So I just wanted to fill you guys in on what exactly I've been working on for this upcoming madness day. It's both big and small. It's going to be a small little game but It's a pretty big project. It's on the scale of a vertical slice of a full scale game.
So where am I so far. A lot of the core game systems are up and running. And I am currently designing weapons, enemies and the play space. The nature of the project has shifted a bit from something more complex to something a bit simpler due to time. So what kind of game is it.
In a nut shell, A boomer shooter, Very much trying to channel more Wolfenstein 3D rather than something like Doom.
That said the pace is going to be slower. I want to the player to take their time and consider each every turn they make, each and ever shot they take. I'm hoping for a peanut butter and chocolate situation with the game play, Slow can be tense if done right I say.
Blocking out the play space.
I'm not trying to nail a specific look for the game, I want it to look old school but not pixelated. Kinda of a look that both wasn't really possible back then but is stemmed from limitations that were imposed on games like Doom and Wolf 3D.
My first step when starting this game was nailing the lighting, Nothing would continue forward until I got is just right.
One thing I wanted, no, needed, was depth based light. If you played doom you know that lighting in the game is based on distance from the surface to the camera, closer you get the brighter things become. This worked really well back in the day to simulate things like shadows and fog.
I also wanted non-directional point lights, and I wanted them to not bleed outside of rooms they were placed in.
It took a lot of fiddling but I manged to bully unreal in to doing what I wanted.
Old school lighting for a new school look.
I'm really happy with what I was able to acomplish here, it's one thing to get something looking the way you want it to it's entirely another thing to make it flexible and easy to work with. So far it's very flexable and easy to work with. It as easy to use as ploping doing any old light in unreal. I've still yet to really put my lighting system through it's paces but It's looking promising so far.
Light the monkeys!
Madness day is a menacingly short way away. It's gonna be hell of a sprint to the get the game done by then. With any luck I'll having something ready come Madness day.
And that's all the news I have for today.
See ya soon!