Feedback Friday #157 - March 19-22, 2021

[Antypodish]

Hi all,

It’s Feedback Friday time!

Proper playtesting and feedback early on in your game will save you tons of time - according to this postmortem, it might even save you a whole year!

If that sounds like something you could use, you’ve found the right thread! Feedback Friday runs from Friday to Monday every week. Share a build of your work in progress game to get playtesting and feedback, get new perspectives to help you overcome your biggest obstacles and take advantage of the Unity Community to boost your game development!

What To Show

• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play > everything else
• How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)
• Post a link to a playable game, preferably WebGL. If you don’t have a playable game, post something substantial, not just text.

How To Ask For Feedback

• Be concise.
• Specify what you want feedback on and what you don’t.
• Resist the urge to write an immediate defense. Take the time to understand their points. Remember that your friends here are taking time out of their busy schedules to help you for free.

How To Give Feedback

• Be positive. There’s something of value in every game.
• Focus on the design, not the designer.

Feedback Friday #156 is here.

[EternalAmbiguity]

Okay. Let’s try this one more time. My game: CA Shooter by EternalAmbiguity

I tried it on another PC and ran into the issues mentioned by TonyLi, and was able to resolve them when running on that machine. I hate that this comes down to testing and essentially bugfixing on another machine, but that’s kinda my own fault. Anyway, the following GIFs were recorded from a laptop with a much poorer CPU than my dev machine, but they show it works:

grouchyscornfulintermediateegret
handmadegiddyfunnelweaverspider

To anyone kind enough to download, does this version work? Can folks move around without it being super jerky, and can you shoot into the blob and destroy them?

If so, any comments on the gameplay? Not entirely sure when folks played it last, so I’m not sure how much will be new. Right now there’s an immediate goal of acquiring a McGuffin but there are some NPCs trapped that you can release by destroying their cages, and keeping the blob from surrounding them again (to reform the cage) as they escape. If anyone gets to that point, is it enjoyable? Is the “escort mission” enjoyable? Right now the NPC just moves to a designated exit location–what improvements to the AI would you recommend? I’ve kicked around the idea of more capable NPCs who fight back - does that seem interesting, or does the idea of a lone defender seem more interesting?

A couple weeks back there were some comments about using vents of some kind to manage blob movement. Any further thoughts on that with a working version of the game? Right now the blob’s movement is only on a 2D plane, but the vent idea kind of implies some kind of 3D system or overlay. That seems like an order of magnitude increase in complexity.

All that aside…I kind of already have, but I’m gonna need to put development on a side-burner. At the beginning of this year I got started on another creative project, and my perception at the time was that it would take longer to get out - maybe 2023. Well the guy I’m talking to has encouraged me to push something small out this year, with the full project being released early 2022, so I’ve been focusing on that. To be honest I’ve spent most of the last two weeks in Sonar composing a demo for a single rather than Unity.

I think I’m gonna start a WIP thread as recommended by Antypodish a while back and then focus on that, and perhaps post here in the future only when I’ve made a significant change I’d like feedback on.

[TonyLi]

There was a little bit of stutter at the start, but movement and shooting worked. It’s satisfying to mop up blobs.

After shooting open the cages, the NPCs stayed in place. They didn’t try to move.

I like your idea of a lone defender, although I suppose you could add a bit of an RTS twist if NPCs could fight back somehow. Rather than that, I’d be more interested in expanding the options the player has to fight the blob, such as planting bombs and laser tripwires, using different weapons (e.g., large area of impact grenade launcher), and interacting with the environment (e.g., environmental controls, open airlock to jettison parts of blob into space, etc.).

[EternalAmbiguity]

@TonyLi

There was a little bit of stutter at the start, but movement and shooting worked. It’s satisfying to mop up blobs.

After shooting open the cages, the NPCs stayed in place. They didn’t try to move.

I like your idea of a lone defender, although I suppose you could add a bit of an RTS twist if NPCs could fight back somehow. Rather than that, I’d be more interested in expanding the options the player has to fight the blob, such as planting bombs and laser tripwires, using different weapons (e.g., large area of impact grenade launcher), and interacting with the environment (e.g., environmental controls, open airlock to jettison parts of blob into space, etc.).

I noticed that on my laptop, if I dispatched the initial blob quickly and then freed the NPC, there was a significant delay before it started moving. Again, this doesn’t happen on my desktop, but it might be related to my attempts to reduce the multi-threadedness of the game. Once a little time has passed it works correctly. Something I need to resolve.

Right now there’s the “trap” weapon, that will drop when shot and land some short distance away (or stick to any surface it hits). It explodes after 1 second or so, but it could be changed so that there’s a proximity sensor or something (or it could still have the timer, just a longer time). Grenade vs. Mine I suppose. But it is another type of weapon that can be used in the existing game.

Sounds like I need to jump back into the environment stuff that I removed.

[TonyLi]

It was a good move to set the environment stuff aside while you iron out the basic move-shoot gameplay. Now that the gameplay is fairly satisfying (minus issues such as the NPC not moving / taking a while to start moving), some environment stuff will be fun to see in the build – or, if not environment stuff, then maybe more weapons and abilities that the player can employ, such as mines and grenades, or maybe traps such as acid pools that last for a short time but dissolve the blob if the blob tries to grow into it.

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

To anyone kind enough to download, does this version work? Can folks move around without it being super jerky, and can you shoot into the blob and destroy them?

So the performance is actually killing fun issues.

I started game, and run along the corridor, to find first egg / cage, where NPC was locked.
Growers stopped growing after some moments, I was able push them back and clear path to the egg.
Until then performance was smooth.

Once egg was destroyed and NPC was released, growers start rapidly expanding. Actually very fast, so wasn’t able to push back, at given default rate. Soon later, growers turn bright red and as I was approaching some door, lag hit massively and camera start jumping, when tried to move.

So yeah, performance issue is persistent if not worse, between consecutive versions.

[Antypodish]

I just drop something, that I am working on recently, on some request, to get a feedback too from you guys.

Hove (experimental dev) v0.0.48 by Antypodish v0.0.48 (experimental dev).

(Short rough vid should show up withing next 1:15 hour)

Unity DOTS: Hove V0.0.48 Playable (Experimental dev)

This is simplistic prototype of AI hovercrafts , with testing navigation path planning and shooting. Plus optional human player control. I am using DOTS.

4 teams will attempt to shoot another teams in range. When any vehicle is turn sideways, or fall outside the map, it will be destroyed after few seconds.

General mechanics:

Right click anywhere, to spawn vehicles of each team, on yellow sphere markers. There are 4 teams’ spawners, yellow, green and 2x for purple team. Middle team spawner also spawn player vehicle, if there is no current player vehicle existing, or has been destroyed.

Left click on any yellow spawner, to enable / disable it.

Left click on blue waypoints, to order existing vehicles, to navigate to them. AI vehicles will automatically pick another random waypoint, if goal waypoint has been reached.

Player controls:

WSAD - Move forward and turn.

QE - Strafe.

Space - Shoot

Tab - Change camera view from tactic to player vehicle (experimental).

Hold Shift (in tactic view) - Allow to rotate with mouse and move camera with WSAD, Q / E (up / down).

Hold Shift (in third person view) - Hold camera motion.

Looking for feedback on:

1. Performance
2. AI behaviour (however is rather basics)
3. Player controls in tactic view
4. Hovercrafs behaviours

Some known issues:

1. Camera in 3rd person is far from being ideal.
2. Player sometimes shoots automatically.
3. Hovering may have slow damping factor, when roll, or yaw is applied.
4. Ignore possible console error at initialization:

[adamgolden]

@Antypodish - startup was near-instant, framerate was smooth, no stutter (even while spamming RMB / spawning 100s of vehicles), no crashes. It took a moment to identify where my vehicle was in tactics view. An indicator of some kind would help with that. In particular, while driving underneath something you can’t see the vehicle at all or where you are. That’s all for now

[Antypodish]

@adamgolden

@Antypodish - startup was near-instant, framerate was smooth, no stutter (even while spamming RMB / spawning 100s of vehicles), no crashes. It took a moment to identify where my vehicle was in tactics view. An indicator of some kind would help with that. In particular, while driving underneath something you can’t see the vehicle at all or where you are. That’s all for now

Cool. thx for a time and feedback.
Yeah you have raised valid concerns, which I also discovered.
I am still thinking, how to address hiding under neath matter. Either having specifically designing level + correct camera angle, or making camera movement, to follow player / enemy. Or perhaps making platforms semi transparent.

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

So the performance is actually killing fun issues.

I started game, and run along the corridor, to find first egg / cage, where NPC was locked.
Growers stopped growing after some moments, I was able push them back and clear path to the egg.
Until then performance was smooth.

Once egg was destroyed and NPC was released, growers start rapidly expanding. Actually very fast, so wasn’t able to push back, at given default rate. Soon later, growers turn bright red and as I was approaching some door, lag hit massively and camera start jumping, when tried to move.

So yeah, performance issue is persistent if not worse, between consecutive versions.

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I’ll take another stab at this. I really appreciate your willingness to test this.

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

I just drop something, that I am working on recently, on some request, to get a feedback too from you guys.

https://antypodish.itch.io/hove v0.0.48 (experimental dev).

(Short rough vid should show up withing next 1:15 hour)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA3c259uouM

This is simplistic prototype of AI hovercrafts , with testing navigation path planning and shooting. Plus optional human player control. I am using DOTS.

4 teams will attempt to shoot another teams in range. When any vehicle is turn sideways, or fall outside the map, it will be destroyed after few seconds.

General mechanics:

Right click anywhere, to spawn vehicles of each team, on yellow sphere markers. There are 4 teams’ spawners, yellow, green and 2x for purple team. Middle team spawner also spawn player vehicle, if there is no current player vehicle existing, or has been destroyed.

Left click on any yellow spawner, to enable / disable it.

Left click on blue waypoints, to order existing vehicles, to navigate to them. AI vehicles will automatically pick another random waypoint, if goal waypoint has been reached.

Player controls:

WSAD - Move forward and turn.

QE - Strafe.

Space - Shoot

Tab - Change camera view from tactic to player vehicle (experimental).

Hold Shift (in tactic view) - Allow to rotate with mouse and move camera with WSAD, Q / E (up / down).

Hold Shift (in third person view) - Hold camera motion.

Looking for feedback on:

1. Performance
2. AI behaviour (however is rather basics)
3. Player controls in tactic view
4. Hovercrafs behaviours

Some known issues:

1. Camera in 3rd person is far from being ideal.
2. Player sometimes shoots automatically.
3. Hovering may have slow damping factor, when roll, or yaw is applied.
4. Ignore possible console error at initialization:

I gave it a try.

performance was fine for me, but I have a powerful machine.
Nothing really stuck out to me about the AI except one thing. Seems weird for these bullets to make the vehicles fall over, but they can shoot them just fine. The act of firing one should cause roughly the same force on the shooter that it causes on the vehicle it hits. At the very least, they seem too flimsy when they’re hit.
Player controls are a little weird. I moved the camera around and it went behin a wall; also, the cannon tracks on the mouse location, rather than just directly in front of it, so if I moved the cursor to one side the cannon would be aiming off somewhere to the side of where I was pointed. I think the cannon should aim directly in front of the camera. Also I’d prefer if holding the “shoot” button fired continuously but that’s just me. Also the movement controls are kind of hard - there’s the fact that aiming forward (W) doesn’t just move you forward relative to the camera, and also the turning seems too sensitive. The former might be a design decision, but the turning makes it difficult.
Similar thing happens for the AI - sometimes when they reach a corner they turn more than they’re supposed to, or their speed causes them to overshoot the corner. One of them was turning at the raised level going right-to-left on the attached image

and it overshot the corner and started to fall off the edge. It didn’t actually fall over even though it was tilted pretty far, but when it reversed it fell off on the inside and was destroyed.

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I’ll take another stab at this. I really appreciate your willingness to test this.

Can you upload dev build, with automatic profiler attaching?

At least would be possible to investigate issue at the runtime the.
If not by tomorrow, just PM me.

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

I gave it a try.

Cool thx.

@EternalAmbiguity

performance was fine for me, but I have a powerful machine.

No probs. I run that on 5 years old rig

@EternalAmbiguity

Nothing really stuck out to me about the AI except one thing. Seems weird for these bullets to make the vehicles fall over, but they can shoot them just fine. The act of firing one should cause roughly the same force on the shooter that it causes on the vehicle it hits. At the very least, they seem too flimsy when they’re hit.

Yep I want to change that. For now, they got same mass as the vehicles. That is why
But I want to implement proper explosion forces at some point. And lower impact effect, for lower caliber bullets / shells.

@EternalAmbiguity

Player controls are a little weird. I moved the camera around and it went behin a wall; also, the cannon tracks on the mouse location, rather than just directly in front of it, so if I moved the cursor to one side the cannon would be aiming off somewhere to the side of where I was pointed. I think the cannon should aim directly in front of the camera.

Yeah, that cam is quite annoying. I am aware. I need rework that completely. To be honest, I implemented that experimental camera feature in few min, or so. With some additional tweaking after. So that is that to it

@EternalAmbiguity

Also I’d prefer if holding the “shoot” button fired continuously but that’s just me.

I may do that for fast shooting guns. For lower speed, I may force need to press. However, in respect ot AI, I may just as well leave hold button, as AI shoots fast atm. So that could be a bit unfair for a player.

@EternalAmbiguity

Also the movement controls are kind of hard - there’s the fact that aiming forward (W) doesn’t just move you forward relative to the camera, and also the turning seems too sensitive. The former might be a design decision, but the turning makes it difficult.

I think movement should be fine, once aiming is properly resolved. The thing is, the cannon aims at mouse pointer, so I wanted player to be able aim, while driving desired direction. But again, the cam was very quick dirty job.

@EternalAmbiguity

Similar thing happens for the AI - sometimes when they reach a corner they turn more than they’re supposed to, or their speed causes them to overshoot the corner. One of them was turning at the raised level going right-to-left on the attached image

and it overshot the corner and started to fall off the edge. It didn’t actually fall over even though it was tilted pretty far, but when it reversed it fell off on the inside and was destroyed.

Indeed, that is ongoing issue I have. I already implemented some counter measures. But I may need implement PI, or PID, and tune it, to counter that over shooting. The reason why I haven’t done so yet, is that once I change dramatically properties, of the vehicles, I would need re-tune. So I left it out for time being. But sure, it is valid concern.

I appreciate for a time.

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

Can you upload dev build, with automatic profiler attaching?

At least would be possible to investigate issue at the runtime the.
If not by tomorrow, just PM me.

I just got a build that works okay on my old laptop with 2 cores @ 2.2 GHz. I’m building the executable using the DOTS build configuration so the only options are Debug/Develop/Release. I’m about to upload a Debug version, should be up within a minute or two of this post. If there’s another option somewhere let me know.

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

I think movement should be fine, once aiming is properly resolved. The thing is, the cannon aims at mouse pointer, so I wanted player to be able aim, while driving desired direction. But again, the cam was very quick dirty job.

That would still be possible. If W and S are forward/backward relative to the camera, and A/D are left/right, it’s possible to move sideways while aiming the camera (and the cannon) in a certain direction.

Nothing wrong with how you have it once you get the camera working, but just want to point out both are possible. The way you have it now reminds me of the Warthog in Halo, which worked well for controllers but felt funky for M&K.

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

If there’s another option somewhere let me know.

Do you use Build Settings?

That where you find

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

Do you use Build Settings?

That where you find

No, I was instructed not to in this thread of mine .

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

No, I was instructed not to in this thread of mine .

Hmm. I am not familiar with the issue. I am using DOTS in my projects.
I gather from that thread, that it has something to do with scene ordering / loading.

[EternalAmbiguity]

@Antypodish

Hmm. I am not familiar with the issue. I am using DOTS in my projects.
I gather from that thread, that it has something to do with scene ordering / loading.

Yeah honestly I don’t really understand it, but it solved that issue I was having. In any case, if you get the chance let me know if the latest version works for you.

[Antypodish]

@EternalAmbiguity

Yeah honestly I don’t really understand it, but it solved that issue I was having. In any case, if you get the chance let me know if the latest version works for you.

If the updated version is on
https://eternalambiguity.itch.io/ca-shooter
Then unfortunately I can not link to the profiler. The settings is not enabled somwhere.

But I repeated same what yesterday.

First went along corridor to release NPC

Until that point my CPU runs 8 cores at approx ~70%. (idle is 3-4%). Just after loading screen to 100%, game runs at quite around 100%. Then drops a bit.

After going up-left, reaching door,

CPU goes berserkr, camera stutter and creep start flashing colors, bright / dark red.

At least memory wise is stable.