Plasma Puncher - A Stylish Action-Brawler (gameplay footage)

Hey folks, I wanted to share with you a first look at the gameplay action for the game I'm developing, Plasma Puncher!

Basically, Plasma Puncher is an action brawler set in a single continuous stage with all kinds of different enemies and a bunch of upgrades and power-ups to get as you strive to survive until you complete the final objective of the game.

The game is being developed with Maya LT and Unity, and although the characters are all 3D, I wanted to give the whole thing a very bright and colorful 2D aspect. It's all basically hand-painted textures done in Photoshop and applied to a flat shader in Unity, nothing more than that. There's no light, particles or any effect.

Well, hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts about it! Thanks!

 

Check out this funky teaser animation I did for the project! Having a little fun with some of the characters!

 

Really great visual and comical treatment you have created. I love the diversity of the enemies and the character that is spewing from each is very well done.

You said there are no particles or fx in the scene. Interesting, how did you accomplish the two effects when the main character does his high punch slam, that produces a bubble blast, and the other one that looks like a super spinning uppercut? Are those created in 3D and imported as sprites or animated meshes? They look good and match the atheistic well.

This is an interesting design decision. Since it is a single continuous stage does that mean the game has to be completed in one sitting, or are there incremental points where the game can save so the player doesn't have to start completely over at the beginning? If no save feature, what is going to keep the player from putting down the game when they play for a long period and die at specific points in the game?

Are you experiencing any frame rate hits from all the squash & stretch that is happening in the animated character rigs? Do you have any helpful advice on how to optimize squash and stretch with 3D rigged characters?

Really love the dreadlock fro on the player character. Great look.
Very cool so far. Will watch for updates.

 

Hey Animator2b, sorry for the late response! I almost missed your reply. So, answering your questions:

Yep, you got it right the first time: they were created in 3D, later rendered and imported as 2D sprites.

It will have save and load functions. Still deciding if it's gonna be autosaved at the end of each "wave" or manually by the player (in that case, it will have a cooldown system so it's not possible to save whenever you want).

Haven't experienced any performance issues so far, even with a bunch of characters in the stage. I've made sure to keep everything really light. But I don't know if I can give advice on the programming side (as I don't deal with that part), but I guess we're not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Thanks for the interest and hope you can still catch this response!

 

And here's a little video showcasing a recently implemented enemy of the game, to keep things fun:

 

Another showcase of a different enemy, this time an EXPLOSIVE one! Gotta keep him away, one way or another...

 

And when an enemy bugs out and just refuses to die?...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1670202246580753