+1 Goggles

Alrighty, its a little over the week I thought I would need for this, but it is coming along nicely. This new level finally has some small form of gameplay but is still mostly unfinished, one room to finish and another to add to finalize the level mesh.

Still have the weapons to sort out, at least I don't have to hide the scope on the LasGun from the last version this time, now that there is now a zoom function thanks to reworking the weapons so that they fire from the camera rather than an emitter on the weapon, although getting the launcher type weapons working with it might be a bit trickier.

Slowly getting things done though, hope to be able to get this part of it up onto Kongregate as soon as possible, maybe another week, 2 at the latest. This does include making the new meshes for the weapons, adding in some form of narrative, integrating the Kongregate API and some more scripting and modeling of assets, I'm sure I can get it done, possibly, maybe.

I guess its also probably time to reset my version numbers as well, partly because I have no idea what version it actually is.

So, I present to you, the current version;

You Are Not Unique Alpha 0.1

Awesome Title.

Starting yesterday night, I decided to not be lazy and actually follow through with my initial plans for my game, some furious coding and mild confusion later, I have something playable. By the end of the week I'm aiming to have a finished gun range training course made up for it, and maybe even menu systems and Kongregate API, those aren't definite but I want to have them done asap after the level is finished. Seeing as I'm jumping straight into a new version, 3.x or 4.x I'm not entirely sure, this project has been a bit of a mess, I'll be evaluating my work thus far.
After a jump break.

Oooookay finally, here is the "finished" level, the one I have been working on for the past 6 months.
Presenting, the level shown at the Plymouth College of Art Summer Show.
You Are Not Unique.
* Disappointing Fanfair*
>>LEVEL<<

Well, that's it, it's all done, marked, handed in and out of my hands. Any changed to the game now wont be seen by any lecturer or external examiner but that doesn't mean I can't.

Because even a single level needs some menus, How else are you meant to pause it and leave it without getting killed?

More Info after the jump.

Occasionally I think I may have made my level a bit too big, it's taking time to get all of the rooms filled up with assets and looking good with a clear defined path. There is still much to do and this current version has added more and more to the list of things that I need to get done.

After my motivation went AWOL over the Easter holidays, I have decided to get back to work without the bastard and start on the second iteration of my level.

This iteration features brand new walls and a new level layout, with something more than other games offer nowadays.

A T junction and a choice of which way to go next, and maybe a puzzle.

I know, this may be a shock to those of you that have gotten used to the FF XIII levels of linearity there has been in games not to mention that very few shooters have puzzles in and before you say anything, no Portal does not count towards the puzzles in FPS count.

The way the levels stands is thus, most of the scripting has been completed, its just AI and a few odd things left to make, like weapon pickups. After spending a few days figuring out how to make the wall parts work and 5 iterations later, they're pretty much just textured planes, yep, just that simple.

No Unity link this time, soon hopefully, probably only just a walkaround of the barebones level (without any pesky holes you can fall through, maybe) but a start on the final stretch nonetheless.

Some more essential scripting done, explosive red barrels are in the game, they blow up, damaging stuff around them. More assets have been added, not all of them textured yet but that will come soon enough. The more I put stuff in the level the more I want to make a new, better one, but that's a good way of not getting the current version finished.

Currently working on getting some assets into the game, should have enough done by the end of next week to have a completed level full of wondrous wonders for you to mock and laugh at.

Once the level has assets in it I'll start working on making the modular level parts for it as well as adding in AI for the second version, as well as getting some enemy designs done and maybe adding some more weapons and getting them modeled and textured to boot.

Lots done, but still a lot to do, hopefully I'll be able to get all of it sorted for the summer show.

Heck if I cant I'll just make a target practice game using prefabs and coloured checker textures.
...
...
I may do that anyway.

Most of the scripting is now done, I still have more to do, however there is enough working scripting done for me to start making more assets for this game. To compliment the second weapon, the needler clone, I have added 2 new types of enemy to the game, they aren't able to do anything yet due to no AI being implemented but that will come soon.

 The first part of the level now has stuff in it and a couple of ways to get around the cargo bay, needs more stuff and I'm unsure whether or not there needs to be less rooms and more corridors.
Also decided to use the Web Player rather than the standalone for anything that isn't a final level.

Most recent version can be found here

• Click on the player to focus it, escape shows/hides the cursor
• WASD to move
• R to reload
• tab to change weapons
• Left Mouse to shoot

Dissertation handed in, a good 7000 words of waffle there. After having completed that I can safely say I don't want to ever write about gaming addiction again and if I do, it'll be far, far too soon.

On the making stuff side of things, I've managed to get another weapon made, one slightly inspired by Halo (*cough*blatant rip off*cough) that fires large shards that detonate on impact. They're purple.

Conditional ammo pickups are implemented for the new gun and the old one will have its ammo pickups updated soon. Other slightly more mundane scripts have been added in case I need them; rotating objects and picking a random material from an array.

The cargo bay looks more like a cargo bay, will be using the random material script to get more out of single prefabs as well as the level being (slightly) different each time you play it. Weapon switching will be added at a later date (possibly once I add another weapon) finishing the level itself is a priority in itself, more important than more weapons seeing as I want feedback for iterating it AND for it to be finished for the summer show.

Shard Gun Test

• WASD/Arrow keys for movement
• Left Click to fire weapon
• R to reload
• Blue spheres are ammo
• Red cylinders are enemies!

Possibly the best thing about making a FPS in Unity, is that someone has more than likely done what you're thinking of doing, or at the very least something that can help you.

That said, with a little bit of poking and bug fixing my game now has;
A (mostly) completed gun script. (its a laser beam :D)
A working ammo counter.
Ammo Pickups.
Big red cylinders you can shoot at.
All this avaliable here

While I'm here I may as well talk about some of the things that have influenced this Sci-Fi shooting gallery.
First of all my aim for this years final major project was to have a playable game (which it currently is) the other games I had designed for this were;
Lumberjack Attack: A 16-bit Robot Unicorn clone featuring a butch lesbian lumberjack as the protagonist
Unnamed RPG: Final Fantasy type with elements from Legend of Dragoon.

One of these would have been easy to make but lacking in level design and the other would have been a bit of a pain and would have had a lot more level design. I decided to settle on my 3rd idea, You are not unique. This idea was inspired by games like Mass Effect and Halo, with some HL2 thrown in for good measure. More recently I have added in some elements from the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, the weapons for example (Lasguns of the Imperium) and the infantry wearing advanced armour (Tau infantry) of which my protagonist will be.

The level I decided to make was the opening level, like Halo it is based aboard a spaceship and has the main character fend off alien boarders, originally it was split into 3 parts, a landing bay/cargo part, an arboretum and finally the ships main reactor. Now I will only be making the first part and iterating it as many times as I can, hopefully having something awesome at the summer show.

Hello there, seems you've stumbled upon my blog somehow, this wondrous thing, when it gets updated (not often probably) will be place I write words about the stuff I make and sometimes post the things I make. Like now...
Have a link
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4678252/You%20Are%20Not%20Unique.zip
Don't be shy, just clicky clicky on the link and tell me what you think of this unfinished rubbish!
And thus, a wonderful partnership was born, or killed...or was it never there to begin with?
Who knows, who knows?

Srs tiem nows.

Hi, my name's Scott and I'm a games design student currently studying at the Plymouth College of Art, after some procrastination, I have finally started a blog, +1 Goggles!
Ok, yeah, not that impressive, but I've made it and that's a start. Hopefully I'll be updating this with as much information as I can or whenever I have something I feel is worth letting the world see, probably the later.
So if you can bear with someone who cannot draw, can barely design levels and has no idea about pacing stories or how to write a decent line of code, I might end up learning something.

AND NOW
Back to doing nothing.