Posts By kormyen
Dual wielding progress!
This week we are showing dual wielding. Its been half finished for a long time, and we decided to get it done! The most difficult part (that needed playtesting) was nailing the controls for pickup and drop for dual wielding left hand and right hand separately, as well as pickup and drop for double handed single weapon. Trying to get a balance of “easy to use” and not TOO awkward but with enough fidelity to be able to do what you want… sounds easy!
Associated Reddit post.
All previous Screenshotsaturday posts are here (Imgur album)..
Tentacles Sneak Peak
A sneak peek at our experimental work in progress Octopus monster! Danny created this to be driven by physics, and includes weapon cleaving and dismemberment. Fun to play around with at the moment, but still lots to work out :D.
Alexey posted his latest Swordy audio sketches for the last Soundtrack Sunday.
Associated Reddit post.
All previous Screenshotsaturday posts are here (Imgur album).
Sports test
Here’s some footage from our first public playtest of an experimental sports mode in Swordy!
The footage is from the Auckland Game Developers meetup.
Axe cleaving shield piercing action!
This week we have added cleaving – seen in the videos. It feels pretty awesome to use and seems to give some feeling of material and… realness to wooden things and flesh.
We also added a dash ability – you can see the players dashing in the videos too. Its added another layer of depth to the combat for us – can be used both offensively and defensively. Each moment is a bit more intense when you know another player could dash in range at any moment.
Oh! And there are scraping and sliding sounds for weapons.
We have started work on AI, but for now that stays secret…
Associated Reddit post.
All previous Screenshotsaturday posts are here (Imgur album).
Unity5, Fabric, arena tests, tutorial started.
We have upgraded to Unity5 – the new lighting (GI) system is awesome! The new physics is a pretty massive performance improvement for us being heavily physics based.
We have switched from FMOD to the Fabric – a bit easier to work with being properly integrated into Unity and having documentation.
Prototyped several new arenas – polished one.
Been setting up a unobtrusive tutorial system, which will hopefully only help out players that it detects are not grasping the controls – needs testing!
Also cleaning things up and getting ready for trying out some gameplay changing features: duel wielding, “grabby hands”, projectile weapons, stamina and a “dash” ability.
Associated Reddit post.
As always all previous Screenshot Saturday images are here.
Unite, GCAP and PAX Aus!
MELBOURNE
Melbourne is beautiful. Nice architecture, people, street art. The developer community is really good. It seems well supported, big and well organized.
We were crazy busy. We were up around 7am each day (unheard of) and back at 11pm to 1am. Five full days of conferences in total across six days, going out to bars with devs / organizers / press afterwards each night, and one day of frantic organizing in between. Very little sleep.
Swordy PAX Aus Press
Thoughts on VR
Frogshark on TV! Overall a bit weird, awkward and funny to see 90 minutes reduced down to a couple seconds of screen time.
We think there is a bright future for Virtual Reality.
With the sense of “presence” in the virtual world, interacting with another person brings a new level of connection and wonder in virtual space.
Notes: Preserving Game Mystery
Notes on Preserving a Sense of Discovery in the Age of Spoilers
Make players wonder.
Make players ask questions.
Hint at rather than describe the game world.
No disappointing answers.
Wonder and mystery is more interesting than disappointing answers.
Let the audience fill in the gaps.
Don’t answer everything. Be abstract.
Storytellers: “Show, don’t tell”.
Games: “Don’t even show”.