The Goblin Abyss – ARPG for IOS (working title)

I've been slowly working on an ARPG for Mobile and thought it was time to share the project and hopefully get some feedback as I progress.

Most of what I've done so far is more testing to make sure a mobile device and more importantly myself, can do what I want. I've worked professionally in game development for over 20 years now, but as an artist not a programmer. More recently I've been working in movies and TV as a technical animator, so I spend a lot of my day scripting in MEL and thought it was time I went back to my roots and made a complete game by myself.

So far I have a small test environment with a main character and a few goblins. They are all path finding using Aron Granbergs A* plug-in and I've got very basic combat working. To get this far I also have spawn points and triggers working in a way that’s easy to add to my maps. There is a basic blood animation and a few simple glow and mist effects thrown in to test performance along with the ex2D sprite plug-in for animated effects like fire and spells.

All graphics and animation where created in maya, although really most of it was knocked out quickly for testing. The goblins and the main barbarian both use the same skeleton and animations at the moment, but that will change at some point.

So far I’m happy with performance, this little test level runs at 60 frames per second and drops to between 45 and 50 when there are 8 goblins on screen on my iPhone 4. This seems to be a good starting point and I’ll be happy to get 30 frames per second when everything is in and working.

As for the story, I have a basic one started and know the main game idea and the ending, but I still need to flesh out a lot of ideas and quests etc. The setting is in a goblin world deep underground with large caverns, small tunnels, goblin towns, lots of creatures etc. where various clans of goblins live, work and play. Something happened to start a war between the clans and it’s your job to sort it all out. Why would a human help goblins? You are forced into it, but latter find the whole thing will eventually spread above ground too.

At the moment I’m working with a barbarian character, but I’m toying with the idea of adding a few standard classes to choose from. Ideally I would love to make this a coop multiplayer game with 2 or 4 players, but that might be beyond my programming skills at the moment, so it’s a pipe dream for latter.

Anyway, I've typed too much so here is a screen shot and a link to the web player version.

Web Player

 

really nice!

 

Look'in good!

 

This looks awesome. I have a soft spot for games like this as you can see from my signature.

Are you going to make the hero auto-attack, because it can get pretty annoying to keep tapping on the enemies.

 

Thanks for the replies, I'm glad everyone seems to like it so far.

ayrik; It's not fully set up yet, but you wont need to keep tapping on a creature to kill it. 1 tap will send the player over to attack and he will keep attacking until it's dead. Of course you can change tactic at any time and will have other attacks, plus you probably wont want to keep hitting the same creature if you get surrounded. I'll have to take a look at your Saga Heros game in a min, I'm not sure how I missed it as I've been browsing the WIP forum for a while now.

 

There is a small update that I'd like to get some feed back on at the same place as before;

Web Player

I've been experimenting with combat and swipe gestures etc. and finally have something I am happy with. I have added in looped attacks for the main attack, so now when you click on a goblin you will keep hitting him until he is dead or you click somewhere else.

I've also added in a test special attack which is accessed through a new attack menu, but really it's just a swipe gesture. If you hold the mouse and move the cursor away from the initial clicked position, a small menu opens up giving you up to 4 attacks. At the moment it's test graphics and all attacks do the same special attack, but I think it's enough to test the idea out. You can click and hold the mouse to see the menu, but while playing for real, just try clicking and swiping up, down, right or left to pull of a attack.

 

Looking good. It's nice and easy to do the swipe. Sometimes it wouldn't let me do it, like when the enemy was mostly off-screen. Other than that it felt smooth.

 

Thanks for taking a look ayrik. I have a few ideas about the edge of the screen problem, but unfortunately real paid work has taken up all my time the last few days. If I didn't have to pay bills, this project would be a lot further along

 

great game! good luck

 

Thanks for taking a look hellcaller, glad you like it so far. It's still very early in development, but slowly moving forward each day.

 

I just uploaded a new update (don't forget to refresh the page) with an improved attack menu.
It now has proper icons with simple cool down animations. There are also 2 attacks now, a spinning attack and the original jumping attack (which also has a simple shockwave animation).

The other big change is you no longer have to select a goblin to use a special attack, they can be performed anywhere. This solves the problem of not being able to select a goblin if he is on the edge of the screen. You will still want to select them to move in and attack so you are facing the correct direction, but if you really want to you can perform a special move on the way.

Web Player

 

There is a new update for anyone who is interested. Web Player

There is a new special attack, a 180 degree jumping attack which is more powerful than the original spin attack, but only covers 180 degrees. This one is on the bottom of the attack menu.

Also added are some new enemy's, giant spiders, and the beginning of a loot system. Killing something now could cause it to drop gold coins which can be picked up by walking over it.

All feedback welcome.

 

Feels good so far. Two things: When you tap to attack, it autoattacks just fine, but then you use an ability and it stops attacking. Another thing is I have a concern about long distance travel with constant tapping instead of holding down like most games like this. I've been trying to think of solutions but nothing good has come to mind yet.

 

Thanks for taking another look ayrik.
I've been thinking about the movement and I'm going to try changing it a little. I think what might work is allow you to hold the screen on the outside edge for movement, but keep the attack menu in the center of the screen. It will almost feel like you have to swipe over the main character for attacks, but hold anywhere else and he will continually run.
I'll try and change this tonight and post a update when it's done.

 

Just tried it out, pretty solid feel to the gameplay already, good job. The two things I really felt are the same as what ayrik posted. At the end of each special attack it should tie back into doing regular attacks on nearby enemies. As for movement, you could go with the whole hold the edge of the screen idea or maybe do a double-tap to keep moving in the given direction... unless you just go with the joystick approach. I'd imagine your hand would kind of get in your own way if you try tapping or holding the top of the screen, especially on tablets.

 

Thanks for taking a look JumpDog.

I finally have a new version up, same place as before;

Web Player

I tried a few new ideas with the movement and ended up with holding the mouse button/finger for 0.2 of a second to switch to follow mode. Now you must swipe to get the attack menu up, but after it's been opened, you can still close it by moving the mouse to the menu's center. If you click and hold for 0.2 of a second, the Barbarian will start to follow the mouse at which point you can move it freely and he will follow until you release the mouse.

This seems to work for me and a few people I've had test it here, but as always feed back is welcome.

 

There is a new version up for anyone who is interested. I've been slowly working on an inventory system and have finally got it all working so items can be picked up, used, and equipped. There are a few test objects on the floor near the start which can be picked up by walking over them. There is a new icon on the top right of the screen which opens the new inventory screen.

It's in the same place as before;

Web Build

All comments welcome.

 

Its really nice, good job ! The animations are nice ! Here are a bunch of ideas and thoughts after trying it.

The main thing that bothered me when I tried the demo was that the distance for the swiping was about one pixel. So if you move fast and click while moving sometimes (which will happen as sometimes you are in a hurry to face the monster) it opens the menu for the attacks. I guess maybe adjust the distance based on the screen. When pressing your finger it will most likely touch many pixels and always open the menu if the distance is too small. Some people have bigger fingers too hehe...

Anyways, my personal advice would be to not use swiping to open the attack menu. I think that swiping for opening the menu is not very natural. Gamers will adapt relatively easily but casual players might have a hard time.

In an action game, you need to be able to use your attacks quickly. Swiping takes more time than just a simple click. An alternative choice would be a button or icon that shows/hides the attack menu. Or if you are near a monster it could show automatically.

Also since you will most likely use more than one attack per fight it makes sense to keep the menu there during battle or give the player a button to show/hide it when he needs it instead of making it vanish after each attack. You could also simply just have a bar located at the bottom of the screen with a couple of slots and click on the slot to initiate the attack (a la WoW or many other rpgs ). This would work way better in my opinion and would save the swiping for another gameplay options like dodging (swipe to doge the enemy for instance or swipe to use a special skill). In that bar there could be room for potions for quick healing. With the bar they will see the attacks recharging during the battle instead of only when the menu is opened. It provides better feedback to the player so he can plan his attacks ahead.

Another thing I found is that it was hard to make my character face the monster when he was very close to the monster but he was facing another way. I would try to click in front of the monster but he would always make extra steps for nothing like he was walking into the monster. If he's already near the monster why must he walk many steps just to be able to turn and face him ? What I mean is he cant rotate in place and he needs to walk to face another direction.

Maybe there could be a more convenient way and something that would look more natural, maybe some sort of targeting system where the character would face the monster automatically. Or another idea is to let the player turn (an example would be using two fingers your character faces in that direction without walking, that way the player can turn)

Anyways, I think its starting to shape up and I think you did a great job so far !

Also, I was wondering what system are you using for the GUI ?

 

Very cool! Like the animations!

 

Thanks for the comments.

Alf203; I haven't had any problems with facing enemy's, but I always play these sort of games by clicking on enemies and hardly ever use the "follow mouse" mode. I'm going to guess this is how you were trying to turn because if you just click on a enemy he will turn to face him. I do think you've shown I need to tweak the follow mode a little though, so I'll be looking at it again at some point soon.
This game is aimed at IOS, so it's a touch screen and I'm trying to avoid having buttons on screen. The swipe menu isn't meant as a menu, just a way to see your attacks if you forget which is which (you'll be able to customize them eventually with new skills etc). This means you don't need to see it, and can just swipe to attack, which I've found works great on my iphone, perhaps it's not as intuitive on a mouse, but I don't think I'd do this on a PC game. I will be adding distance based on screen res though. The inventory screen already does this for moving objects.
I have just made the enemy's collision capsules a little larger in case you were clicking on them and missing.

In answer to your question, I'm using ex2D for all my 2D animations which include the GUI as well as the other effects like the flames and ground shock wave. The main GUI code I wrote myself.

 

ahhh now I get it, it was my mistake. I was being stupid and was always using the menu to attack - didn't use the auto attack by clicking on the enemy !

 

I just uploaded a new version to my web site, same place as before;

Web Build

New in this version is stats like health, stamina, attack, defense etc. The special attacks now use stamina instead of a cool down time so keep an eye on the stamina bar. Health and stamina potions work, just drag them onto the main character in the inventory screen.

I've also added a new quest system which allows me to trigger events and talk to people. No new characters yet, so there is a test goblin without a sword at the start who you can talk too. The gate just north east from the start wont open unless you talk to him. Beyond the gate is a draw bridge that will not lower unless you kill everything past the gate and go back and talk to the first goblin.

Still no death code yet, so if you die you will have to reload the web page.

This is still mainly all test stuff, but all comments are welcome.

 

@Alf203, Sorry for the late reply, my office was flooded thanks to melting snow around the time you posted. Glad to hear you got it working, you had me worried for a while.

 

It's coming along. Good job. I still have a bunch of issues with it not auto-attacking after using an ability. But keep up the good work!

 

Very interesting models and cool animations, i wish to have your modelling skills i can only to program

 

Its looking good. The light mapping in the open part is cool. I like the silhouette over the camera as well.

 

This was really cool! I like the animations and the size of the characters (seem a bit bigger than in Diablo). This was better than I expected

Only comment: I kept accidentally using special attacks all the time. Maybe they could use right-click or ctrl-click or something?... or number keys is fine too.

I hope you keep working on this. I'd love to be involved in a project like this.

 

Thanks for all the comments, please keep them coming.

@ayrik At the moment he doesn't auto attack again after a special attack. To be honest I'm still not sure which way to go. This game is for IOS and people I've watched play it on my iphone constantly tap the screen while attacking. I'm still not sure if I want to take out the auto attack or increase it to keep attacking after a special. This is something I plan to experiment with latter.

@Liviu Globa, You may like my animations, but I bet your code is a lot cleaner than mine

@carmine, This game is for IOS so it's geared more for a touch screen. At the moment I look at the screen res to calculate how far to swipe before the attack menu opens, but it doesn't work as well on a bigger PC screen and mouse. If I ever did a PC version, those special attacks would definitely be a key press. I'm glad you liked the size, I tried to place the camera as close as possible because the iphone screen is so small. It also helps in showing less on screen for the limited iphone.

 

I know it's been a long time since I updated this thread, but the game has gone through massive changes since the last posting. I've re-wrote about 90 percent of the code to optimize and clean things up after things where getting a little messy and I had better ideas on how to handle things. I'm much happier with the code now although I do want to tweak the AI some more. I like personal projects with no deadlines.

This latest version also has a lot of new graphics and a few new quests set up.

All comments welcome.

 

I just uploaded a new version of the game to the same place as before. This version now has 2 levels and about 4 quests. It's not really balanced yet as you can fill your inventory (drop items by dragging just under the inventory icons) before these 2 levels are complete, plus the levels go up too fast. Still got lots to do on these levels, but they are getting there.

There is also a new special, although I'm not sure it quite works yet. It's a kick to clear enemy's out the way (swipe left). I tried a jumping roundhouse type kick at first, but it looked too much like a ballerina instead of a Barbarian.

If anyone plays all the way to the second level, I'd be interested to know if anyone finds the secret switch that opens a small room with a shield.

All feed back welcome.

Web build

 

I just uploaded a new version to fix a few bugs which stopped an event from happening. If you played and got stuck, sorry its fixed now.

I should probably point out that if you make it as far as finding the black powder, then that is it, the end of the game so far. I am presently working on a new animation and effect to clear out the fallen rocks to complete that quest, but it wont be ready for a few days at least.

I also slowed down the leveling up speed, which hopefully works a little better now.

Please post any comments, I'd love to hear more feed back.

 

It's been a while since I posted an update here, but I'm still working hard on the game and have made a lot more progress since my last post.

My wife has also been working on a blog page and we just uploaded our first video development blog to youtube. I would love to get some feed back on this, I found talking about the game a lot harder than making it!

From this point on I'm going to try and make a new video every couple of weeks, actually I've already started on the next one to try and get a head start, so hopefully it wont be so long before I update this thread again.

 

I'm presently working on the next dev blog, which shows a little bit about the animation rigs. I'm not sure if this will make it in the video or not, but here is a early test animation I just converted to an animated gif. I don't think this animation will make it into the game though

 

This looks nice, haven't checked the tread in a while and I have to say - you've come a long way.

 

The second video development blog is up.

This ones shows some early tests as well as the maya character rig. I've also got a little better talking into a microphone

As always, all comments welcome.

 

Our third development blog video is now live. This one shows how I create the levels for the goblin abyss and goes a little into our workflow from maya to unity to light mapping.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

[video=youtube_share;50hLiMLJo6c]http://youtu.be/50hLiMLJo6c

 

Very nice!
Played it until i got the black powder, but now i have no clue were to go, there is a blocked passage to the left of the trapped apprentice but can seem to unblock it, or am i on the wrong spot? : p

Levels and enemies might need a bit more variation ; )

 

@Virror Thanks for taking a look. The playable version online is now a little old, and if I remember correctly that's about as far as you can get on that old demo version. I thought it had a message saying this, but it's been a while and I might be wrong. The first town level still isn't finished, so I can't paint over the lightmap yet, but I when do I'll make sure the fallen rocks stand out a lot more than they do now.

I'm working on a level now that I think would make a nice new demo, so I'll probably package it up into a new webplayer soon. By soon I mean a few weeks, I'm a solo developer and this is a lot of work.

I have plans to replace some of those spiders with other creatures. The smaller ones in the mine level are stand in's for something else I haven't finished yet.

As a side note, if anyone is interested, we now have a twitter account set up for the game, @thegoblinabyss

 

Our new video blog went up today.This one shows a little more game play and our first boss fight.

[video=youtube_share;iyZD_J-Otdo]http://youtu.be/iyZD_J-Otdo

Or watch them all on our blog site; http://www.thegoblinabyss.com/ which also has some new game rigging tutorials up showing the rigging process for the goblin character in maya.

As always, all comments or suggestions welcome.

 

Our latest video blog went up today. This one shows some new combat improvements I've been working on with new transition animations making the combat look more fluid.

[video=youtube_share;b001bu3hOdo]http://youtu.be/b001bu3hOdo

 

Nice work guys i love this type games

 

Very nice update, I agree it looks better now!

 

Great update indeed!

 

Thanks for the replies, I'm glad everyone seems to think it was a worth while improvement. Working on some new rocks at the moment (turning into a geologist), but I plan to start looking into more effects like mist and fog soon to really improve the overall look.

 

A little late (you can blame the PS4 release and kill zone 4 for that), but I've finally uploaded the next video blog. This one shows some new effects I've started looking into with particles and lightmaps compatible with iphone 4.

[video=youtube_share;8GEWwIRbPb0]http://youtu.be/8GEWwIRbPb0

All comments welcome.

 

I'm a week behind on the development blogs (been busy), but the next one is up. This time however it's not a video blog, it's a new demo of the game. Please take a look and let me know what you think either here or on my blog at thegoblinabyss.com

Play the new demo.

 

I've been really busy the last month or so, too much rigging work, but the goblin abyss is still slowly moving forward. I managed to find time over the weekend to create a new video blog. This one shows a new creature and as well as some updated town locations.

All comments welcome.

[video=youtube_share;Psq02SrofLI]http://youtu.be/Psq02SrofLI

 

Very cool!

 

Yo Gnimmel,

Will there be a new video soon ?
Keep the good work !

 

@Paradoks, Yes there will be a new one soon, I'm hoping to have time early next week.

Unfortunately paying work takes priority over the goblin abyss and it seems I've been really busy the last few months (not that I'm complaining). It is still moving forward though and I will have some new videos very soon.