Mythalore

Nice progress @SuperBiasedMan! If you need a hand with the AI stuff I'd be happy to talk it through, it's about the only part of game programming I actually enjoy, well that and ui.

Oooh, it's almost alternate universe firewatch... I love it!

So me and @HarryMcAlpine had the first proper design meeting today, we outlined the major systems and are pretty much ready to get going! I'm going to be working on the UI while Harry tackles the "game". Here's where we ended up, there's probably a game in there somewhere.

Just to weigh in I'd say C and I. Also I'm getting a pretty strong feminine vibe from the model and that pose, not a problem just thought it was worth pointing out. Looking good!

Good luck zero! How are you planning to vary the premade levels? More enemies than just those spiky snake ones, changing up the map?

ohh this is super cool, I like this very much.

this is a really nice change up to the whole gravity slinging genre, best of luck knappi!

woah hedgefield that hand is so real... great idea, looking forward to the results! One question tho, how are you planning to incorporate the core mechanic of the immersive sim, crate stacking?

haha that is some good concept art, I think I get where you're going.

Oh man, Dino, I didn't realise you're planning to go all the way onto steam with it! Best of luck all the same tho, gonna be rad!

This is a really great idea, are you going to do the old path control system, where you select a business man and then draw a little line for them to go down? As far as game dev exp goes, do you have much coding experience? Unity is a good entry if you have a bit.

Just playing through Dishonored now, really wasn't expecting the environmental story telling to go as far as it does, it's proper tear jerky in places. Fits in perfectly with the theme of the world and pretty well with the actions of the player/plot. Regarding the combat, although I didn't initially I tend to reload if I get into a proper scrap as I now have the level 1 stealth kill perk which encourages me to sneak up on people before killing them which is in itself a pretty satisfying reward along with clearing out the guards. Unfortunately, I have had some super bad run ins with hitting triggers in weird places, like I'll complete an objective, turn around and there'll now be 3 guards there trying to kill me for murdering their lord. But otherwise it's been a great experience so far, may well play the second one or even possible Prey next.

Good... Bye So this will be my third wizard jam but my first working with the unreal engine as I want to try something new and break away from unity. It'll also be my first, released 3D game so I'm intending to scope as low as possible by focusing on single rooms and developing levels one at a time. Pitch In Good... Bye you play as Agent Swan who was captured by a super villain, as she tried to evade a series of overly elaborate death traps which come in the form of escape room puzzles motivated by deadly things such as a laser grid or poisonous gas. Basically think James Bond but with something closer to Dr Evil from Austin Powers as the villain, so like 'mad' but sort of comically annoyed at the agent. I currently have plans for three rooms but we'll see how things go. The game will be an fps with minimal interaction and platforming elements in order to keep things simple, instead I'm going to be focusing on narrative and theming as much as possible. Concept Here's concept art for the laser grid room as it currently stands. This will involve solving a puzzle in order to unlock the button to open the door before the laser grid passes the button. The Current Team Game design, programming, and basic 3D modeling: Mythalore Illustration: stesug Music: Joel Whitaker Sound Design: Toby Misselbrook Personal Learning/Stretch Goals for this Jam Using Unreal Engine 3D assets and gameplay VR support (???) Gonna try and update this at least every weekend.

The game is now up! You can play it here: https://mythalore.itch.io/good-bye

Dishonoured Wizard Jam Update 1 Still not a game yet (sorry Ben ) but all that's pretty much left is to add in audio. Here's a gif of level 2 instead.

Mid week 2 Update! I've got the first level all functional now, took much longer than expected but it's by far the most complex level of the three. Should be able to get back on track from here! Here's a gif to celebrate!

Mid Week Update! I realised on Monday that I've accidentally been using unreal 4.8.3 which is like two years old, so I spent the first part of the week updating Unreal and rebuilding the project. Here's the current, updated intro sequence. The lighting looks a lot better now and I've updated the buzzsaw model. I've got the main object interaction mechanic in now. You can pick up and throw items around the level. Might be a bit too powerful right now though.

Wow, atte! Have you considered foregoing a game this time and just focusing on a set of framed prints or maybe a illustrated storybook?

@Ben X that's a very interesting idea, the main thing though with the rooms is they're pretty self contained. More individual traps that you're foiling and then forcing the villain to go back to the drawing board. Before having another go at killing you with a different overly elaborate device. But I'm still working on the solutions for two of the puzzles, so something like that may yet be possible. (trying to keep things vague )

End of day one proper! Got the start of the initial title sequence in after a lot of wrestling with Unreal, but on the bright side I fell like I'm back in the swing of using the engine now. Hopefully, the rest of the game will go more easily. I'm planning to get a playable version of at least one of the rooms done tomorrow, we'll see how it goes...

@Henke As long as you up the texture resolution enough to match the graphical advancements of the games industry over the past year that it's fine by me.

Great concept @Broxxar! That artstyle looks awesome if a little on the creepy side... How did you even manage a 1st take, 1st try skinned rig, that's magic right there. The main thing I would suggest is maybe add a little indication of the pertard locations, just like a shadow or something that's still easy to miss?

For a few weeks now I've been working on a full release version of my Wizard Jam 3 game, Rogue Robot Rogues. I'm taking the original game as a prototype for this new version. This will not only be more complex with more enemies and systems but hopefully incorporate multiple levels of play, in order to create a more fulfilling gameplay experience. To go along with this full release I've changed the name and art style to better suit the new direction of the project. In this first dev log I'm going to be introducing the new project and outline the main problems with the current build of Rogue Robot Rogues. NEON Shell is a cyberpunk bullet hell defender in which the player has to construct and control ICE security systems in order to protect the valuable data of their employer from cyber attacks. Most media in the genre is concerned with fighting against the corporations that control cyberpunk society. With NEON Shell however, I want to explore the other side of the coin; placing the player in charge of a corp's security systems, instead of against them. In Rogue Robot Rogues I focused on prototyping the main mode in the game, mainframe defence. In this mode there are data orbs, which act as health points positioned around a turret, or ICE construct. The player needs to take control of the turret in order to protect their data from incoming enemies who are completely invisible. This means that the player either has to guess their location or disable them and their cloaking with an EMP before shooting them. If you haven't yet played Rogue Robot Rogues you can do so here: https://mythalore.itch.io/rogue-robot-rogues and if you're interested the dev log for Rogue Robot Rogues can be found here which details my original development process. I explored a number of variations on the basic gameplay loop. Adding in enemies with shields (Shield programs), who are immune to the player's EMP until they are shot. This was intended to reverse the gameplay loop of the basic enemy type (Rogue programs) which the player has to EMP to remove their stealth before shooting them, in order to introduce some variety. This worked well as a start but the game gets quite samey with extended play; clearly more enemy variety is needed. The other main variation I introduced was time limited power ups which were intended to provide a change of pace and to be used as a balancing mechanic to increase average playtime. This worked in essence but the power ups introduced were very limited in their scope, effecting only reload speed (purple), EMP recharge time (yellow) and health (green). In addition, the time limited factor of the power up mechanic only serves to emphasise the lack of power that the player has while not boosted by a power up. To remedy this I'm intending to include a building and upgrade system into NEON Shell which should hopefully even out the power curve of the game into a more steady progression. Lastly, I've also redesigned the art of the game into a more striking, neon inspired style. This change simplifies the visuals of the game and should help to better separate the game elements by only needing to differentiate the basic shape and colour of each element. This new style also, I feel, ties in nicely with the new name and theming of the game, taking inspiration from the neon cityscapes of classic cyberpunk settings like the depiction of Los Angeles in Bladerunner. I've been on a month or so break from the game in order to better define the direction but should be back on track now. I'm planning on hopefully posting to this thread every week or so when I've got something to show throughout development. Thanks for reading! - Sam (@Mythalore)

Rogue Robot Rogues was a good prototype for NEON Shell but there were a number of issues I had with the core gameplay of the final version. These ultimately required a complete redesign in order to fix. In this dev log I'm going to be detailing some of the fundamental changes I'm making to NEON Shell to elevate and expand on the core design of Rogue Robot Rogues. Along with the changes below I've also added some camera shake and particle effects to increase the impact of the actions in the game. One of the main underlying issues throughout the entire development of the Rogue Robot Rogues was the limited scope of the gameplay structure, the only objective is to survive and gain as many points in the process until inevitably failing. Although this makes for a good, quick game loop there's very little there to encourage extended play beyond a high score board. There is also the issue of when to introduce new enemy types into the level as score and health vary and having to reach a set time each run feels too structured and repetitive. To counter this I've introduced a wave mechanic which will be used to curve the power level of the enemies that are spawned each wave. This also opens the ability to have the gameplay split into different stages and for variations to be introduced as the game continues. The current plan is for each main stage (every 16 waves) of the game to have a unique gameplay variation which should keep the gameplay fresh as the waves continue. As the first variation needs to ensure that the game remains balanced in the players favor for as long as possible to provide a margin for error and a good introduction, I've decided to go for a shield mechanic. This provides the player with a small pool of regenerating health to hopefully survive longer in the early waves. The shield currently recharges every 10 seconds. However, I've found this recharge rate to be a pretty big advantage so I'm considering tying it into another mechanic such as enemies killed or waves beaten. The EMP ability currently in Rogue Robot Rogues is far too powerful. As it can be used to clear out all unshielded enemies on screen, it tends to just be used on cooldown with little regard for the current state of the game. To rework this mechanic and allow for more variety in its effect I've change the EMP so that it now has a unique effect depending on the type of enemy hit. For example with the basic rogue enemy all the EMP will now do is reveal the enemies without stopping or disabling them. This change makes the game a fair bit more difficult currently, but hopefully more interesting over all once different enemy types are introduced. Going forward, I've started working on a number of new enemy types which will be spawned gradually as the waves progress. Which I will go over in greater detail once I've finished them, hopefully not in another two months... I've now got an itch.io page up for the game which I'll be compiling screenshots on and uploading builds to in the near future, you can follow me on there for updates. https://mythalore.itch.io/neon-shell Thanks for reading! - Sam (@Mythalore)

Hey there, That's some great work! You've got far in a week. Are you planning to start doing art for games mainly, or just expanding your talent pool?