Aker - A global scale RTS

Community Showcases
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Introduction
At first glance Aker is an X-COM : UFO Defense inspired game. There’s certainly some truth to that in terms of the grand gist of the game but there are key differences, other sources of inspirations and new ideas that I believe will make Aker a unique experience.

Realtime Strategy
This is probably the biggest difference between Aker and X-COM, Aker will not be turn based, instead it will be realtime. Missions will have a relatively slow and intense tempo rather than full on action tempo. Intercepting alien crafts will be similar in style to Homeworld, you will have squadrons that you give orders to as you watch the combat up close in realtime.

Generation
Levels, aliens, weapons and alien crafts will be generated visually as well as abilities, offering a new challenge for the player in every play-through. Soldiers and employees are generated not only in their faces and stats but also their body proportion, fatness, animation and sound.

Resource Management
Anything you can manufacture or build requires different materials. Your employees need food and your crafts need fuel. All of these resources can be acquired by building resource companies in countries that trust you. Different countries offer different materials in different quantities. Where to find materials and their quantity will vary every time you start a new game.

Cooperative Campaign
At the moment this is just a wish rather than a promised feature but if the community demands it frequently it may very well become a priority :slight_smile:

Content
Here is the first Video Log

And you can try the globe demo for yourself HERE!

Here are some weapons generated at the click of a button by my weapon generator =)




My generator tool.

The generator tool is not designed specifically for weapons but is instead an all around generator that allows the user to design what the tool is suppose to generate. This means you can design the generator so it generates vehicles, buildings, props and well, pretty much anything. The generator tool creates a final GameObject that you can simply save as a prefab, so it can be used for creating pre-made assets as well as generating assets ingame in realtime. Even if generated assets is of no interest, the generator acts more or less as a free concept artist =)

I am strongly contemplating releasing it on the asset store if sufficient interest arises.

For more info, you can check out the game on IndieDB HERE!

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Sounds interesting. You developed a weapon generator, does that mean the game will be a FPS also? And what are you in the game? It sounds like a busines or mercenary group. Can you build your own countries?

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No the game will be an RTS with some global strategic elements, a bit like XCOM without turn based mechanics =)
So no, you cannot build your own countries :wink:

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I’m a huge fan of X-Com, so I’ll be watching this. Its a tricky style to pull off though. Good luck!

I’m curious to know where the name, Aker comes from. I’ve studied up… extensively… on angelic mythos and apocalypse stuff, so just wondering if that’s where that came from, and why its called that.

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Looks nice :slight_smile:

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I never played X-COM so I dont have an idea wha it is. Although I played sins of a solar empire and from the demo it appears like it may be something like that.

And you also said

So perhaps its some kind of galactic company building game ?

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Very cool, interested to see where this goes. If you can make over a bazillion guns like Borderlands, im in :slight_smile:

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@khanstruct : Aker is the guardian of the underworld in Egyptian mythology. Aker is the codename of an organised project that the player is in charge of. In this case, the underworld is a parallel world in which beings seek to absorb our world to empower theirs. As the commander of the project, you must guard the gates of the underworld and prevent this cataclysmic event.

@IJM : Glad you like it :stuck_out_tongue:

@roger0 : I’ve never played sins of a solar empire but by the looks of it, Aker will not be simmilar. The closest thing that will resemble space/atmospheric combat is Homeworld.

@hellraizerhhh : Borderlands had very hard coded and constrictive designs that meant that none of weapons were really different, just a different barrel model, different handle model and so on… Where as the generator in Aker creates the actual handles, barrels, the overall shape of the weapon, how it works and pretty much everything about it. What borderlands did worked for them but I wanted something much more flexible and get much more unique results that would feel 100% new to the player. I will showcase it in my next demo so make sure to give me some feedback when I release it :smiley:

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Interesting side note: After Catholicism took over the world and converted other religious gods into angels, Aker was named as one of the angels of the apocalypse. :wink:

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I did not know that!, very interesting indeed! =)

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i like this idea the world in the demo looks good and also i really think that the random weapon generator look like it has a lot of potential (it can already make better looking weapons than i can :frowning: computer wins again).

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Those guns look cool, but i am trying to figure out what the 4th one looks like :stuck_out_tongue:

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Glad you like the idea and yeah, I have high expectations for the generator tool!

@SirWaffles : And what DOES it look like :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m interested to see how this goes, good job so far.

I am curious… why did you choose to make it real-time?

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@Oana : The original XCOM is a masterpiece in my book and while Aker takes inspiration from XCOM, I want Aker to have it’s own identity. XCOM is a genre of it’s own that is virtually unexplored and I think that a real-time approach is an exciting direction to explore for this genre that opens up a whole new range of gameplay possibilities.

Other than that, and this in particular is not a conscience decision, one might argue that the real-time approach will appeal to a more modern/casual gamer and overall reach a broader audience. Having said that I don’t want to dumb down the game, in any way, compared to the original XCOM… like the new XCOM did.

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Try it here :
http://www.scarab-games.com/Games/Aker/Demos/WeaponGenerator/Web/WebPlayer.html

The second video log :

The generator tool is not designed specifically for weapons but is instead an all around generator that allows the user to dictate how the generated object will look and function. With the right set of rules given, the generator will be able to generate vehicles, buildings, props, characters and even entire levels. The generator tool creates a combined object that can be used as a pre-made asset or generate the realtime as shown in the demo. Even if generated content is not needed for a specific asset, the generator can be used as a source of inspiration for designs, acting as a free concept artist.

Any feedback is appreciated! =)

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The generator tool has grown to quite a scale. Separated into several parts, Material, Sound, Color and the actual Asset generator that combines everything. Generators can use other generators to generate content with, for example one generator creates a certain shape that is used to create the weapons, alien crafts and the aliens themselves in order to give the alien species an unified look rather than random assets that look departed.

Components can be added to the object generated and any public variable is exposed to the generator, giving the generator designer a great deal of control and power of the asset’s function. In the case of the weapon generator, I added a weapon component that I created and varied all the exposed variables.

The aim is to generate all the content or as close to all the content as possible… It’s ambitious, but I’m confident that it is possible regardless of the unavoidable drawbacks it will cause!

Any thoughts on this approach and I’d greatly appreciate it! =D

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The generator would be of interest to us devs, ahem. :wink:

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hehe, well I’ve also considered making it available on the asset store when it becomes more fleshed out and stable… If people show enough interest that is =)
But good to hear!