The idea struck me a while ago, I am a big fan of the film "How to Train Your Dragon" and those 3D infinite runner games, so I think you know where I'm going with this :)
Started on the project yesterday eve, and managed to make a prototype infinite terrain as well as a vertex shader that makes the curvature in the terrain based on the distance from the camera. Seems to be running ok so far on my phone.
Something that I noticed in a lot of the infinite runner genre is that they use curved terrain instead of the usual distance fog, that way when the forward terrain is spawned it is hidden from the camera but also it gives a more interesting look. Building assets however won't be a pain in the butt if using this shader trick, the models are straight, and thus easier to model and make seamless.
With the Curvature Shader
Without the Curvature Shader
And as I like to mix my work I also worked on some character concepts today to get me started on creating the models:
Decided to jar the little red dragon game for now, reason being: while I was fiddling with the gameplay for that game I realized that I still had a month's work ahead of me to make that game and I still wasn't comfortable with the gameplay.
The next thing I planned was to spend 7 days to make a game from head to toes and publish it, I really needed to know how the whole process goes, and so Cuboid Arcade was born.
It's a simple colour match arcade game where you get assaulted by invading colours and you need to destroy them, with the added bonus of powerups.
Can Play the game for free if you have an android device right here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ZeeGames.CuboidArcadeFree
The concept was simple enough, and I got to toy around with 2D Sprites for the first time, and also learned a few bits about mip mapping and shader optimization for mobile phones, it's still only 30 FPS on my cheap phone, while on my quad core tablet it's 60 capped, but happy with the result.
An interesting problem that I ran into that not many people talk about was when Unity instantiated prefabs for the first time. On the PC that process was unnoticeable, while on the phone the game hicked up, a few times even at the start of the game when they were instantiated on demand. Turn out that it wasn't the instantiating prefabs that was causing the hickup, but rather drawing the shader for the first time. The solution was very simple, at the start of the game scene, just run the command Shader.WarmupAllShaders(); "Calling this function will perform dummy one-invisible-triangle rendering with all variants of all currently loaded shaders. This can take some time but helps to avoid hiccups in the future." That's my update for now, I'll be posting some concept art next I believe.
Looking back at the initial art I've done for the actual game, I realized that I've missed something very essential. While I was having fun playing with cute colors in Photoshop I had not imagined how the ansamble of the game level would look like.
Not a complete disaster ofcourse, but I remembered something that I learned in the past, and that is separation of the game layers. In my case, I have the:
Background (containing some 2D sprites with different Z axis positions for paralax)
Game Area (where the 3D happens, the character, objects around him etc.)
Foreground (or the UI)
To separate them visually I'll play with the colour contrast, keeping the background rather dull with light colours, and adding a lot of colour to the Play Area, where the character interacts with the game. As for the UI / menu, Black and White will stand out even more from the coloured game, while not being an eye soar.
A good start would be the graphics that I made for the level select screen:
Did I mention the first week was -quite- productive?
The idea is : Start with a smaller project, give it a month of development as a soft limit, and see where you can get to.
And so, Rolo's Quest was what I went for. I think the image above describes what the gameplay is all about. (Keep in mind that I plan to modify the graphics that you see above, but will go more into that in a following post)
Platforms? Let's start with Android, if I can make this game run decently on my cheap android, it'll run on any device out there, haha. Current plan is Android, then PC, then IPhone, and maybe consoles but only if it gets a lot of appreciation. This is ofcourse the absolute first video game I develop, and there's lots of experience to be gained (part of the fun).
Engine of choice? Unity 3D. Absolutely fell in love with this engine the moment I laid my hands on it, and the best thing about it is, it's free, it's a godsend for beginners, and it's able to output the game for every platform that I've heard of.
Most independent video game developers consider themselves first as a coder and then secondly as an artist. I, on the other hand, am just the opposite. With a background in computer graphics, and little knowledge in computer programming I set at last on an interesting journey, that of an "indie game dev".
This blog will be my diary as I begin this career, whether it's successful or not, I hope I can help others like me by typing down all the hoops I've jumped through and even share a few tips.
It's not something that hit me in the head over night, ofcourse. Could say that I always wanted to make video games, heck doesn't every gamer? And so, last week, after a long period of thought and planning I began working, actual work, on my first indie game project, and I am prepared to take it to a finished state.
As mentioned above this is one week after I've started my work on the project, and I have made a -lot- of progress.
Project: Rolo's Quest (Working Title) Week 1 - Goal: The backbone of the game.
-Achieved -
Over the next few posts I will try to elaborate the work that I've done so far, and organize my thoughts as I make plans for week 2.
For now I shall leave you with a screenshot of the Game's Main Menu.
