Dead Awake - Pixel Art, Rouge, Hardcore

I'm currently an artist doing my best to learn how to script in Unity and about a month ago I started a project I currently call Dead Awake. The goal is mostly to learn and also to develop a game that I myself want to play.



Dead Awake
You play as a clone that wakes up from a cryo chamber in a secret underground research lab. All staff have been infected by some strange virus, you know the regular zombie background story. Anways, the goal is to reach the top and get the hell out of there. The problem is, one bite and you also start wandering around like a drooling crazed undead maniac.

Gameplay
Simple and fast controlls with loot, melee weapons and ranged weapons. Weapons deteriorate when used and eventually breaks. Therefor the player is always forced to search for new and better weapons.

Finised Features

• Ranged Weapons with single, burst, auto and shotgun fire modes
• Melee weapons
• Weapon Deterioration and breaks
• Lootable containers
• Loot with different rarity
• Elevator ride between floors
• Ingame UI with mouse over loot for fast info
• Intro Sequence
• Muzzle flashes and bullet shells
• Blood pools that leave tracks when walked through
• Interactable doors
• Simple control hints

Upcoming Features

• Procedurally generated floor layouts with predefined rooms
• Security doors that unlocks with codes that are found
• Player and Enemy animations
• Improved AI, ability to start attacking doors if locked in by player
• Improved tutorial, it's not optimal right now
• Destroyable lightsources
• Bullet impacts and effects depending on hit object
• More GUNS AND WEAPONS!
• Outro Sequence when reaching surface
• Possibly adding a inventory slot to ranged weapons to be able to switch between two instead of only one

Play the latest version here

 

No music no sound.The demo should have both at least.

 

It's an unfinished alpha so yeah, there is no sound or music yet. I'm an artist and trying to learn to code, audio is something I'll add in a later stage of development.

 

I really like the environment and lighting art, also the menu screens. The enemies need some work so that it's obvious when you've killed them, maybe they can sprawl full length OR EXPLODE LIKE BLOOD PUDDINGS but it's alpha so I'm sure you know all that.

As for music, I'm about to be on your case about that.

Edit - didn't realise there was a demo. Very, very shiny art. I died pretty fast and found the controls troublesome (as it's top-down but with FPS mouse+keyboard setup) but then I don't often play games like this. Could be a winner.

 

Looks great man!

Love the work you've put into this so far, keep it up.

 

Ok, so I was going to PM but that doesn't work, and your site is in a language I have no knowledge of, so - I'm a composer if you need some music.

http://th1swasatriumph.bandcamp.com/ has finished OSTs and https://soundcloud.com/davedextermusic is more unfinished and unreleased stuff. I'm guessing you might want chiptunes or electronica or synth or something, so on Bandcamp there's The Other Brothers, Gravitation and Star Champion; on Soundcloud there's a couple of WIP synthtronica pieces.

You can get in touch with me on here if you're interested, though you might not be at all, in which case just carry on making yo' shiny game.

 

Heu: Thanks !
DaveDexterMusic: I'll contact you when I get to the point where I'll ned music. I have some ideas of what I want and how I want the music to be integrated but it's to early to tell yet

 

I designed and scripted the functionality for Security Pad UI that is going to be used for locked doors.



The idea is to have some rooms locked that contain awesome loot but require a keycode to open. The keycode is found on a random enemy on the same floor. So it will require some exploration and hunting to find the codes.

Now I only have to make lockable doors and bring up the UI when pressed and figure out a way to decide what enemy to drop the codes

 

Security Codes for doors are integrated and working. The code gets generated each restart at random and the door unlocks when the player inputs the correct code.



Next is to put these codes on random enemies on the floor and have them drop it when they die.

 

Looks pretty neat so far. Based on that Gif of you shooting enemies, I was thinking you could make it a bit more clear that the enemies died, maybe by having the head roll up with the eyes X'ed out, just a suggestion.

 

I'm gonna add the correct enemies and player sprites later on with reak death animations and such. Just haven't gotten there yet. But yeah it is really unclear right now when enemies dies and attacks

 

Tonight I fixed so enemies drop PDA's that can contain story elements or security codes for doors on the current floor.

The codes are stored and displayed in the security pad UI so it's simple to see what codes the player has found.



Have also fixed some other stuffs like lights that can be destroyed and such..

Try the latest version HERE

PS. Still only one floor so the elevator doesn't do anything...

 

I have been working on a procedural layout generator for each floor and I got the first version "playable" today. Still has a bunch of bugs and need some polish before I can post a version with it but it's starting to look promising!

It was the most challenging feature yet and I'm real proud that I even got it half-working

 

Got the first playable version with procedural floor layouts working! Still some kinks but should be solveable.

Heres three different layouts that got generated. It only builds to the right since I haven't finised all room types and I have no rooms with exits to the left yet Will fix some more rooms tomorrow and see how it turns out.

Generation takes about 1-2 seconds right now and runs on the fly.



Play the version with procedural floor layouts HERE

 

So I fixed some bugs in the generation, optimized some scripts (the enemyAI was sucking the life out of my CPU when generating large levels). Below is a gif where I generate some different layouts in a floor size of 40 rooms.



There is still a big freeze when all the rooms get activated but I might be able to solve that later on.

Will fix some features I have planned now such as two slots for ranged weapons, a health indicator, more melee weapons and also the ability to fight with your hands.

Latest version playable HERE

edit: i noticed a bug when recording the gif, seems that rooms gets added over the intro room. This doesn't happen in the game, just used the wrong function when capturing to gif

 

I didn't like that players always had to throw away cool guns because they didn't have enough ammo so today I added two slots for ranged weapons.



To switch between weapons use TAB. I need to think about the controls and improve the "tutorial" some day but untill then here are the control scheme:

Mouse 1: Melee Attack
Mouse 2 (hold): Aim Ranged Weapon
Mouse 2 + 1: Fire ranged Weapon

F: Interact
Q: Throw Melee Weapon
Q + Mouse 2: Throw Ranged Weapon
TAB: Switch Ranged Weapon

Latest version playable HERE

 

"Finished" support for multiple floors with procedural generation. I have some issues as listed below but I'll sort those out later on.

Bugs:
• Crash at last floor (need to add outro room and sequence)
• All elevators say that they are at floor 1
• Elevator doors flicker when generating next floor and can be opened before the elevator arrives.

PLAY IT HERE

 

I added a highlight to lootable objects to make them more visible. Also added the first melee weapon the player will get, a screwdriver.. Tough luck..



Feedback is wanted so if you have a few minutes please play the game and tell me what sucks and what doesn't
Latest version playable in browser HERE

 

Changed my mind about the art and started changing the game to pure top down instead. Solves a lot of headache and I kind of like it better.

 

Hey man! I think I saw your game over on Polycount a while ago. Good to see it here as well now. Pretty good progress so far.

So, I tried playing the demo twice with laptop controlls and failed killing the very first enemy, so I'll give it another go later when I got a mouse to aim. As first enemies go, these zombies might be a little bit too fast and take a surprising amount of hits. And because they hit like a trucker your srewdriver is damn near useless. Maybe add some knockback to melee weapons to allow some crowdcontroll. Also it's not really clear atm when you get hit. Some hit indication would help a lot.

The movement controlls feel extremely slugish and unpercice. That might have to do with framerate but even then. A 2d sprite game should not tank a mediorce laptop. Are all those lights actual unity point lights? If yes you might want to consider using just textures or bake your light somehow.

The art itself looks pretty darn nice and it already got a lot of atmosphere. Most assets are very well done, just the big door leading out of starting area just didnt really look like a door at first. Took me way longer then I'd like to admit to figure that out Maybe just put an arrow on the floow pointing towards it or something?

Anyways, very good progress, keep it up and good luck!

oh, and @ HardTarget
... no!

 

inko: Thanks for the feedback! Yeah the screwdriver is totally worthless, the first enemies are going to be a lot easier but I just haven't gotten around to fix it yet. Will try to create a vertical slice when the graphics are fixed and I have fixed some bugs with the procedural floor generation.

The game is quite expensive right now since I haven't gotten sprite batching to work in Unity with point lights, and i don't want to bake lights since they are destroyable and some will be animated later on. I have seen more people having trouble with this so I hope it will get fixed in Unity 5.

But I will write your feedback up on my tasklist:
* Knockback on melee
* Better performance
* Hit indications for enemies
* More balanced first floor (less sucky first weapon )
* Fix vertical doors with arrow or something

Thanks again!

 

Have continued on changing the art to top down. Only the door and elevator left to change then everything is fixed. Also tried adding a line of sight effect.

No playable demo of this since all the other rooms than the start room are f****ed up and needs fixing.

 

This is awesome! Love it.

 

Great start man, look forward to seeing updates.

I'm in the same boat as you, designer but complete noob when it comes to coding.

 

Fixed all rooms to work with the new pure top down art and remade the doors. Still have to redesign the elevators and fix some offset issues in the floor generation.



Although it is playable so try it out HERE

 

Cool, ill have to try this later tonight!

 

I really like the look of your game, I'm gonna try it out soon and I'll let you know what I think! I was wondering though if you could share how you got your character to follow your mouse? I got a code to do it, but it's super glitchy and rarely works. Also are you using third person controller?

 

Here is my move and aim code, it contains some other code as well as lowering speed when aiming etc.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     private void Move()
3.     {
4.         myMoveInput = myTransform.TransformDirection(myMoveInput);
5.         if(myMoveInput.magnitude > 1)
6.             myMoveInput.Normalize();
7.         Vector3 move = rigidbody2D.velocity;
8.        
9.         //Lower speed if aiming or reloading
10.         if(myIsAiming || myReloading)
11.             myMoveSpeed = movementSpeed * aimDecrease;
12.         else
13.             myMoveSpeed = movementSpeed;
14.  
15.         move = myMoveInput * movementSpeed;
16.        
17.         move.x = Mathf.Clamp(move.x + myMoveInput.x * myMoveSpeed, -myMoveSpeed, myMoveSpeed);
18.         move.y = Mathf.Clamp(move.y + myMoveInput.y * myMoveSpeed, -myMoveSpeed, myMoveSpeed);
19.        
20.         myRigidbody2D.velocity = move;
21.  
22.         //Check movement sound
23.         if(!myIsAiming || !myReloading)
24.             MovementSound();
25.     }
26.    
27.     private void Aim()
28.     {
29.         Vector3 mousePos = Input.mousePosition;
30.         mousePos.z = 0f;
31.        
32.         Vector3 objectPos = Camera.main.WorldToScreenPoint (myTransform.position);
33.         mousePos.x = mousePos.x - objectPos.x;
34.         mousePos.y = mousePos.y - objectPos.y;
35.  
36.         float angle = Mathf.Atan2(mousePos.y, mousePos.x) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;
37.         mySprite.transform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler(new Vector3(0, 0, angle-90));
38.     }
39.  

 

Having issues with it, but thanks! I'll play with it!

 

Yeah there are probably some variables that you need to assign and some code that needs removing. But hopefully you will get it working with a few tricks

If you get into trouble I might be able to help

 

Found some of the s**tload of bugs and got them fixed. The floor generation is working a lot better now. Still gotta fix that there is two doors when going up a floor and leaving the elevator.

Although it is playable so try it out HERE

 

I'm confused about how variables work but I literally started learning C# a few days ago, so.... haha.

 

This weekend I fixed a lot of bugs and also finally got all art switched to pure top down view. Next is getting a vertical slice going with all 5 floors working correctly and a mockup "end scene" when reaching the exit on the 5th floor.

 

Have been smashing bugs these last few days, seem to finally have smashed the bug that made everything go to hell with the generator after dying once and restarting. Now the game is playable up to Floor 5 where it will crash when activating the elevator.

Mockup end scene next!

Still have a lot of bugs left but give it a go HERE

 

I fixed the double door issue with elevators this evening. There are a few polish bugs such as showing the correct level numbers in the elevator and auto-opening the door on arrival but I'll leave that for later.

It can as always be played HERE

 

Awesome man, I freaking love this game

 

Glad you like it Hopefully it will be a little bit more playable soon when I can start tweaking stuff for real.

 

I still haven't cleared the first level haha.

 

I still have a lot of things to do but I thought it could be nice for everyone too see where I'm headed. So here is some upcoming features I'm gonna tackle next in somewhat organized order. I'm currently working with the final room and mockup game ending.

• Final room with mockup game ending
• Healthbar system with 4 bars = 4 hits
• Healthkits to heal player
• Switch bullets to use raycasts instead of physics to avoid misses
• Add hands as unequipped melee weapon
• Main character and animations
• Enemy characters and animations
• More variation to rooms and floors
• Improved intro and control scheme tutorials
• More weapons both melee and ranged

 

I have been thinking about the controls, they seem to be troublesome to understand for new players. Anyone got any suggestions for control scheme? I could go Miami Hotline and skip the aim and just have a button to switch between weapons.

Ideas and suggestions would be awesome, give it a go and see if you understand the controls and make a suggestion on how you would want them.

It can as always be played HERE

 

You need to generate each room as you access the door, and suppress the previous room until you go back. Trying to load the entire floor at once causes a lot of run-ability issues. Controls get clunky and unresponsive. I'll press one of the directional controls, and it will take a second for the character to move, and then other times I will let go of the directional controls and I will just keep going.

Good luck.

 

Hmm.. Yeah that might be a good idea, shouldn't be that hard to fix with the current generation setup. I will look into it, thanks

EDIT: Although on second thought everything is culled in the rooms though so it shouldn't be any issue. Might be something stupid in the controls since the first floor is only 4 rooms. I'll look over the code and see if I did anything stupid. They do feel sluggish.

 

Controls seem fine to me, got used to them right away.

 

Here is a quick animation showing off the render passes used to achieve the art style. Hope you guys like it!

 

I wanna make a let's play of this video soon haha.

 

Well, I went ahead and did it anyway hah.

 

Haha, awesome man! Fun to see someone new play the game Now I'm psyched to keep working on this and get it done!

You switch weapon on tab btw (Yeah, sucky binding ) and glad you hear like the blood tracks and destroyable lights

 

I'll keep that in mind haha, will save me a lot of trouble.

 

I started working on the top floor and did some floor textures. I also added the top floor to the floor generator so now it's placed when you walk out of the last floor elevator.

 

Looks like it has the potential to be a good one but I found the controls very difficult.
Since it used the mouse to rotate the player I kept expecting to press only the up arrow or w key to move in the direction I was facing.

Personally, I think if you provided some control config it would make a huge difference.
There may be others who like the controls as is but for me they are very unintuitive.