Hey guys, I want to show you the project we’ve been working on (mostly) this year. Supersolar is a top-down “isometric” action game with dungeon crawling and space shooter elements, set in a sci-fi setting in space, with a customizable ship (load it out with weapons and gear).
I’m working on art and design, Mike is doing blueprints programming, and enryoki provides the music. We’re still in very early development and working on an advanced demo to show, and I’m looking for all the feedback I can get!
@navid100 Thanks!
[USER=“270104”]Roi Danton[/USER] Thanks a lot. We’re using custom shooting and movement mechanics and character movement instead of using physics based movement.
For the next few weeks, working on an expanded demo and new level:
As well as adding more gameplay stuff; headlights, weapon pickups, powerups and more:
Hey. Fantastic looking work! I think your game has a lot of great potential.
Here’s a quick game design addition that came to mind: Back on NES there was a game called Blaster Master. I can see your style of gameplay potentially working really well with the idea of being able to land in certain areas and walk around outside as the pilot, but not have the camera change. Just a potential thought if extra gameplay is necessary.
Yes, in the future I was thinking of doing ramps, “stairs” and elevators that you can go over with your ship and climb automatically. And when this happens, engines will power up to show moving vertically. We can make multi-floor levels like this and it’d be cool to explore them.
@Mordecai Thanks a lot for the suggestion! We were thinking of something similar - the way the ship is made you can control different parts and systems of it. So, opening cockpit and ejecting is possible. The pilot can either walk out or eject and control something like a flying powered seat.
Startup sequence cinematic:
Changing paintjobs and customizing the ship is also planned:
I assume you are using (one or more) skeletons for the ship (the subtle movement when turning)? (Do you also plan to implement hit reaction of the skeleton?)
For the character movement component: Which movement mode are you using (since you also want to support ramps and such)? … I’m experimenting with a replicated top-down-control for ships/spaceships (using character movement as well + a bit physics for local only things) and find for myself, that sticking to “Flying” works (having a fixed plane for movement and don’t need friction done by the movement component).
I like your HUD: 3D (doesn’t need as much space) and that it is sticked to the actor position itself, so the player doesn’t lose focus on the pawn. Looking forward to see how it works out!
I’m using a single skeleton for the ship, but next up is breaking some modules of the ship as different skeletal meshes and attaching/detaching them - stuff like the cockpit, shield or engine modules. Here’s how the rig looks like, and the animation set:
We might do hit reactions for the enemies in the future.
Answer from Mike: “We’re using flying component and also yes, I thought about the ramps and multi-level navigation. It’s hard to say what would be the best approach for us, but I believe that we surely need to attach the height of mouse trace plane (a plane used to trace the mouse and calculate ship rotation) to the ship, and also make it smaller and always stitched to the ship. why? because in this way we will always have control over the ship (in theory) at any height and in any place, no matter do we have trace plane around pre-placed or not. But I need to try it first to tell surely about it”. Ramps and “elevators” will probably come much later though.
Thanks, it’s still WIP as I still optimize visibility and functionality. Initially I wanted to have it on the cursor, very minimal, but holographic projections make more sense in the game, and look cooler The color shows the power level and as the weapons drain, they are depleted to flashing red until they recharge (or you find ammo):
@huffeh Thanks for your informative replies! So you’re using animations when turning instead of applying forces to bone(s) (in the pictures you’ve posted, it looks like the latter)?
@MikeRPG Haha thanks I hope we can do it - so far it’s been a really hard ride.
[USER=“270104”]Roi Danton[/USER]e No problem. Yup, those animations setup with blendspaces, no forces applied.
@Galeon Thanks - don’t worry, there are a lot of varieties planned - first up is smaller drones that do not shoot, but instead try to get close to the player and “stick” to the ship to damage it. Then we have armored/shielded/elite variants of the drones. I hope the changes won’t be just cosmetic/stats change but we can get them to actually be smarter in their behaviour.
Added text popups to interact with the environment (still WIP):
And level progress - started making and swapping final assets:
The color shows the power level and as the weapons drain, they are depleted to flashing red until they recharge (or you find ammo):
