Evaluation of Scope

There hasn't been much activity here for the past couple of weeks.  I have been pausing to evaluate the scope of the project and determined that instead of rushing out a game for the sake of finishing, this product will be developed into a complete game.  The scope of Sector 12 has increased exponentially the last couple of weeks, and as such I am working to provide a high quality title upon the completion of this project.

Currently I am working with a close friend of mine to develop a complete storyboard for the game.  The Development of story line, dialog, and additional ways of interacting with the game will complete the game experience.  More will be posted as development is made, but frankly some of the work currently being done is not interesting, and much of it we do not want to give away.  

See you next blog post.  :)

Sector 12 Demo Alpha Build V1

EDIT:  It has come to my attention that the file I mistakenly uploaded the version of this demo that I was having difficulty with earlier instead of the correct version.  The link below has been corrected.

Ok everyone.  Here is the first working ALPHA build of Sector 12.
You will need to download (Click the Link below) and unzip the file.  Once you have it unzipped inside there is a Sector12_V1.exe.  Run that file, and the game will open.

Game Controls are:

A - Move ship backwards
S - Move ship down.
D - Move ship forward
W - Move ship  upwards
Space Bar - Shoot

Download Sector 12 ALPHA Demo V1 From Google Drive.

*** Please Note this is an ALPHA build meaning that not all the options are working or tested in every possible way.  The build may crash, act funny, or fail to run on your system.  The sole purpose of this update is to demonstrate the full quality of this game, and give a taste of the game play.  Feel free to comment below.  :)

Title, End, and Soundtrack

Total programming Time:  36 hours.

Total Composition Time (Audio) : 4 hours.

Last night I spend 4 hours composing an original track for the game.  I have one completed track, and intend on adding additional in the future.

I added a Title screen and end screen.  That ended up leading to the creation of a few additional assets needed to complete those screens.

A timer was added to the top of the screen in addition to enlarging the Player Score and Life count.

The timer is going to control the flow of the game.  There will be three different waves of enemies on each level.  each wave will last about 1 minute and 45 seconds. (these have not been implemented yet)  Currently there is one level, and one wave of enemies.

This ultimately lead to the addition of a class for the timer, and another to control the flow and states of the game.

Just prior to writing this post I ran my first development build on the game.  I am having some issues with object positioning and scaling with screen resolutions.  This will be my next correction so that I can get a demo on the site and get user feedback as the game progresses.

Particles and Polish

Total Programming Time: 32 hours.

Today I worked on placing the different types of particles that I felt were required.  The ships received explosions when they get destroyed to go along with the explosion sounds.  When a ship takes fire, a particle effect is generated showing the laser glancing off the ship.  The thrusters on the enemy ships were cleaned up to eliminate a gap between the ship and the effect.

I further added rotations to the player model when the ship moves up the screen or down the screen. The rotations make the ship appear to work in a more natural manner.

Lighting, Audio, and Effects

Programming Time:  26 hours.

Today I have made several alterations like I did yesterday.  I changed the lighting of the scene to provide a more dramatic lighting, added particle effects to the laser shot, and cleaned up some minor issues with collision detection still tracking the ships position, and allowing the player to fire from their previous position while they are dead.  I have also corrected several issues with the thruster particles to make them appear more natural.

This evening sound effects for the laser were implemented, along with the player ship receiving an explosion sound when it collides with an enemy ship.  A sound track was added to the scene with hard driving metal music. 

I am currently having issues with the enemy ship not playing the audio for the explosion sound when it dies.  (it was working, now it stopped).  I am also having issues trying to get the Trailrenderer to turn off immediately when the ship dies.

Sorry today's video is without sound ( I didn't have time to mess with figuring out how to get the program to record sound).  Everyone will have to wait until I post a web-hosted version.  :)

Tweaks

Total Programming Time: 20 hours.

Today's attention was paid to making tweaks to the way the game is laid out.
Each of the models received an increased Z value, and a slight adjustment to the angle of the main actor camera to give the feeling of more depth.  To further emphasize the depth, and the feeling of flying through space changes were made to the parallax layers within the game.  The nebula's and stars were slowed down, layered, and the star layer was duplicated in a different position and set to a different speed.  The nebula layer was placed closer to the camera than the actors in the scene to attempt to emphasize the feeling that space is indeed vast.

The scene was expanded from one camera to three.  One camera handles the actors and effects, another camera the background, and a third has been put into place for the HUD (Heads Up Display).

Several other tweaks were made along the way to scripts to allow the different interactions to function properly with the new scene scaling.

Background and Foreground - Parallax

Programming Time: 17 Hours.

I added additional flavors to help give the ships the illusion of speed.  I added stars that move in the background and nebula clouds that pass in front of the ships.

Background Layer

Total Programming Time: 15 hours.

A friend of mine is now helping to contribute to this project.  Rob Edgar has contributed a water color scene for use as a background within the game.  The background has been integrated into the scene.  Thank you Rob for taking the time to do this!  :)

Ship Graphics Replacement

Total Hours Programming: 14 hours.

Mock up graphics were replaced today with 3D models.  The player and enemy ships are differentiated by color.  The base rate of fire has been increased.  Collision was reworked to hug the shaped models.

Forward Progress

Total Hours Programming: 9

Updated on 07/10/2012 (5 hours)

1.) Spawn point added for enemy ships.
2.) Collision detection added for laser.  Laser now gets destroyed when it hits a ship.
3.) Collision detection added for enemies.  Enemies now get destroyed when it hits the player ship.
4.) Collision detection added for player ship.  Player ship gets destroyed when hit by an enemy.
5.) Player lives have been added.
6.) Score tracking has been added.
7.) Basic user interface to display Score, and lives.
8.) Shot time stats that directly effect the rate of fire for the weapons currently in use.
9.) Player Attack damage Stat.
10.) Enemy health stat to work with player attack damage stat.

Getting Started .. Mock Up and Technology

I have decided to use Unity for the development of this game.  The version I am currently developing with is Unity 4.1.5.f1.  Initially the game will be aimed at the Windows platform with the possibility of porting to IOS, and Android.

After 4 hours of development I currently have a skeleton with placeholder graphics.  I have a ship that can move up and down, forward and backwards.  The ship is constrained to a limited area.  I have a laser that will fire when the space button is pressed, and originates from the front of the ship.  I also have an enemy that spawn in a random position off screen, and moves toward the ship.

Pictured Above:  Yellow ship shooting greenish yellow lasers, and red enemy.

Sector 9

Last night I started development on a new game I am calling Sector 9. The game is an old school side scrolling space shooter.  The game will utilize a side view (wing side) of the plane, and allow the plane to shoot down enemy planes.  The enemy planes will randomly spawn, and fly toward the players ship.

I am considering the possibility of adding pickups that fall onto the screen changing the users fire rate, or type of weapon.  The user must progress through the entire level to move to the next.  (There will be a status bar at the bottom of the screen.).

Each level will increase in difficulty by adjusting the spawn rate of enemies, add additional enemy ships that fly in different patterns.  Currently considering adding bosses to the end of different game levels.