Well, I've been working on it for a while now and things are starting to happen. In the past few weeks my game has been working - you can do stuff. But before I talk about that, I'll go over what I'm doing and what I hope to accomplish with this.
GAME DESIGNI wanted to make an arcade style game, and came up with a few themes to keep me on board with that.
- Easy to play, hard to master
- Fun and suitable for all ages
- Relatively original, not a clone or remake
- Within my skill level as an artist and programmer
That's a pretty tall order and I admit it was a bit ambitious. The first thing I needed was an idea... and the first reasonable idea I came up with was based upon my wife. She took a veterinary office assistant course, called VOA for short. Of course, calling customers, interacting with patients, doing paperwork does not sound fun at all... so how about running around a veterinary hospital trying to catch escaping puppies? Avoiding other staff, customers, and various objects. That sounds arcadey.
I needed a platform that would jump-start my idea. I decided on Unity after comparing it to SunBurn. Gamemaker was too basic, and I have already built a game on that engine (I'll put that one up for download in a few weeks!)
After messing about with Javascript, I scrapped all my code and started working in C#. I dunno if it's easier, but I understand it more.
THE TOOLSWell I did say I used Unity to create it. But really Unity doesn't create assets. So what else did I use?
Trimble Sketchup - to create objects such as the building, computers, chairs, desks etc etc
Makehuman - to create the humanoid characters in their rough form
Blender - to make my animations and refine the characters
Gimp - to make my textures
THE GAMEPLAYThe game is score based, you just play for the top score and the game gets progressively harder. Each level begins with a timer, and the timer counts down until you have caught all the puppies and returned them to the kennel. Whatever time remains gets added to your score. You start out in the back room of the hospital, and every few levels a door will open up, letting you explore a larger space - the lobby, exam rooms, and eventually out into the parking lot! Each level adds another obstacle such as staff members, clients, other animals, etc. Bumping some of them loses a try, and touching others slows you down - for example, slipping in a puddle of puppy pee costs you time and therefore points. It was a very concious decision to work hard and make one nice looking level that serves as the platform for the whole game instead of many different stages. There are two buttons, action and run. Pressing the action button when there is no action to be had ersults in a shrug from the player-character, during which you can still walk around but cannot perform another action. It's only like 2 seconds, but going for the high score means getting things done asap. You can't perform an action while running. A standard 8-way joystick controls the action.
There is lots of other stuff that goes on - the audio in the unity engine is a treat to work with. You can walk around and listen in to what's going on in the hospital - all the beeps, conversations, computer noises etc.
RECENT CHANGESWell after thinking about it and reading other threads I decided to make it extremely arcade like - a hidden service menu, configurable controls, free play and coin-operated. I will put in an attract mode and all that.
WHERE I AM ATWhere am I at? Well, for starters every asset has been made for the game. The hospital, the world around it, every pen, key, glass, flat of dog food, clipboard, and chair. The player character (based on my wife), several other humanoids as well. I have not made the dogs yet, but they will probably be little more than a pallet swap each colour with a different personality.
The player inputs are coded and working, as well as several triggers such as slipping in the dog pee (along with a freaking HILARIOUS falling animation).
The "world" is put in place - the lobby chairs, doors, and whatnot are all in the starting positions. The lightmapping has been done in draft form and looks very impressive considering I am such an amateur at this. The last time I did any real programming, it was on a c64.
Coding is the slowest bit for me. I am right now working on the camera script that tells the camera to follow the player. It follows on a left-to right scroll, and moves up and down ever so slightly to help you see to the far side of the room. This one is a tough one, but it gets closer to what I want every day.
"Pics, or it didn't happen!"
Here is the outside world and hospital
Here is the lightmapping on draft mode - the sun coming in through the windows casting shadows.
Some dog pee.
Some Blender action looking at the hospital in it's first iteration:
And a shot through the hospital - this one is old, there's no baseboards.
That dude in the back is named Animation Man. I build all my animations into the same character, so that I just need to import him into any session to test things. He has over 100 animations right now, many just because... there might be more games in the future. Putting binoculars up to his face, lying down, flipping the bird etc. Who knows. I will post more up to date pictures tomorrow!
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Topic: Another Home-Brew game post - VOA! (Read 4322 times)
