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Gunkatana - Lighting-fast Cyberpunk Action!

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Solivagant, Nov 26, 2015.

  1. Solivagant

    Solivagant

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2014
    Posts:
    8
    Hi everyone!

    I'm introducing you today to Gunkatana, the top down cyberpunk bloodfest I've been working on.



    I'll be adding to this thread with my devblog as I update it.
    First off, the Origins of Gunkatana!

    Gunkatana was born from a confluence of two events.

    BIRTH
    The London Game Space hosted an event to showcase locally sourced local multiplayer games.

    I had never shown a game to anyone and have them play it and critique it before. I was just starting to get my feet wet developing prototypes in Unity.

    I tinkered with a very early top down action game I was working on and tacked a second player on it. Challenged myself to go ahead and show that game at the event.

    I developed that first draft of Gunkatana as an attempt to decipher what made Hotline Miami tick.

    Watching Hotline Miami's sequel trailer was the second pivotal event. It has inspired me in those initial game dev hours and ever since.

    The feedback I got from that initial demo was great. It was already somewhat fun, if incredibly basic and unpolished. Players gave me tons of ideas of where to take it next.

    The core gameplay was already there: lasers and turbo speed grind rails.

    SPEED KILLS
    The speed rails started off as quick way to implement the Matrix's wall running. I wanted to create a game with that sense of speed and action, letting you speed along the walls, Mirror's Edge like.



    Eventually I started laying the speed tracks anywhere in the level, and they became speed rails on the floor. The Gunkatana fighters attach their boots to them and zoom along the rails at high speeds, running over whoever's on the way, corpses thrown about and blood flying everywhere.

    Sujan, one of the great friends I’ve made at the London Indies scene, told me to actually implement the titular sword from the title. I did so. It's really fun to be writing C# classes called KatanaDashSlash.

    FROM NOTHING, EVERYTHING
    I needed someone to bring the world of Gunkatana to life, and put out a call for artists on Twitter. A friend, Florian, recommended me one of his friends and thus I met CrazyArcadia.

    CrazyArcadia knocked out a beautiful mockup, and I was in love with those pixels. It's always fascinating for me to suddenly see imagination becoming reality.

    The core of Gunkatana is a competitive mix of dark futuristic themes and very mechanically tight gameplay, infused with combat from The Matrix and Equilibrium.

    Seeing it come to life from my initial programmer art & OpenGameArt assets into something palpable, phosphorous & vibrant, it's an incredible experience.

    Both me and CrazyArcadia are responsible for the game design and its a joy to discuss gameplay mechanics and level designs with him.

    The result is what you see in this preliminary trailer, featuring original music by Electric Cafe of Aqua Kitty soundtrack fame.

    FUTURE
    Gunkatana was born from participating in the London indie dev community. The feedback I get when showing it and playing it at events has been invaluable and has helped shape where it's now, and will help shape where it's headed.

    Our stand at GameCity 2015, a volunteer driven games event at Nottingham, UK

    Gunkatana has received very positive press coverage, at The Guardian and Impact Nottingham.

    I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved so far.



    Tying together the efforts of CrazyArcadia, lead artist and game designer on the project, Sarah Schemske, writer for Gunkatana, João Nascimento, website designer, David Anstey, who designed one of our main characters, Nell F., who designed the wonderful poster art, Electric Cafe's music, while simultaneously adding new features, level building techniques, quality of life software engineering practices and just fun stuff like running over your enemies when grinding the rails, makes me incredibly happy.

    Gunkatana is due for release in the first half of 2016.

    www.gunkatana.com

    You can check out other blog posts at geraldonascimento.ghost.io

    Would love to read your feedback on the game, it's a real joy to work on, and one of the things that keep me going is people's reactions to the game.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
    Martin_H and GarBenjamin like this.
  2. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2009
    Posts:
    4,835
    Now that looks cool
     
  3. Solivagant

    Solivagant

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2014
    Posts:
    8
    Thanks!

    Here's a look the new rail animations we're working on:
    Strobe.gif

     
  4. Solivagant

    Solivagant

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2014
    Posts:
    8
    Here's my second development diary of my adventure crafting Gunkatana!

    Intel and BeMyApp hosted the Intel Buzz Workshop event on December 8th, where a cadre of games industry experts gave talks and panels on a number of really interesting subjects, like game design, how to make your own game engine and VR.

    inandout.gif

    I really enjoyed The Future of Indie Games panel hosted by Joe Bain with Attilio Carotenuto, Vegard Myklebust and Gorm Lai, all great, proficient game devs and friends I’ve met in the London indie dev community.

    My biggest takeaway was Gorm’s insistence: “polish, polish, polish!”.

    I definitely agree, it’s what I’m working on with Gunkatana, polishing the hell out of it.

    The event had a special Developer Showcase, a challenge open to any indie developers, studios or students. I submitted Gunkatana and was thankfully accepted to the participate, along with 7 other games.

    My day consisted of manning the Gunkatana table, explaining the game to attendees.

    The joy in seeing someone pick the game up and really quickly get it, understand what it’s all about and join in the banter, this is the reason why I’ve quit my previous job and gone full time indie.

    Seeing someone take real fun from something I’ve built and designed is an incredible happy feeling.

    The Developer Showcase urged attendees to vote on the Best Game of the Show, and Gunkatana won!

    This marks the first award Gunkatana has received, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last!

    People really enjoyed playing it and picked up on the text we’ve placed on the game when you kill someone: “Selfie Kill”, “Rail Kill”, “SWIPED!”, and some would even say it out loud. The same happened at GameCity!

    Some of the expressions and words people told me throughout the day:

    “this is amazing”
    “this is so cool”
    “it feels really good”
    “controls very well”
    “satisfying to kill the other characters”


    I turned on the very **prototypical** AI bots on some occasions, and players would keep killing them and enjoying that interaction, despite the AI bots still being a bit embrionary and not being able to use all the weapons.

    Gunkatana is a very fast paced action game that features a number of very quick game mechanics. Once you get what makes it tick, you can quickly zip around the arena and destroy your enemies, making cool reflected laser kills and running them over!



    I’m so used to the game that I kept accidentally slaying the other players without even realising, so by the end of the day I just watched people play rather than join in.

    One of the many takeaways I got is that there’s room to introduce the mechanics piece by piece so that players get used to them. That isn’t very easy to do on a pure local multiplayer game, which gives me more fuel to develop the single player / co-op campaign.

    I also want to give players a good package of fun, since the game feel and mechanics are so enjoyable, I want to give them a chance to practice their skills.

    It was also the first time that I had people try out the new respawning feature, and despite a bug here and there, it worked pretty well, and players understood they could choose where and when to respawn.

    One suggestion I took to heart to signal a character's death more, so they're aware they have died. Which means researching other games to figure out how best to do it, besides, you know, splattering the corpse all over the place.

    It was a fantastic day, as all days that I have shown the game at an event are, really!



    We’re now preparing to put the game on Greenlight, and hoping to release the game early next year.

    Follow dev updates on my @Solivagant twitter account!

    Check out www.Gunkatana.com for in-game lore and screenshots!
     
  5. Solivagant

    Solivagant

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2014
    Posts:
    8
    Good news everyone!

    We have just launched on Steam Greenlight, lend us a hand with your vote!

    Our new Teaser trailer:



    Download the latest pre-alpha build from IndieDB and itch.io




    I would love to hear your feedback on the Local Multiplayer gameplay we got on the pre-alpha build, go ahead and rampage across the speed rails!

    www.gunkatana.com