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[Unity] Dead Awake - Artist learning to code

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Zilk
polycounter lvl 4
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Zilk polycounter lvl 4
I'm working in the game development business as a artist and have always found programing interesting, especially if I could combine my art skills with code and make a game of my own. So here goes, a artist learning to use Unity scripting to make my own game. I have built a simple prototype and will post development here as I go along. Everything so far I have scriptet myself.

3sa4205.jpg

Dead Awake - A top down arcade, permadeath shooter.
The player wakes up in a cryo chamber 5 levels down in a secret research facility and finds the facility overrun by zombies. Survive, loot and don't get f**k'n bit. One bite and you will have to restart all over.

Features completed:
• Basic controls
• Enemies with a simple avoidance AI, AI states, Line of Sight and attack
• Randomized enemy spawns per room
• Melee weapons with speed, durability, damage and range
• Ranged weapons with durability, fire modes, clips, reload times, spread etc
• Loot Pickup, Weapons, Ammo
• Weapon Unequip/throw out
• Interactable doors
• Lootable containers and enemy loot drops
• Intro Sequence
• Elevator Sequence (level change)
• Real Ingame UI
• Weapon variations, Handguns, SMGs, Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Snipers
• Procedural Layout of each floor

Upcoming features:
• Enemy types
• Animations for Player and Enemies
• Outro/End Sequence
• Sound and Music

Play Latest Version Here

Control Scheme:
W,A,S,D = Move
Mouse 1 = Melee Attack
Mouse 2 = Aim Ranged Weapon
Mouse 2 + 1 = Fire Ranged Weapon
F = Interact with Doors
R = Reload Ranged Weapon
Q = Throw Melee Weapon
Q + Mouse 2 = Throw Ranged Weapon
TAB = Switch Ranged Weapon

Replies

  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    its addicting, congrats on getting this far :)

    I die at lvl 2 all the time though, have no time to react when you spawn :(
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    lotet: Thanks! Yeah the spawns are quite hardcore right now, when I start designing the floors I'll probably leave some space for the player to breath at the start of each floor ;)

    The idea is that each floor is ended with a elevator sequence to switch the floor etc.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I just added lootable containers, of course the look of the containers and spawn animations of the objects are mockup. Next is adding enemy loot drops.
  • purkie103
    Works alright managed to get to the third floor however i noticed there appears to be a limit on the amount of hits you can do with the knife which can leave you, stuck with no weapons unable to defend yourself, which feels unfair, is this a design choice to stop people spamming it? Other wise might be worth having knifes repair between floors or have zombies or lockers drop new knifes.

    Sorry I work QA, pretty cool so far.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    punkie103: All weapons have a durability and a deterioration rate and can beak however it isn't really clear to the player yet when it happens yet. The UI will have a durability meter for each equipped weapon and a clear indication when a weapon breaks. This is to force players to change their weapons quite often, I'm not really sure on the feature gameplay wise but if it doesn't work I'll remove the feature.

    Thanks for the feedback, hope you'll come back and play it more later on as well ;)

    I actually just added enemy loot drops as well as container loot. So now there is a chance for enemies and containers to drop new weapons.

    Next I'll try to add some real art and more weapons, I'm getting tired of these grey walls.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I have been working on a artstyle for the game and tried using normalmapped 2D sprites. Kinda works but I'll have to work on it a lot more.

    The web player version has been update with the new art as well, but only for the first room as a test.

    Do you like it or is it too much?
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I worked on the art a little more, still not sure if this is the style I wanna go with. It looks kinda cool with the normal mapped 2D but it might look a little generic.. Not sure..

    tzf2PXy.png
  • sawik
    I "finished" the game (killed everyone on third level, fourth wouldn't load up), so far so good.
    However, I found few bugs:
    1. When I had my browser window on setting other than 100% my weapon was simply flying off little by little, during attacking only. One time it got to the point where it was actually of screen. However, dropping it dropped it right at my feet.
    2. Bullets don't always add their value. I've been stuck few times on "1/15" no matter how many of them I picked up.
    3. You might consider making at least some of the containers not randomly generated. I happened to be in a situation where I had no other weapon than bullets, with no gun.

    Also, one thing bothered me a bit, there was no introduction or tutorial. I died few times before I got the hang of the game and if I wouldn't read your description, I would've totally missed out on the containers. Btw. was the reddish circle spreading after a hit or opening door a sound? I wasn't 100% sure if it's audibility or something totally different, at first I thought it might be the range of an attack, that was before I saw it on the door as well.

    Keep up the good work!
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    sawik: Thanks for the playthrough!

    Wrote the bugs up and will fix them later on :) A tutorial isn't added yet a really simple tutorial will be added later on. And yeah, the reddish circles created when fireing or opening doors are sounds. These are just for the AI so they won't probably be visible later on, only there for debug purposes right now.

    I'm trying to set the art style right now. Troublesome as always to get something that looks cool but doesn't take ages to create ;)
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Since I didn't like the old artstyle me and my girlfriend sat down this weekend and whipped up a pixel artstyle instead and I made the lightning and effects fit it.

    3sa4205.jpg

    Crits are welcome :)

    The latest playable version is as before available to play here
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    So I made a little update tonight.
    • Added door graphics and animations
    • Loot lockers with animations
    • Built a short first level to try it out


    Still missing some tiles to build entire levels so I'll have to add a few more. Also add some variation tiles etc.

    liSbF3O.gif

    Playable version here as always, give it a go and say what you think :)
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added the elevator ride between floors today, it's a little rough and I will add and improve some things later on such as camera shakes, improved light effect between floors etc.

    cM8qEWt.gif

    I will add a better start now as well, some simple intro sequence when the dude walks out of the cryo chamber.

    As usual playable version directly in the browser HERE
  • sawik
    The "bug" with no adding ammo, I think it wasn't a bug at all, I just didn't reload, unless you fixed it with one of the updates as now I just played the latest one.

    After finishing floor one, I didn't meet a single enemy, was that intentional? I know it was only for a test build, so thats not much of an issue.

    Great work, keep 'em updates coming!
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Yeah since there isn't any UI yet it's really confusing whats happening with ammo and when weapons break etc. I'm working on the Intro now with a simple UI and will move on to ingame UI after that with simple hints to explain controls etc.

    I forgot to add spawn points for the other floors, stupid :D
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added a short intro sequence today. It will also serve as the start menu later on but for now it's just a "splash"

    Ud4I0cJ.gif

    The next will be to add a Ingame UI for weapons, interactions and inventory. Will try to keep it as minimalistic as possible.

    Latest version playable with Unity Webplayer HERE
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I started designing the ingame UI today. Trying to keep it as clean as possible.

    Still wondering if I should keep the text that says how many bullets are left in the mag or not... Since it's supposed to be hardcore I could do without it and just have a click sound when the mag is empty or something.
  • Bonkahe
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    Bonkahe polycounter lvl 7
    a click sound would probably work just fine, also looking good man.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I implemented the UI today with a few hints as tutorial and indications for reload, how much ammo is in inventory, when weapons break etc.

    Hopefully the game is a lot more user friendly now ;)

    http://i.imgur.com/L0xkz6a.gif

    Try it out with Unity Webplayer HERE
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Tonight I started designing the mouse over UI for loot. The idea is to give the player a easy way to identify lootable objects and compare them to whats currently equipped.

    GG7Njwn.jpg

    The image shows the knife and it has +2 better damage and +5 better durability. For ranged weapons is also shows the fire mode and ammo type above. Yeah, the shield is a bad icon for durability but I couldn't think of anything better. Any ideas?
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I animated the world UI and will now start implementing it. Figured out how to capture to a gif as well so from now on, flashy gif images!
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added the mouse over UI for loot today. Now it shows the ammo type, fire mode, durability and damage. And it is always compared to what the player has equipped right now so it's easy to fast determine if a weapon is better or worse than the one equipped.

    Still haven't gotten awesome at this gif thingy but yeah, try the web build instead ;)

    Play latest version HERE

    (I feel like a mad man talking to himself over here, nobody got anything to say? :poly142:)
  • MichaelElphick
    As an artist also learning to code, this is great motivation looks great!
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added muzzle flashes and shell casings. Nothing to fancy, just looks a lot more interesting when you fire ;)

    bxeWp8z.gif

    Try it here
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I fixed some bugs with the AI and UI today. And just for shits and giggles I added blood puddles from dead enemies as well as boot tracks when walking through them ;)

    Try the latest version here

    dXyxFtj.gif

    I still suck at making gif's, anyone got any good tutorial to get a smoother result. They either gets crazy fast or slow and choppy.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    A friend told me to add locks that can only be shot open to the lootable lockers so I fixed that tonight. Gives a fun dynamic to the loot since you have to waste some ammo to get them open.

    RLWGZGu.gif

    Web Demo

    Anyone tried it? Anyone?
    c3ac35327d04a6c1dd6f04776801232247af5f0d2426f37818455154cf0337e8.jpg
  • cman2k
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    cman2k polycounter lvl 17
    I liked:
    Mouseover UI is cool
    Aesthetic is consistent
    Reminiscent of Monaco or something, which I like.
    Lighting is cool

    I didn't like:
    I missed the instructions after weapon pickup the first two or three times I played.
    Died right away and didn't know what I was supposed to do.
    No auto-reload was confusing.
    Didn't understand when I was getting hurt.
    Kept trying to switch active weapons or something.

    Is this is a stealth game? If so, I found myself wishing for a 'walk' mode or something so I could be quieter. A stealth meter, etc. If not - then gimme more ammo and just let me run'n'gun and try to survive. Push it one way or the other?

    Try this for making gifs: http://www.cockos.com/licecap/
    Just make them smaller res and higher FPS
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    cman2k: Thanks for playing!

    I will fix the instructions, will probably have a few rooms without enemies in the beginning where I can present the tips one at a time and for a little longer. I chose to not use auto-reload since I lower the speed of the player when aiming and reloading. But maybe it should be a lot more clear in the UI when you are out of ammo.

    It is not thought as a stealth game more of a survival, and yeah. More loot is probably the way to go, will add more weapons and larger ammo loots.

    Thanks for the gif tip, will try it instead cause my gifs suck :D
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I started adding some more environment props etc and building some more rooms for the first floor. Will see if I can't figure out a way to procedurally place rooms for each floor so there is different layouts each time you play.

    Will make the crates lootable as well, can't have crates without being able to smash them! :D

    Anyone know of any good place to store images, photobucket started complaining I use to much traffic.

    Play the alpha in browser here
  • ShadowBrain
    Try LICEcap, I use it for all my gif needs, you just drag a window, set the fps and press record! :D
    Edit: Oops. seems I was on the wrong page, someone already suggested it. Well... Okay.
    As for screenshots, I use Puush. It hosts the images/screencaps for as long as they get at least 1 view a month.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    ShadowBrain: Thanks, will try Puush instead :)
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I made some adjustments to the Enemy AI real quick. I played some and got pissed that they were so bloody stupid...
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Made the boxes lootable, the metal boxes can be opened and the crates opens when attacked. The destroyed boxes are mockup so far, will make them look better and add some animation/particle when they break.

    d302c31aa6.gif
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I figured out how to make each room fade in when opening doors so I added that. It's a lot more fun now when you don't know how dangerous the next room is.

    LxfRBtW.gif

    Also I'll switch all images over to imgur tomorrow since photobucket is over limit.
  • WarrenM
    Get a Google Drive or DropBox account ... you get a bunch of space for free and your links will never die.
  • Stormfreek
    This is really cool dude keep up the effort man! I have to admit though, I couldn't figure out how to use the gun :( excited to see how this progresses!
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    WarrenM: My dropbox is full of other stuffs, switched to imgur and it doesn't have any bandwith limit huh?

    Stormfreek: Yeah, I know. The tutorial is shit, I will split it up and make it a lot more clear how the controls work. They are a little strange at first but when you get them I think they are awesome ;)

    Anyways, hold down mouse 2 to aim (ready the gun) and then press mouse 1 to fire. R is used to reload. Mouse 1 only to use the knife.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I have changed around the perspective some today. Before I had the walls always leaning out from the room and the props at an angle and the characters straight top down.

    This caused some headaches with so many different perspectives. I changed it so the walls are always at an angle as well. The Vertical walls have both sides visible to make doors clearer.

    I also added an SMG and you can pick it up in the last room (to throw the gun hold mouse 2 and press q)

    O3ljbbY.jpg

    New version here
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Added mousecursors for default, melee equipped, aiming, out of ammo and reloading. It's simple and works great to tell the player what's going on. Also fixed some minor bugs.

    I5nNbuW.gif
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    So I added larger ammo packs today and therefor had to fix loot drop chances. I haven't tested it 100% but it seem to work.

    Also added a SMG to the second room to use the new extra bullets ;)

    3YsqH36.gif

    Play the alpha here
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added all the ammo types Dead Awake is gonna have in all the different loot sizes today.
    Also fixed the loot system since I needed a rarity drop chance, so now different sizes of loots are dropped, added to inventory and presented on the UI.

    X9ROEXz.png

    Also noticed that it was quite difficult to see what different weapons used etc. So I faded down ammo that weren't currently used by the equipped weapon and added a highlight to the correct ammo when moving mouse over loot in the world.

    k00QhJx.jpg


    A playable version can be found here. It only has one floor so far but I'll add more later on.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Now all weapon systems are in order with ammo so I made a sawed off shotgun, no zombie game without a sawed off! :D

    rw6s5Yn.gif
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I added the AK47 and finished the Sawed Off sprite. Also noticed that my enemy AI was expensive as s**t so I optimized it with 400%, was doing some really stupid stuffs in that script :D

    K8C8qGV.jpg

    I'm thinking of adding a secondary ranged slot so the player can switch between two ranged weapons. Noticed that it kinda sucks when you have to throw out a great weapon because you're out of ammo and have to switch weapon.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I designed and scripted the functionality for Security Pad UI that is going to be used for locked doors.

    SHXW5uL.gif

    The idea is to have some rooms locked that contain awesome loot but require a keycode to open. The keycode is found on a random enemy on the same floor. So it will require some exploration and hunting to find the codes.

    Now I only have to make lockable doors and bring up the UI when pressed and figure out a way to decide what enemy to drop the codes ;)
  • GoK
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    GoK polycounter lvl 18
    Very cool ! I really like it.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    GoK: Thanks dude! I feel like I'm writing to myself like a mad man here so nice to see that someone actually reads the stuff :D

    Now to this evenings update
    Security Codes for doors are integrated and working. The code gets generated each restart at random and the door unlocks when the player inputs the correct code.

    iaJeRpb.gif

    Next is to put these codes on random enemies on the floor and have them drop it when they die.
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Tonight I fixed so enemies drop PDA's that can contain story elements or security codes for doors on the current floor.

    The codes are stored and displayed in the security pad UI so it's simple to see what codes the player has found.

    FUDgkIB.gif

    Have also fixed some other stuffs like lights that can be destroyed and such..

    Try the latest version HERE

    PS. Still only one floor so the elevator doesn't do anything...
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    I have been working on a procedural layout generator for each floor and I got the first version "playable" today. Still has a bunch of bugs and need some polish before I can post a version with it but it's starting to look promising!

    It was the most challenging feature yet and I'm real proud that I even got it half-working :D
  • Javibcln
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    Javibcln polycounter lvl 8
    Well this has improoved so much since I first played like a few weeks ago... Keep working on it man! I really like it.
  • Novian
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    Novian polycounter lvl 5
    Insanely impressive! I have been trying for months to build a simple, fun, randomly generated, knight hack n' slash game very similar to this. Any pointers or major breakthroughs that you would be willing to share?

    Thanks for all your hard work. This is awesome!

    Cheers~
  • Zilk
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    Zilk polycounter lvl 4
    Novian: Start simple and build from there, try to create a workflow you like in your code. I have for instance based many of my scripts to reset onEnable so when I spawn enemies they are reset to alive and with full health etc.. This made spawning new stuff and restarting the game incredibly simple :)

    Javibcln: Thanks man :)

    If you want I could try to write a little bashout on how I did the floor generation. It surely isn't optimal but works for what I want it to do :)

    Got the first playable version with procedural floor layouts working! Still some kinks but should be solveable.

    Heres three different layouts that got generated. It only builds to the right since I haven't finised all room types and I have no rooms with exits to the left yet ;) Will fix some more rooms tomorrow and see how it turns out.

    Generation takes about 1-2 seconds right now and runs on the fly. It laggs a bit when activating all the rooms but that can probably be optimized later.

    vrEqmz0l.jpg

    Play the version with procedural floor layouts HERE
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