[WIP] AlienCS - tactical muliplayer fps - with aliens!

Hey there, traveler of the interwebs!

ACS is an asymetrical, tactical mulitplayer fps game with a focus on team play and coordination.Teams of 3 marines fight 3 aliens in visceral combat.

It is currently in early closed alpha but I hope to get some more people to play it soon(ish).

Here some media:






Playtest 5.6.15

Playtest 24.5.15

I will mostly use this thread as a Dev-Blog since giving feedback on an unreleased game is always tricky. If your have questions, suggestions or critic of any kind though, let me know! Half the fun of making a multiplayer game is interacting with the community


//this game has changed quite a lot since I first showed it off here. The old post has barely any resemblance with the current version but I'll leave it untouched for nostalgia sake

Spoiler: Old Post

Over the last couple of weeks I have been tinkering on a little side project and I'm slowly getting to a stage where I can show some stuff off and even start playing the damn thing.

Say hallo to


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Spoiler: Screenshots

Spoiler: Other Artwork

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- Description -

AlienCS is, as the name suggests, a mix of the alien franchise and the tacticle and slow paced gameplay of Counter Strike.

Think of it as a stealth game meets shooter, meets tactical fps meets aliens. For more information and some propper explenations just watch the video

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- Upcomming Playtest -

My goal is to get some first playtesting done in the upcomming weekends with my main tester team.

I am also trying to get a secondary tester team organized so I'm searching for a couple of unity peeps to play some rounds of AlienCS with.
If you wanna give it a shot and happen to not be a jerk, then feel tree to shoot me message over on youtube, via forum pm or just here in the thread.

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- Disclaimer -

This project is not only free to play, it is free. AlienCs is pure passion project for me and I do not intend to monetise it or any of it's components in any way shape or form.
I do not own any rights to the alien franchise nor to most of the sound effects used.
Any scripts, models, animations or textures are my own property though.


Also, please don't sue me

 

This looks really promising! Believe it or not, I have been looking for a game just like this for FOREVER. I would love to help playtest it! I would even love to walk around the map shooting flares and toggling the flashlight.

A quick question though. Do you plan on keeping the models of the aliens and characters or are they only placeholders?

Keep up the great work!
NickHaldon

 

Thanks man, glad you like it.

I'll make sure to shoot you a message as soon as testing starts. Until then I'll have to get a bunch more framework code done though.

As for the art style. I really don't know yet tbh. Thing is, I am not a professional artist by any means so having a overly stylized and simple art style helps me making assets quickly to flesh out the map without spending a lot of time with details and textures.

Ultimately it all just comes down to how much time I'll put into this thing. Only time will tell I guess

 

I cant wait to try it!

I personally kind of like the art style. It could add to the scariness. The brain often fills in details and stuff which could work in your favor. I think its more important to have the fun and gameplay down and then work on looks. Maybe redo it some time later after its pretty much done.

I hope you put a lot of time in it!

 

I'd love to sign up for playtesting! I love tactical FPS games, though I'm not big on the dark horror maps hahaha. I'd play it anywya though.

 

what sort of system are you running? 10 fps is abit on the low side. Laptop?

 

@James
Oooh, very good point.
I am running this on a pretty ancient laptop with a ATI mobile radeon HD which was never that good to begin with.
A couple of friends that ran through the map for them selfes didn't have any performance issues though and never dropping below 55 fps. Unless you are running it on a toaster like I am you shouldn't have any problems.

That's no excuse for crappy optimization though which this version very much was. Since then I added a very basic light culling system that enables/disables the map lights and other taxing stuff based on the player position. Nothing fancy atm but with it even I can get up to decent 25 fps without fraps.

@Craig
Weeell, the dark map is gonna have to stay I'm afraid. I was worried that the map design and the focus on darkness would turn out gimicky in the end and not really add as much to the gameplay as I am hoping for. But we'll all have to wait until the playtest to know for sure. Oh, and I'll send you a pm when the game gets ready for testing. Shouldn't bee too long now I hope... maybe...?

 

If its a laptop its understandable, especially if its an old one

 

Haha it's all good dude, I'm not saying you should change it.

 

The level of atmosphere is getting there! Can't wait to see more!

EDIT: Btw Are you really allowed to just make something like this on the Alien Franchise? :O

 

Riiight, I guess I should address that.
To be clear, I don't! I don't have any permissions from the current shareholders of neither Alien, nor Counter Strike.
But tbh I don't expect this game to get much of a player base anyway so chances are neither of them will ever hear of this.
Should this game unexpectedly get big, or should any of the shareholders approach me I will ofc willingly remove any assets that are taken, or resemble their franchises.
Also, it seems many companies are ok with non-profit "fan-games" nowadays (even though I despise that title).

Oh, and thx

More content coming probably later today.

 

Looks like you've got a good start! Keep it up!

I wouldn't worry too much about the legal aspect of things as long as you don't monetize it in any way. Although they could get upset about the logo looking too much like the film logo, making it appear to be an official licensed game. Maybe make sure to label it very clearly (maybe as a subtitle?) that this is a free game paying tribute to Aliens.

 

Gif Time!



Just found this insanely awesome volumetric light effect by Robert Cupisz and had to try it out in AlienCS.

Other then that Development is unfortunately going pretty slow atm as I only have a couple of hours each week to actually work on it.
And on top of there there was a whole bunch of other stuff going on this and last weekend so that I barely had any time for it at all.

I am slowely getting the server code to a point where it kinda does what it's supposed to do though, so thats exiting.

@casimps1
My thoughts exactly! And I kinda like the idea of a subtitle actually. No idea what I would call it but I'll think about it.
And thx, glad you like it

 

As a huge fan of Alien I like the idea .

Keep it up !

 

Glad to hear that!

I'll try to do the idea justice

 

Wanted to get the server code done this weekend but I just didn't feel like coding. So instead I played around with the artstyle a little bit and made a little mockup scene to try some ideas.



Just to make things clear: This is not meant as a realtime scene. This single corridor with all the image effects running in the background tanks my laptop down to 10 fps.
This is also still far from done. The entire left side of the scene is pretty much untouched and I'd like to get some basic diffuse and spec maps going. Also some particles would be nice.

Anyway, more coming soonish...

 

Really liking where this game is heading! keep it up!

 

Really like the idea and the visual quality, it looks super awesome!

 

All the new updates are looking really good! The scene with the fan is definitely my absolute favorite. It just looks so sinister.

Cant wait to play it!

 

Thanks guys, really keeps me going.

I'm also still looking for a couple more people to test it with so if you are interested just shoot me a message.
I still don't really know when thats gonna start just yet but it's getting there guys! It's getting there!

 

your messages are disabled. you can add me on skype would love to test this. @leonardarmstead

 

This looks awesome!

I would love to play this!

Keep up the awesome work

 

Sweet! I'll make sure to get in contact with you guys as soon as testing starts.

@leonardarmstead
I'm rarely on skype atm but I'm sure we can figure something out. And thanks for the heads up, fixed my messages so we can talk this out via PM.

 

I would be interrested too for testing.

 

I'm loving that minimalist art style and the atmosphere! Very creepy. I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this.

 

Sorry for the late reply guys, totally forgot to answer here.

@Charkes
Welcome on board I'll get in contact with you when testing starts.

@Blacklight
Thx man, glad you like it.

Still no update. Didn't have much time to work on it over the last couple of weeks due to work and RL stuff.

 

I am not sure who owns the rights to the Alien franchise currently, but they rested with 20th Century Fox before and in the heyday of mods, late 90s early 2000s, Fox send out so many Cease & Desist letters to various project leaders that infringed on their IP that the term "foxxed" was born from it.

 

Hey there Uniteers!

Been a while since I posted here, but IRL stuff and lack of motivation got in the way of things. You know how things go.

Just wanted to stop by and say that ACS is not only still in development, but that I restarted the whole thing from scratch about 1 1/2 months ago and it's now almost at alpha stage. I've been doing play tests with some friends for a few weeks now and it's already at a fairly stable state, and more importantly, pretty fun!

I'll try to post some more infos about the development and the current state of the project later this weekend but for now I just have a couple of gifs from the latest play test.





Gif quality is not the best, hope you guys can see something.

To anybody who has shown interest in helping test this thing: I will get in contact with you as soon as I get the project into a fully functional alpha state. I expect this to happen within the next 2 weeks (though I am reeeeally bad with estimating time frames, so things might change).

 

Hey all!

I finally got some gameplay to show. Only took me like 8 months, right? Kinda crazy that I first expected to be done with this in a couple of weeks. But I think it was all worth it and I'm super close to a fully playable alpha build now.

Exciting times!

So whats the state of the project?

I put the project on ice in december 2014. The code was a mess and adding new features became a chore. This was my first multiplayer game on that scale and the asymetric nature of it made some otherwhise simple systems overly complicated. I also made the mistake of starting with art too early which caused a whole array of problems down the line.

8 weeks ago I restarted the project from scratch, and with it I made some big decitions. For one, I decided to drop the whole ALIEN universe thing. At this point I simply put too much time into this project for not beeing able to propperly promote and publish it. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to be free, but I like to have the option at least.
It also solves a whole bunch of game design problems. Ballancing problems like acid blood or the alien pheromone vision are now non-issues. It also gives me more freedom in terms of artstyle. The ALIEN universe really only works with a very distinct art- and architecture style and therefore limits you in the kind of levels and maps you can design without clashing in the art department.

How does that change the project? Well, it actually doesn't change a whole lot really. Instead of THE alien hunting you down in spooky corridors, it's now AN alien. Not too big of a deal in my oppinion.

Whats left to do till alpha? Most of the frameworking stuff is finished. Currently I'm working on getting some temp animations in and fiddling with game ballance. I will post more on that topic in the comming week though.

That's all for now, see you then!

 

@inko Looking good! if I have any spear time I would be interested in throwing you a few models to use!

 

Hey leo, glad you like it!
I sent you a PM.

 

Oh dang, this looks EPIC! For one it's original, too. Not another zombie game. XD You've come so far since the first post...can't wait till the game is in a release where there's complete online multiplayer and servers you can join. This game literally looks amazing, and this is all from one guy!

 

Man, this game looks cool. I love the current art style. It also looks fun, unlike some of the generic, already-been-done-before AAA games that have been coming out recently (no, I'm not saying every AAA game is boring, but there are quite a few that just don't have the fun factor). Keep up the good work.

 

@Whiteleaf & @JSierraAKAMC
Thanks guys, you rock!

Comments like these keep me going.

 

I don't have much time right now so I'll just link a video from the latest 1v1 playtest of v0.15.

We're talking in german here but we were both pretty quiet so I hope it's not too distracting.

This is the very last pre-alpha build. Next build the projekt will enter alpha and more public play testing will start. Finally!
I'll also try to find some time this weekend to tidy up the first post in the thread.

Until then!

 

Wow, the visuals of this game improved a LOT since the last update; really liking the new models! Are you using Unity 5 or 4?

 

@Whiteleaf
Thanks man, it's crazy what some temp models and particles can do

I'm currently using 4.6 and I'm dreading the switch to 5.0

To be honest I'm not really sure if PBR and Enlighten would go well with this game anyway. ACS relies on dark corners for the aliens to hide in and in 5.0 light tends to bounce all over the place. I guess I'll have to test that at some point though...

 

Dude, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT switch to Unity 5! I've had so many troubles with it, they re did quite a bit of code and it's a lot more confusing; it just looks super nice. Kinda a downside, since it's really hard to get used to.

 

I've been in a bit of a coding rut lately so development has slowed down a little.
Luckily I got loads of stuff to do in ACS that doesn't require any code at all. I've finally started working on a second map which is going to take the overall layout of the first one (a big 8 shape) and experiment with some more extrem heights. It's called Hydro and here is a first little screenshot!



I've also sat down and tried to come up with an architecture direction that is easy to make for a programmer like me, but still looks nice once you clutter it up with some simple props. Here is a little comparison of the old marine spawn area and the new one.



The overall shape is the same, and everything is clean and boxy so that the aliens don't get hung on any unnecessary detail. But I think it looks quite nice and the fact that everything is mostly brush based with some props scattered around makes it very easy and compfortable to put together inside the editor.

I've also started experimenting with joining games mid-match for spectators or dynamic gamemodes but unfortunately it's much more complicated then expected because every standart sequential programming tends to break. Also the unity RPC buffer seems to sabotage me whereever possible. Why can't we just print out the buffer stack for cying out loud?

Anyway, enough whining and get back to work!

 

That level...it's beautiful! Really like the props, nice job!

 

Did some more art style experiments and spent almost the whole morning modeling props. I have about 50 props ready to go now but there are still a couple more to do. I'm finally getting to the point where mapping inside the unity editor feels fun to me.
A big part of why mapping in source hammer for games like CS:GO or TF2 is so enjoyable to me is simply the huuuge amount of props you can play around with. I'm trying to get a small set of base props done soon so I can focus on mapping in the future without having to hop into blender every 10 minutes.

Been abe to put this little test scene together within 15 minutes + baking time.



The see the scene ingame just click the image for a little webplayer preview.

 

Dang it, Chrome! I'm gonna use the webplayer in Opera in a sec. One thing, the shadows are really grainy--or maybe it's just my eyes? It actually kinda hurts my eyes to look at the shadows. Combination of grainy-ness and hard shadows(I think they're hard, right?) makes it kinda hard to look at.

Oh yeah you should also--when taking dev photos--use AA, makes them look a heck of a lot better.

 

@Whiteleaf
Big thanks for your feedback. You’ve really helped keeping this thread alive! J

I have read your post numerous times now I don't really understand what you mean with grainy shadows tbh. Could you elaborate on that some more? I guess you either mean the shadow resolution, which definitely shows some pixelation, or the SSAO which kinda gives the shadows a bit of a charcoal-y feel to it. I am not really sure how I would go about fixing either of those but I'll look into it. I've been considering getting a better AO solution then unitys standard one for a while now and this might be a good reason for finally doing it

As for the hard shadows:
I wanted the look to be as clean as possible with bright areas for the marines to see and dark areas for aliens to hide in. This naturally means a lot of contrast, but if this causes peoples eyes to explode it might not be a very good idea.

I may have to reconsider this in the future.

Would love to get some more feedback on this once the alpha is out and people can actually run around in the maps.

Oh, and you are totally right about the AA. I'll try to remember that for the next screenshots.

 

What I mean by the grainy shadows is this--here's an example:

Look under the left corner of the door lying on the ground--the shadow is a bit odd. Also the generator(I think that's what it is?) has that a little, too.

But yeah I can see now they're a little low res but the grainy corners bother me.

 

@Whiteleaf
Aaaah, that's what you meant. Makes sense I guess. Yah, the shadow bias isn't really fine tuned yet and won't be for a while I'm afraid

Mapping takes sooooo much time. It's crazy. I hope i get the detail pass for the map done tomorrow tough. Just 2 more rooms left


Yah, I know, those papers are flying and I forgot AA again...

 

Looks amazing.
Reminds me of a old game called Natural Selection on steam. A FPS, marines vs aliens.
Keep up the great work, I would love to play the alpha when it's released.

 

Image was small enough so I didn't notice the hard edges. But in all seriousness, I am legit excited right now. The overhaul and everything looks amazing, guns, UI, level design...bravo.

 

@Rombie
Welcome to the forums!
A couple of people mentioned Natural Selection actually, but I've never played it. From the videos I've seen it looks like a ton of fun, a bit chaotic though. Would you recommend it?

@Whiteleaf
Thanks man! Yah, it has changed quite a bit, hasn't it?

I don't have anything to show today, so I'll keep this post short. See you all next weekend!

 

Oh for sure. I'm not to sure if it's still around, but it was quite addicting back in the day. Definally worth a shot.

Thanks for the welcome.

What made natural selection fun was the different classes it had.

For example the Aliens had small alien type which would climb the walls awaiting Marines above doorways and then would pounce on them and devour them. As well as others such as a large rhino type alien and etc...

Marines had standard, jet packs, heavy mech like armours, etc..

The multiple class choices is what kept me playing. Made it new and addicting.

 

That's a good idea; stuff like a rushing class, ninja-type class, and a tank class. I'd love to see that in this