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Freezeme - 3d Platformer!

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Misscelan, Aug 17, 2013.

  1. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Hi everyone,

    I would like to share with you some early footage of a game that I've been working for the past year.



    What is FreezeME?
    Is a 3D platformer that tries to resemble the platformers of the N-64 era.


    Anything new?
    The main distinguishing mechanic is that the player (R) can take pictures and “freeze” for a short period of time enemies and objects, generating new and interesting gameplay situations.


    What is the plot about?
    The Evil Fat the Cat, following his attempts to create a Free-Dog-World, has kidnapped R's best friend (N).
    But to enter Fat the Cat possession's, where N is secluded, R will need to collect enough of an ancient material to be able to forge a special key.

    What engine are you using?
    Unity3d


    On what platforms are you planning to release?
    Wii U, Steam, PC, Linux and MAC.




    Release Date?
    TBC












    Hope you like it :)
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 24, 2015
    TheSin likes this.
  2. renman3000

    renman3000

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    Interesting concept.

    Good luck!
     
  3. Zaddo67

    Zaddo67

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    Love it!!! An original concept. Looks like fun. Good Luck!!
     
  4. SubZeroGaming

    SubZeroGaming

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    I love it. Glad to see something fresh.

    Best,

    Jon
     
  5. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks very much for all the feedback guys, really, much appreciated!!
     
  6. pixelsteam

    pixelsteam

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    Great concept, much to explore...
     
  7. Caliber-Mengsk

    Caliber-Mengsk

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    Looks good, but if you have to fast forward to keep people interested in watching the video, then you probably are going to make the player get bored with it. And in the case of that puzzle, if you mess up, then you'd have to run down or jump off, and do it aaaaaaaaalllllll over again.

    (For some reason this made me thing of dora the explorer too.)
     
  8. ExDeaDguY

    ExDeaDguY

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    Very well done, Looks pretty good. You can tell allot of work has been put into this game!
     
  9. ObsoleteAccount

    ObsoleteAccount

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    I miss the N64 era platformers. The mechanic seems interesting also. It doesn't distract from the platforming mechanics, but actually adds to them, which is great!
     
  10. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    @pixelsteam, @ExDeaDguY, @ZASkaggs: Thank you very much for the nice comments!

    @Caliber Mengsk: that's a very valid point! In the final version I'm planning to have the sphere following a path near the waterfall, but if in the end, the possibility of failing is too high and retrying takes that long I will simply remove that puzzle.

    I'm adding some screenshots of the last puzzle I've been working on.
    Also changed a bit the light and applied some color correction (still not completely happy with it :()



     
  11. rbx775

    rbx775

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    Oh yeah, there were such great games at that time...

    Misscelan, You are doing a great job at bringing back memories. :) (Conkers bad fur day, sigh.)
    I would most likely play this ! Especially the story is simple but funny. It would be even cooler if you would play as a dog !

    The new screenshots also look great, I like the huge clock on the tower. :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2013
  12. Icoplay

    Icoplay

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    Looks cool. Best of luck with the rest of the development!
     
  13. SEG-Veenstra

    SEG-Veenstra

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    Makes me miss my N64 with mario64... very nice puzzling element!
     
  14. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Many thanks again for the feedback!

    Some picutres of the "evil crew". Design + in-game.





    Also, first screenshot of the HUB Level, still far from finished.



    Hope you like them :)!
     
  15. KheltonHeadley

    KheltonHeadley

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    Art(terrain) needs work but it's awesome!
     
    Deleted User likes this.
  16. boothj1985

    boothj1985

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    There aren't many 3d platformers in the indie or industry realm. This looks great even at an early stage.
     
  17. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    I've been working on many things, from the usual fixing bugs, to implementing new animations and shaders but mainly working on the gameplay logic of the levels.
    Also got the help of Case Portman who is composing some really nice tunes for the game, cannot wait to share them! :).

    While I'm working on putting together a sort of alpha version so people can check it out, find below some screenshots of the current progresss.

    Hope you like them :)





     
  18. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Another week went by… working a lot but it doesn’t matter how much, it always feels that not much progress is done :( .

    Again, I’ve been working mainly on the gameplay puzzles, also started working on the level boss battles a bit.

    Find below some screenshots of the current progresss.

    Hope you like them :)




     
  19. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    New video showing some recent footage (this time with music :) ) along with some screenshots.





     
  20. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    I have recently switched the rendering path in Unity Forward Rendering to Deferred Lighting, but I’m still not fully convinced :( .

    The main advantage of deferred for my game is that you can use shadows with point lights. I started working on some indoor areas where sun (directional light) is not reachable and the result was not fully of my liking.

    Even though supposedly I could use lighmaps for those, since my levels are quite big, the final resolution of the lighmpams there makes them almost not noticiable.

    On the other hand, the aliasing is more noticiable using deffered as only some post processing and not hardware can be done.

    I will stick for the moment with deferred and see how it goes, below some results:









    Also, I've playing around with some IA and uploaded a video of the main character "toying" with one of the game´s foes.



    Hope you like it!
     
  21. TechnoNecro

    TechnoNecro

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    Amazing how did you do this? I'm trying to make a 3D platformer but have no idea where to start. I can't seem to find any tutorials on it. You have most of the mechanics I want in my concept.

    You'll certainly get support if you put this on steam greenlight if you show a more polished version everyone is getting sick of the generic side scrollers, minecraft wannabes/generic sandbox games, and even the horror genre is starting to become a desperate cash in.

    Being a 3D platformer alone will get you enough exposure and support :)
     
  22. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the nice comments TechnoNecro!

    There have been a few changes since my last update, the most noticeable one has been the redesign of R, including the mesh and animations.

    The AI has been reworked a bit as well as the HUD, where all the elements have been redesign and some new code has been added to it.

    The main directional light has been rotated to be completely perpendicular to the objects, so the player can see the shadows of the objects perpendicular to them and measure better their distance.

    I have also started working with the profiler, still a long way to go, but with a few tweaks here and there, got around 30% fps increase.

    Finally, I have implemented some new FXs.

    I have put together a new video showing some of these developments, really hope you like it :)!

     
  23. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Since the last updated, I have mainly focused on a terrain mesh and updates on the camera features.

    For the terrain mesh, I've been using the unity default terrain feature.
    You can get decent results quick and it is integrated in the editor, so you can modify it and see the results in real time.
    But it also has limitations, for me the most annoying ones for me were:

    The chequered layout: the terrain is a heightmap defined by the resolution, disposition of these points that define the terrain cannot be moved, so you are limited to this chequered mesh. This became really noticeable for me when I tried to make some roads on the terrain.

    Textures on perpendicular surfaces: with the default unity terrain tools you cannot modify the uv coordinates of the texture, this becomes really annoying the more perpendicular the surface is as it will be displayed more and more stretched.

    Holes: well, you cannot make any holes on the map, that’s it :(

    So, after trying for a while to find fixes for all those limitations, just gave up, exported the terrain into an .obj file, and worked on a brand new terrain on blender. You can do all you can think of, but it is way more time consuming, and you cannot see the results in game in real time, so I had to go back and forth multiple times.

    After a few days, I managed to put something decent together, and I’m quite happy with it :)






    Then, as mentioned above, I spent some time working on some new camera features.

    The player was able to rotate the camera around and some basic collision detection was implemented: a raycast thrown from the player to the camera, if a collision is detected the camera moves a bit ahead of the collision point.

    This would suffice for most of the situations, but there are some exceptions on which the player would benefit for something a bit more sophisticated.

    Exception 1 – Small, thin or full of holes objects
    Sometimes, if the main characters passes by one of those really close and this object happens to be between the cam and the character, then, the camera will quickly/abruptly move closer to the character. This can be a bit disorienting for the player, and, honestly there is no real need to move the camera closer, the geometry of these objects won’t prevent the player from “guessing” what is behind.

    For this exception, first, I changed the player shader to display the silhouette. when an object is occluding it, on top of it. Then, I tagged these specific objects so they are not retrieved in the raycast collision.

    As a result, in the supposed scenario above, the camera won’t move, but the player could still follow the trajectory.



    Exception 2 – fixed camera
    Sometimes there some specific angles that are really beneficial for the player, you can always let the player find that specific angle themselves, but in most cases they would appreciate a little bit of help :).

    So I have set up some volume bounding boxes connected to a fixed point in space, when the player enters that volume, the camera moves as close as possible to that fixed point, and stays there until the player leaves the volume.



    Exception 3 – Camera on rails
    Similar to the previous one, the difference here is that I can make the fixed point “mimic” the movements on whatever axis I decide, one, two of all of them at the same time.

    This somehow imitates camera on rails feature, widely seen on movies.



    Exception 4 – Cinematic
    Haven’t done much here, just integrated the cutscene plugging uSequencer.



    AI – Back to back
    Last, some basic AI, after a couple of seconds, if there is no input received the camera will automatically move to the back of the player.

    Finally, you can watch a video with all those features implemented:
    Hope you find it interesting!

     
  24. Paddington_Bear

    Paddington_Bear

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    I love this game so much it hurts. Great job!
     
  25. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    The game loves you too TheDuckOnQuack :p
    Thanks for the nice comments!
     
  26. TechnoNecro

    TechnoNecro

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    Wow it's coming a long nicely are you anywhere near greenlighting the game or is this all still on pre alpha? Do you have a story or universe behind this game?:D
     
  27. Kellyrayj

    Kellyrayj

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    Super cool man! Great job!
     
  28. Spelle

    Spelle

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    Do you have some webplayer demo? :)
     
  29. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thank you so much for the nice comments guys!

    @TechnoNecro eventually will put it on greenlight, but still want to work a bit more on it.
    Regarding the story, it is a bit bizarre :), the best friend of "R" (the main character) called "N" (who is a dog), has been kidnapped by Fat the Cat, who is trying to create a free-dog-world. The rest, you will find out while playing :p

    @Spelle unfortunately I don´t have anything yet, it will take a bit still until I manage to put something together that I'm happy to give away :(
     
  30. Kirbyrawr

    Kirbyrawr

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    Awesome game, good luck, i love when you walk on these rocks with the gravity changed.
     
  31. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the comments KirbyRawr, it was a major headache to make them work properly, glad to see people like them :).

    Below a few gifs that I've been posting on screenshot saturday lately :)





     
  32. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    I have worked on so many things since the last update that I don’t even remember most of them :).

    The most important are the controls.
    It is extremely difficult to find that sweet spot on which you feel on total control of the character, I had tried so many different approaches/variables/values and none of them was completely of my liking, especially the jump/double jump, often I had this feeling it was too fast/or too high or… whatever.

    Finally decided to scratch all I had and start all over again, and now I can say I feel incredibly happy with the results, still a few bugs to fix but nothing major.
    I have also reworked the HUD, dialogues, sounds fx and added this funny gibberish talking (like the one on Banjo Kazooie) and also added transition images at the beginning/end of the level.
    From an aesthetic point of view, I have modified the shadows and the illumination substantially. Take ages to bake the scene, but you can feel the difference :).

    Also, got 2 new animations for the main character (running and kicking). I wasn’t especially happy with the running one, it was ok, but nothing characteristic, Bela Szabo helped me out with those.

    Ah, well, joystick support and new logo too :p.

    You can see all that progress on the following video, hope you like it!

     
  33. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Video showing a few of the things that I've been working on last week. Soooo many and too lazy to list them :).

    Hope you like the video!

     
  34. Cooper37

    Cooper37

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    Very nice game. Reminds me of Mario 64. I making a 3D platformer too, only hope it's as cool as yours.
     
  35. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the nice comment Cooper37! Don't know what you are working on atm, but anyone cat get what I got so far, just need some dedication to it :)
     
  36. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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  37. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Just released a video with some updates:

    This week I’ve been working on improving the dialogue system, populating the first level, adding some new NPCs and last but not least, I have modified the post processing filters, now the game looks more colorful and vibrant!



    Also, I’m going to release an alpha demo for free on March 17th :)

    Finally, did I tell you that we are on greenlight and we would really appreciate you upvote :p? Here:

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231340170

    Thank you very much in advance!
     
  38. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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  39. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Some critics :
    -Player continue running after you stop key press : really weird and very frustrating, like Mario 64 i want character to stop running if i don't make it run no more.
    - aerial Platforms color : strong red color, this looks strange , make lot of contrast to rest of level, why not green, blue or other, i would keep red for danger stuff instead
    - Three Moving platforms on wall, they make lot of smoke ? Why , like MArio 64 no smoke , or little touch only, looks strange
    - Character pushes with hands each time we continue running on a wall or other stuff : frustrating, as characters seesm to be stuck almost continuing pusing, i would prefer no pushing at all, and only push moveable objects (just remove this movement from character perhaps, it's not Zelda Wind Waker ?)
    - red monsters are lot of times colliding one with other in strange positions when walking
    - On gaz mission, the panel of mechanism, si super small, nothing can be read also, and panel should be big, visible when coming near structure and outside of the wooden structure
    - What are green tubes on the wood structure ? what is their purpose ? why is there some yellow big bubbles or power coming from them ?
    I didn't understood anything on what to do ? Better explain or make puzzle step by step ? i didn't understood what to do with blue wooden boxes ?
    - Character walking on moutain slope walks slow : it's not physic realistic simulation : let's player run anywhere even on 45° or more terrain slopes
    - Character run speed is too slow, it's long go from one point to another

    Amazing game, keep improving.
     
  40. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Last point for today :
    Menu choices are hard to read, selected button color is almost same as un selected one.
     
  41. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Yeah! More feedback, that's amazing thanks so much zenGarden!

    Player continue running after you stop key press : really weird and very frustrating, like Mario 64 i want character to stop running if i don't make it run no more.

    -there should be a "break/stop" animation when you release the joystick, maybe I have to display it for more time and make the deceleration more aggressive.


    aerial Platforms color : strong red color, this looks strange , make lot of contrast to rest of level, why not green, blue or other, i would keep red for danger stuff instead

    - They probably look too much red because of the bloom post-production effect. I will modify that, so they don’t look that harsh on the eye.


    Three Moving platforms on wall, they make lot of smoke ? Why , like MArio 64 no smoke , or little touch only, looks strange

    -Just wanted to simulate some friction, will decrease the amount considerably.


    Character pushes with hands each time we continue running on a wall or other stuff : frustrating, as characters seesm to be stuck almost continuing pusing, i would prefer no pushing at all, and only push moveable objects (just remove this movement from character perhaps, it's not Zelda Wind Waker ?)

    I guess I can restrict that for pushing objects, should not be a problem. However, every time you get close to a wall if your direction is not completely perpendicular, it should initiate the side steps movement, and that I cannot remove as it's part of the design, maybe I can give it a second try and make it easier to detach (if that was the issue you were talking about)


    red monsters are lot of times colliding one with other in strange positions when walking
    Yeah, that's a know issues, I have to completely rework the navigation rutine of the monsters and NPCs.


    On gaz mission, the panel of mechanism, si super small, nothing can be read also, and panel should be big, visible when coming near structure and outside of the wooden structure
    - What are green tubes on the wood structure ? what is their purpose ? why is there some yellow big bubbles or power coming from them ?
    I didn't understood anything on what to do ? Better explain or make puzzle step by step ? i didn't understood what to do with blue wooden boxes ?


    -First, about the panel in the corner of the gas puzzle, there should a hint displayed when you read it, something like "when the blue goes up, the red will follow", can you read that?

    So the idea is that the device in the middle rotates, there is side that has a tube in form of a T, when the device stops the green pipe that is at that moment in front of that T will start emitting gas, if you put a blue box on top, the blue box will go up and active the red platform next to it, so you can jump on the red platform and go up.
    The trick is that you will not have time to move the blue box under the green pipe on time, to do so when the device at the center starts to slow down, take a picture of it, so it freezes and you have time to move the blue box on top of the pipe :).



    - Character walking on moutain slope walks slow : it's not physic realistic simulation : let's player run anywhere even on 45° or more terrain slopes
    - Character run speed is too slow, it's long go from one point to another


    -About this 2 points, I have to adjust this, as some people are telling is too fast and some other too slow, so still don’t really know where to go. In any case you can move considerably faster if you run, then jump, the hit the action key and press continuously jump to stand up quickly again, if you repeat that you can cover a lot of the ground super fast :). I know is just a sort of hack, so I might introduce some teleporting or similar.

    -Menu choices are hard to read, selected button color is almost same as un selected one.
    Duly note, will add that to the TODO list.

    Once again, thank you very much for all the excellent feedback provided!
     
  42. create3dgames

    create3dgames

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    Looks really cool. I think it would be better if it was called "Freeze Me" instead of "FreezeME".
     
  43. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

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    Pretty cool! :)

    Are there any areas where the music changes? :)
     
  44. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the nice comments guys!

    @create3dgames Damn, you might be right! Mmm, I'll think carefully about it :)

    @Don Gray there is one main theme for each level, however if you go all the way up to the top of the grey montain, you will fight the boss of this level, there there is a different tune.*
    Also, there is a race event (not implemented in the alpha) where you race against the pig with the orange hat, there another different tune is played.
     
  45. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Hello everybody!

    I'd like to show some pictures with some of the updates I've been working on recently.
    I'm in the process of changing most of the textures and shaders, I've added lots of stuff to the level.
    Fixed numerous bugs (mainly character's movement related).
    Also, focused a bit more on the menus and finally, now the main character is wearing glasses and sneakers! (please don't tell me still looks like Dora :p)






    I have to implement some changes on the shadowing procedure, add different options for the camera (auto/semi/manual) and fix some bugs on the navigation and path finding for the enemies to wrap up Alpha v0.31.

    Hope you like it so far!
     
  46. angdrw

    angdrw

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    Really nice looking game :) looking forward to buy it and play ;)
     
  47. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Well majority of time character won't need to push anything,about side step movement i think only few places will need it ?
    Why not in editor give a specific tag "pushable", so only when front of pushable object the character would begin to push.
    Same for step side movement areas, place some invisible collider or tag wall as "side step".
    Or player have just to not run front of objects.


    About new pics, Textures are gorgeous and i like the fire effect style.Menu is top now.Awesome.
    Don't hesitate to post other download when you'll need feedback.

    How did ypu made rectangular aerial platorms where the player is running on ?
    3D tiles models ?
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2014
  48. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the nice comments guys!

    @zenGarden *I'll probably go for lowering the angle that triggers that movement, so you have to really go against the wall to stick to it.
    The tagging is a good idea, however I would need to change the visuals too, the players would need to know when they can stick or not,
    otherwise would be unfair, and If I implement a visual hint, then some puzzles would become too easy :(.

    About the platforms, I bought them on the assetstore, they are sort of 3d tiles , they are call Green World, check it out! :)




    Still a couple of weeks to wrap up the new alpha but here is a*
    video that shows some of the stuff I mentioned in earlier post.

     
  49. TheValar

    TheValar

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    Looking good, I like how the camera (as in camera angles) works. Is it switching to a different mode when she gets to the fire platforms?
     
  50. Misscelan

    Misscelan

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    Thanks for the comment TheValar!
    Yep, you can set different cameras in game semi/auto and manual, most of the video was set to manual but when I entered the fire platforms I set it to automatic (in this mode the camera is not "turnable" and the game tries to pick the "best angle")