BrokenEarth: Single/Cooperative/Multiplayer SciFi Shooter, now on Desura

Community Showcases
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What is BrokenEarth?
BrokenEarth is a Single/Cooperative/Multiplayer shooter that takes place in a future where corporations battle for control in combat suits powered by resources found on newly discovered planets. Inspired by older games like halo 2, perfect dark and goldeneye, BrokenEarth focuses on player versus player combat and tries to break the limits of being “topdown”, making shooter players feel right at home. No mindless AI and bullet sponge enemies here, the only death spamming bullets will result in, is yours. BrokenEarth, a topdown shooter like you’ve never seen before.

Who is teamINOV?
We’re 2 guys collaborating from different parts of the world. BrokenEarth is powered by the free version of Unity. We feel we have something worth a shot to offer gamers, something fresh and new in today’s gaming market and though that’s hard to show in a video, we ask that you take the time and give it a short play as we feel we’ve really added a lot to the top-down genre.

Feedback is extremely important!
If there’s something you DON’T like, anything at all, from gameplay to graphics or audio, or you got an idea, by all means let us know in the comment section or anywhere else.
In the end it is our obligation to deliver a better product! and we will always strive to improve the game!

BrokenEarth Features

  • Multi-seated vehicles on huge maps allowing for team play.
  • Cooperative survival mode where up to 4 players defend objectives from enemies. [This isn’t a top-down shooter about spamming bullets, AI will have you on the edge as they’re capable of doing everything you can do.]
  • Sandbox focused gameplay, most objects, rockets, equipments like sticky and frags and explosions, all interact with each other, maybe you throw a grenade and an explosion sends it twirling back in your direction.
  • “I have the high ground”, We boast full 3D combat, we don’t let being a top-down shooter limit us too much, maps aren’t flat, you’ll be standing on rooftops raining bullets on victims below and jumping on/over cover will save you countless times. BrokenEarth is by no means a platformer, but, it does help.
  • FPS fans will feel right at home, in a top-down shooter? We believe so, we ourselves are FPS players and that shows in BrokenEarth. Quick sprint, melee and grenades are crucial elements of our combat system and we believe we showcase them together nicely for the first time in a top-down shooter.
  • Battlefield abilities called Camo, Aegis, Flash and Impulse, serve to aid you in combat. Allowing you to go invisible, reduce incoming damage, speed out of danger or repel rockets or… anything that gets too close.
  • Role specific weapons, we don’t have 5 types of assault rifles in BrokenEarth, instead each of our 10+ weapons are fine-tuned for specific roles and knowing when to use which will separate the pros from the crowd. Rifles also allow you to pull the camera away for distant shots and impaling multiple victims with an arrow is quite satisfying.
  • Chaotic unscripted gameplay, since elements on the battlefield interact, players will find new tactics emerging as they play, it might be throwing the flag or shooting rockets through teleporters, players will always be figuring out tricks and ofcourse, we will fix the unbalanced ones.
  • Character customization, we allow you to modify your character with customized emblems, colours and accessories allowing you to be feel unique, new helmets to backpacks, from goofy pumpkin heads to more serious back mounted systems. You can also view other players characters and statistics directly in the lobby.
  • Match control, there’s nothing we hate more than joining a server that plays the same game mode and map for 10 hours, so our lobby system allows you to vote on map, game mode, starting and secondary weapons and even the weapons that spawn in the map plus modify your loadout for the next match.



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BrokenEarth on Desura
BrokenEarth on Greenlight
BrokenEarth on IndieGoGo

Technical Info

  • Powered by unity Free
  • Uses the unity built-in network system
  • Core team of 2 guys

Demo: BrokenEarth Demo file - IndieDB

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Hey Tahir!

Good to know you are still alive and kicking! :slight_smile:
Will give the Demo a try when i have the time.

Good luck with the project!

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Hey man, great seeing you here. Thanks, I hope you enjoy it.

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Hello guys,

I’m tahir and I’m the designer/programmer behind BrokenEarth. We’ve been posting updates to the game here for quite some time and responses have been relatively non-existent. This is pretty disheartening as I’ve spent countless hours on this game as the sole programmer and seeing other smaller games with less effort grab attention just makes me wonder what I’ve done wrong.

What I’m wondering is, why do you believe this is? What vibe do you get from our game? Does it seem generic? Doesn’t do enough interesting? Is it because its a TopDownShooter? We’re pretty confident in how good we think our gameplay is, however, getting this across through videos and screenshots for this game, seems to be rather difficult. Maybe its because of a lack of theme or interesting artstyle?

The game is currently on greenlight with 40 percent of votes being yes, though comments are positive. It still isn’t where i’d like to see the game and its looking like either some visual overhaul is needed or I’m missing some interesting mechanic.

I would love this thread to literally attack the content I post here, I’d like to know how your immediate reaction is to seeing BrokenEarth. Do you Like/Hate/Love it? Or is it more of a “Meh, seems fine but pass” kind of reaction? This is not a sympathy drive, I’m seeking some constructive feedback so I can have some ideas on how to move forward. Feel free to be critical and honest, I can handle it.

BrokenEarth on Desura
BrokenEarth on Greenlight
BrokenEarth on IndieGoGo
Play the BrokenEarth Demo

Cheers,
Tahir

Multiplayer Features trailer:

Cooperative Survival mode:


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Have you tried emailing the sites like rock paper shotgun, or giant bomb to get them to take intrest in it?

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Yes, we have a couple so far, those two included. Nothing yet in terms of responses, maybe it just needs more time or they don’t find it interesting.

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The gameplay looks fun. Your heart and soul really shines through in the videos. And, one way to dramatically increase industry reception is to improve your user interface. Add juice! Add polish! Add buttons that bounce and wiggle. And slide in out. And huge hit boxes that flash when you take damage! Go crazy with your interface! Marketing right now is premature - as the interface is actually detracting from the appeal of your game.

See this recent thread on Good UI Design and follow the links to Martin Petri.

Gigi.

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Completely subjective opinion after taking a look at the screenshots and watching the video:

Seems like there is a lot of noise, visually. With detail jam-packed on relatively small screen estate, colors and textures blend together, resulting in a screenshot that is hard to read. I literally had to lean forward, my nose almost touching the screen, before I noticed the gray-brown blur at the right edge of screenshot #1 was a dude, and not part of the grass texture (admittedly, the “flying” gun was weird…).

Screenshot #2 looks much cleaner, especially the rocks and skybox, much more pleasant aesthetically.

Now the video. Hmm, this is loud. Gunfire, gunfire, gunfire, reload, more gunfire, gunfire, reload, few seconds of silence, gunfire, gunfire, gunfire… After two minutes of this, my ears are already saturated. Just hearing it almost makes me feel tired. No doubt gunfire is loud in real life, but in video games I like it better when it gives the impression of being loud without actually being so.

The action is hard to read, again because of the aforementioned visual noise. Enemies look similar. Those bullets are flying fast. I hear a clicking noise sounding like the player is picking something, but I’m having such a hard time seeing anything I can’t tell if that is what it is.

It isn’t too enthralling to watch. It seems like there is depth to the gameplay, that it might be fun to play, but as an outsider I just see a dude running in circles for two minutes, and the visual noise prevents me from understanding the subtleties of the action. Just seeing the same humanoid enemies for the whole video makes me wonder, is that all there is to it, or are there baddies of different shapes, bigger guys, bosses? Some variation could be nice.

That one part where the player is dead and you watch his friend is actually the most enjoyable, thanks to the closer perspective making it easier to get a handle on the scene.

It looks like there’s an interesting game in there, but on a first look it’s not too convincing because the good parts are drown in noise. Intuitively, I feel a less detailed but more contrasted aesthetic would serve the gameplay better, as well as softer and more varied sounds. Animations also look stiff (thinking of those enemies holding a pistol one-handed, especially when they jump).

Second video, which I didn’t watch up until now, makes it look a lot better in my opinion.

All that being said, your attitude towards feedback made me want to register and reply, and to check out the game. So as far as marketing goes, be yourself? :wink:

Edit: by the way, your first link results in a Steam error page for me.

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First impressions just glancing at the videos…

Boring weapons, the co-op looked especially dull.
Some really annoying things, the jumping looked like it would be more of a nuisance more than anything, players were all up in the camera space. How do you know where the heck you’re aiming vertically and with all the vertical action against the top down angle I can only assume this would be abysmal to play.

Totally sweet customization stuff!
One neat shield thing that was dropped in multiplayer, the only sign of potential strategy.

I would recommend looking at Crimsonland for some co-op ideas and DoTA for multiplayer ideas, it appears that the co-op is boring and the multiplayer is annoying. I would consider adjusting the camera FOV and distance as well, something flatter with more viewing space may be better?

I’d greenlight it because it looks like it has potential and there are some pretty sweet art elements to it but the gameplay looks uninteresting. Graphics do not make up for bland gameplay.

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I guess you need a unique selling feature, wether it be a unique art style or something to set it apart from all the other top down shooters. Maybe some kind of gimmick, though I dont think you can tack it on.

Maybe if you added some kind of wacky mode. Off the top of my head, IE asymmetrical gameplay where one teams plays as a giant tank, then everyone else works together to try and kill him

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  1. Context - the videos seem to completely lack context of what we are seeing. There is no setup, just “ok! shooting stuff!”. Give a little bit to get us into the world, the setup, what it is we are entering into.

  2. Uniqueness - At first it looks pretty bland, just running around kiting a bunch of AI groups chasing you. But, the 2nd video started to show some interesting stuff…different abilities? Jumps? Even a bow and arrow? Basically, dig into the cool stuff! Feature it! Not just show some clips of it, but tell us what we are seeing.

Simply showing the game play without anything else isn’t enough to really sell it. You have a cool project…now tell us WHY it is cool.

Also, with marketing to news sites… they get a TON of PR material sent to them every day, it is very easy to get lost. Keep sending them stuff every week (and do a development blog, or new announcements to keep throwing different stories at them). Even send them a demo and let them play it. You should have a longgggggg list of sites to send your releases to.

You might also consider hiring on a professional PR company (it can be expensive, but well worth it if you have a good project and just need eyes on it to make it a success).

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Some excellent points raised, My impression not being a fan of top-down to begin with just hated the camera angle and it look’s fixed in place.

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@AnotherVoice:
Thank you so much, you made some great points. Maybe we need to make a stronger contrast between level and characters, maybe desaturate level textures a bit so that characters pop out more, that certainly is a really good point and it is greatly appreciated. I definitely will experiment with it a bit more. Also, the greenlight links work for me, how about this one? Glad you took the time to reply.

@Zerobounds:
Okay so that’s your “impression” from the videos, okay. Saying the weapons and co-op looks dull is understandable. However, you can’t honestly judge the gameplay as bad because you cant imagine how it works, or say that the verticality is a nuisance. Ofcourse, if this is what you get from the videos you see, then sure, that is understandable as that is the purpose of this thread and your feedback is appreciated.

@IvoryOasis:
Thanks for the feedback, we are working on it. I’m especially aware that we aren’t communicating the game correctly, we are only two dudes, so I guess that just isn’t my department. So I guess the key thing is just, finding a way to communicate what’s fun about the game. Problem is, I find it especially hard for the topdown perspective. Maybe we need to do less gameplay based videos and more cutscene styled stuff?

@All:
We’ve had over 50-100 people testing the game through its development and gameplay was always a strong point. The game doesn’t try to be what its not. I refuse to put some big-ass uber looking 10000rpm minigun in the game just because its cool, weapons are carefully added by looking at how the game plays and what roles they can fill, its still a competitive game also. So, adding “interesting” weapons comes second to “useful” weapons because there’s no point in adding a gun if it doesn’t contribute to the gameplay or unbalances the sandbox. Ofcourse, I’m always looking for what interesting weapons to add but the process is deeper than: “A plasma nuke would look cool!”. Although, maybe we could look into changing the visuals of the current weapons so they maintain their roles but still look appealing.

The thing I’m most proud of in my game is its gameplay. However, if I’m not communicating it correctly, then I need to take a step back and re-think. The problem I believe is, people have been spoilt into what they think a game needs to be fun and they expect alot of additional mechanics, progression, perks, unlocks, building. If counterstrike wasn’t an established game, I don’t believe a gameplay trailer of it now would grab that much attention. Ofcourse, I’m not making excuses to not add stuff to the game but I do believe there would be alot stronger core games if developers didn’t feel like they had to shove additional mechanics in so people think the “gameplay” is fun. And whether we like it or not, this does happen.
With that said though, we do have alot of addition objective things to add to the cooperative mode.

@runner:
Understandable, I will say though that the game is made by someone that use to think of TopDowns that very same way, so persons like you really are my targets, I hope you give the demo a look and see if I failed, it is FaREE after all. -Wink

The game is pretty much still in development.
Again, demo available here.

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Thats all i intended to convey, if you’re on greenlight all people are doing is blazing through looking for cool stuff quickly and thats the impression I got from doing so. I’m sure if I spent more than 3 minutes looking at it then I’d have different feedback. Tease with really cool stuff, really fast, snip anything less than super cool.

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@Aiursrage2k:
Possibly, general feedback seems to be saying that the game doesn’t communicate itself properly. I asked here because I know developers are more capable of reading between the lines and seeing potential while a gamer might just say the game sucks without being able to give a constructive reason as to why.

PS. I didn’t know IE (internet explorer) had game modes? :smile: #trolling, sorry, What’s IE?

@Zerobounds:
Well thank you, feedback appreciated. I understand what you mean. We’ll look into that also.

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@Tahir - Should I have been more blunt? If you do NOT add juice and polish to your interface, the game will fail. It’s a MASSIVE investment of time and love that will eventually be ignored by experienced players (like yourself). But, a new player doesn’t see the game and the mechanics yet, they only see a crappy, uninteresting UI.

Almost every reply in this thread used words like, “Bland” … “isn’t enthralling” … “Boring” … “Bland” … You need to JUICE your UI. It takes 20%-25% of your development time, and it’s worth it’s weight in gold!

Gigi

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I did get your point, thing is, I redid the UI over 4 times now, from hideous to just ugly to what you see now. So its a bit of a pain to think I have to touch it again, though, there are some things I could do to it and I will look into it. Your feedback isn’t being ignored.

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It’s an abbreviation for the latin phrase “id est”, which roughly translates to “in other words”. Looking at the context, I’d say he probably actually meant eg, which is an abbreviation for the latin “exempli gratia” which roughly translates to “for example”.

Or maybe IE has a game mode, and I didn’t know either. You never know.

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This is the first I ever heard of this game.

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I think the game looks really great, and the UI is completely fine. I’m saying this constructively, so don’t take offense, but I think your problem might be EXPECTING everyone to pay attention to your game. We ALL think we’re making great games and that the world should be paying attention, but the problem is there’s a LOT of games being made, so most of them (even the great ones) can struggle to get noticed. Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep polishing the game and get it done. Don’t let it get you down that you’re not being lavished with attention right now - that’s only going to discourage you.