We would like to share with the community one of our current Unity3D projects.
This game demo is still a work in progress but we would like to go ahead and share it with the community and gather feedback, comments, possible improvements and overall feelings about this demo since viewed as a demo, is pretty much completed.
S.E.A.R.C.H. is a salvage and rescue diving game where the player needs to find its way in the ocean depths to fix a leaking oil pipe at the bottom of the ocean. The player will need to recover pipe’s pieces scattered around, close the pressure valve to stop the oil flow and finally fix the broken pipe.
The swimming controls mimmic the real swimming movement mechanics, where the player needs to alternate between each leg to swim in straight direction. Remember to keep an eye on the aggressive sharks surrounding the leak and complete the mission before the oxygen runs out.
S.E.A.R.C.H. is being produced by MysteryD and is currently a work in progress. All music in he game was custom made by Andrés Cervilla, old friend of mine and one of of the top young musicians in Central America, who is currently working with us as Sound Engineer for our games.
Among my roles for this project I was responsible to co-design the gameplay mechanics, lead the game direction and develop the whole game demo, including gameplay mechanics, movement controls, fauna waypoint system and movements, sharks artificial intelligence, visual effects, particle system effects, scene lighting, terrain shaping painting and several other tasks.
You can play the online web version of the demo by clicking on the image above, or following this link.
Played the demo, very interesting. I had a bit of difficulty with moving. To go forward I had to push to the left or right? Maybe simplify it to wasd. Also shooting did not seem to line up with the reticle. But cool game and the sharks looked good (although did not seem to mind me shooting them).
Thanks a lot for taking time to play the demo and leave your comments. Swimming is a bit difficult at first. The idea is to mimmic the real swimming movements a person will make, which is alternating between left arm/foot and right arm/foot. Basically you need to press “a” and then “d” (or alternatively use the arrow keys). You don’t need to do it too fast, neither hold one key too long. It should be a smooth loop between left and right. By swimming the player will always go up a little. You can also select the SeaScooter (use the number keys to switch between the spear gun and the sea scooter) which will move you forward without having to swim.
Sharks AI will be improved with smarter reactions to player and player’s shots.
We will be gathering input and feedback from users and the community to improve the game and gameplay mechanics, so thanks once again for contributing and taking the time to do so.
Remember that you can kill the sharks, so go ahead and have some fun pursuing them and make them go to sleep.
Turtles and Mantas can’t be killed. We don’t want you to become too evil
Also, you can go up and explore the water surface. Oxygen won’t be consumed while on the water surface.
Oxygen supply can be increased by taking oxygen from the scuba tanks scattered around.
Only improvements I can suggest is obviously the shark like stated previously, maybe have them spawn a little randomly. Also needs a dying animation lol
Also the boat you’re on is a little bland as far as I can tell.
I liked the movement, it was pretty realistic, maybe a little too sharp.
But other than that, As long as the rest of the game is polished it seems like it would be great!
@Darkhazard: thanks a lot for the feedback and for playing the game. The sharks as pointed out need more work. We will be including more animations so they react better to player actions and danger, and of course, attacking and dying.
Good point about the boat. We should enhance it.
Thanks for the movement comments. We know there’s still room for improvement, but we are glad to hear the good comments (and also the bad ones since those make you improve).
Hi @Benopaluz. Could you take a few minutes to comment on how the controls will make it easier for you? What would be the movement mechanics you would feel more comfortable with? I’d really appreciate some feedback, so we can improve the controls or maybe give the user an option to configure movement to make it easier (less realistic) or harder (more realistic).
I honestly dislike the left/right mechanic. I understand why you did it but games aren’t about micromanagement unless you are playing a strategy game. It feels like a rowing simulation. And I don’t think a rowing simulation would be a lot of fun.
When your player is running around in an FPS game do you tell his legs to move? Why is it different in water? in water you still use all of your body as you would in land.
I know you did it because its a diving sim/game but it simply isn’t fun for me. Sometimes, a great idea comes but it doesn’t stick when in the game. To solve it, I would just put in standard FPS controls.
You guys should probably have the option to do either FPS or the controls you have now when they start the game.
I think the fact that it IS a diving game, requires you to add more to the game then simple WASD. By nature it’s a bland game type, but you have made it more interactive and engaging.
If you were to do that, people would be complaining that there isn’t enough for them to do.
“It’s too hard” shouldn’t be enough to change the gameplay mechanics. At least give them the option though.
@hippocoder: thanks for the feedback and your comments. I really appreciate them. I understand your point. I feel that the movement controls try to mimic a “swim” like movement, but they are not that polished and is hard to grasp them and feel comfortable. For most of the team, controls are already mastered, so the game is kind of fun, and we actually play trying to give weird swim angles to the player. However I have seen some beta testers have a really hard time at understanding the movement mechanics. We will work towards enhancing the movement controls, maybe not just using WASD but trying to balance the difficulty so people can use them without being to precise.
@darkhazard: thanks again for sharing your ideas. I believe that giving players the option on different movement controls could be a nice feature, and it might be a good option. I agree that just having WASD in this type of game will be kind of boring, so maybe we can mix it up but in a balanced way that doesn’t require that much practice.
I really appreciate all of you who take the time to play the demos and games and give your feedback and share ideas on possible improvements. This is a great community and I’m very proud of being a part of it.
Then you should make it abundantly clear and very forgiving to play, for example:
Don’t make it require perfect timing or a certain speed of alternate taps
Merely make it recognise alternate A/D taps regardless how long they are held down for or tapped
Remember you want people to get into it pretty quickly without fuss. Perhaps have a small hologram of the diver in the corner of the screen and the legs highlight for the leg it expects you to press. Just suggestions, good luck with the game.
@hippocoder: excellent suggestions and aligned with the direction we would like to take. After all, the game is a quick demo, and we should facilitate movement mastering to users so they can play it fast without having to spend a lot of time just figuring out the controls. I really appreciate your feedback. Thanks a lot.
@bugo: all the art of the game was custom made by a well know designer, so what you are saying is impossible. If you claim the art is from another artist, I would appreciate if you can send me his information or the URLs you found, cause it would be the other way around. All art images, GUI, splash screens, logos, were custom made, and we have all the copyrights and original source files to prove it.
You have no proof that he didn’t contract the work and the artist was in fact Randis.
Even if he did contract with any other artist except Randis, that doesn’t mean he KNOWS it was a stolen work.
Is it good to bring it up? Of course, you should always point out if you think there is copy right infringement going on. But you should not attack him without knowing the facts. If it was in fact stolen work, he obviously needs to fire the artist and get a new background.
I’m in no point attacking! Darkhazard. Read my messages again.
Randis is a very well known Concept artist and his work is also very well known. Isn’t it weird a small game have his concept modified and put like that into a background? If it was still his “well known designer”, he should know that and I sent him the URL.
I’m an artist, and I know how Randis might feel about that.
And what arbbot is saying is “all the art of the game was custom made by a well know designer, so what you are saying is impossible”
Perhaps Arbbot you have the source of that background image, and if you can show us.
