Lastair

[Release] Shadow of Something

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https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam/rate/24551

 

Here's my game. Made as more of a technical Unity exercise than anything, with a dumb one-joke concept based on cloning parts of ... a certain game, as well as I could in the time given. I have no formal training in programming, just that slightly dangerous level of C# scripting knowledge picked up from messing around with Unity for a good while, so this kind of undertaking turned into horrible spaghetti. Stuff could be all kinds of broken, and the whole thing's very uneven since I half-purposely didn't plan too far ahead.

 

A few things I should probably make a bit more clear than the game does: 

* Press Tab on the keyboard or Back on the Xbox controller to open the in-game menu to do stuff when you get points. I didn't have time to make the game authentically bug you about it.

* The pink things restore health.

 

Anyway, this was a bunch of fun. I should've probably posted a bit about my process and stuff since it's a jam, and kept up with the whole jam more in general, but I just kind of wanted to keep my dumb joke/exercise to myself and see what I could do with it. I'll get to playing the other games and stuff after I get some rest, and maybe I'll post a bit more about this thing too.

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Ah damn, I played through it all without realising that you can do something with the points you can collect. Time for another playthrough! (later)

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I made a few gifs. 

 

post-35109-0-81403600-1430143984.gif

 

post-35109-0-15459300-1430143991.gif

 

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(not sure what's the board policy on embedded gifs, these total to around 9MB, hopefully that's fine)

 

It's kind of funny that starting out on this I genuinely thought I'd have time for some kind of stealth and bow mechanics too. I kind of turned it into an Unity exercise, trying to build something complete and solid, but then when time started running out I dropped all pretense of 'best practices' and just piled on the hacky spaghetti code. Not sure what I learned in the end, but it's still satisfying to work from a finished design and just worry about implementation. 

 

I basically spent the first week figuring out the new Unity GUI and pointlessly noodling around, trying my baby programmer best to code robust general solutions to things, spending way too much time on them for purposes of the jam. Most of the second week I spent doing the pathfinding and detection/AI stuff that still ended up half broken, plus I didn't have time for the actual stealth part. Then I did the whole level design and basic combat and other crap in like 2-3 days, which of course makes up most of the actual player experience. Welp.

 

 

Ah damn, I played through it all without realising that you can do something with the points you can collect. Time for another playthrough! (later)

 

Heh, yeah, I should've made it clearer. I cut it so close that I didn't have time to put in a proper explanation of the controls in the game itself.

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This looks cool! Looking at the gifs I can see there's a lot of really nice stuff going on. I'm going to have to give it a try once I get home from work.

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Jesus christ, this is really well made! I have a theory that you're secretly a dev at Monolith because this is incredibly well made. Humour aside (which I love) this is really well made, I know indie developers who have shied away from third person action games, and you've made a really competent one as a goofy joke.

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This is pretty incredible! And funny! All of the little details are so well observed.

 

I had a really good time with this. Congrats.

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I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find 100% of the things, but then I realized that going to the places and doing the things made the things' places show up on the place-thing.

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This game is like the generic greeting scene in Schizopolis, but for AAA games instead of domestic banalities. Great work!

 

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Wow, this is really impressive! Manages to parody the mechanics with its own perfectly.

 

(Minor feedback - I would have preferred run to be left trigger so I could keep it down while adjusting the camera. I also would have liked a pat on the head for 100%ing, but perhaps that's part of the joke!)

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Yeah the parody is spot on, also just generally impressed with the scope and polish of it. Good stuff.

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Yeah, I was impressed by how large and mechanically sound this is! I need to go back and finish it off properly.

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Thanks, everyone!

 

I did take a bit of a headstart by figuring out GUI stuff in advance for the jam, though I rewrote it all anyway. And I'm between graduation and looking for work so I could put in a bit more time. Plus working towards a proven finished design makes things easier, just figuring out how to implement things that you already have an overall picture of, in a relatively solid way.

 

(Minor feedback - I would have preferred run to be left trigger so I could keep it down while adjusting the camera. I also would have liked a pat on the head for 100%ing, but perhaps that's part of the joke!)

 

Yeah, but the left trigger is for "Ranged Mode"!

(I did know it was a problem and intended to make the camera adjust itself to point in the direction of movement like in the actual game, but ran out of time and left the buttons as they were.)

 

I also wanted to make some kind of fake steam/xbox achievement thing pop up for 100%, but yeah.

 

Other scrapped parts I didn't have time for: (but for some reason thought I might?????)

* shooting guys

* actual stealth

* see stuff thing - aka detective vision, high contrast mode, video game eyes

* another set of collectible things only visible through above

* more abilities

 

Though I guess it might be better focused without all that stuff anyway.

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Dude this was super impressive! As Spenny said, that parody is super dead on. Captured my feelings on that drab game so well while also being pretty enjoyable (just like Mordor! grey is fun).

 

Did you try any post-processing shaders? I like it super clean how it is but I wonder how it'd look with some heavy visual effects on top..?

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Dude this was super impressive! As Spenny said, that parody is super dead on. Captured my feelings on that drab game so well while also being pretty enjoyable (just like Mordor! grey is fun).

 

Did you try any post-processing shaders? I like it super clean how it is but I wonder how it'd look with some heavy visual effects on top..?

 

Thanks!

 

There actually is grain, bloom and sun shafts, but I kind of made them all a bit subtle. The actual game was pretty tastefully rendered all things considered so I didn't feel like going overboard there.

 

Though at one point I actually did have a pretty heavy blur filter over the entire game (except the GUI) to really hammer in the "somethingness", but decided it might get actually annoying, haha. Now that I think of it again, it did look pretty funny and really suited the theme, I could've just had a simple option for people to turn it off if they wanted after they got the joke. Oh well.

 

post-35109-0-78114800-1430305065_thumb.jpg

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Man that was hella good. The battle system felt so robust already and there was a ton of content. You didn't half-ass any of this, from the subtle walk-bob to the quest resetting when you die to the alert indicators that actually turn green-yellow-red like the real game! Ace job. I would love to see you do a proper game with that battle system.

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Holy... cow this is good. Mechanically sound despite being... hilariously generic. You just see this huge dramatic Assassin's Creed-style vista and the low-key dramatic music and... the total lack of detail, lack of colour, rough geometric shapes and it all adds up to...

 

Love the melee tells, love the feedback, the half-hearted intro... truly, this is a Shadow of... Something.

 

ADDENDUM: Christ, the vision system feedback, the mantling, the sheer size of the thing! Lastair, please take this as a compliment, but "Gratz Lastair! (Fuck Lastair)".

 

 --RoB

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Thanks, hedgefield and Reverend Speed! 

 

What is the musics?

 

It's free (CC BY-SA) music. "Excalibur", "Transylvania" and "Dragon Fight" by this guy:

 

https://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/560/gregoire-lourme

 

The credit's also on the about/credits page on the main menu, though I forgot to do the CC license thing "properly" in the game itself, but I added it to the itch.io description now.

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