dev log 01 - the road so far

I've been chipping away at a game project for a while now, and for most of that time I've wanted to keep a log of my progress - both for social media-ing purposes and to just keep a track of how I've been going personally. Now that I have my own site, it seems like a good time to get started with that.

so what have i been working on?

Some sort of multiplayer FPS party game? - it probably sounds a bit vague because it is - this project started several years back as something entirely different, but as I've improved as a developer and as I've worked on it on and off the scope has shifted fairly dramatically.

Originally the game was meant to be a horde shooter like Team Fortress 2's Mann Versus Machine mode - but as I became more familiar with the technical challenges of developing server authoritative net code I realised how much work I was setting aside for myself. I'd still like to return to that idea, but for now I'll need something simpler that I can start prototyping without having to develop a bunch of AI/navmesh crud.

The closest game I can personally think of would be Duck Game - a side-on party... fighting game? deathmatch simulator? platformer??? I'm not really sure what to classify that game as - it's kind of its own experience - if you have a few bucks and a few friends I'd definitely give it a try.

Obviously, a side-on 2d platform fighter is a bit different to an FPS, but what I'm interested in is the general format of combat: Rounds in Duck Game are VERY short, usually lasting only a few seconds to a minute or so at most. The game rapid fires through these micro-stages until someone reaches the score limit at one of the intermissions (every 10 rounds I think). This combined with the sometimes randomised spawns for weapons often results in really chaotic gameplay, which I love.

The chaos doesn't stop there though - many of the weapons have a large range of interactions thanks to the very systems driven nature of the game - swords can be thrown, weapons overheat and catch fire, projectiles can be deflected, and so on. A skilled player can sometimes take advantage of these things, but often it's hard to keep track of every interaction (resulting in a swift death) which helps prevent things from being too one-sided when playing with newer players. This is the chaos I'd like to recreate in my game.

what stage of development am i in?

Well, fortunately and unfortunately the game has just passed the tech-demo phase. Multiplayer works well, I can connect via IP or through the Steam API, you can start and 'play' a very simplified version of the game, and player movement is responsive (server-sided knockback/external push forces was a pain in the neck) - this was a huge hurdle and a significant part of why I'm even making this post. Beyond that there isn't really a lot of actual capital-G-Game yet - there's only one real weapon and it kinda sucks to use.

But that's the exciting part - now that many (but not all) of the technical hurdles are out of the way I can actually focus on designing the game. Even though my game is inspired by Duck Game - it isn't the same game - so I'll need to work on finding out what makes my game 'Fun' before I pour too much time into art assets or polish. Expect to see some ideas for weapons and game-mode formats in the coming days/weeks - I want to iterate on things a bunch now that I have the tools to do so.

Here are some pictures of the test scene I've been working with

Well, that's all for now. I'm off to go and try to make some test weapons for the game.

Byeee~