Pushing a car into the ocean
In this post I will tell about the game scripting in more detail. We will start by pushing a car off of a container ship.
Planar Reflections and Patrol Boats
After modeling a small patrol boat I realised that I need real reflections in the water!
Isometric, large location learnings
After working on the ship location for a while, I ran into some issues that came from the fact that I was working on a game that had fewer spatial limitations than adventure games usually have.
Very early gameplay
I started to work on the actual story content after making the first script for the opening act. I captured some footage of that progress.
Procedural tools introduction
I added procedural level creation tools into the mix and set up the ship level to test them!
Uncharted charts
Creating a vertical slice of the game with around 1 hour of gameplay is my goal for 2021!
The origins of the game
This is the story of how the idea for the game came to me during an 8 year period.
Ship location update 2
I did a quick pass on the ship location populating some areas.
Evaluating asset packs
I stumbled upon some high quality asset packs that were close enough in art style to what I was going for that I figured I’d try them.
Finding reference for a Hongqi CA72
One puzzle in the game revolves around a classic chinese car Hongqi CA72. So I will need to model it for the game.
Key locations of the game
I have been scouting the map of New York and I think that I have found the key locations the game will take place in
Pro tip: Read your competitors’ bad reviews
One great game design trick I heard was that in order to get an idea what your audience expects, is to read bad reviews from you competitors.
Container modeling
A quick little update on a new model I whipped up. A cargo container.
Lifeboat 3D modeling
This week I modeled a lifeboat. Take a look at how it went! (Spoiler: it went great.)
Storytime
I am used to spitballing storylines together with people. But doing it by myself is making it hard for me to get the engine running. I am not sure what to call this condition. But the story is coming really slowly.
Shallow waters
It has been a slow week for the project. But I managed to squeeze in some time to add water / rigidbody interactions and test and implement shallow waters into the game.
Player character & cloth simulations
Modeling the character was at the same time easy and hard. It was easy because the graphics are so low polygon that is really fast to get things modeled. But at the same time it was extremely hard because it is easy to add too many polygons and loose the low polygon aesthetic.
Ambient sounds & audio middleware
One of the most important things in crafting this little piece of New York is the ambient sounds.I really want to immerse the player in the world and it is done with audio.
Player Car model first pass
This week I spent a few evenings working on the car 3D model. I already knew I wanted the car to be a Chevrolet Caprice from 1987. This would be an accurate car for a detective in New York in the year 1991.
Motion capture & sneaky peeks
This week I do not have any major update written, but a bunch of smaller things that I have been working on: motion capture, particle effects and vegetation.
Large scale water interactions
I needed to create a separate water interactions solution for the large ship scene. I was not able to make the ship move, so Instead I chose to move the waves under it.
Water interactions
I got so lucky with creating the water interactions! I managed to find a water interaction demo project made with unity 5! I loaded it up into my current version 2020.2b and managed to get it working with a few tweaks to the source code.
UI graphics
For the UI graphics I always knew I wanted to go with simplified low-poly icons. I decided to do black & white for UI buttons and actions, and color versions for items you pickup and store on your inventory.
Low-Polygon water
I have worked on a few water shaders in previous projects and there is something about it that I really enjoy doing. So I was eager to get started on the water shader for this project as well!
Cross-Platform & car update & UI
I spent some time refactoring the project to be cross compatible across a maximum number of devices. I had to change from High Definition Render Pipeline to Universal Render Pipeline.
3-point turns
Working on the car AI has been more enjoyable than I thought. I was driving in my car today and could not stop thinking about how the car in my game needs to “think” in order to get from place to another faster.
Current overall game progress overview
The basic features of the game are starting to get there. All art is placeholder, but bits and pieces of the required functionalities are there.
Fast-travel for open world point & click
An open world game will be full of vast empty areas you need to cross. I did not want to do a fade-to-black-teleport type of travel, so I figured I will give the player character a car!
Google Maps kit-bashing test 1
I quickly prototyped how Google Maps data works in a game engine. The results are really exiting!
Location scouting 2020
Did you know that you can export meshes directly from Google Maps and use them as scale reference in your 3D modelling process. This will save a ton of time as you can create an asset library from real world locations and buildings.
Art style guide
Now that I have been working on the project a while, a set of rules for the art has started to formulate in my brain. I will attempt to externalize it as much as possible.
Camera controls
I wanted the game camera to have the following features:
-Follow the player character
-Isometric look
-Mouse wheel zoom
-Mouse drag for looking around
-Focus on character on level start
Visual style references
I chose a visual style that is easy for me to create completely by myself. So it had to be 3D for me to manage it alone and stylized low poly for faster production. Stylized 3D means no UV mapping, no LODs or no separate collision meshes. It is a win-win-win! And paired with modern rendering techniques, extreme low poly stuff can look amazing.
First location
The game starts on this insanely large cargo ship. I have never been on one and I have no idea what different compartments and rooms and whatnot are on a ship like this. So I figured the best way to learn the location is to create it.
But what is the game about?
The game is a mystery adventure. You are investigating what happened during a span of time through a series of interrogations. All of these interrogations you experience as gameplay flashbacks during which you will play as the interrogated person.
The journey begins!
For years I have been talking about this game I am going to make. What the gameplay will be like, how the story will unfold, what locations would be cool, what king of experiences I want to craft…
