of potential things to possibly add into your game though perhaps in the future you should be sober while you come up with ideas. I think that the ideas you are going to use for your game are great but I feel that they may be a tad bit complicated for a beginning game designer. However I can see that there is potential for a great game and I cant wait to see how it turns out.
-Casper :)
Hi Pawel,
ReplyDeleteI also had some problems with Unity so it's nice to see i'm not alone there. Your game looks deadly so far. Its the most unique game I've come across. The concept behind it is really good and I can tell you put a lot of thought into it. I'm really looking forward to seeing the end product.
-LM