New (non-personal) project!

Hi, Geril here.

This month we met a fellow artist who happened to be working on a FPS project.
He showed me their work, and although I liked the quality of the graphics, I thought the technology behind it was lacking. I made a deal with their team: we'll make an FPS project similar to theirs using their assets, but in Unreal; and if they like it, we'll be able to get on their team.
So this month we worked hard on making an FPS game from scratch. Of course because Unreal is excellent for shooter games, it was much easier than the other projects we have worked on, so we made rapid progress.

As of now, we have implemented:
– health and shield systems
– a basic enemy AI
– sprinting
– a weapon database with different weapon types (we made lasers, ballistic bullets, explosives and an energy beam for now)
– weapon sway and recoil for feedback purposes
– ammo logic
– weapon and ammo pickups
– a GUI directional hurt indicator
– different enemy types and a spawner
– a gore system (dismemberment and such)
– custom damage logic
– interruptible death sequences before ragdolling
– splitscreen local multiplayer
– switching to third person camera on player death

And some more, smaller stuff.

The team liked what we did in less than a month so they let us on the team!
As for now, we can't show you any images or videos, but we'll ask them if we could share some test footage here.

Another Project Contrivance build!

It was a surprisingly hard month.
It started out slow, but at around the middle of it, we suddenly got a bunch of work to do. We'll talk about it more when it's relevant.

Also, we uploaded a new build of Project Contrivance!
You can download it here.

It has a new overworld, where you can choose the puzzle maps you want to play via warp pads, and you can also discover secrets (but it's mostly just WIP things for now).
Also, you can find a secret warp in each of the puzzle maps as well. They are pretty hard to find.
Other than that, there's a new puzzle map, too.

We hope you'll like it!

Unreal Game Jam!

Hi! It's Lussy.

This month was... hectic, to say the least.

We're still getting settled into our new home, but we did have some time for our personal projects. So we decided to enter the Unreal spring game jam.

At first, we started making a turn-based RPG for the theme 'Transformation'. It featured a bug of some sort that could take the defeated bugs' and insects' limbs and use them as its own. We got quite far with the development, the combat system was mostly finished, it had a basic interface, experience points, 15 levels with new abilities unlocked at various levels. The whole thing was inspired by observing a dead mosquito in our bathtub that fell apart with all of its legs detached. (Why does that happen, by the way?)

...Aaand then we realized that we couldn't finish it in time, so we abandoned it and started developing a much simpler game. We managed to make it in just about one day. It featured a sphere shape that could transform into a variety of other shapes at the press of a button, and the player had to control this shape and guide it through a series of holes in walls that were coming towards it.
We called it 'Andy and the Wallhole'.

Just as we were about to upload the finished project (which was very much not finished, we wanted to include a lot more features and even a soundtrack, but oh well, game jams), we noticed that it was half hour past the deadline. I made a mistake in converting the deadline from New York's time zone to our own. Sooooo... that was that. We uploaded the project to itch.io nonetheless, but it was not accepted. I'm including the link, so if you want to try out this earsore of a project, go ahead.

The whole thing left a very bitter taste, but we do plan on going ahead with the shapes project and making it our own rhythm game. We've been trying to come up with some gameplay mechanic to put into our rhythm game framework ever since we recreated Taiko. So at least this is a plus! I also feel like I gained some experience in working really fast with blueprints. So it wasn't all in vain. That's what we keep telling ourselves, anyways.

So, until next month!

Movement test!

Hello!

Here's a video for you:


Just a quick update on how we're doing. As you can see, we're experimenting with different controls: a fixed, side-scrolling camera with 3D movement. It works out pretty well. The only awkward thing about it is how sometimes you can't determine where you are in the 3rd dimension. We're planning to fix this with a small circle of shadow below the player, and a more dynamic camera.

P.S.: Subwoofer required for full experience

Story time!

Hi! We're going to share some information about the game's world. It's going to be a bit technical so bear with us. The next story post will be focused on the actual story and the characters.
So... here we go.

The story takes place on Koronite, a world made up of irons. Along with this iron based world there are other kinds of matters on the surface which make life possible. Water is rare to find, clean water even more so as the seas contain lots of iron mixed in with mercury.

Magnetism is what makes the continents, mountains, air and water move. The planet has such a high voltage that it could shatter on its own, but the energy is contained by resistors (gigantic natural poles).

The atmosphere is slowly eating away the hills and mountains by oxidising them. Millions of undiscovered minerals lie hidden deep inside the planet’s inner layers among with organic living irons.

The reason why life is possible in this world is because of the plants as many of them are able to extract iron from the air as well as other sources and incorporate them. They then give off the materials they don’t need -  the ones that are needed for humans to live.

The life forms here are either based on iron or have evolved to survive in this environment. The people living on Koronite essentially adapted to the planet, their bodies able to process some of the iron. As such, they are heavier and sturdier but they regenerate less and more slowly. Their fur is strong but prone to rust if it’s not taken care of regularly. Breaking one of their bones may take tonnes of force but once broken, it stays that way. They can also have parasite-like irons consuming their bodies, or living with them in symbiosis. 

The planet tries to get rid of outsiders on a daily basis, these are the more recent inhabitants who haven't evolved to process iron, yet they are determined in surviving at any cost.

The surface is varied. In some places the ground is hot and sandy, elsewhere it is cold with crumbled metal. There are endless oceans that look like large mirrors and also seemingly never-ending are the chasms, floating mountains made of dust and slowly moving damp cubes of metal.

While life is everywhere in its own stubborn form, the inhabitants are fighting an endless war against nature using steam and sparks. After centuries they can finally say the surface is theirs. The problem is, the surface is not the only layer the world has.

Before conquering the surface life only existed deep below it. The creatures were primitive and less able to adapt to changes. Their large bodies remained as caves between the layers of the planet. As it moved and changed, the surface became more stable than the other layers. Water carved long caverns that became the home of simple and more complex creatures alike. So while the surface keeps changing, under it, chaos is the only natural order.

The average inhabitant stays far away from the deeper levels - they have enough trouble on the surface already - yet there are people who use the caves to remain hidden, to do things under everyone’s feet. They have to fight other creatures or nature itself for these places, so it isn’t very common.

About one and a half centuries ago, it became forbidden in most regions to work, develop and transport under the surface. Only mining could be continued and even that was kept under close supervision. Recently there have been revolts across the world. Leaders came and went, laws faded and became rewritten. Nations changed names and conquered new lands.

These new, neutral areas of land - or as their inhabitants called them, “free terrains” - were captured by hired mercenaries. Without a flag or a name the conquered lands could become inhabited to form a new nation of their own.

In this unstable world, to survive, beggars can't be choosers.

Our protagonists’ lives start out from the village in the valley of Maron.
They separate for a while after but their past and goals ultimately causes their paths to collide soon enough.

names not final

Swordfighting!

Hi, Lussy here.

We’re progressing with the game, even if it seems like we’re just lazing around not doing anything. I’m working on weapon scripts at the moment, while Geril is creating the 3rd player character’s model and working on Eslie and the bobcat too. The bobcat has lots of placeholder combat animations, so I started working on a more serious combat system (until now it was very simple). I’m going to talk about these scripts now, in hope of either helping out someone, or someone telling me why they suck. Remember, I’m not an experienced scripter, I just get an idea and then try to make it work. So with that said, let’s begin.

The current combat system consists of 3 possible combat animations being played. The first one simply plays when you push the attack button, and the second and third ones appear if you successfully maintain a combo. Until now, all this was simply based on timers in the script, but right now I’m experimenting with AnimNotifies. It works like this:

-Player presses the attack button. The combat animation starts.

-When the animation gets to the point where it should start dealing damage, an animnotify calls the function for tracing the swing, and when it shouldn’t deal any more damage, another animnotify stops the tracing process. This way if the animation has a part where the sword is held stationery, it won't hurt anyone.

-There are also two animnotifies for doing combos. They mark the two points in between which the player can push the attack button to continue the combo.

-The last animnotify marks where the second animation should play, if the player wants to continue the attacking combo. If there wasn’t any input, the current animation simply finishes and the player gets back to the idle state.

I needed to do lots of planning to make this work, and I’m still not sure if it’s going to stay (there are lots and lots of ways it can make the weapon stop working altogether, as of now.). If any of you know any better, please don’t hesitate to comment.

Players can have two weapons with them (and some more in their bags, which can only be accessed while out of combat), though only one can be equipped at a time, the other one will be sheathed. Right now, only the sword has the combo system mentioned before, the axe is still very primitive, but functional. Obviously, the axe will be slower but stronger.

The sword only has these really slow animations for debugging purposes. It will be a quick weapon in the final game, with great mobility.

Planned combat speed

That's about it, for now. See you next time!