(VR) The Informant

Community Showcase Game Development
1

https://i.imgur.com/kxiYIQA.png

The Informant is a small(…ish) project I’ve been working on for a few weeks. It began as the vague concept of building a John Woo-inspired shooter in VR, in particular Hard Boiled, and after watching The Sopranos it’s sort of turned into something else. The premise is relatively simple; you play an undercover cop who, in the first moments of the game, is thrown off a rooftop and left for dead. You wake up in a hospital and receive a phone call from your handler, saying that the mob are on the way to finish you off and you have to escape.

The only problem is, your legs are broken, and the only way you can move around is in a wheelchair. This becomes the central mechanic of the game: dual wielding weapons and shooting bad guys as you wheel your way through the floors of the hospital to the roof or carpark escape.

So far I’ve focused on making the weapons to get them out of the way, and now I’m making the first test environment. There’s no game logic yet since I’m not a programmer (nor would I even want to attempt building a VR locomotion system from scratch) - I’d rater flesh out the concept visually a bit before I ask anyone else to get involved. Still, here’s what I’ve got so far.

https://i.imgur.com/TvTqf9A.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/pjKfr13.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cihNvJx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/sXOSasG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/9A69Skc.jpg

Right now I’m going through some of the key props in the scene, trying to get a feel for what polycounts / texture resolutions I can get away with in VR. Then I need to learn how to make environment textures and build up the base geometry more. It’s a bit of a learning experience, since I’ve rarely put together a full scene, but it should be interesting.

Although I’m thinking the game would be a commercial release (£3.99 ballpark, as a cheap and fun thing), I’m probably going to release most of the art assets I make for free as I’ve done with my previous work.

I’d really love to hear people’s thoughts on the concept; I only know one other person with VR so I’m not 100% sure this sounds like a good idea or not.

2

Nice man! Do you make your own props/weapons?

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Yes, all the art there is my own work. Right now I’m working on some more props for the test level, then maybe working on the environment textures / geometry.

4

Cool man, if you need a team, we are here (:

5

Aside from some documentation and a tutorial series I’m working on, I’ve been doing some experiments with how I want to approach destruction. It’s pretty important to capture the John Woo, over-the-top action feel (as well as lots of particle effects), but I’m a bit worried about performance constraints…I’m thinking of FEAR and Max Payne as inspirations for the visuals, but it needs to look better than that.

My original plan was to rely on texture-swaps for most objects, which I tested out on a vending machine model, but I don’t think this would really hold up in a VR game where the game needs to be ultra- responsive to what you’re doing.

So instead I played around with mixing in destructible meshes and spewing cans out the front, unfortunately my code didn’t really work (it’s meant to stop after 6 cans), but I think this approach has more promise for major props.

I’ll need to team up with a programmer soon, since that really isn’t something I want to try and get into. Because it’s a rather unique locomotion system the base gameplay will have to be in place before any real level design can take place, as well.

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I’m C++ Programmer, lol

7

muito bom sabe amigo

8

Hey mate!
I would love to test your game and if you want a part-time programmer who does it for fun, I could help out.
I’ve got more than a full time job already (as a programmer, a consultant), so it would really just be for fun. I did my Master’s thesis in UE 4, created a communication system for VR using the steam subsystem. It was a really entertaining project.