Level 03 Treehouse WIP

Here is a sneak peek at the Tree house "Bud the Spud" will have to climb in level 03 of my game. Level three takes place in a muddy bog filled area with a tree house located at the center. Bud will have to fight worms and potato beetles on the way to the tree house along with trying not to fall into deadly mud bog goop, climb up into the tree house and find two keys located inside that will unlock the exit door to this level. Inside of the tree house bud will also have to deal with a few rogue toy windup robots which should be not too much trouble as these robots are only stupid wind up toys that patrol back and forth across the floor, they will however on occasion emit sparks that can hurt Bud if he gets hit by them. Well that's my basic scenario for level three. I figured I'd share a sneak peek at the tree house model's work in progress (WIP) exclusively here on my blog.

Character Control Note: Based on the opinions of some of those who have test played my game I've been looking more closely at the character controller system, I've made a few tweaks, (not yet uploaded) and he seems to have a more tighter control now.

Level 02 Completed!!

Level 02 is basically done, I was hoping over the weekend to have it uploaded to the game test site but I was having some issues with it every time I tried to export the game to a web player. I just don't get the problems, my game is only two levels in size!! What about when it starts getting to around 10 or 20 levels in size?? Are they trying to tell me that the "Indie version of Unity 3D" cannot handle a game bigger than 1 or two levels?!? I just can't see that being the case I think my problem is in the optimization area still, or perhaps in the way I have it set up to handle all of my games assets. Still so much to learn with this stuff.

• First I kept getting an "Out of Memory Unity Editor Host View On GUI ()" error every time I tried exporting my game to a web player.
• Every time I tried to add the mud bog haze particle effect to the mud bogs in level 02 they would act strangely, they kind of "Wink" on and off for lack of a better description. At first I thought it might only be in the editor so when I was finally able to get a web player version exported to test I noticed it still did this strange "Winking" in and out?? So I may have to just NOT use the haze in that level. :(
• When I was finally able to get a web player version exported my file size is now a whopping 60 MB in size!! How the hell is anybody ever supposed to play that on line?? I went through and optimized my textures to a low a resolution as I could before they start to look really crappy, I've nothing bigger that 1024 X 1024 and 512, 256 and smaller wherever I can get away with it. My music is all set to "Stream From Disk" except for my sound effects (I'm not sure what the recommended practice is for small sounds like that)

So those are my BIG GIANT ISSUES right now other wise you fine and somewhat patient folk would be having a good go at level 02 of my game by now :( I can attempt to upload the 60 MB file and see if that works but I just can't see that.

The other issue is that blasted "Load Bar" which I still can't seem to find any help on whether or not it's doing what it's supposed to which I don't think it is because it does not go all the way to the end, it just suddenly loads the game after only moving a little ways along?!? Should it not go all the way to the end at a certain speed to indicate how much of the game is remaining to be loaded?!? At least the freaking load bars I've seen perform that way!!

Sorry for the rant it's just so many things about these projects tend to REALLY piss me off and frustrate the living crap out of me.

Feedback from Deviant Art

I was checking out my "Deviant Art" this morning and got some feedback on my game from another DA member and figured I'd share it here as it's here that it would do the most good I feel.

~RealTimeBrush2 hours ago

An interesting little game but I believe there are some problems with it in my opinion.

1) The controls are difficult to use, the independent camera rotation and movement takes quite some getting used to, I 'suspect' with its casual nature and delivery people may not give it the time to get used to the controls.
2) The way the character circles when reversing makes it impossible to backup if you get too close to the edge of a rock or platform. I found alignment with the jump target difficult with the degree of turn too.
3) Even in this demo the lack of a save or check point is quite frustrating. In the puddle again back to the start.

 

 

I agree with a lot of what the poster has said and I do sort of have plans to change a lot of these issues as the game develops. That having been said, while testing out the game I've gotten quite used to the way the controls work and myself using the keyboard controls which in my opinion are no match for a good control pad with dual controls for both player and camera. I've had no problem learning how the character works and have adapted just like any player would to any game situation or play type scenario. I've played plenty of games that I hated the way the controls worked. For instance the original Mario on regular Nintendo I just hated that the character did no stop on a dine, that he would kind of keep moving after he landed. I eventually got used to it but at first I just hated it. I really loved the Super Nintendo versions of Mario that cam out much later. And even though I've only played it once the 3D Mario I loved. It's the 3D Mario that my game is basically based off of BTW ;) At least as far as character control and independent camera controls go. And yes it does take a bit of getting used to. But that can be said for so many games yes? I personally think it just adds to the challenge of the game. I find that when I'm just testing it out I can't help but keep playing even if I dye in a puddle it's like "Oh Drat!! I gotta do that again!!" And off I go to try for that key again.... "What am I doing?!?" I keep saying to myself... I only wanted to test out my new Bug Splat effect near that far Hibachi BBQ! Doh... But yeah, what happens in most games, you die because you mucked up, you start over right? At least in most of the games I've played. But he is certainly right about a save point about half way up the level... I can do level 01 usually with no problems but an auto save point of some kind about half way up would be pretty handy I would imagine... and who knows... maybe I'll make one, maybe not??

Potato Beetle Damage

FINALLY!! Some headway today! With Chad Walker's help from "Walker Boys Studio" I was able to get my Potato Beetle characters to take two hits from bud before they are killed. The first hit makes them do a nice little gooey blood spurt and then they look damaged, the 2nd hit kills them with a bigger blood splash and they leave behind a nice gooey mess. I'm using a projector for that still as it makes the blood splat go over the bumpy terrain more effectively than the instantiated plane with a transparent texture map that I was using several weeks back on my enemy worms. So that little bit is done, took me all day to figure it out. Code stuff that an experienced coder would just buzz through in seconds takes me all day to figure out Grrrr...!! Oh well... we live and learn ;)

Level 02 Additions and Optimization

Sorry I didn't post an update yesterday but I was swamped trying to figure out some stuff. First it took me the better part of the day to work on and then texture map my exit door area for level 02 of my game. Not sure why really, I had made a good start on the actual model before going to bed on Thursday night so basically all I had to do was add a few more details and then texture map it but the texture mapping too quite a while to do for some reason. Finally when that was done I managed to make it so you have to jump on the "Potato Beetles" twice in order to kill them. I had some great help from Chad Walker of "Walker Boys Studios" on the scripting for that, he pointed me in the right direction and I was able to get it so you jump on the beetle once and you get a nice enemy pain sound a "Squishy" bug blood spurt sound as well and then on the 2nd jump he splats and leaves behind a nice gooey mess.

I had some other issues with Unity Crashing on me every time I tried to save out as a web player version. I kept getting some "Fatal Memory Error message" and then Crash!! I think it might have been due to a lot of the massive 2200 sized texture maps I had imported into Unity, I'm so used to working in the print industry where you always need the highest resolution images possible that sometime it's difficult for me to think in terms of "smaller is best" when it comes to game engines. I just always want to see super sharp detail in my textures. So I expect a good deal of the morning making then no bigger that 1024 X 1024 and smaller wherever I could get away with it.

Above Right: you can see "Bud the Spud" about to head across the final deadly mud bog in level 02 towards the exit. It's kind of had to see in this screen capture as I wanted to show the path he must take in order to get there. I promise I'll post a good shot of the level exit area later on today. But first I want to see in on my "Potato Beetle" I can make it so that after Bud has jumped on him the first time he will look damaged. Chad Walker had mentioned in his email that a change in the texture map material might be a way to go, and I have seen that done before, I just need to figure out how that is done.

Final Mud Bog Areas in Level 02

I finally got the final two deadly mud bog areas worked out in level 02. Here we can see Bud the Spud standing on top of a tin foil wrapped potato baking on the Hibachi overlooking one of the final mud bogs. You can see the key sitting on the cinder block in the middle of the bog, you can also see an extra health potato leaf pick up item as well hovering in the air over another cinder block below. In the next image you can see it as well.

In this screen capture you can see Bud the Spud has made his way onto the cinder block in the middle of the deadly mud bog and is about to grab the final key. I made these jumps a lot simpler as I know retrieving the first key from the mud bog located across the paving stones is a much more difficult jump series, getting across the first few rocks is no problem but landing on that toadstool in the middle of the bog takes a bit of practice I found. So I figured I'd give my players a bit of a break with this 2nd key retrieval scenario. There is one more mud bog to cross on the way to the exit pipe which I've still yet to work out. I'm thinking maybe perhaps a grungy wooden board in front of the pipe like a crude wall with a small door located at the mouth of the pipe with crudely painted text that says "EXIT."

I've still yet to add some direction signs and maybe those helpful butterflies I was talking about in an earlier post. I might try and do those with a particle system that has animated particles just like the Fire flies in the Underground level. Perhaps I'll see if I can get to that tonight. Oh as you can see I did make that "Drainage Pipe" I was telling you about to help justify why the Bud cannot jump off other right side of the wall, I think it turned out very well and does the job pretty good ;)

Potato Beetles Added to Level 02

I've been working hard on getting the Potato Beetles into Level 02. Could not figure out how to get my characters to work with the Way Points. The Walker Boys Scripts are set up way different than how I'm used to with my "Alien Zombies" project which was based off of the first person shooter tutorial on Unity 3D's web site. So for now I'm just going to have to settle for them working the same way the worms do in level one, on the plus side though at least I can adjust character speed, damage and a whole bunch of other stuff to make them a bit more of a challenge.

I have them placed here and there on top of the brick topped wall in the yard. These guys dish out 35 damage to Bud the Spud and are a lot quicker than the Worms. I have a few in the grass along with a few Worms as well. I was trying to figure out also how to make it so Bud would have to jump on a Beetle twice in order to kill it but so far no luck on that, more script studying is definitely in order. I did give him a more juicier "Splat Death" for when Bud does jump on them, it's quite tasty looking as you can see below. You especially have to love it if you kill one right by the edge of the wall. Because I'm using a projector it looks like his blood splatted all over the edge of the wall and ran down the face of the wall to the ground below, very yummy looking if you ask me ;)

One more thing I want to try and do today before calling it a day is do a drainage pipe running along the top of that last third brick topped wall to justify the character not being able to jump off the right side of the wall back into the yard. If I can get that done before bed time I'll be a happy little maniac lol ;)