Co-op puzzles in Project Contrivance!

Hi!

In the last month, we worked to implement local split-screen multiplayer in our puzzle game project that we dubbed Project Contrivance for now. The levels that are designed for two players can be played with a second player, or by switching between controlling two characters in single player.

Swapping between players

We've added various nodes and boxes to spice up the gameplay: there are and, or, delay, inverter nodes and switches, and boxes that can be picked up that contain these functionalities. These boxes can be placed into sockets and will connect into the circuit, and in there they work just like the regular nodes.

Here is a long playthrough video of a test level where we fool around:

The little noises you hear are the player characters' form of communication: they have a positive and negative sound, and players can trigger these whenever they want to. We plan to add gestures to them, too.

Falling into deadly liquid

Crushed by spikes

...physics...

These GIFs are pre-alpha and about everything may be subject to change. We're going for functionality first, instead of graphics.

Our big dilemma right now is deciding between deferred and forward rendering. We don't know what the Nintendo Switch is capable of yet, and deferred rendering is more costly, so I guess we'll have to wait and see, but it'd be nice to know in advance. We could just use deferred rendering and upscale, but we're not sure if it's worth it. With forward rendering, we'd lose SSAO and screen-based reflections (among other minor things), but by using MSAA, we could get a more sharp picture, which fits the theme (machines) perfectly. Forward rendering also handles transparency better.

Deferred rendering

Forward rendering

Here's a gameplay video with forward rendering:

Of course, on PC there will be graphics settings, so this won't be an issue, but planning for a console(s?) is different.

Unreal 4!

Hi!

This month is a little crowded.

We are happy to say that we managed to get hold of Unreal Engine 4 for a while (thank you, GitHub!!). So these days we are trying out the engine, discovering the differences, etc. There are lots of built-in stuff in UE4 that we would have needed in the UDK. So we're looking at the pros and cons, and considering migrating our project. We're not sure yet though. I have yet to check out the blueprint system in-depth. (By the way, scripting is so much quicker with the graphical interface and in-engine compiler. No more restarting while adjusting a variable. Yay!)

Here are some pictures for comparison! Every texture and mesh is the same as they were used in the UDK. Only minor changes at most.

Left side - UDK, right side - UE4

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Super detailed bump maps! Yay!

Geril created this "building" in about 15 minutes.

Real-time reflections make everyone look like T-1000s in liquid metal form

If we do decide to migrate the project, we'll make some tutorials.

I'm sorry to say that there may not be a comic this month at all. Geril is hard at work at his full-time job, and in UE4 too, and I (Lussy) am traveling in South Korea at the moment. I hope you can understand.