UPDATE 6-2012
Hi guys,
time has passed since i gave you the last infos, so here we go with a little story what happened the last 2 months on this project (its not as much as it should be).
I did some tests and the BIG MISTAKE to break down how many media i have to produce to get the results i want. It was mindblowing. per level with around 20-30 waves i would need 100-150 soundsamples (including music-splits), using 20-30 variables, doing around 20-30 custom animations for cutscenes and behavior + the standard for each model.
NEVER MAKE AN EXCEL_SHEET AND NOTE IT DOWN WHEN YOU ARE A SOLO-DEV, JUST GO ON WORKING!^^
when i saw those 2000 sounds, 38 character-models, 800+ animations, 280+ huds ... i fall into a motivation-hole for nearly 3 weeks doing absolutely nothing on this project. it simply blows you away what will be your freetime-work for the next year.
luckily i went into a small holliday after that time, wich helps a lot to start work again.
GAMEPLAY:
Atm i have to decide wich way this projects should go, more action-driven or more adventure-style, we will see what future (and my abilities in fpsc) will come up with. i builded 3+1 levels with very intense action and 4 levels with more storytelling-parts (3 at start, 1 after the pure actioners).
i saw that even with the biggest action and adding different things to each level to give character-evolution-aspects and rewardpoints, its not that bad to bring some more depth into gameplay.
i decided to do alternative paths in the levels to avoid enemy-waves for those players who wont do shootouts all the time. this will also result in ingame-changes. i want to teach players and show what they are doing there, rewarding individual and moral behavior.
easy to do with triggers and variables, and gives a nice shape to the game. results will be things like different character-speaches and behavior to the playercharacter, easier ways through the level, getting more help or loosing it, or maybe alternative level-route through the game. but that also means MORE planning and media to create.
but i think its worth the experience. The bad ones get the bigger guns, the good guys get the girl (wich doesnt mean you arent also a tough piece of bread
).
GUNS:
to force player to do controlled weaponchanges, i have a big range of weapondamage in this game.
the basic MULTITOOL is like an assaultrifle (5dmg autofire), next is equal to a minigun (5dmg autofire-shotgun) for the mass of standard-enemies, UPGRADE2 will be a heavy CAWS (50dmg autofire-shotgun with lower reload-capacity) for the bigger guys, UPGRADE3 will be some sort of railgun/panther-canon (250dmg single-shot) for the first bosses...
this forcing to change weapons (you can kill a boss with the smaller guns, but a much harder task than using the gun designed for this) brings another element to gameplay, especially when building it into situations where you have to change infight while enemies on your back.
From left to right: Upgrade3, Upgrade1 & Basic Multitool
SOUND:
I tested the soundspots usable for a music-composition inside the game, including character-voices (hurt1-3,finalmoan etc.), zonesounds, gunsounds etc. Goal was to divert the level-soundtrack onto these spots, so it depends on the players action how the soundscape is set to better direct player emotions and therefore force pace to his actions, triggering his own speed so i dont have 1 soundtrack for the level but 10-20 parts that switch over leveltime, depending how the player behaves. for example: player goes down the path, silent ambient is playing. he reaches a triggerspot, voicesample is played and music switches to a slight beat part. enemies appear, triggering another breaksample and fat 4/4-beats start playing. enemies dying adds another spherical part to the track, until the last enemy is killed where the variables for this wave triggers a switch in music again, final voice/trashsound before going back to the pure ambient again and calming down the scene.
its possible to do it like this, but i have to split all the soundtracks into samples and re-arrange them in the editor again. this means lots of work and an awesome mass of small media to produce and edit, and its hard to get a result that sounds good for the player, especially that i am no sound-artist or sound-engineer, this is a really hard task to go. i will reduce that part to the neccessary elements to save time and to come to an end somewhen without loosing my mind.
ANIMATIONS & MODELLS:
I did some modells in blender and tested my custom character-rig for the BRIDE OF GLASS using an altered bazooka-version as weapon, but for some reason the character works fine as a melee, but when i give it a weapon, it crashes the game when changing to destroy-script, giving a limb-number error, and i have no clue why or what happens there.
I need help here because i dont know where the error lies. if anyone has made custom nonhuman character-riggs in BLENDER that can use weapons without errors before, please mail me or post here, you are very welcome.
Also there are some problems with v119 and purchased characters i wanted to use, resulting in heavy lag or crashing the editor/buildgame, but i think it will get better with v120, so i will wait to insert or work on alternatives till v120 is out.
Satelite: Autonomic weapon orbiting player, scripts by Ched80
Broken: Midsize enemy
Bride of Glass: Guardian of the path, first Boss-Encounter Level5
MAPS:
I nearly finished to setup the waves in the second bridge-level (last update), works fine and is a very high-paced escape from glass all down the bridge (you can choose different ways to go, one on ONEs path where you have to kill a bunch of enemies, another one more jump&run), reaching level 5 to jump of into an open field, dominated by ONEs circles (level5). i wanted to do some plain-work wich has a more arena-like feeling than the straight paths i have done until now to introduce the player to the wavesystem. now the behavior in play changes, enemies appearing from all sides, and the enemy-warning and compass wich SENSE provides doesnt help that much anymore. too much enemies in endless rows from all sides. when you survive this, the TWINS will give SENSE an EYE for the further ways, wich is the altered v119-radar you saw in the last update. absolutley neccessary to get orientation in arena-fights.
you also will find a bigger tool-upgrade to pass the BRIDE OF GLASS, the first real fightable BOSS.
Second Bridge-Level
ONEs plains Part1
Thats all for now. As said above, would be very cool if someone with experience on custom-character-rigging for weapon-use in BLENDER is around and may help me with the upper told problem, would bring one major aspect to the game i cant show up with atm.
Pictures are raw-nonrendered screenshots out of Blender, except the last 2 rows, shot in finalbuild-game alpha.
Greets
Maho
(i will update the opening-post soon)
