100 Orcs [WIP]

Here it goes! For the last three years I've tinkered and toyed with Unity but never took it on as a serious project. For some reason, the beginning of the year just feels right to start something for real. So for the next 3 months I will be starting and finishing a game.

At the time, I plan on calling it 100 Orcs. The plan is to keep the story very simple and the gameplay straight forward. My goal is to finish the game, innovation is secondary in my mind. I think the greatest danger I will run into is increasing the scope of the project as I think of more things to add. So please, if I seem to be getting off track; reel me back into reality.

That being said look for some work in progress every week.

Webplayer: http://bit.ly/100orcs

 

Love the art mate!

 

I'm a fan too. Looks a little odd that their arms are coming out of their hips though instead of their shoulders.

 

Everything about this game feels very appealing.

Will this be an Android release by any chance?

 

Thanks for the kind words!

@SteveJ that's fair about the arms. Soon I will put up some more animations and I hope that will make more sense.

@dogzerx2 I sure hope so! Right now I am focusing on a desktop release. When I get more comfortable I will defiantly attempt a mobile release.

 

For me the misplaced arms and legs don't work at all, but other than that I really like the rest of the art.

 

This displacement may be the cause of art and animation direction. Bridin, it's really interesting to see it in motion

 

I tried doing the arms and legs attached and I just kept feeling off about it. Not so much when it was just still but when I tried to animate it. I just couldn't seem to get it to look right.

I posted this gif awhile back in the WIP Art Thread and thought I would repost it here to show a little bit of the animation.


The animation is much smoother in real time. This is just the first gif I had ever created and I think I did a pretty sloppy job on it.

Another thing to keep in mind as well is that on the actual game screen you really can't tell his arms and legs are not attached.

 

A little weird but charming anyway. I think that you're right, when placed in context with the rest of the screen, it should be fine.

 

So far so good!

I've got some of the systems working. Pretty easy standard stuff like health, coins, and level complete.



I'm looking for feedback on the controls. How do they feel?

Webplayer: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39578945/100%20Orcs%20WIP/100%20Orcs%20WIP.html

 

Game feels dynamic, but somewhat weird. Player falls too fast after jump, run animation continues for too long after player stops. I would also suggest giving more attention to a jump distance in different circumstances. For example, when player bumped into obstacle - he can jump over it by pressing direction + jump, but he shouldn't be able to.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Any thoughts of how I might accomplish your last suggestion?

 

may i ask what are orcs

 

That green thing at the top of the post. Those will be the orcs. I am still animating them and making different variations of them.

 

Updated the webplayer. Tweaked some animation speeds as well as the controller variables. Still struggling to prevent the controller from just jumping over objects when right next to it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39578945/100%20Orcs%20WIP/100%20Orcs%20WIP.html

Next on the list is to add the enemy system and the attack system! Wish me luck!

 

Tested webplayer build, feels okay in motion. Jumping when next to objects doesn't bothers me, frankly.

 

Momentum feels a bit weird when jumping. It seems you keep whatever horizontal momentum you had when you jumped through the whole jump (which works by itself). The problem is that you can change directions while jumping. If you are moving full speed to the right, jump, then go to the left, you fly through the air to the left the same speed as you started, but if you jump from a standstill, you can't. That discrepancy feels strange.

 

I agree, I need to choose one or the other. I really like the movement in a game called Random Heroes for mobile. I am trying to mimic that kind of character movement. This would mean my character needs to be able to move left or right on a stand still jump. Now to figure out how...

 

Did a quick sketch and began vectoring it out over lunch. I hope to complete it tonight! This will be the initial quest giver I think. Something about the Princess is mad that all the orcs are in her kingdom and wants you to run them out.

 

Pretty cool. I'm just trying to figure out what the little "dance" is for when you click the mouse button or press "Z"... then I see your latest post and think that maybe it's reserved for interacting with the princess

 

Thank ya! I had actually forgotten I put that in there! It is actually for a throwing animation. I haven't dove into mixing animations yet. But I will as soon. Nevertheless, I don't think you are far off with interacting with the princess... I kind of imagine her to be a in pain in the butt so it is likely you will throw things at her.

Opps! I also forgot to mention I updated the demo as well. You will see quite a few things removed at this point. I had been building this without any of the new 2D functionality... so I decided to start from scratch while I still could.

Any thoughts on the controller and camera?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39578945/100%20Orcs%20WIP/100%20Orcs%20WIP.html

 

Heh, it all starts with a princess...

 

If we run in one direction, and then change direction to the opposite, camera moves slightly abrupt (at least, in my view).

 

woa yeh, I second that, the camera change is stuperstark. Really hefty.
I'd like to see and feel the controls without that irritation. It makes it really difficult to judge since in the world you setup a lot of abrupt direction changes are due.
Also the camera following/movement is not really helping me when I drop down from a height and then happen to land in an unwanted area, e.g. spikes. Makes it often unfair since theoretically I could change direction in time but since I have no idea where I am falling to, it's highly frustrating.

Looking forward on the next iterations ! Really cool project you have there

 

That makes sense. Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps I can increase the follow speed when the player is falling. Will have to try that this evening!

 

Here is an updated version of princess.

 

She looks moody...

 

Defiantly! And a little OCD.

 

I removed the camera follow. Tell me what you think!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39578945/100%20Orcs%20WIP/100%20Orcs%20WIP.html

 

Your characters are great!

 

Out of curiosity, are you using any plugins to animate your characters or just rotating and translating with the default animator?

 

They are actually skinned meshes from blender. I import the texture as a background in Blender, loosely make a mesh around the different pieces, uv map them to the corresponding planes, offset them appropriately, then set up vertex groups for each bone I need to animate.

Sometime in the near future I want to make a time-lapse video of the process from start to finish. Illustrator to Blender to Unity.

 

Definitely feels better.
I personally think the camera is too close to the game area. Or...ah what do I know. I just remember the articles about Super Mario's camera techniques that made my head hurt but definitely were worth the read.
Maybe it's not too close but the behaviour is still not nailed 100%
Improved by lots but still I can't see the underlaying spikes or terrain which seems rather unfair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCIMPYM0AQg
http://blog.mimeoverse.com/post/574942897/just-completed-a-playthrough-of-super-mario-bros

Not sure if these articles/impressions are public knowledge but I felt like posting them anyways.
Whatever so I feel that the camera should you be going for the current sort of levels you need to be" zoom out" more so the player can have a better overview of the level. Otherwise it'd be only luck-based when dropping down, which would be highly annoying.
Anyways, great tweaks for now !

 

Thanks for sharing this! I will defiantly check it out.

 

Oh I see. I believe that is the same way that Mika Mobile does there 2d animations. Once you finish your game and have extra time you should think about making a tutorial of that process. I'm sure a lot of people who aren't familiar with modeling techniques would find it useful.

Anyway keep up the good work on the game.

 

Yup! I do believe you are correct. And I will defiantly think about doing that. It is a real straight forward process so it would be easy to teach.

 

Really nice looking game!

I like that your backgrounds have tetris shapes. Did you get some inspiration from Fez? I remember from 'Indie Game: The Movie' that the guy who made Fez said he used tetris pieces in the backgrounds to give better looking scenes.

 

Actually, yes. I thought it would be a nice derivative to the standard tile based game while still giving me the same functions. I remember Phil Fish I think his name was saying he really enjoyed using the Tetris shapes in his game. I have to agree, I think they are great shapes

 

Here is the time lapse video of the character rigging process I use. Hope you enjoy and can gain something from it!

 

Played the build. The camera feels better now. I agree that it's worth a try to zoom out a bit.

 

I'm trying to learn all I can about game development workflows, is there any advantage in using blender for animations instead of the Unity animation panel?

 

Honestly, I don't know. I have never used the Unity Animation panel. I used blender because I am familiar with it. Maybe when I get some time I will dive in to Unity animations panel and I will get back with you.

 

that looks really cool. I've been learning a bit of blender myself but haven't tried animating anything. How do you attach the meshes to bones? Is it via automatic weights or some other way?

 

You actually parent the meshes with empty weights. And then you assign the weight through vertex groups.

 

Here is another time-lapse video. This time I am working on some different weapons I plan on implementing in the game. I feel like three different kinds of weapons is a reasonable feat to aim for. Any thoughts?

This is the sketch I did:


And the final:

 

Hey thanks for posting that rigging / animation video!
I like the artwork so far. Controls feel good, looking forward to a new demo

You might want to watch this presentation by vlambeer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U
It show step by step how to make a platformer more awesome.

 

Thank you! I literally just finished watching that video. It is a great presentation! I will defiantly work on implementing some of these tips. But first I need to figure out all the real basic things.

Right now I am working on the main mechanics such as the fighting and weapons stuff. This is proving to be way more difficult than I had originally envisioned. But right now I feel pretty good on the timeline sake. I hope to have all the major systems in place by the end of January, spend February building levels and actually putting the game together. Then March will be a 4 week marketing campaign and bug testing and what not.

 

Great work once again, I'm becoming a fan of your work, how can I learn to draw like that?

 

Start today. You can only get better with every new project. I learned by looking at other peoples work, keeping parts of their style and cutting out the rest. The difference is in the details. I bet that you can't even point out the shadow details in the final version up above, but I will tell you that it makes all the difference in the world.

 

So, it's been two weeks since I began this project. I think it's time I share some insight in to what I've learned this far.

Firstly, thank you all for such positive feedback thus far. The comments and suggestions have been a very strong motivator for me. If I should succeed in this project it will because of this community.

I will be real. This is harder than I anticipated. I knew from what little experience I have that this was gonna be tough. But I had no idea what kind of a time commitment this required. I come from the art side of things. I am a motion graphics designer by trade and I am use to animating with key frames.... Not game loops. Programming languages and me are having a very hard time getting along. While I am heavily relying on playmaker, I have become increasingly aware that it cannot do everything. This was evident as soon as I tried to put together the first character controller.

That being said, I still think I can make the three month deadline. My plan from the beginning was to spend January making the playable prototype and nail down the art style. February would be focused on putting together the game and play testing. Starting in March would be the polishing and hard marketing for a release in April!

Tonight I successfully made my first enemy move and attack my player with animations! My biggest struggle so far has been with collides and triggers. Ray casting seems to be doing well for me though. My next move is to implement the main game mechanic , which if the weapons photo above doesn't give it away, is about swinging swords, shooting arrows and throwing bombs! If luck is on my side I should have a nice playable demo with these mechanics up this weekend! Also, on a bit of a side note something pretty sweet happened on twitter today. @CodestarGames was looking for game characters to draw, I tweeted her a picture of my hero and they turned around this sweet thing:

More soon!