icarus – Zesix

Articles Tagged with: icarus

July 1, 2015

1GAM 2D Space Shooter – Wrapping Up

With June over, I am writing this post to say my 1GAM experiment was a failure. There are many reasons why, but I also believe the 1GAM concept is only effective for certain game types and likely not the kind of games I prefer to invest my time in.

Can You Really Find Fun In One Month?

The heading presents the heart of the problem: It’s not that we couldn’t develop the necessary parts of the game in a single month, but instead that I could not settle on core gameplay I found to be fun. Part of this is because the core gameplay could not be adequately tested without AI, and when you iterate gameplay you must also update the AI.

The Vision: Fun, 2D space combat.

What We Tried: AI ships flying in formation and patrolling. They break formation when the player gets within a certain range and engage the player. We tried this in small quantity, and while it was cool, it wasn’t fun.

Most of the month was actually spent on the AI. We messed around with different times to break formation, different behaviors like strafing and flying backward, to even changing the whole feel of the game from tight controls to momentum-heavy ‘drifting’ and we’re still not certain what we need to do to make the game feel fun. The only conclusion we came to was that ‘drifting’ felt a lot more fun than tight controls, so we plan on keeping that.

Ideas Worth Trying

Floating Asteroids That Damage Ships

Technically, this was supposed to be part of the original implementation for June, but we ended up spending so much time trying to figure out the AI that we never got around to this. Will adding asteroids as a dynamic make combat more fun? I think so.

Bouncing Collisions and Shields

This is actually more work than it sounds since we are not using the Unity physics system, but instead precisely controlled movement with artificial (controllable) drifting. We didn’t want to use Unity physics because we wanted to be able to better tune the gameplay ‘feel’ and so when we add shields and the ability to bounce off objects, this should add more liveliness to gameplay.

Friendly Wingmen

Even if they’re AI-controlled, the idea of being a lone space fighter against a bunch of enemies is pretty unappealing unless you have some really badass capabilities. We’ve developed our game with Factions in mind and adding AI wingmen that follow the player and assist in engaging enemies shouldn’t be difficult, although it will require a refactor of our AI combat code that currently only looks to engage one enemy target.

Finding Fun

We use gut feeling to measure fun. Fun is different depending on who you talk to, but as a developer I know that if I don’t find the game to be fun then I will not have the desire to continue working on it. Therefore, the game needs to be fun to us first.

When we get around to trying the above, the main question we will ask each time is not “Does it feel fun now?” but instead, “Does this feel more fun than before?” Fun in games often is not a spontaneous discovery, but rather an iterated process. This brings me back to my main point – 1GAM is an interesting experiment, but due to my personal standard of never developing an unfun game, I don’t think it’s for me. Games with simple AI requirements or don’t require any AI at all are much better suited for 1GAM, as the amount of experimentation required is much lower. Perhaps if we extend the time to two months (1G2M), we will have ample time for fleshing out fun in games where AI is at the forefront? It’s worth a try.

May 26, 2015

One Game A Month Challenge – Procedural 2D Space Shooter

Back when I used Construct 2, I created a 2D space shooter with wave-based enemies and random asteroids that would damage both enemies and players.

Recently I heard about the One Game A Month challenge and decided to try it. This post defines the goals of my 2D space shooter, which I call Project Icarus.

Influences

The main influence for this game is S.P.A.Z – Space Pirates and Zombies. One thing Icarus – Wave Attack (the Construct 2 space shooter) did not have is mouse controls, which is better defined as physics-based movement with mouse input. Given how much I liked the feel of the player ship in SPAZ, I’ve decided to make the change from tight ‘snappy’ controls to more fluid momentum-based motion.

Project Icarus

Keeping in mind that I have one month – better defined as 30 days – to do this, I will separate the ‘core’ from the ‘extras’ so I don’t feel bad if I don’t get around to the latter.

Core

Physics-based mouse input controls for the player ship. [Mostly done!]
Player ship firing and taking damage.
Player ship shields automatically activating when an hazardous object gets within range.
Infinite starfield background. [Already done!]
Procedurally generated nebulae with random placement. [Already done!]
Randomly placed enemies within a set distance from the player’s initial spawn.
Randomly placed asteroids within a set distance from the player’s initial spawn and enemies. This means asteroids need to be spawned after enemies.
Basic enemy AI that fires at the closest hostile target (either the player or asteroid), and will seek out the player ship if it is within a certain distance.
Asteroids break into smaller parts when shot or colliding with another object. The game needs to have objects bounce off each other after collision (except bullets).
Smaller asteroids get destroyed upon collision.

Extras

Missiles! Only homing missiles will do, since missiles that travel directly to target are unfun. If the core gets done, this asset should speed up this extra.
Decoys. If we add missiles, then decoys naturally follow.
Powerups. Icarus – Wave Attack had the ship automatically upgrade upon collecting debris, and it would be cool to bring this back.

Current Progress

April 7, 2013

04/07/2013 Update on the Space Game – Now Called Icarus

I’ve finally come up with a name for the space game: Icarus. Icarus was the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology who dared to fly too close to the sun. The name itself doesn’t bear any meaning right now, but later on it will make more sense so just stick with it for now.

You can play the latest version of the game here. Note that it’s not the same link as the previous two blog posts!

Game Updates

There have been a plethora of game updates, even though the game doesn’t seem to have changed much when you play it.

Bugfix: Player ship no longer has continuous movement after a collision. I’m not entirely sure why this happened, but it should be fixed now.
Enemy ships are always moving. Previously, enemy ships that were calculating AI pathfinding remained immobile and fired randomly. Now they will move as the AI is working.
Asteroid chunks now fly away from the object that hit the original asteroid. In other words, whenever you shoot an asteroid, the chunks fly away from your bullet, whereas previously they flew off in random directions. This update also works if your player ship or an enemy ship collides with an asteroid.
Health power-ups spawn 2% more often and only after an enemy ship is destroyed.
Enemy ships move at variable speeds. This might still need some tweaking, as they still bunch up and move like a ‘hive mind’ at times.
Physics has been overhauled, meaning enemy ships now “bounce” from collisions.
Starfield scrolling occurs in direction opposite to player movement. Due to the game taking place in a fixed window, I may remove this feature.
Enemy health reduced from 5 to 4. A number of people complained the enemy ships took too long to destroy.
Player ship is now more responsive. The ship will no longer ‘drift’ after an acceleration, and ship turning also speeds up as the left or right arrow keys are held down (up to a max turning speed).
Gameplay audio is now randomized across three Clearside songs. Many thanks to them for allowing me to use their music.
A sound will now play when the player ship is shot by an enemy.
A sound will not play when an enemy ship is shot by the player.

Graphics Preview

I’m still working with the artist on the final art assets for the game jam, but for now here is a preview.

The Near Future

Most of what I want to accomplish for the game jam has been implemented. For now, I am waiting on the artist to finish the art assets.

Replace placeholder artwork with the final artwork.
Implement touch-based controls.
Enemy ships leave debris behind after destruction.
Player ship can pick up debris and will gain bonuses as more debris is picked up over time.
Add shield power-up.

I have also gotten in touch with some sound artists who have expressed interest in contributing to the project, but haven’t really heard back from many of them so I am uncertain as to whether there will be any new sound assets when I submit to the game jam.