Project NOS - A first person shooter (singleplayer + coop + multiplayer arena)

Hi all!

Today we released the first video of the game we’ve been working on since the UE4 Beta.

Project NOS (working title) is a first person shooter, inspired mostly on the classics Unreal 1 and Half-Life 1 and 2. Gameplay is similar: the player may carry lots of weapons at once, and they don’t need aiming (targetting) or reloading.

The game will feature a linear campaign, which will be able to be played alone or online coop. The campaign follows the story of John, who seeks vengeance against the man who killed his godfather and sold him to slavery. On his quest however, John will find out uncover sinister truths about both his godfather, and the man who killed him…

The setting will be a fantasy / futuristic world, with traces of Final Fantasy. Floating islands, flying ships, advanced tech, some spellcraft, and demons will be the main themes.

The game will also feature a multiplayer arena mode, much like Unreal Tournament or Quake III, where many players fight for frags or to capture the flag.

At present, only the arena mode is playable; we will begin working on the campaign after we’re almost done with the arena mode.

Current development status should be considered early alpha; although it is playable, we still have much work to do, mostly on visuals (environment art, characters, effects, etc.) and levels.

Anyway, here’s the video. Please share your thoughts, both good and bad!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QPJUl4Fp_X4

(English captions are available, but there’s not much important text)

A few high res screenshots (against bots, they can’t pick colors very well yet :wink: ):

http://i.imgur.com/Nc09FEm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/W1EDcKh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/I4z355L.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/unGRfIy.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CGhHA2t.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kjAE612.jpg

My favorite elements from your game:

  1. return to old-school shooter style!

  2. the lifts! the lift I saw was both visually neat as well just the fact that it is there! I really miss lots of moving objects that have collision and pathing significance in modern games, especially shooters :slight_smile:

  3. The stick-people-to-walls gun! That’s definitely my favorite gun mechanics as it stands out and yet it also makes perfect sense and is believable :slight_smile:

  4. variety of weapons, you have a lot already!

  5. aesthetic, I liked the outdoor areas especially, nice and colorful and brightly lit, and even the indoor areas were colorful!

  6. speed, at one point I see about 20 bots on the ground, and yet your fps was still cruising along

  7. Overall feel, everything moves super fast and there’s lots of variety, and looks like there will be lots of different stages / arenas to play in, yaaay!

This project of yours is going in the right direction in every way!

More more more!

Rama

Thanks for the feedback! :slight_smile:

Indeed, this is our main focus!

An unedited gameplay video (please pardon our noobness):

Not bad, seems interesting. Looking forward to seeing more.

I just saw Project NOS yesterday. I have a few questions.

#1. Will you guys be selling the PC version of Project NOS on gog.com as well 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free? Not just only on Steam?

#2. Will guys be releasing mod tools so we PC gamers can create our own custom graphical mods, levels, maps, meshes, models, skins, textures, and total conversion mods? For both singleplayer and multiplayer?

#3. Will you guys be releasing a physical boxed version of the PC version of Project NOS 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free to sell to brick and mortar retailer stores in Europe and the United States of America? I would say to release world wide but I don’t think it will be possible for you guys for now. I live in the United States of America so the brick and mortar retailer stores I purchase PC versions of video games is from Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Target, and Wal-Mart.

If you can’t manage to sell physical boxed versions of Project NOS to brick and mortar retailer stores in Europe and the United States of America you can contact Deep Silver so that Deep Silver can distribute physical boxed versions of the PC version of Project NOS to brick and mortar retailer stores world wide. Make sure you and Deep Silver come to a agreement where only you have 100% control over Project NOS so that Deep Silver cannot add Digital Rights Management (DRM) to the physical boxed version of the PC version of Project NOS that you are selling to brick and mortar retailer stores world wide.

inXile Entertainment is doing this same thing with Wasteland 2. Wasteland 2 will only be distributed in physical boxes to brick and mortar retailer stores world wide by Deep Silver. Deep Silver is not publishing Wasteland 2 at all.

If this is impossible for you guys to do I will still purchase the PC version of Project NOS from both gog.com and Steam .

#4. Will Project NOS since it has multiplayer will it have Rentable (Ranked and Unranked) Dedicated servers for us PC gamers to rent servers? With a Server Browser List?

#5. Can we get up to 64 players to play per server on multiplayer?

#6. Will you guys be using Nvidia’s APEX PhysX physics engine for clothes?

Hi Ballowers,

Interesting questions!

Yes, we intend to release on as many digital resellers as possible, and that includes Steam and gog. We also intend to release it DRM-free.

As gamers, we know modding is very important, so yes, we intend to release our source assets (and possibly the source code, but not 100% sure on this yet) to make it open for modding. However, UE’s license prevents us from releasing the editor with the game, so modders will need to sign up for a UE4 subscription. As we approach release, we will check with Epic if there’s any way to release with the editor.

It’s too early to think about this, and at present the answer is “unlikely”. However I’ll take note of your advice, and we’ll check this as we move on.

Yes, in fact running a dedicated server is already working! Server browser wasn’t implemented yet, but we should have one eventually, yes.

This I don’t know yet, but I am already writing the network code with optimization in mind, so it could be very possible yes.

Yes, in fact we are already using it, on the shotgun. There’s a small bug at the moment though: the first time you pick it up, cloth simulation doesn’t works, you have to equip another weapon then re-equip the shotgun to get it working, which is why on some parts of the video the shotgun is simulating cloth and on others it isn’t (watch the first video at 0:26).

Howdy Ixiguis,

Great work so far! The weapons that you are showing off in your gameplay footage look fantastic. Keep up the great work and hope to see more as you progress in the development of your game.

Awesome Feature

I have to say the fact that you have 3 colors for your character, and can set them any time during game time is really awesome!

Great customization feature!!

:slight_smile:

Rama

Rama on the photo :slight_smile:

http://i.imgur.com/1yiCrYP.jpg

Hee hee!

Having played the game I can tell you all, it’s great fun!

Ixiguis and the rest of his team have really created a old-school shooter that is pure fun to play!

It’s fast!

The map designs, the creative weapon designs, the game play mechanics and player movements, the wall jumping, the lifts, all of it together fit in such a pleasantly fun way!

It’s a game where you can definitely learn and grow and get better, but at the same time you feel encouraged to have fun while you are learning!

The level designer and the weapon modeler did a great job with everything, they all have their own style and feel.

Every single weapon is very different and has its own unique gameplay and programming mechanics!

Ixiguis is an awesome programmer to have developed all these fancy game mechanics!

One example:

There’s a gun that behaves differently depending on whether you shoot a target that is in sunlight, or is in shadow!

If you are in light, and they are in shadow, you mark them with little light wisps if you shoot them!

Then if you use the alternate fire of the weapon, while they are marked, you do extra damage!

And Ixiguis is calculating whether each player is in light or shadow realtime, per shot!

Another great weapon, the main default weapon: each time you fire it, where it hits the ground or the player is “remembered” and then later you can press the alternate fire for that weapon and it will simultaneously blow up all the previous locations you fired at!

Creates some really interesting game strategies if you know you are being pursued or if you want to set a trap beneath a powerup!

And there are powerups in the game too!

And Kicking!

It’s really really fun :slight_smile:

Rama

Thanks for the review Rama! Had a lot of fun today!

Development continues, when we have more features to show off, we’ll post another video :slight_smile:

Thanks Sean and JonF for the feedback too!

Rama linked me here, looks great!
I don’t have the time to playtest it myself right now but feel free to reach out to me via mail later on. The video looks great. I like the style and approach, and it seems like you got tons of stuff made and working for this. Gives me some good old vibes.
You might have already implemented this, but weapon wise mechanics like the shockrifle in UT would be vital for me in a fast paced competitive game like this. The combo aspect of the shockrifle. Those kind of things add an extra layer of complexity, and skill to the game. It allows players to reach new levels of skill once they’ve mastered the basics. If you can capture as much of that aspect as you can both in your weapons but also in your levels then you got a winner IMO.
If I were you I’d focus entirely on multiplayer also. Doing a proper campaign and singleplayer is difficult and at the end of the day you’d get the game because of the multiplayer anyway. Focus IMO on getting that part of the game superb.

Hi Hourences, thanks for the advice! We all (the team) read your book on level design, it was essential to get many things on the right track.