[Steam Early Access] Poi, a 3D Adventure Platformer

Now on Steam Early Access!

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Hello Unity Community

We are PolyKid, a small indie studio currently working on our first game, Poi. Today I'm excited to announce our teaser website, http://www.poi-game.com. We'd love to hear your feedback on the site and what you think of the game so far.


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Trailer

Best viewed in 1080p60fps​

We'll be posting more info on the gameplay and story as development progresses, but for now we hope you enjoy the screenshots & teaser site. We've built a custom platforming engine within Unity that we're excited to show you with videos updates soon.

Please Vote for us on Steam Greenlight!






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Fantastic! Especially love the desert. Though if I must crit, the shadow not connecting to the ground in the lower pic

 

Thanks Peter =)

Haha, yeah that shadow bugs me too. Right before we cut the video, I bumped up 'Shadow Distance' under Quality Settings and I didn't realize it created that artifact until after I took the screenshot. Today I learned, don't set your shadow distance to 3000!

 

Looks nice, really nice cartoony style.
Doesn't tell much about the gameplay though and the animation.
Website is clean, polished and well executed.

Show us some animation Reminds me a bit like ICO

 

That looks nice!! But I don't see any platform there, looks more like an adveture / exploring game than anything else.

 

3D Platformer that is.

 

Looks nice!
This is probably too early to suggest, but if possible change the boy outfit and the idle animation according to the environment. Ex. when at desert, make him raise his hand to protect his eyes, or make him bend forward a bit to show a little bit fatigue and give him a robe to protect him from the desert element.

 

Looks awesome! : )
I love the sky and the desert

 

Nice!

 

Thanks all =) the positive feedback is really encouraging.

@Kilsnus Don't worry, it's not too early to suggest. I like the idea of playing different idle animations based on the environment.

We're still working on capturing a high quality video of the platforming, but here are a few (unfortunately grainy) gifs for one of our desert platforming towers (still a major work in progress!)

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This looks like a similar game play to Mario 64? This tower reminds me of Whomp's Fortress.

 

Mario 64 is definitely an inspiration, so some of the gameplay should feel familiar =)

 

Looks sweet!

 

Thanks Bridin! And here's a nighttime screenshot in honor of Halloween.

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cant wait for it to have a beta! looks amazing and fun! love the cartoon look

 

Fantastic game , great atmosphear.
- Will it be many worlds ? a world map ?
- What will be boundaries on maps ? invisible walls ? ocean ?

 

Thanks guys =) beta feels like an eternity away, but we're working diligently!

@zenGarden, excellent questions; without revealing too much about the story, I can say there is more to the world than meets the eye. We're also working towards making the environments feel open, so the player can freely choose where they'd like to go, without running into arbitrary invisible walls.

 

But any environment have always a limit until it is some real time infinite tile terrain generation system.
What will be boundaries ?

 

So right now, we've actually built exactly that; an infinite tileable-noise terrain generator. The terrain will update (beyond the camera far plane) as the player moves through the world.

We're still in the iterative design phase of development, so we're fleshing out the final details, but we have the system up and running within Unity.

 

It is not borring running through an empy terrain ? Or does yoru prlatform elements are procedurally generated and places in it ?

 

Don't worry, there will definitely be more things to discover, places to explore and mysteries to unravel in the world that we haven't talked about yet. =) Stay tuned!

 

I hope your game will not become borring because of having to walk a lot, this is why skyrim and many others put portals, as loosing time walking is useless many times until you really want to pass some time just walking.

 

Looks gorgeous

 

Hey All, brief Friday update. We've been hard at work on our snow environment (sneak peek below) and we setup our IndieDB page here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/poi

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Hey guys, just another friendly developer Friday update. This week we implemented a dynamic ledge grabbing system. It works with most mesh colliders and allows the player to sidle left and right along the edge of the wall, as well as around corners. Definitely a tricky algorithm to get right.

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This looks incredible and I'm very excited to see more updates on it. Great work!

 

So beautiful!

 

Boy I'll say. Any chance you'll be posting a tech video describing how you did it?

 

Looks fantastic. Really like the visual style.

 

Thanks Peter and nostalgicbear.

We're still working out some edge cases (with round surfaces and in/outward-slanted walls), but once we get the algorithm bullet proof, I'd be more than happy to talk about what worked for us. For starters, it has been loosely based on this post:

http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/40302/how-do-i-detect-ledges

 

Hey all,

We've been hard at work tweaking our platforming controls (with a few bugs here and there) and experimenting with different level designs. Here's a couple of very early screenshots of the platforming structures we've been building. We've got more screenshots and info coming soon, stay tuned!

 

Will it be different collectibles around the maps , like lot more coins or some blue coins for example around the level to justify taking some risks in jumping on some optionnal dangerous platforms ?
And some monsters around or hazards ?
It looks empty right now and not motivating to climb these structures without goals but the level design looks good
It seems that would need some subtle cartoon shader on character and some rim lightening or special filter on the level perhaps ?

 

I love the look of this game, but specially those last platforming screenshots. There's not enough Mario64 style platformers in the world right now imho.

 

Hey guys, would love to get some feedback on an early gameplay trailer we put together today. Don't forget to watch in 1080p60fps for the best viewing experience. =)

 

Only the bad points :
-I don't like the mix of plain colors and textures , i would prefer a level full colors only or full textures.
Its is place holders ?
- many elements on the levels or platforms uses full colors and don't look so good in the levels , it looks bland while cartoon textures would look better (i prefer FreezeMe game style)
- the character can walk on any surface and almost any angle it seems
- the characters runs too faster for precise platforming ( but why not ? )
- the forward running levels with falling platforms, i find it's hard perhaps to jump precisely because it's too fast and there is no indicator on where the character will lend.
- it lacks monster and bonus pieces and coins like Mario

Good luck.

 

So does this game have a story or is it a world filled with whatever the developers wants to put in it for whatever unknown reason?

 

dude this looks REALLY good im also working on a 3d platformer inspired by old classics, you mentioned super mario 64 . keep up the great work!

 

Thanks for the comments guys; we really appreciate the feedback. We're already hard at work improving the visuals (textures, colors & props) and improving the trailer by adding cuts of new player abilities (wall climbing, sliding down slopes & balancing to name a few).

Here's a quick screen grab of this week's work on some Mario Sunshine-esque climbing walls.

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Hey all, just another (post-holiday) weekly dev update. This week we kept it relatively light and did a pass on our website, www.poi-game.com.

We're using Twitter Bootstrap (a free, mobile-friendly open-source web framework) that I recommend to anyone looking for a decent place to start for modern web development.

Hope everyone's 2015 is off to a great start!

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This week we got some new trees from our awesome artist friend @nipoco that fit our world a lot better than our old, lower-poly ones did. We decided to use the Unity tree system for now so we get free WindZone support, but we'll have to see how it goes for perf and whatnot (finger's crossed).

We also got a little press this week:

http://www.destructoid.com/poi-trailer-offers-hope-for-the-3d-platformer-285837.phtml
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/au1tn4/poi-debut-teaser
http://www.blondenerd.com/gaming/poi-is-the-3d-platformer-i-need
http://platformerpower.com/watchlist (we made it!)

Hopefully it's cool if I use this thread as a mini-weekly-dev-blog, as we don't currently have a blog section over on our main site. Happy Friday!

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Hey all!

Poi is now on Greenlight! Throw us a vote if you like what you see



We've been hard at work on some of the non-platforming aspects of the game (secrets in the world, story cutscenes, etc). Also, puffy particle clouds! We wrote a custom shader based on some of the techniques described by Niniane Wang and used in Microsoft Flight Sim (http://www.ofb.net/~eggplant/clouds/). It's pretty simple, but gives the clouds some nice subtle shading that changes based on the time of day and direction of the light. Here are some shots at morning, noon, and evening:

 

That looks absolutely awesome. Can't wait 'til this one's released. Excellent work.

 

This looks so awesome! I can't wait to see more. I'm tracking down every indie 3D platformer I can find, and yours is definitely towards the top of the list for me.

My only concern is the huge open world being boring to run through, but if you can manage to make that fun too, then even awesomer!

 

I think it looks excellent.. How big is your development team?

 

Thanks @Pastywhite @SullyTheStrange and @nostalgicbear!

Yes, we've been addressing this from a design point the past few months, which is why we've been a bit quiet (more info on that coming soon).

Our team right now is small and agile, with two of us full-time and a couple art + music/sfx people.

Here's a couple shots of some new play spaces (levels) that are already fun to play and address some of the empty space concerns. We've also been working on several new player abilities we'll be showing off soon, so stay tuned!




Is that... a volcano?

 

Lookin' good! Definitely a lot less empty space, for sure. At the same time, those wide open vistas sure are pretty... Maybe you can take another step closer to Shadow of the Colossus and give him a horse?

 

Yeah, we're still trying to figure out the balance of wide-open interesting vistas vs. more "densified" levels. Right now the Mario 64/Sunshine-esque levels are proving to be more fun.

We do have a faster interactive method of travel we haven't posted yet, but the horse would be sweet. I just finished up a simple foot IK component for our player, which should just work for quadrupeds too, right??

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Hey all,

Big news today for us -- we're going to be releasing Poi on Wii U!

We've updated our website with more info on the game and a ton of new screenshots. We're also going to be doing a Kickstarter campaign in July. Check it out and let us know what you think!

http://www.poi-game.com

 

A fellow Wii U indie! Awesome to see you join the club! I'll definitely support the Kickstarter day one. The latest bunch of screens looks really fantastic.

 

Hey guys,

We're super excited to say that Poi is now on Kickstarter! Check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/polykid/poi-a-3d-adventure-platformer

Also, we have a new gameplay trailer:

Take a look and let us know what you think! We'll need all the support we can get so your feedback is important.

Here's some amazing launch art from the one and only nipoco!