UA 2008: Traces of Illumination - Multiplayer

Community Showcases
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My entry to the Unity Awards 2008:

EDIT 3: Fixed &quo in title :wink:

EDIT 2: Changed subject to “UA 2008: Traces of Illumination - Multiplayer ‘Beta’ Started”

EDIT 1: Name change:

JC’s Unity Multiplayer TRaceON
Experience the Unexpected!

is now:

Traces of Illumination
Experience the Unexpected!

(see postings on page 4 :wink: )!

Based on an almost ancient game idea (say “Snake” :wink: ), TRaceON is strongly focussed on the multiplayer and commUnity experience. There will be 12 levels, with a progression towards more team-play and bigger game groups (“game group” is a group of up to 20 people playing together, split up to 4 teams of up to 5 players).

While the last level seems to be the end of the game… well, I have to say that there are also 12 vehicles planned, and I guess it’s probably trivial to guess what you need to do to get the next vehicle…

The business model is “subscription based”, with a single-player evaluation version that includes persistent high scores for players who have registered with the Website.

Level Overview

Level 01-03: Each player must have been “the winner” one time. These levels can be played competetively – but as long as one player in a game group has not “won”, the whole game group won’t get to the next level (so it’s obvious what many people will do :wink: ).

Level 04-06: Time Limited team-collection levels: One player of each team must “get something” within the maximum time for that level; there’s no more competition because if one team fails, all teams fail – but there’s also no explicit cooperation

Level 07-09: Survival Levels - all players must make it to the end (this is basically the “opposite” of 01-03: there, you must be the last one standing, here, you must make sure everyone plays 'til the time is up), while in 04-06 you had to fear that time runs out before you made it, in 07-09, you’re looking forward to time “running out” (because that’s when you win), there’s explicit “inner team cooperation” in level 09

Level 10: Team-Level-Support-Level: Each Team must support the other teams, each player of each team must “pick up something”; basically, the teams must support the other teams for all to get to the next level

Level 11: Individual-Level-Support-Level: In this level, each player can and should support each other player, teams are irrelevant - you are now one big group of 20 players trying to achieve a common goal. Time is the only “opponent” (if you wish to think in such terms): The time is so short that only well-organized cooperative play of all players will let your game group see the last level (welcome to the nightmare of balancing :wink: ) …

Level 12: Not to be spoken about except among those who have been there!

Current Status

The first three levels are finished, and I’ve “pretty-much” completed the “evaluation version” (which is just single player, plus Website integration - the evaluation version only has three levels by design). It’s already online and I’ve given it version number 0.999 because the tutorial is still missing :wink:

So, the main work that’s left to be done is 9 more levels (4th level currently in progress), and 10 more vehicles. And of course a lot of polishing to make it shine bright :wink:

Project Website

See www.ramtiga.com for development Blog, game demos and participation in the beta-test.

Beta-Test

Everyone’s invited :wink: … the thing is: Some of the more advanced levels need a full game group of 20 players to even be played, and the server is designed to be able to take “as many players as the machine can take”, so I’d also love to do some serious load-testing for which I have a special beta-client feature (“AI-play lets you play as many players as you have machines … or processing power on your machine to run multiple games at the same time ;-)”). Currenty, I have 15 registered users on my site - I need a lot more, and it’ll be a lot more fun :wink:

History

Oh well - it all started when I got Unity mid of December last year. See my first demo. That’s about 9 months ago… The last major milestone was in May: Announcement of JC’s Unity Multiplayer TRaceON V0.88 :wink: … and for those interested in numbers: when I add it all up (game design, sound design, implementation, play-testing, building the accompanying Website and so on and so on), I’m almost 88 person days into this project (86.2 to be exact :wink: ).

Sunny regards,
Jashan

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… hehe :wink:

Now is a really good time to register with the site and do a little playing because you’ve got a very good chance to make it to number one in the high-scores :wink:

Play TRaceON!

To register, simply click the “Join!”-link in the top right section of the page, next to the search and login (if you happen to start up in German, that would be “mitmachen!”).

3

looks sweet jashan!

i’m working now but can’t wait to try it out in a little while.

and thus the UA competition heats up ; )

4

ok so the jump powerup is awesome - maybe a bit too empowering (does the ai jump yet?) but man that is a ton of fun! there’s alot of room for novel gameplay that can come from this. i like the flashy cycle intro too - in general the extra polish is coming along nicely.

notes:

-the camera is a bit rough on level 2, very hard to get your bearing with it jerking around.

-when you die on level 2 you should start again on level 2 ; )

-what are the controls for the other powerups? maybe i just missed them but i didn’t use anything except boost.

very well done ; )

5

Thanks for playing - and thanks for the feedback!

The AI currently doesn’t use any of the power ups. They do collect them, so they in a way take them away from you - but that’s about it. I might some day play more with the AI-side of this, but my main focus currently is on multiplayer. The first multiplayer-only level is in fact “Level 04: Jumping Jack”, and I guess the name says a lot. In that level, jumping is an ability you need to master to actually see the next level…

I might put up an in-between build with multiplayer once I’ve got Level 04 finished (and fixed some problems in networking I had introduced with the new “power-features”) - that’ll only be available “in the beta-test”, though, i.e. you’ll have to first register with the site :wink:

Thanks for the feedback on the camera - that’s a good reality check :wink: … it’s much better than it was before, but I guess I might still have to do some magic to smooth it out a little more. Creating a good 3rd person camera really is quite challenging. I wouldn’t want to keep the camera “steady”, though, looking through walls. In a way, the “ceiling topology” of Level 02 was created in order to make the camera more challenging.

One thing you can do is use the keys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to control the camera distance (1 is “cockpit view”, 5 is “very distant overview”), the keys Q and E to look left and right, A and D to turn the camera left or right until the next turn, or Y to lock the camera behind the cycle (this toggles it on and off).

So you do have a lot of control over the camera, and one part of becoming an excellent TRaceON player is using that control.

I’m hoping to get the tutorial finished this week-end, cause that will explain this “hands on” - and my feeling is that it’s too much to remember it all just by reading some manual (or forum posting :wink: ). I’m also in the process of preparing another screencast which shows this in action (that’s kind of equivalent with the tutorial).

The keys for the powerups actually are included in the power-up icons that you see on screen once you’ve collected a power-up. But I’m noticing that almost nobody notices - so while this is also a part of the tutorial, that’s probably an area that needs polishing. A short primer until that’s all set up (you need to collect any of these before you can use them - and you can only use each power up one time after you’ve collected it; but they “stack”, so you can literally farm power-ups to become really powerful :wink: ):

Jumping is space bar,

shooting is X,

bullet time is activated with T (that’s really my favorite - and it does also work in multiplayer, obviously slowing the time down for everyone in the game group but - and that was a technical challenge - it does not have an effect on any other game groups on the same server)

there’s one power-up to remove your own wall activated with R (not sure if that’s available in the first 3 Levels, though, might be quite rare there, because it’s really more a cooperative thing)

F creates smoke behind your cycle

M opens the map

Finally, “up” (cursor up) and W is for using “speed-up”

and “down” (cursor down) or S is for using “slow-down”.

Concerning the “level advancement”: Originally, I thought this was all way too easy and everyone would see the third level about the first time they play, in incredibly short times.

That said, I have to admit: It took me a while when I first put the game online to reach the end of this little game. That came as a surprise to me :wink: …

But in Single Player mode, it’ll probably stay that way, because one of the high-scores is “how quickly you do all three levels”. Another one (to be implemented) is “how long you manage to keep those AIs alive and still get to the end of the 3rd level”. If I give you “repeat level after you crashed”, that would be kind of tricky to handle. I’m really seeing this as “one session” (in single-player) - when the session is over, you start over, when you reach the end: You might be famous :wink:

In the full version of the game (available to beta-testers and later to paying players), you have random access to the first 3 levels in a practice mode, in which you can also control how many teams there are and how many players per team. So you could set up Level 01 with 19 AIs, or play Level 03 all on your own. You can watch this in action in my first screencast.

For multiplayer, the rules are quite different: Once you have reached a level with a specific vehicle, it is yours to keep (Level 12 being the exception - but don’t talk about it :wink: ).

With multiplayer, there’s a different dynamic going on, though: The whole group only gets access to the levels that each player in the group has access to. There’s a voting system implemented to select the level - but it offers only those levels that everyone has access to.

So, if you want to play the advanced levels, you either need to make sure you play with people “on your level” - or you need to support players on a lower level to get on your level :wink:

Sunny regards,
Jashan

6

Just checking: Is everyone getting along with the registration process on the site? I noticed that of all the people who recently signed up, no one completed the registration process :frowning:

I’ve applied some changes to make this a bit easier, but maybe double-opt in is not such a good idea? Let me know if you didn’t receive the mail-message with the verification code; and I can easily unlock your account :wink:

Sometimes, these message get lost in the Spam-Folders, so in case you didn’t receive it - maybe it’s there…

Sunny regards,
Jashan

PS: The tutorial is “half-ready”, probably I’ll be done with that by the end of the weekend… but now’s party-time 8)

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i registered yesterday i think (under drJones of course ; ) - just checked now and no email in my inbox or spam folder.

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Oh - that’s not good, but at least that explains all the unauthorized users…

I’ve just authorized you manually, so you should now be able to log in.

But I guess I’ll need to do something about my mailserver: First, I had the problem that I couldn’t receive messages - now it seems there’s a problem that some messages seem to not reach the recipients…

I’ll be sending you a separate mail-message to your mail-address, let me know if you receive that…

Sunny regards,
Jashan

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was able to login now, just replied to the email i received ; )

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Hey cool, congratulations! You can now consider yourself my first “successful support case” :wink: I’ve received your message via mail, so that seems to be working in both directions.

And I’m also able to reproduce the problem with not receiving the registration verification mails on Yahoo (and probably other mail-providers, too). I’ll look into that ASAP, but will first finish the tutorial of the game :wink:

Another measure I’ve put up to face this issue is a public support forum on my site:

TRaceON Forums

I’m using a preview release of the forum software - so this should be considered a “forum in beta-test” (like the rest of the site), but since there’s now one public forum that anybody can post into (even without first registering with the site), this at least is one “safe” communications channel because if you can read your own posting in there, it also means that I can read it (unless you’re using a language I don’t understand) :wink:

11

Looks good, Jashan. Very well-polished look… The length of the retry timer ( when you die ) is a bit long… I want action, and I want it now. :slight_smile: Other than that, I don’t have any real problems with it.

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Ah - that’s what I love about Unity. “Retry timer too long”. Ah, okay, I’d agree to that. Changed “waitTimeGameOver aka Wait Time Game Over” from 12 seconds to 9 seconds in my SinglePlayerStateManager (same time as when you’ve completed a level). Took me about 5 seconds to implement :wink:

Oh no, 9 is still to long - now it’s 6, crashing is frustrating enough (took 15 seconds to find this out while playing, another 2 to change it).

It’s not online, yet, of course - but it’ll be with the next update (once I have that tutorial finished - unfortunately, I got “distracted a little” today :wink: ).

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Oh well - that’s it with double-opt-in for now :wink: … I’ve just installed the new preview release of the forum-software, and now the public forum doesn’t work anymore (you need to log in to post to the public forum, haha :wink: )…

I’ve changed this so you will be able to log in immediately after registration (in fact, registration already logs you in). This creates a much nicer workflow anyways: When you click the “Join to save Hi-Scores!”, you get the registration form. When you fill that out, you immediately return into the game - only that now you’re a “Registered Player” with the right to save your high scores :wink:

Lesson learned: Do not put security over player fun :wink:

Sorry for the inconvenience to anyone who suffered from that not-so-cool-technology!

Sunny regards,
Jashan

PS: While I was at it, I’ve “authorized” all people that have previously registered but didn’t complete - so you can now try to log in again, and it’ll work :wink: … now - up for some high scores, folks!!!

14

Oh, wait, 1 more. :slight_smile: Could you just maybe change the color of the arena walls? The ones that you cannot drive on ( AKA the crash-walls ). Maybe just invert the default floor texture?

The reason I ask is because silly ol’ me saw this wall coming and thought “Well, everything in this game operates at right-angles, and the wall is at a right-angle to the floor, so I will simply start driving up the wall when I hit it.” So much for telepathy. :wink: I guess you could say I’m tele-pathetic. :smile:

Anyway… It’s a little hard to distinguish a drive-on-able wall from a crash-wall. If there are any… Just my personal opinion. :wink:

15

Are there walls you cannot drive on? :wink: … (just kidding - there really are some walls like that)

Have you been to Level 03 - The Cube? If you want to ride up a wall, you either need a transition (as you have it in Level 03 - you can’t miss it because when you start the level, you’re riding right towards one, and it’s marked by up-arrows). Or you need one of the very advanced vehicles (that are not yet available to the public and only will be available to those courageous ones who have completed a couple of cycles - pun intended :wink: ).

Even with such an advanced vehicle, you can’t simply ride up any a wall, though (usually, walls are considered “obstacles”).

You need to land on it! 8)

That’s when the game gets really trippy…

But for almost all cases “up-turns” are and will remain possible only while you’re up in the air (that’s why the name of the 4th vehicle will very likely be “Airborne” - but don’t quote me on that) :wink:

Let me know if the first TRaceON Screencast works for you - that shows a little bit of the more crazy stuff. But keep in mind: Even once the game is fully implemented, you’ll need to work your way through to be allowed to do any of this crazy stuff. And some of the things you’ll have to do to get there will require quite a bit of practice and patience (and a good team of fellow players).

Well, the difference is what you mentioned before: If the wall is at a right angle, you can drive on it (the difficulty may only be getting there, if there’s no transition as you have it in Level 03 :wink: ).

But I think it’s a good point you’re making: I should probably change the texture of the tilted ceilings in level 02, as these really aren’t available for a ride no matter how cool your vehicle is (and not everyone will simply know that anything in that game that’s not rectangular is very dangerous :wink: )

And: I’ll add one thing that was still missing in the first tutorial (so your telepathy seems to work pretty okay - I already made “room” for that, but so far, I only had one line of text telling you that walls are to be avoided - I guess I’ll add some “experience” to that :wink: ).

Sunny regards,
Jashan

16

Alrighteee - TRaceON V0.999a (evaluation) is ready to be played :wink:

I’ve added a tutorial for Newbies (explains the basic controls and that you should avoid walls :wink: ), and one for Amateurs (explains almost all camera controls - I’ve only not included wasd+mouse-cam because that’s really ultra-advanced, so nothing for amateurs … you can try by hitting ctrl+. while playing, it’s “pretty unpolished”). Especially the second tutorial should be pretty helpful even for people who have played games of that genre before.

I’ve also shortened the times after game over and between levels, so now you get more fun in less time :wink:

I’ve also tried to improve the camera, but some things are really tricky now (when you ride towards a wall, the cam switches perpective, which can be really confusing). So I guess that still needs more immediate polishing…

I’m just uploading another version that fixes this, and also one very ugly bug that kept some of the sounds from playing (only happened in the Web player, not in the editor).

Oh, and I’ve added some high score types to the Website. So now you can also show off with longest time in b… TRaceON, and you can also show off by simply playing many many times and storing the time every time because there’s a “most active players” high score, too (and by showing off in that way, you help me show off with how many people play my game :wink: ).

Oh, btw: Congratulations to burnumd who’s currently second on Level 01: The Square - Quick Play, with 25 seconds. That’s really cool. Who’s gonna beat us (my best time in Level 01 is currently 22 seconds, I’m sure this is not the shortest time possible)… And hey - am I the only one who completes “Level 03 - The Cube”?

Have fun - play!

(… and don’t forget to login before playing so you can store your times)!

Sunny regards,
Jashan

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Hey Jashan,

My suggestions were pretty much along the lines of previous commenters. The time it took to get to the menu after dying just made me stew about what I’d done wrong (despite your admonition to not take it seriously). I didn’t realize either that there even were manual camera controls but the default camera was nice except when there was a ceiling directly overhead. Also, I ran into the sloped wall the first time I was on level 2 as well because I thought, “Hey, the AI never comes up here, I’ll just drive around here and be totally safe!” Wrong. It’s a lot of fun and definitely difficult. I haven’t spent too much time with it, but I only beat level 2 once, and I forgot to save my score. :frowning: Nice work!

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Do you like it better in the current version? When I remember correctly, I’ve more than halfed that time (from something around 16s I think to 6s now).

I can imagine that’s somewhat difficult for new players. That’s really the great thing about others reviewing one’s own work - fresh eyes simply see more :wink:

Do you guys think that people will try the tutorials (the first two of three are online now, inside the game)? If they do, I would hope that these things clear up quite quickly, but I have no idea how many people feel like doing game tutorials…

The last section of the second tutorial should give you an impression of what the camera does when there’s walls and ceilings (it still reveals areas to be polished more, but I think it’s “okay enough” for the moment). And after doing the whole second tutorial from start to end, it should be intuitive to switch to 2 (“close camera distance”) when one doesn’t feel like letting the camera do its “auto-adjusting” due to the ceilings :wink:

Ah - so you jumped up in the inner area? That’s cool, and I think it’s not that easy to do that! And in fact: Once you successfully made that jump, you are “pretty safe” up there. Only that it’s somewhat narrow :wink:

I’ll definitely change the textures of all sloped walls, because allowing riding on those is simply beyond my vector-geometry skills (who knows, maybe in TRaceON 3.03, but I doubt it) :wink:

Originally, I wanted to “auto-save” those high-scores. But then I felt like people might feel intimidated if I put up their times on the public area of the Website without having clicked an actual “I want this”-button beforehands.

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I’ll try it out tonight after work. What might be nice is a “Return to main menu” button when you crash.

Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t bother to try anything to manage the camera. I played Tron 2.0 yonks ago and it had primarily two camera modes, one of which was controlled by the mouse, and I tended to stick with the default camera anyway, so I don’t think I thought to bother looking for anything.

Haven’t tried 'em myself, but I tend to find tutorial levels boring (I just downloaded Bionic Commando from XBLA last night and played the tutorials to see if there was anything new and grew tired of them after about ten seconds) and just prefer on-screen hints whenever some new weapon/feature is available.

It took me a couple tries to get up there, but I can get it pretty regularly now. I just ahve to remember to turn immediately or I try to cycle around the upper area and end up running into the wall I made when I first got up there.

I think that’s the best approach.

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Hey, I finally got a chance to play the updated version. It’s really nice. The tutorials are pretty good. Just as I was about to jot down a note to suggest you add the ability to look left and right in cockpit mode, I was prompted to try ‘Q’ and ‘E’ to do just that. The close-up cameras show off the detail in the trails, and they look great. I actually really like the maze at the end of the second tutorial. Is there a level in the works that’s like that? A first-person maze where you also have to worry about the bikers nearby would be pretty cool.
One thing, and it may be an intentional decision or I’m mistaken about what happens in-game, but I thought I’d mention it. IIRC, the original game mechanic was that if rider one hit the side of rider two’s vehicle, only rider one was blasted (ie, your bike is treated as part of your tail save for the front bumper). It allowed for some more adventurous play when two riders were neck-and-neck. I’m not certain your game works differently, but it seemed that way in my playtime and I was curious if you chose that method of play. Another thing that makes those neck-and-neck chases interesting is if turning cut your speed briefly. It forces the rider who’s ahead to think carefully before they cut someone else off.