Technoforce is a 2D local co-op game with a focus on teamwork. Up to 3 players work toward clearing levels of enemy robot infestations that have taken over various locations around the galaxy. Teammates work together not just to survive, but to help save humanity from its greatest threat!
Technoforce is our first real project. We have made various other small games but we are eager to put what we have learned during the past year to work. We have been working on Technoforce for quite some time now are and super excited to get some feedback on it. At the moment we don’t have the demo ready but should have something playable soon.
Right now most of the hard tasks are complete. The game operates on a per-room basis so the camera moves to each room upon entering or exiting a door. I also got “room wrapping” completed so the player can seamlessly move from one end of the level to the other. If things go the way we hope(but we know how that goes) we will be completely done in about a month or two. But as the saying goes the last 10% is a killer.
We really miss games that provided fun local multiplayer experiences and hope that this game reaches that mark! I will be updating this post regularly as we move along and look forward to sharing more of what we are working on!
Any comments are much appreciated! Thank you for reading!!!
UPDATE January 6, 2017:
So many things have been added since we started in earnest about a month ago! We have changed much of the lighting and have multiple levels ready on the art side. We really are looking at a Spring release of our game and are excited about it! Till then thank you again for reading and see you soon!
Much has been added during the past few weeks. As mentioned below we have decided to change our name to Technoforce. Additionally, we have been adding sound effect, art revisions, and also have our first cover image made. Needless to say we are still alive! Hopefully, we will have a new update here in the next couple of days/week.
I am the artist/programmer working on this game with rogueknight.
In Technophobia, you have nine characters to pick from, each from its respective
team color.
The art style I’ve tried to go for (emphasis on tried, I’m not that good lol) is more
of a cartoon style and not super realistic, and have tried to make them very expressive
with their face.
The characters are just a varied group of brave souls who have been given the dangerous
task of clearing out this terrible alien robot infestation across the galaxy.
I wanted to show you the nine characters you can pick from. Also someday
after the game launch we would like to add new character packs as free DLC.
Some characters may go under some minor changes before we are done but this is the core nine.
That’s it for now, but in another post I would like to show some of the alien robots that you will
encounter!
We have made some nice progress this week on various fronts. We are really hoping to have a playable demo available by tomorrow. Personally I have been working primarily on the weapon and AI scripts. With a lot of the work being the clean up of bad prototype code with understandable code.
Right now I am happy where we are at! The player can pick up any weapon currently in the game and the enemies have basic AI implemented with various flavor for the different types. The next goal is to work on some back end requirements for the game. Input mapping, saving, and some more AI fine tuning is next on the list.
I’m really excited that soon we can also get working on local multiplayer support for up to 3 players. We have tested with two players but at the moment the focus has been on the more mundane barebones aspects. Since 3 people can’t share a keyboard implementing Xbox controller support is a must have feature. I’m really hoping that when we play test with 3 people the game will have that teamwork factor that we are striving for. Enough of me rambling though…
I have been finishing up on the AI for the middle class enemy. Some of the things he can do is roll into a ball and knock the player down. his shell is impenetrable, and shooting could make him bounce back at you again! Just need to plug in the animations and finish up on some of the code and he should be done!
We have two more classes that still need to be created. The game is feeling good now but with the next two classes we think it will make the game play quite a bit more dynamic. I have some concept artwork for them now but I think they need some reworks before they could be finished.
But just to leave you with a thought, whatever one of these classes are… It lurks in the shadows!
I have a new appreciation for AI now. We had the basic functionality mostly there and I figured we could knock out the rest pretty fast right? I was wrong. The AI in Technophobia is pretty basic. However being my first time trying to implement believable behaviors was a lot more difficult than I had realized.
But things are good now! The enemies can track and follow, they have various states based off what type of robot they are, and overall we are quite happy with the way they have turned out! We also have a system in place that allows the enemy to easily check what level we are on and spawn accordingly.
Up next we are going to work on a few finishing touches to the levels and any bugs we can find. Improve as much as we can and release our first working alpha test on Feedback Friday. Hopefully get some critique and improve things we might be missing.
Thanks for reading and see you very soon with our first playable demo!
P.S We just started a twitter account @coverfiregames! for those who would be interested. We try and post something once a day about what we are working on.
Today’s work mainly focused on getting the game to its first alpha stage.
Getting all of the game play mechanics finished to where it is playable. After that though we are really looking forward to adding additional features, especially local multiplayer with controller support. Level design will be fun, making different environments to see and play in.
There is one thing I’ve been waiting to add to this game since we’ve started working on Technophobia, and that is grenades! I don’t know why but I just can’t wait to toss some perfectly aimed grenades on the enemy!
We are super excited to show off our first playable alpha build! We would love any feedback! A few things we would love to know is:
How does the game feel while playing? Does the room movement feel good? Does the player movement feel right? 2. Any comments about the art/aesthetics of the game would be awesome!
Just to note there are some minor bugs that we are still working on. For example it is possible to have the camera get out of sync with the player. I will work on that this week and fix that. Also we only have 1 player in the game. So although you can pick anyone it will default to 1 blue character.
Thank you in advance!
TechnophobiaAlphaDropBox
(Creating a web demo for some reason broke all our assets. I will try later to provide a web demo. Thanks)
We have added some nice lighting effects to the game. We are really excited about using them to make the environments look much more realistic. Also we hope to make the world that more ominous! Here is pic I thought was pretty cool!
First off we appreciate everybody’s feedback so far. It has really showed key items that we need to work on. Some of those things we didn’t even think were a problem. It really shows the value of having others with an unbiased view critique our progress thus far.
Well today I’m working on new levels to play on. The level in particular is a star ship you have to transport over to and battle on. I’m creating the rooms with an entirely different design style than the rooms I’ve previously posted.
It’s exciting to see new environments to play in. Also we will be adding items in the worlds themselves that you can interact with to help you. Certain levels will also include mission objectives to accomplish.
Hopefully with interesting worlds, diverse enemies, weaponry, and characters, this game will be a fun and exciting game to play with friends and work hard together to win!
For the past few days we have been adding lighting to our scenes and it makes a world of difference. It really helps to set the mood and really adds to the creepy atmosphere. We have begun work on the 2nd level of our game while also finishing up some core features. Currently I am working on player selection and allowing the game to know if the player is choosing multiplayer. We got a lot of awesome feedback from feedback Friday and can’t wait to show off what we changed in our next playable demo.
We have posted an early gameplay video here. Hope you enjoy!!
We are still hard at work! We almost have level 3 complete art wise and soon will start working on level 4. Some things have taken longer than we anticipated but we are still moving right along. We posted on IndieDB for the first time and we made it to the top 100!
We posted an in depth devlog there to catch people up on our progress. If you would like to read I will post a link below. Thanks for reading and I hope to have more to post by this time next week.
Working today and I’ve just finished the 3rd level. I think it looks pretty good.
The next level I think will be designed as a research base in a space station.
I’ve been trying to make the different ships and bases you go to feel different and unique. It definitely takes some time but it certainly makes the game have more depth. Instead of telling you about the universe through dialogue, we are trying to accomplish that through the worlds that you see.
Also on a side note local multiplayer is coming along really well.
As of now we have the foundation of local multiplayer in place. Also have acquired main theme music and we are in the process of getting sound effects in place.
Level creation is moving along, its a slow progress but I have six levels created and I’m working on the seventh right now. I’m not sure how many levels we will want, but for now the goal is ten to fifteen, then from there we might start repeating levels. But we will not know for sure until we get to beta testing to see if its enough or if we need more levels to keep the game from becoming stale.
Also since the levels I’ve made so far are quite different to each other with different architecture and styles of technology, I might just create a similar level as before but just mix the rooms around to make a different level but not having to create an entirely different design.
Let me know what you think and I welcome any advice! Thanks for reading and catch you next time.
Hey there, interesting project! I’m also a big fan of local multiplayer games (even got one in the makings). I was wondering how you will give the players enough individual space. I imagine its quite hard to do for a 2D-Sidescroller and I think usually it’s done by giving the players additional space in the y-Axis.
That is a good question. It’s something that we have been struggling with to get right. For this game we plan on doing like you mentioned, increase the vertical space for each additional player. Three players will be the maximum allowed, one player on top, one in the middle, and one on the bottom.
That’s an obstacle we are facing. We are not that great with different screen resolutions. It’s certainly something we will have to work on.
Thank you for reading!!!
