Games [WIP] Nexum (Very Fast Paced Sci-Fi FPS)

Projects Heroes is now on IndieDB. Check it out.
http://www.indiedb.com/games/project-heroes

I've also updated the multiplayer demo. It includes new features that are yet to be highlighted in the upcoming update video. You can check it out here.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...Web Browser (Multiplayer Demo) ver 0.065.html

 

It's been a year since the last update and the next upcoming update is approaching! Half of the update is technical while the other half drastically affects the gameplay along with major UI changes and improvements. Here's a sneak peek of what's to come. Note how Drone did very little damage to the top bar at the beginning.

 

New update looks sweet!

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!! (my #1 fan screech) No joke, I have had a feeling all of this past week that you were going to give us an update somewhere (youtube or unity) and now it's here!

 

The next update is planned to be released this week. Glad to see you guys are excited for the next update.
So many things has happened during the 1 year of inactivity. Mostly outside of the game development.

It's summer now and I will be able to put more time into the game. Even after update 12, there are lots of other things planned to be implemented into the game. The gameplay is slowly taking shape.

 

Update 12 is just around the corner! Server playability and more!

Messing around with Unity's "Pro" features, I managed to get a live sniper scope working. See through the actual scope and not through a huge, obscuring, pixelated scope.


I was crazy enough to do a self server stress test. Amusingly also putting my mere computer to the test. It was able to surpass 10 players. 11/11 connected. I couldn't go higher than that since my computer was really starting to slow down. Lots of Drones!

 

This game literally looks so cool! I can't wait for open beta, if there is one.

 

It's here! Update 12! I put a lot of effort into the video. Enjoy. There is a lot that is covered in the update. Most notably, the new scoring system.

 

The one suggestion I have, which should not be taken lightly, is that you MUST allow the player to look directly up and down at a full 90 degrees. I know this may cause visual glitches with the character model or seem like an unnecessary impediment to the game play, but in actuality in a fast paced fps like this one, being able to snap your vision in any direction up, down, left or right to the full extent is A COMPLETE NECESSITY. I can just imagine how annoying this restriction will be when one is playing the drone class, flying overhead and they try to bomb someone but they can't because they can't look down.

I'm sorry for yelling at you, but I HATE HATE HATE visual restrictions. Obviously, I don't want the character to be able to look up at a 180 degree angle, because then they would end up looking down and not allowing that to happen makes sense. I'm just saying, the character should be able to look up or down to their full extent.

 

Lol it's all good.
At the moment, all characters can look directly down but not looking up. I am most likely to change that to a full 180 degrees after realizing that the angle restriction made it annoying to face against Drone users whereas Drone users have the angle advantage. An old grenade projectile script glitches out the grenade if it was shot perfectly 90 degrees. Since the grenade got a script change, I might as well allow freedom of 180 degrees. For character models, I could probably just limit their angle after their rotation reaches a certain angle to avoid model distortion.

 

I have no words. This looks truly amazing! So many cool ideas in this project, it's gonna be loads of fun to play! Just wondering, how old are you? Guessing 15/16.

 

I'm actually older than that XD

I appear/sound 3 years younger than my actual age. I'm 19.

 

Yeah I based it upon how high/low your voice was.

Also, do you need any help with 2D art? Like icons, and such?

 

That would be great actually! You can go for icon designs and maybe UI graphics as well.

 

Drone is getting a slight change. His face is changed to a more "computer-like" screen to allow different kinds of expressions. His mouth is invisible when in a neutral expression. Any thoughts on the change compared to the older one?

 

New one looks a lot better, since it also is quite high poly. Don't have too many other thoughts on him, looks the same besides better quality and different eyes.

So for the UI/Icons, what do you need--or, where do I start?

 

We should probably discuss the rest of the game's needed elements through private messages. I don't want this thread being filled up with just our conversation. We'll keep this thread for feedback and comments about the game's current state.

 

This is a very good point to bring up indeed. Unfortunately we haven't gotten around to that yet, but do not fret quite yet, my boy, we will put direct upward looking in. I'm not sure if we're going to get it in by next update, however. We're in the middle of a fair few fixes from Update 12 (As well as some nice surprises. Shh, they're secret.) and all of that stuff.

 

Whoa, somehow I totally missed this!

I really like where this is going. I've been playing quite a bit of Quake myself and it looks like this captures the same spirit. Haven't had time to run through your demo yet so I'll probably post again once I got some propper criticism.

How do you handle playtests? Do you have a steamgroup or something similar? I'd love to join one day

Good luck and keep it up!

 

As far as testing the game, it's only been mostly between Kube and I through Skype.

 

Actually all characters can now look a full 90 degrees up and down. It caused a few extra glitches, which I tried to fix but instead gave up and decided to keep them as they weren't causing too much gameplay issues. Grenade launcher based weapons can be fired in an arc behind you like back tossing a grenade when fired a full 90 degrees up. Possibly annoying but avoidable. It will be fixed if there are enough complaints about it when the game gets a public demo release.

Thanks. The server space is extremely limited at the moment, but I do plan a small scale playtest once all characters are playable again. (Ninja is unplayable at the moment) I'm cautious with the playtesting scale as I do not want to go overboard with half of the players being unable to play due to server space limit cap. I may do a steam group in the future for dedicated playtesters when the game requires multiple people in the server at once.

 

Added dynamic crosshair upon request. Seems appealing for modern FPS gamers.


60fps version here
http://gfycat.com/BruisedLikelyHumpbackwhale

 

Ultra combo!!!!


Combo hit markers added. Part of the upcoming Update 13.

 

Yay! This is very relieving. As for the drone's new face, I would say it looks excellent and higher poly which is always nice . Finally, the dynamic crosshair will make it much easier to tell how accurate each of the fully-auto weapons are, even if it does differ from the old-style, single shape crosshairs.

 

Update 13 might take some time so here's some stuff happening so far with the game.

Sentinel's shield has returned. (Completed awhile back) Shield now uses its own energy as opposed to using stamina. (Certain shields will still drain some stamina)


Alongside that, I've been messing around with Drone's model and textures lately and tested how he looks in Unity. (He also has a mouth when showing other expressions) This also means Drone is the very first character to have his own character model imported into the game thanks to his simple design.


Contrary to popular belief, Drone's original model is actually the same poly as the other one in the screenshot (the current version is now a bit higher poly). All I did was add smooth shading to his model to make it appear smoother and higher poly.

With Drone in the game and a few other planned playable characters in the game slightly questions where this game will be going. A proposal of making this game more cartoony-ish might work? Thoughts about this intended direction? Minor info at least; the game has been going like a ping pong as to where it's headed.

 

man, still sorry I didn't get the motivation to complete the UI. Maybe I'll work on it in a few days or so, no promises though as I don't want to get over-confident again and not complete it.

Anyways, can't wait for update 13. Update 12 was tremendous, and I'm hoping the updates to come will be as well. The shield actually looks quite cool...is is just an image projected onto the screen, or a model?

 

The shield is actually a model, using Unity 5's transparent standard shader. Once you apply the texture and the shader, things really start to look interesting.

 

Looks really nice love the style of the game. Hope this will future some free running that would be cool ;D

 

Update 13 should be rolling soon. No planned date yet however. Here's the last gif before Update 13 comes out.



Due to a flawed movement mechanic beforehand, players never knew if the weapon they were holding would make them sprint or dash. Too often would players hold down the Shift key, thinking they'll sprint with the weapon when it actually makes them dash, resulting tired out state quickly.

Now players can freely sprint or dash with any weapon, making it easier to understand the game make weapons more viable in multiple situations.

Thanks. A few characters (Ninja + future characters) will have free running involved. Ninja can hang on ledges/walls, wall jump and climb ledges. Others will share similarities but are more complex.

 

That 60 fps gif man, it looks awesome lol.

 

Lol, gifs were kinda hard to understand and work with. I recorded the footage at 60fps, tried rendering it at 60 fps and created the gif at 60fps. However the gif ended up in slow motion so I had to mess around with the settings. I then rendered the footage at 30fps and created the gif at 30fps (rounded down). The gif ended up almost as smooth as the 60fps one and was playing at normal speed.

60fps gif (note the slower footage)


I guess the gif couldn't keep up with the fast paced footage at 60fps

 

A sudden burst of motivation. I've decided make Drone's artwork. This is the concept art version. A slightly modified version without the background and signature will be featured in-game.


I am not an artist. This is heavy dedication towards a sudden artwork vision. This took awhile to make (minimal breaks since start of drawing it)

 

So cute!!

 

It's been awhile since I last posted. I've been testing out lightmapping. Here's some screenshots from a familiar classic map - Proto Map - reborn with simplified prototype textures, optimization and better lighting.





Also, an announcement video is on it's way. I will include the name survey with the video so that we can vote on the final name to replace the place holder name, Project Heroes.

 

Name survey is up. Project Heroes is getting a new name. Make your vote for the final name.

Survey link
http://goo.gl/forms/qjBhXruK0n

 

Project Heroes demo is finally up. It will be open for the whole weekend. Feel free to invite your friends to play. Chrome does not support Unity Webplayer, so you'll need to modify the browser or use Firefox or Internet Explorer.

https://db.tt/Nsa4JyMO

 

What's the current highest voted name for Project Heroes?

 

I will make a name announcement video in regards to that sometime today or tomorrow. I may also do an analysis based on the survey results. A bit more transparency on what I'm thinking of based on the results.

 

Okay, cool!

 

Name results are in! Come check it out. I've also done an analysis on the survey results in the video.

Survey results sheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EkNKvreHOxcSBOvfsMr_8JYAhqfTPeOMGRiikCUFV7Y/edit?usp=sharing

I will change the name of the thread tonight so that I don't spoil the surprise.

 

I chose Delta Prime...oh well. :c Nexum is good, too, though! Also I'd love more testing phases in the future. I couldn't stay for long on the game I played, and after that there weren't many others playing.

 

It's been awhile since last post. Here are some screenshots/gif images. Planning to get Update 13 posted sometime this week.






First few steps are being taken to upgrade the place holder capsule/sphere models into actual character models (rigged and animated).


Oh yeah. A steam group for Nexum has been created. Anyone who's interested can check it out or even join.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/nexum-game-group

 

It's so weird seeing it being called Nexum instead of Project-Heroes lol. Maybe you should focus on things like graphics after you've rigged and animated the character models. That'd be cool.

 

Update 13 is here!

Plus, I got a new microphone, so hopefully it will make future videos have better voice quality.

 

Hehe, as soon as I opened the forums I though, hmm, I wonder if Nexum has been updated. What do you know? It is!

Oh, and I also joined the Steam Group because I can't wait to play again. It was really fun when we did play.

 

Designed Nexum's logo. Any thoughts on it?

 

I've been doing some stuff over this summer, so here's some screenshots and info of what's been happening.

First off, most of the development is going to switch towards the visual side of things since it has been lacking proper 3d models for the past... 3 years or so....

As of right now, Soldier, Sniper, Ninja and Sentinel do not have character models yet. While I am inexperienced with making human models, I am currently working my way up towards making humanoid characters. In the meantime, I have been making some models, so here's a few. Feedback would be appreciated!

The Sabotuer




Bloop the Timid Fish (future character)




I have also made the company logo (and name) which will officially represent the games. Which one do you like better?




Also made the 3d model character mascot

Hoppy (mascot and future character)


Some of the characters ended up a lot more cartoony than I expected. Considering the human characters, I may have to make them more stylised or cartoony to fit well with the others. Any thoughts for making Nexum more cartoony-like?

 

I think a vibrant, cartoony style would look amazing with Nexum's gameplay. Not so sure about realistic. I also like the second logo better; to me the first one looks kinda plain.

PS: The new gun looks awesome!

 

Time to revive this thread with some updates. With the help of some artists, Nexum has been vastly improving on the graphics side. I've also implemented some post processing effects to make the game look nicer.

HDR Lighting, Bloom, and Ambient Occlusion



New Assault Rifle - by Noone



New Stalwart Shotgun - By Rokay



New Jump Pads - By Rokay




New Character Swap Station and Squad System
With this new feature, players will now be able to swap characters in the middle of a battle. When they're about to respawn or when they access the Character Swap Station. Players bring 3 characters into battle and can swap between them.

Character Swap Station in action
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...309373859663183872/character_swap_station.gif

Repsawning as a new character


Repsawning as selected character


Squad customisation in main menu

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.../298514282113531924/full_squad_sneak_peek.gif

Here's the latest gameplay video of Nano. (Slightly behind in game version. Doesn't feature the latest squad system and post processing effects.)