Thank you for keeping the updates coming! Seeing this sort of cool stuff is truly fuel for our devs. =)
Looks very good man!
Most of the work lately has been polish and balancing. Lots of little graphics and sound tweaks, more camera shakes, foley, that sort of thing. It’s quite remarkable how much of a difference it can make in terms of how physical the world feels, and how easy it is to sense the feedback on your movement inputs. They’re the signals we’ve evolved to navigate with I suppose. During testing my girlfriend also managed to fly so far out of the city that she actually cleared the kill volume, so I need to find a better solution for how that’s handled, amusing as it is.
One big new feature (that I can’t screenshot) is the ability for the drones to change modes gracefully at runtime. I’m considering making it so that any jammer or wallet drone you hurt with a rocket will become angry and switch to a shooter.
Another one is the fact that jammers actually work as advertised now. The one I had demo’d in the previous gameplay video was placed statically and had a post-effects volume parented to it. Since including post-effects volumes in actor blueprints is not supported yet, I had to re-implement this to work with procedurally generated jammers. There’s now a global post-effects volume that simply stays disabled until you get within range of a jammer. The player will now also track the number of jammers in range, and drain your rocket and jump energies the longer you stay inside the field (which might be a good reason to convert an inconveniently placed jammer into a shooter).
Shooters now understand the difference between the player being within range and the player being shootable. This was trickier than it sounds! I ended up doing a sphere trace every firing cycle, with the sphere’s radius based on the drone’s bullet deviation, and then performing the actual bullet trace only if that was successful. The sphere trace always locks directly onto the player, whereas bullets always go down the drone’s forward vector, so this doesn’t prevent cool situations where you’re barely outpacing a hail of gunfire (in other words, it doesn’t only take shots it knows it will hit).
I also polished up the level music. Please have a listen and give me your input before I finalize it!
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
https://www.copy.com/s/WUwxjSenSmCv/51%.mp3
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
And for while you listen, here’re some more screenshots from my Twitter feed:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BovZ7R9IEAAC7A9.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BovWsBqIUAI9P1g.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BocCZZrCYAEr_Rt.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BocBuVCIcAANAaG.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bob9-xQIcAANipi.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bob4-FOIQAAR2x4.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoRxZIYCQAEPJfj.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoShx6ZIUAACYY6.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoXFFUFCUAAiDjD.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bob3e94IIAAq6Lp.jpg:large
This is looking really, REALLY good. I can’t wait to be able to give it a try.
Continues to look fantastic!
>> And for while you listen, here’re some more screenshots from my Twitter feed:
Random aside, but you should toss your twitter handle in your signature so folks can find it more easily. Took me a minute or two to track down @GameappMakerCo , but it was worth it to check out the pics that weren’t posted in this thread. =P
For else reading, totally worth following SF on twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/GameappMakerCo
With that out of the way, thank you again for all of the updates! Loving it! =)
Not sure if anyone else is experiencing this, but I can’t seem to get anything out of that link to the level music.
Thanks so much for the endorsement! 
Good idea on the signature.
As for the level music it seems to work for I know that I’ve linked it to. Perhaps you’ve got a script blocker preventing Copy’s site from fully loading?
So big news: Real gameplay footage!!
https://www…com/watch?v=-DIqF05gX2k
Since the game is so colourful and noisy the video doesn’t compress well. It actually looks more like an animated version of the screenshots when you’re playing it yourself, and general visibility is much better (though still somewhat poor by design). The visuals are still not final, the rocket trails and roof shader will be improved for example, but the broad strokes are all present!
So firstly, have some screenshots that show nothing new but I thought looked nice:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BovZ7R9IEAAC7A9.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo8xZg0CQAAM92P.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo-60ThIQAA7MYw.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo_ASoFCEAADU-9.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpe0bEuCAAA0ZIA.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpfX0NGCAAA39Wp.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpi8OTwCMAEbhE5.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpj8HQPCcAEVa8k.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpj8IPUCMAAO6ry.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpj8HwNCcAA4XFW.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpkMv2WCIAEXhDJ.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bp3Y7ZGIYAEoL1y.jpg:large
Now updates; I made the HUD reflect whether you have sufficient energy for rockets or walljumps. There’s audio feedback for it too now.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpjb1ccCAAA0XYH.jpg:large
Wallet drones will now turn aggressive when you vamp from them. A worthwhile risk considering how much money they have and the fact they recharge your energy instantly:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpkNvORIMAEunU3.jpg:large
I merged in the much improved launcher model from ShooterGame which made the player character feel a lot less cheap:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bpy3FQ4CIAEgCgX.png:large
I finally settled on an explosion effect that looks good up close and handles sharp corners reasonably well:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BpzcuBLCAAAfaHS.png:large
Rocket trails have been changed again, don’t know if they’re final yet. The large number of radial particles remind me of classic Epic games:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bp3njlvIQAALNsu.jpg:large
I made some significant improvements to the smog system. It’s far more efficient now (though still one of the bottlenecks) and has a tendency to curl over rooftops in a really spooky way:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bp4STYRCYAArT6h.jpg:large
Aside from that just a lot of optimizations, gameplay tweaks, and attempting to learn things with a rigorous depth for the sake of my first “real” game. I’ve been working on preliminary design for that some days already.
DOGEcrash looks more and more amazing every time I see new screenshots or footage. Fantastic work!
Hey SF -
Love the Effects you have, the saturation is really a refreshing new look to them.
Keep it up, the screenshots as always look beautiful. =) I’ll just have to wait until the game is released to hear the music it seems, but no big deal.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ble6k-ACIAE09bR.png:large
Rather randomly this reminded me of those analogue blue screen matte lines, plus the grids on everything, and I was like “well there’s your 80’s right there!”
Finally got rocket trails I’m happy with!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bp_N_owCIAA_LjN.jpg:large
It’s a variation on the example content’s black body particle system. I was rather proud of myself for figuring out a way to get it running on the GPU without compromise; Since you can’t use dynamic parameters, I piggybacked the temperature data on the unused alpha channel of the particle colour over life module. 1000s of these on screen at once without slowdown allows for some very dense, very pretty smoke trails.
Next I optimized the HUD’s dynamic material and added a new parameter that lets you control how filled in the center of each box is. I used this to make unusably low ammo/energy more apparent:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqB82pcCUAElXuv.png:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqCIbrGCIAAG1lk.png:large
I finally got around to learning just enough Blender to fix the drones’ mesh, which was previously static where it should have been skeletal. They have animating propellers now and actually point in the correct direction (they were always 90 degrees off before).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqEQtobCcAEyqpW.jpg:large
I made shooter drones punch holes in the walls of buildings that they hit:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHDdwOCIAANFGq.jpg:large
I improved the visibility of most buildings and added a subtle ambient cubemap statically captured from the scene. Everything’s more legible now though the city still “feels” dark:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJEMonCUAAluWC.jpg:large
I also finally fixed the roof material that 4.2 somehow broke:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJFmJwIQAE0wwe.jpg:large
Wallet drones will now shower coins when you vamp from them:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJKBSgCIAE-3ck.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJKBB4CIAA3lMm.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJKBJ8CAAAmV-4.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqJKADECcAA4Tp1.jpg:large
And the rest of these are just screenshots.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHGq49CcAIgAdU.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHmb4rCAAADE-0.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHWcP5CIAElaRN.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHXmscCcAEaU3z.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BqHZ6tNCQAAfbc6.jpg:large
My lappy is back from the shop! At least for now. Hopefully the graphical artifacting and instability is gone. Dang but did they clean the keyboard up nice.
Anyway have some new gameplay footage!
https://.com/watch?v=bjC39ec7Wmg
The infinite vista looks less out of place since I recorded this. More on that next post.
I lied I’m talking about the infinite vista later.
What I do want to talk about is the massive hackjob I just completed that I’m nonetheless rather proud of. The city generation no longer blocks gameplay! This means I can put all the non-cosmetic actors in a streaming level and load it while the player clicks through the (still to be added) intro screen as soon as the random seed is chosen, without causing a hitch.
It sure did make my generators ugly though. I can’t wait for timelines to be usable inside macros.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrK99iGCYAAf4Q-.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrLS-BaCAAAOoc4.png
I don’t think I made it non-deterministic.
♪♫Release candidate for DOGEcrash’s level music!♫♪
Also completed what was basically a full-game refactor yesterday. Much better design patterns in place using a gamestate manager and event dispatchers. I’ve made some more progress on the ending but I’ll leave that for players to see themselves.
What if you made a high score system, where the taller the building, the better the score? Or walljumping has a multiplier when you don’t touch the ground? Just some suggestions, it looks really good!
[=Ascendancy;93654]
What if you made a high score system, where the taller the building, the better the score? Or walljumping has a multiplier when you don’t touch the ground? Just some suggestions, it looks really good!
[/]
Thanks! Good ideas. I actually experimented with a building size = value system early on before switching to the current method. I found that since largest buildings were the easiest ones to skim it didn’t make sense to further incentivize them. I then tried having the smallest buildings be worth the most, but that didn’t make much thematic sense and the way they clustered tended to overpower them. Constant returns for every building means that the player can self-direct the difficulty by choosing to either slowly platform, or play it fast and risky on the outskirts.
I hadn’t tried adding a combo system yet but the thought did occur to me. You’re currently already heavily rewarded for “flow” since constant speed means both efficiency and less of being shot. As such I don’t feel there’s currently a need to reinforce that further.
So I’ve been slow recently both because I’ve been ramping up work on my next project and because I’ve been struggling with a new medication I’m hoping will finally deal with my cluster headaches. The side effects have been taking a lot out of me but on the good days I no longer feel like I live in an active food processor.
A couple new features to report. One is the timer:
Exciting!!
Getting it to look decent was more work than I expected. Blueprint has quite minimal string formatting options at the moment, and I didn’t want to have another HUD element permanently cluttering the screen. In its current iteration, I made the timer appear on screen and fade to transparent over a few seconds only at particular moments of interest, such as when the game starts, at 30 second intervals, and when major score milestones are reached (so that speedrunning players can check their splits mid-run). This has the added advantage of making the timer harder to mentally filter out than it would be if it was constantly visible. There’s more of a sense of it looming over you and causing pressure. No reason that basic mechanics can’t also add atmosphere!
I’m also getting around to implementing the death effects, for when a car hits you. I started by finding a shattered glass texture on cgtextures.com:
I tried using this in a post-effect, but refraction and surface normals seemed a critical element of achieving the broken window look. So I just smeared it on a plane and stuck it right in front of your fat face:
On death this plane becomes visible, as well as a number of post effects. Here’s the current version of the material:
And here’s me bouncing around the level with a broken screen while testing different refraction values:
This is incredible.
Looking good as always. Good luck with those headaches too! Keep up the good work! =)