[WIP] Game Of Elements

Community Showcases
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Hi everybody,
I would like to post the game that I’m currently working on. It’s called “Game Of Elements”. Well, actually it’s not really a game at the Moment - more a “walk through”. I’m fully focusing on game architecture right now, so the grafix are “ASAP” (as simple as possible).
I’ve implemented a prototype already about a year ago and ended up working on textures for days and weeks and forgot to implement the game mechanics. So this approach is the other way round.

I also started a blog, which you can find here: https://gameofelements.wordpress.com/
You will also find instructions and a download link there.

The game will be a sandbox building game. I’m not sure yet in which direction it will develop, since I have 3 concepts that all build on the same basic concepts. So I’m developing the core engine now and I’ll see in which direction(s) I will push it then.
It could be…: 1) a city building game where (up to 8) Players build a city or 2) a game similar to Anno or maybe even 3) Civilization.

The game currently generates random maps up to virtually any size (although it takes quite a while). (You can enter a random seed at the game creation Screen.) The map is then loaded in segments when the Player moves around.

The environment will be fully craftable. (That’s the main reason why I don’t use the Unity terrain. I found it close to impossible to dig holes, tunnels and caves into the Unity terrain…) You will be able to mine for resources, chop trees, plant crops and maybe even hunt animals. With the buildings you can produce goods from these resources.

The player will be able to produce elements (hence the name) of any form and any material. So you can build virtually everything.

The game will have a tech tree that allows the player to discover new techs to produce different things.
The city (or tribe) will have citizen that the player can use to create buildings or the player build buildings himself. The citizen will produce goods and consume goods, so this will be the main reason to build buildings (=factories).

A couple of those things are already (basically) implemented but they’re buggy or not implemented to an extent that I could use it in the game, so I disabled them.

In the future of course textures will be added. Maybe I’ll also switch to a “rounded style” instead of the blocky one it is now.
But that’s a question I’d like to ask you: Do you think that this “blocky” style can be developed into something that could be “nice”? Personally I don’t find it too distracting…

Any suggestions, ideas, critics are welcome of course.

Thanks for watching.

Regards,

G.

Here are a couple of screen shots:

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Awesome polys. Will it become Virtua Exploring ?

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Hmm… Not really sure what you mean… What is “Virtua Exploring” supposed to mean?

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A remark to Virtua Fighter, Virtua Tennis, etc. You’re probably too young to know those :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Anyways, I like the lowpoly style but your terrain lacks color variety.

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Ahhh! OK! I know those games!
Funny, I haven’t heard being too young for something for quite a while - I’m born in 1964… :wink: Thanks for the compliments! :slight_smile:
Well, honestly, I think my terrain lacks texture variety. Of course it needs textures but you probably know how much effort one has to put in creating good textures, especially when they have to be tiled (like ground textures). I simply don’t have the time for this now, since I’m a one man team.
The other thing is that I want to keep the poly count (and draw calls count) down as long as possible and build it up later step by step. The first version a year ago had a wonderful landscape (Unity Terrain) and beautiful trees but a frame rate around 10 FPS and Unity crashed every half an hour due to memory problems. It’s impossible to work that way…

Thanks anyway!

G.

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perhaps too old to remember? ;p

If you want to stick with this faceted look textures aren’t a necessity. You could just go with vertex colors alone - or use vertex colors and add (multiply) a greyscale tiling texture on top of it for some extra details (squiggles, swirls, grassy structures, etc…). I’m working on something kind of similar style wise and it works great.

And/or take a look at Polyworld --PolyWorld-- Low Poly Toolkits and More! - Community Showcases - Unity Discussions - just look at the screenshots in the first post and see what I mean with variety :slight_smile:
From what I’ve read you can just create a regular terrain in Unity, texture it with some basic placeholder textures (as long as the color matches) and convert it into a faceted mesh. Not 100% sure though - I prefer a more random faceted look and not this right-angled triangle look so I never used it.

1 Like
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Yes, that’s probably the case… The older I get the less I remember - but it makes life easier sometimes… :wink:

Yes, that’s exactly what I had in mind. I wrote my own simple vertex color shader and I thought of mixing it with greyscale overlays. I also have a test version of a shader that mixes perlin noise into the colors - works good for ground textures mainly.

I understand and thanks for the link. I didn’t come across that asset! Looks cool and might speed up some things. At least I could learn something of it.

G.

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lol yes :slight_smile:

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Hello everybody,

It took a while but now version 0.2 has been released. It includes a couple of new concepts, mainly a completely rewritten map generation algorithm and the ability to place and remove elements.

You can download the current version via my blog: elements.zip.

The ZIP file comes with a small map with a house which has been built from single elements. (Choose “Load last map” in the main menu to see it.) – (Please note: generating a new map replaces the last map!)
You can play around with the building (remove elements, add elements etc.); you can also walk around inside the building:

These are the elements that have been used to build the house; you can scroll through these elements via mouse wheel:

Release Notes:
*) The map generation algorithm has been completely rewritten. It does not pregenerate the map anymore but uses a procedural generator that creates map squares on the fly. So no map file has to be written anymore in the generation phase which reduces the size of the map files to almost zero and speeds up generation time to a couple of seconds. This also makes it possible to create virtually infinite maps.

*) Several new elements have been added for building a house. (Brick wall, Wood Planks, roof elements etc.)

*) Placement of elements has been implemented. Elements can be selected via mouse wheel and placed with a click of the right mouse button. Elements are placed relative to the face the camera is pointing at. (Aiming cross) Please note that you can only place elements 10 m around you; so if you don’t see an element when turning the mouse wheel then try to place the element closer to you.

*) Elements can be rotated via the X, Y and Z keys.

*) Elements can be removed with a click of the left mouse button. Also the terrain can be levelled with a left click.

*) The terrain has a color variation now instead of a single color. Not sure yet if this feature makes it in the final version… Especially levelling terrain can be quite tricky because the colors sometimes disturb the 3D impression.

*) A couple of new trees, bushes and other details have been added. Tree trunks are not cylinders anymore.

*) Fog has been added to hide loading of far away map segments.