nkornek

[Release] Live from the Past

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UPDATE

The game has been released! You can find it here: https://nkornek.itch.io/live-from-the-past

 

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Since it's the final Wizard Jam, I decided to finally make a game that I designed for one of the first Wizard Jams but never actually had time to make: Live from the Past!

 

The idea is this: 2 players go head to head in a time-travelling western duel. When a player is shot, they quickly escape through a time portal back to the start of the duel, however their past ripples through time, creating an echo of their previous movements that replays all of their actions. To score points, players must create paradoxes by killing their opponent's echoes. The longer the game lasts, the more echoes will build up and the more intense things will get.

 

I dug up my old sprite sheets of all of the Idle Thumbs hosts over the years (that was just about all I had time to do last time around) and made some tweaks to how they work as well as made new sprites for rolls and to allow full dual-stick aiming (also to update Danielle's haircut)

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Got a bit of a headstart on some programming so now most of the basic player controls are in. I also decided to play around with some of Unity's new 2D lighting tools

Shooting.gif.98544b70609fcc34ecd019e7c2405f6e.gif

 

Can't wait to start working on the crazy time replay stuff and making environment art. It's going to be an interesting challenge but I think it'll be a very fun local multiplayer game when it's all done!

 

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Whoa cool. I can't wrap my head around the gameplay really. I can't wait to see what it'll play like!

 

If I understand right tho, wouldn't there be an unfair advantage to whichever player "camps the spawn point"?

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Sounds cool. Any idea how the Steam remote play stuff works? Wondering if you could get that working for the showcase streams.

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Cool concept! Sounds similar to TimeWatch (FPS that was shown at GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop I think last year (two years ago?)) but I suspect doing it in 2D will make it a little easier to keep track of what's going on.

 

 

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8 hours ago, z_bill said:

Whoa cool. I can't wrap my head around the gameplay really. I can't wait to see what it'll play like!

 

If I understand right tho, wouldn't there be an unfair advantage to whichever player "camps the spawn point"?

 

The idea is to have the whole timeline rewind to the start of the duel whenever a player gets a kill, so as long as each player resets to their own side of the arena and there's enough obstacles between them camping shouldn't be an issue.

 

5 hours ago, RKSanders said:

Sounds cool. Any idea how the Steam remote play stuff works? Wondering if you could get that working for the showcase streams.

 

I looked into it! Seems like unfortunately it only works if the game has steam works integration but I'll see what I can do.

 

21 minutes ago, Dinosaursssssss said:

Cool concept! Sounds similar to TimeWatch (FPS that was shown at GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop I think last year (two years ago?)) but I suspect doing it in 2D will make it a little easier to keep track of what's going on.

 

 

 

I haven't seen that game before but yeah, it's a similar concept!

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In today's update, pixel-Breckon is mildly annoyed by an increasing number of pixel-Remos from the past.

ezgif-2-8d6425523b32.gif

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Only had a bit of time to work on it this weekend but I started working on some environment art and also implemented some physics objects.

 

Physics.gif.071fe571b74a953d0da3d5feaef447cd.gif

 

The fun thing about the physics objects is that they block bullets but are also affected by all timelines simultaneously. That means that if in a previous timeline you missed a shot because your bullet was blocked by a chair, you can then shoot the chair early in your current timeline to get it out of the way so that your past self's bullet won't get blocked anymore.

 

 

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Added dodge rolls! Great for evading enemy bullets or sneakily shooting through your past self!

Rolling.gif

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End of weekend update!

 

So much stuff has been added. I've largely been working on building up the environment and now have the full central saloon built out. I'm still going to add a few props in places and also want to add some smaller buildings along the sides. There are also now doors that open automatically when players walk up to them but can also be shot open, as well as windows that will shatter when shot.

 

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Also, you can finally shoot each other! Well not really because TIME PORTALS

 

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The whole thing is really starting to come together. I'm looking to finish the environment in the next few days and then implement the scoring. After that it's the home stretch!

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Update! The core game loop is now working!

 

Forgive the bad character movement, it's very hard to control two character at once for the purposes of recording a gif. I'll try to get someone to help me record a good one that really shows it off.

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On 20/01/2020 at 8:13 AM, ke51n said:

Why is nick always the one being shot :lol:

 

This actually motivated me to finally implement character assignment so now all 6 characters are playable!

 

Now on to LOTS AND LOTS of polish.

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Threw in a basic character select screen. I had some fun choosing the different fonts and names for each character.

CharSelect.gif

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Took some time tonight to art-up the character select screen and add a little practice area. I think I may still clean up a few things but overall I'm really pleased with how this came out. Next step will be to build out the game environment even more!

 

CharSelectNearFinal.gif.1c8fad4a63a5bad580a4a3e67f4ecd2c.gif

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Sadly I had some unexpected things come up this weekend and I won't have time to finish the game today. It's getting very close though and really just needs some additional polish and also sound effects so I think I'll be able to finish in the next few days. I probably got a little carried away adding little details but they were fun to put in so that's all that counts.

 

Here's the (near?) final game environment that you'll be dueling in!

 

Environment.thumb.PNG.5b16c8f50736260e0b9f0e0a708e6def.PNG

 

Probably my favourite new thing that I added was this little bridge between the two buildings that can be cut by bullets!

 

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But wait, what's this? A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES???

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Hidden in the game is a secret code that can be used to unlock this glutton as a playable character!

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