I built this in just a couple of evenings (which gives credit to Unity’s ease of use rather than my skill) in order to start learning Unity. This was a couple of years ago and since then I haven’t used Unity at all due to being quite busy studying to become an architect. I’m still quite busy but yesterday I finally bought a license for Unity Pro and thought I give this the Pro treatment. And one of the reasons for showing you this now i perhaps to give myself the motivation to continue developing again.
One of my favorite games has always been Gauntlet so I would regard this effort as a hommage to that classic game.
Please bear in mind that this is a really really really early version without many of the essential features.
On my to do list are amongst others:
Player taking damage
Functions for handling levels and moving between them
Several different types of enemies
100+ levels (this should take some time but be most fun)
Improve level graphics
Player model and animation
Enemies models and animation
Treasure code
Food code
Keys and doors code
Perhaps some simple role playing elements as leveling up becoming more powerful
Maybe even networking co-op
BUG: Shots sometimes travel through walls
BUG: Enemies sometimes above height of shoot height
Go back and redo a lot of the early game mechanics as i learn more about Unity
So as you can see there is A LOT left to do. But please try this out and give feedback. One big thing is the player control. You could of course implement classic Gauntlet style control but I sort of prefer this since it for instance allows you to move backwards and shot chasing enemies. But it makes the player a bit more difficult to control.
Reminds me of the old Gauntlet II, DarkSeed (Aliens) top downs of the eighties but what immediately strikes me is the atmosphere, I can almost immediately imagine a topdown with really good CG characters, more subtle lighting, SFX etc being quite a joy to play even as something of a nod to the old arcade classics 8)
Bring back bedroom/garage games it’s what the industry needs; I say.
This was really interesting. If you want to move in one direction while firing in another I suggest using a control scheme similar to either Abuse or Smash TV, where you have one set of controls aim / fire and one move. I think this is a perfect example where one hand on the keyboard for movement and one on the mouse for firing would work well.
You do need to figure out some sort of fading thing for the high walls that block vision. A lot of games have them fade out from bottom to top so they don’t obstruct the view so much.
Don’t forget that in Gauntlet you also had a melee attack. It’s important when pressed up against a bunch of enemies.
Also, I’m not keen on the sliding. I’d up the friction on his feet a lot. But if you do controls more like gauntlet (IE, left and right move left and right instead of turning), I think it’ll also feel better.
Looking forward to updates! I slayed many an evil white ping pong ball this round.
This is so cool. I’ll be playing it for a while, but maybe you could make the player a bit slower? the turning is difficult. Awesome Game! how’d you make the boxes instantiate cubes only every few seconds? It’s something I need to know for a sim. Just wondering.
Boomaster, regarding instantiating every few seconds here is my Ghost Spawning script. I must say that since I am just beginning to learn the ins and outs of Unity this might not be the most effective way. However here it comes:
function SpawningGhosts() {
while(true){
var instantiatedGhost : GameObject = Instantiate (ghost, transform.position, transform.rotation);
Physics.IgnoreCollision(instantiatedGhost.collider, transform.root.collider);
yield WaitForSeconds(5.0);
}
}
Any suggestions to improving this bit of code is appreciated.
Might want to add an upper limit on the number of active spawns. The spawner should have a total, and every time one dies a message gets sent to the spawner to decrement that. That way you don’t run into an area where there are five billion of the little buggers.
Good idea kattkieru. I guess the game would turn to a halt if there were to many enemies spawned. You can actively spawn enemies with the 1 button.
I have made a slight update now (the link is the same above) where I am experimenting with the look of the enemies (the Playstation game Ico have, in my mind, one of the most scaring enemies).
I like the idea of black it contrasts against the fact that you are navigating the maze world by illuminating it, somehow having the demons, as shadows is real creepy 8)
May I suggest a combination of a projector and particle system perhaps the projector could use a shadow sprite that looks like a ghostly shadow entity coming toward you and a mesh particle emmiter childed could do some nifty special effects, if you have the pro version maybe some refractive or otherwise effect that would distort the ground; is it possible to have the shadowy demons pehaps cast a counter acting negative light upon your progress; just that when they mob you hero the visibility goes down so to “see” again you must shoot the shadows?
Just some ideas that could take it a bit creepier than Gauntlet II etc but using the same ludology?
In fact ever seen the screen saver that used to run on the Voodoo 4 series of cards…eh scrabbles to youtube…
this is similar but the one i recall from my old gfx card was more frantic and well sick frankly
Couple that with the sorta specular / normal mapped look of the Babylon 5 Shadow ships; who in later episodes had a sorta haze around them that sorta ate light up…
and well not an original idea but with some adaptation that’s the sorta thing that would scare the willies outa me
I tried that, and no offense, but I think both of these schemes are terrible. Don’t use first-person controls unless you either have a first-person camera, or a 3rd- person camera that is always behind the player’s back. Check out about 50% of the games on the Xbox Live Arcade for examples of how to get the control scheme right (Assault Heroes is my favorite). Otherwise, you can check out Kill Monty, but two analog sticks really are a better control coupling for this kind of thing than a keyboard and mouse (and that’s probably your target control type for a computer game, anyway).
The graphics are really cool and moody, though. Nice Start!
aronparr, you got me! Yes I whipped the level up really quickly in SketchUp. I’m a big fan of SketchUp for modelling non-organic things so I will probably use it when modelling the “real” levels as well.
I’ve made a slight update where I have been testing different behaviours for the enemies and also different shapes. There are however a few glitches with the new physics-based behaviour, the enemies seems to be able to climb the walls and attack from the above. A really scary addition but I’m not sure I want it. I have to continue analyzing exactly what is happening.
Hi, again and thank you very much for your feedback.
I have posted another small update in which I am testing the following:
Added a large cistern room in order to test large area play as opposed to the narrow corridors. I am interested in varying the levels with narrow and wide, high and low areas.
Testing new textures (warning the player file is now 10MB).
Testing a lot of playability settings and enemy behaviour.
Started implementing player damage (not completely working as of yet though).
Cap of a total of 30 enemies added spawned from three different locations.
Please give me feedback on what you like and perhaps most importantly what you dont like.
Upon entering the large room, the FPS drops significantly, which makes turning difficult. Simply tapping the left or right turning keys once results in a turn anywhere from 15 to 150 degrees, depending on the FPS. Switching to mouse aiming and wasd/arrows for movement relative to the camera (not the player) will help.
