Build v0.7.0! Post-pitch Prototype Iteration 3

Fire! The pink player's shots sail towards the yellow player.

In this release we continue to re-add in old game mechanics prior to the upcoming feature lock and to experiment with some new ones such as ship shunting. Our programmers have also began the process of refactoring and optimising the game post-prototype in order to get the game running as smoothly as possible.

Note that you will need an Xbox controller for each player who wishes to play.

Download (47.8 MB Zip Archive): https://github.com/patferguson/Storms-Project/releases/download/v0.7.0/ProjectStorms-v0_7_0.zip

Major changes:
-Re-enabled the ship cannon firing. Fixed several issues with this process.
-Gave the ship's cannons a shot cool-down.
-Added a shunting ability to the bumpers on the controller.
-Added a part repair zone.
-Tweaked and improved the prison fortress' colliders.
-Prison fortress warning light is now orange when idle then red when spawning.
-Lowered passenger terminal velocity to improve physics responsiveness.
-Made a all lerps/slerps/updates frame independent by using delta time that weren't already.
-Optimised several classes to use cached component references instead of game scene hierarchy lookups.
-Refactored code to improve clarity.

Airship Ahoy!

Hopefully it's obvious that we're making Scourge of the Skies because we really like Steampunk Airships.

With many fictional and popular culture references to take inspiration from, we actually had initial trouble honing in on the exact model of an airship we wanted, as there's so many styles and variations to choose from.

But our lead artist Harry soon compiled a great collection of concept art, and quickly came up with a groovy design that combines the best of pirate ships and zeppelins.

Our airship uses balloons for balance, and a sail for movement, a propeller for speed and boosts, and a rudder system for tight turns and navigation.

Once we found what we were after, Harry quickly took the airship from concept to in-game model, and has since worked consistently to update and adapt the vehicle to match and enhance this core feature of the game.

Check out some of the iterations that it's gone through over the past few weeks:

Of course, great art like this is never truly 'finished' and there'll be more updates to the S.S Player 1 before we finish Scourge of the Skies.

To see more of Harry's work and the developments on Scourge, be sure to keep an eye on the skies and check back on our progress regularly!

R & D

This week marks the beginning of our month-long research and development phase.

One of the cool things with a game like Scourge is it's creative reach and flexibility. Since we've had our prototype approved, now is the time for us to start fleshing out the game.

Previously, we've focused exclusively on the core of the game - now we get to look at doing all the exciting juicy things we've been talking about for ages!

For instance, a much requested 'Team' game mode (2 v 2) seems like a natural extension of our existing 4 player Free-For-All, so we'll be looking into that soon.

Yellow team.

Similarly, we've just begun implementing airship destruction to the vehicles. This means that the balloons that stabilise the player's ship can be popped - and this will effect the player's movement.

Green player is tipping to the side because they've lost their port-side balloons.

Unfortunately, we don't have unlimited time to experiment with this cool stuff, so we have to plan out what we really, really want to achieve, and stick to it.

SO MANY FEATURES - SO LITTLE TIME!!!

Pipeline

This week, we're happy to welcome our newest member, programmer Andrew.

He comes to us with high recommendations, and we're glad to have him on board.

We've leapt upon the opportunity to have him play-test the game with fresh eyes, and he's already given us some useful feedback.

We're always eager to get new- fresh play-testers trying out Scourge.

Now, we're keen to get him integrated comfortably into our workflow.

Naturally, this has got us examining our code base and in-engine structure - and let's face it, we could probably use a clean out!

Getting ready for our internal project review, we just threw things together- hence the term 'Rapid Prototyping'.

However, its the time for us clean out the old and unused code and make sure the project is neat enough to sustain long-term development, especially now with another programmer joining the team.

Think of it like spring-cleaning... except everything is written in C#... and that damn designer doesn't use proper coding conventions half as much as he should!

Build v0.5.0! Post-pitch Prototype Iteration 1

Immediately after the pink player rammed into the blue player, destroying their balloon.

Welcome to our first public preview version of the game! For this initial release, we began working through the feedback from the industry pitch.

Note that you will need an Xbox controller for each player who wishes to play.

Download (46.1 MB Zip Archive): https://github.com/patferguson/Storms-Project/releases/download/v0.5.0/ProjectStorms-v0_5_0.zip

Major changes:
-Added a first-pass iteration of ship part destruction. Players may lose their balloons and masts. Losing a part makes the player ship either lighter or heaver and in future will affect the handling of the ship.
-Restored player death, occurs when both of the player's balloons have been popped.
-Improved camera handling and smoothness.
-Refactored game states to reduce potential for bugs and improve performance.
-Implemented a new prototype skybox from Ello.

Skybox For A Skyworld

Lately, we've been tackling a mountain of documentation and task allocation. While this stuff is really important, there's no denying that this is the unglamorous, boring part of game development.

So it was a really nice reprieve today when we got to try out our new sky-box, courtesy of our artist, Elouise.

She says it's still a work in progress, but already it really suits the style of Scourge.
When we got it running in-engine, it was immediately apparent how well it complimented our existing environment.

This is because Ello has also designed and created the floating sky islands, the houses, the windmills and a lot of the other iconic landmarks in our sky-world.

This is awesome, as not only does it have a cool cohesive atmosphere, but having this environment in the game early acts a nice visual reminder of the fun, cartoony style of game we're striving to make.

Cheers Ello!

Playtesting And Developments!

Over the last few weeks, we've been getting great feedback from our play-testers.

While the project is generally going well, some of the little things needed tweaking before we pulled back the curtain and unveiled the Scourge prototype to the world.

This screenshot was taken during one of our latest play-testing sessions:

If you look at player two's screen (blue), you'll see a cyan beam of light in the distance. 

In response to previous player feedback, we found it necessary to make player bases stand out at a glance, so we added gigantic colourful laser lights! Since then, players have reported navigation to be somewhat smoother. It's great that their comments can help us with our iterative design. 

The next screen capture depicts Scourge at it's most exciting:

Players one, two and three (purple, blue and green) are competing to catch the falling cargo. 

player two was going well, but player one has just rammed them, knocking their precious cargo overboard.

Ironically, player one is about to be rammed by player three. 

But while all this is happening, sneaky player four has taken the opportunity to head to their base to score some points.  

For a while now, we've been designing Scourge to have action packed moments of gameplay just like this. However it's been really rewarding actually watching them emerge in-game during the 4-player play-tests.  

Cycles of Play

In making Scourge of the Skies, we were determined to develop a good gameplay cycle as soon as we could.

It's not enough to just have stuff moving around in-engine.
There has to be a definitive start, middle, end, repeat, to make a gameplay flow and feed back into itself.

For example, in FPS games you break from cover, fire gun, return to cover, reload gun, break from cover etc...

So for Scourge, we came up with a navigational cycle that we could use as the core of the game.

Players take control of a flying airship:

The S.S Player 1.

They begin at their player base, which has a catch net and an iconic landmark (here a tavern).

A typical player base.

Once a match begins, players will race to the centre of the level. Here, they'll try to collect falling pirate passengers that are being thrown from a giant prison fortress.

The prison fortress is executing pirates. It's up to you to catch them!!

Once the player has enough passengers balanced precariously on their airship's deck, it's time to ferry them back to the player base.

Once there, the player will use the trapdoor built into the bottom of the airship to dump the passengers safely into the catchment net.

Safely returning passengers to your player base will add them to your score.

From here, the player finds themselves back at their base, and is free to start the perilous journey again. Rinse and repeat!

The first player to successfully rescue and return enough passengers to fill their player base to capacity wins and becomes the Ventus Rex - King of The Air!

So the gameplay cycle works... But this is only when everything is going well. When other players enter the mix - trying to ram each other's airships and dislodge and steal their passengers - well, that's when the real fun begins!

Stealing your opponent's passengers mid-drop is a challenging but rewarding experience!

Welcome! Hola! Hello!

This exciting new blog is record of ongoing work from a dedicated team of students at The Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Melbourne Australia.

We're proud to announce our newest project in development, a split-screen, multiplayer game: 

With majestic pirate airships and a beautiful floating sky-world - Scourge has a traditional steam-punk core, with a gooey coating of 4 player mayhem and a drizzle of slapstick humour on top.

Confirmed Features Include:

• Navigate your steam-punk airship in a fully realized 3D world!
• Swoop in and catch falling passengers on airship's wide deck!
• Use physics based controls to maintain your airship's buoyancy!
• Jettison cargo using your airship's custom trapdoor!
• Feel the impact of collisions with other players, as you knock their cargo overboard!
• Xbox controller support! 

And there's a whole lot of super-secret other stuff we're working on that we'll be sharing with you over the coming weeks! 

It's early days, and "Project Storms" already looks great in-engine!

For all the latest developments, keep checking back here.

And remember... Keep a eye on the skies!