Someplace Sinister : A top down shooter

Hi, I will keep the latest progress video at the top incase you want to quickly see the current state of the game. Everything else will be in order, cheers.

I experimented with top down shooters for the first time a short while ago with my Ludum Dare 27 game Ten Down. I think it turned out relatively OK, and have decided to expand upon the idea with 'Someplace Sinister' (most probably just a working title, but who knows).

The main piece of feedback that I've received on Ten Down is that the control system is rather uncomfortable. Not having played many games of this type myself, I'm not sure what the best approach is. I've experimented today with a pure WASD movement system, entirely abandoning the mouse. I'm hoping to get some feedback from you guys on this. Does this setup offer enough control, and if not, what other input schemes would you suggest?

Test out the current setup HERE.
WASD or arrow keys to move, spacebar to shoot and shift to sprint.

This is the graphical style of Ten Down, which most people seem to have liked. I'm thinking of making this game in a pretty similar style, but with more detail and a good degree more variety in colour (outside areas etc).



As for the gameplay itself, the idea is to give the player a wide variety of randomly generated maps to explore and complete. The different maps will have different themes, some being dark and slightly edging towards a horror feel, and others brighter and more friendly (although equally deadly). I'm still struggling to picture the types of adversaries, but no zombies! Clearly the concept for this game is still in its infancy, but I'm working on it to try create something fun and with at least one or two unique aspects.

I'll be keeping you guys updated on the progress of this game as it develops, and I hope to hear (or see, as you will) from you guys.
Cheers

 

This looks good! I really liked Ten Down, and I think that this will be even more fun...

As far as the control scheme goes, IMO, it would be the easiest to play if it used a WASD setup with a mouse, ie: the mouse controls the look, move, and firing direction, the WS axis controls the player-relative forwards/backwards movement, and the AD axis controls the player-relative side-strafing.

As far as the gameplay goes, will it be a blast-your-way-to-the-top style? Or more of an open-world RPG-ish take on Ten Down?

With the graphics, what I would love to see(Just personally, not in this game, unless that is where you are going...) is a "Crysis graphics meets the king of top-down shooter's gameplay". However, that said, I also like the minimalist/cartoony feel that you have now...

But, as with all things I say, take that with a grain of salt.

No matter what, I still think that with hard work and determination, this game will look good!

 

Thanks Axtel, it's going to be quite heavily focused on character progression, allowing the player to level up and unlock various pieces of equipment and abilities. It will hopefully be very fast-paced and exciting, but at the same time retain some sort of tactical element as well.

I've decided I'm not going to be creating this one solo and have created a recruitment video (looking for a 3D artist). The video also shows the progress on the player controller I had in the first post. (I have posted this in the collaboration thread, but I think it belongs here too).

 

Your welcome! It sounds like it will be a very fun game to play... As far as the weapons go, is the player going to be ale to customize them, and/or are there going to be random weapon assembly drops like in Starforge for example?

EDIT: I definitely do not qualify as a "Talented 3D Artist", so I can't help you there, but I will be following the project.

 

I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with weapon customisation, but certainly the weapons will become more formidable and 'level up' as you use them. I have a new progress video out, feel free to take a look!

 

Really liking the art style! I would suggest detailing the enemies, even if it is just a texture and a normal map.

I think it would be fun to be able to start out with just a basic weapon, and be able to pick up more advanced weapon from "weapon caches" or something like that... Also, what would be fun is to be able to pick up the dead bodies of the robots, and use that to build stuff like sentry turrets, or weapon attachments, or even weapons... I can see the player vanquishing a boss robot, perhaps with a ranged weapon(the robot, not the player), and getting a really cool weapon, or something like that...

Of course, this is just me dreaming "pie in the sky", as it were, so take what I have said with the mandatory "grain of salt"...

 

This looks pretty good i like the that robot's animation , Good Job.

Btw, check your inbox.

 

I ran into this issue doing top-down controls too with WASD Mouse. Initially I had it set up like you suggest, where WASD is relative to the way you're character is facing.
Universally the feedback I got was negative, so I switched it to WASD relative to world-coords, and that worked much much better.
When your quickly moving you mouse it can be hard to get used to the movement changes, whereas if the movement is based on world coords you always know W will move you Up etc. Me the people playing found it much more comfortable to use.


Game looks great Random Username! Looking forward to seeing more. Reminds me of Teleglitch in all the right ways, from the vids description

 

This is looking awesome!

 

I think the wasd keys should always be relative to the world, so up is always up and so on and then use mouse to rotate the character and aim.
Looks really nice so far, style is perfect for this kind of game : )