Razer X - A low poly shmup!

[Primalfido]

Hello forum!

I wrote this game using Unity in the span of 3 sleep deprived weeks to bolster my portfolio. It's a single level demo and it drew most of its inspiration from Eschatos and the graphical stlye from the original Starfox.
I was hoping for input on the 'deflection' gameplay gimmick in this game. It wasn't really based off any other shmup I've played and would like to see whether it seems interesting enough to entertain the player through later levels or whether to just leave it and work on another project

Anyway here's a video of the game in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY6PGNBlIec
And the game with instructions here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61607674/Razer ... layer.html

[Kaiser]

Hey you've got a pretty impressive tech demo shmup going on there, you should consider continuing it . If you want to 100% legal proof yourself music-wise, take a look at the newgrounds audio portal as the general music license only requires you to give the credit to the music composers.

[n0rtygames]

This *looks* very cool.. I didn't play it - as you said Windows 8 *only* and I'm on Windows 7.... so I just didn't try it.

Video looks win though. Is that your own code, own rendering engine etc? Or are you using third party stuff?

Any reason this wont work on any OS before W8?

Cheers!
Steve

[Primalfido]

Hey you've got a pretty impressive tech demo shmup going on there, you should consider continuing it . If you want to 100% legal proof yourself music-wise, take a look at the newgrounds audio portal as the general music license only requires you to give the credit to the music composers.

Thanks, I forgot newgrounds had an audio section. I'll check it out again. I'll probably work on another level soon after I finish off a few other projects :

This *looks* very cool.. I didn't play it - as you said Windows 8 *only* and I'm on Windows 7.... so I just didn't try it.

Video looks win though. Is that your own code, own rendering engine etc? Or are you using third party stuff?

Any reason this wont work on any OS before W8?

Cheers!
Steve

It should work on Windows 7, all you really need is the unity player installed on your browser. Could you point out where I said it was 'Windows 8 only' so I could correct it. Thanks

[n0rtygames]

It should work on Windows 7, all you really need is the unity player installed on your browser. Could you point out where I said it was 'Windows 8 only' so I could correct it. Thanks

Um... I'm really sorry - I've been an idiot and I posted to the wrong thead. Billions of tabs open.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43291 <-- that one was posted on the same day as you and well... I guess I'll just go and copy my post there.

Out of interest, how are you handling the scrolling backdrops? I have a Unity Pro license so might be attacking something similar for PC in the future..

[Primalfido]

Um... I'm really sorry - I've been an idiot and I posted to the wrong thead. Billions of tabs open.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43291 <-- that one was posted on the same day as you and well... I guess I'll just go and copy my post there.

Out of interest, how are you handling the scrolling backdrops? I have a Unity Pro license so might be attacking something similar for PC in the future..

No worries man.
For the scrolling backdrops I have two cameras. One is a depth clear only 'Game Camera' that only displays the player, enemies and bullets and is stationary at around (0,0,-5) (Makes it easy to calculate paths and placements); The other is the 'Background Camera' that moves around and displays 'Background Only' objects. I then draw the background camera first, then draw the game camera on top of it. There are other things to take into consideration such as ensuring the lighting looks the same and bringing objects from the background view into the game view (The boss actually exists as a background, I then I try to move it seamlessly into the game area).

[ciox]

Um... I'm really sorry - I've been an idiot and I posted to the wrong thead. Billions of tabs open.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43291 <-- that one was posted on the same day as you and well... I guess I'll just go and copy my post there.

Out of interest, how are you handling the scrolling backdrops? I have a Unity Pro license so might be attacking something similar for PC in the future..

No worries man.
For the scrolling backdrops I have two cameras. One is a depth clear only 'Game Camera' that only displays the player, enemies and bullets and is stationary at around (0,0,-5) (Makes it easy to calculate paths and placements); The other is the 'Background Camera' that moves around and displays 'Background Only' objects. I then draw the background camera first, then draw the game camera on top of it. There are other things to take into consideration such as ensuring the lighting looks the same and bringing objects from the background view into the game view (The boss actually exists as a background, I then I try to move it seamlessly into the game area).

That's awesome and a lot like what I'm doing for my game, except in UDK I gotta use Render To Texture for this effect.
I can tell when your boss moves from the background into the game area, I think it's the lighting, don't know if that can be "fixed" but it could be disguised with a multi-axis rotation or other movement on the boss, so there's a lot of 'noise' for the lighting change to hide in.

[trap15]

You could probably hide it by making it flash white (or another color) to show that it's coming in, like I know DDP and several other games do

[n0rtygames]

No worries man.
For the scrolling backdrops I have two cameras. One is a depth clear only 'Game Camera' that only displays the player, enemies and bullets and is stationary at around (0,0,-5) (Makes it easy to calculate paths and placements); The other is the 'Background Camera'

That makes sense. But how are you looping your background models? Or have you actually just constructed a massive level?

[Primalfido]

That's awesome and a lot like what I'm doing for my game, except in UDK I gotta use Render To Texture for this effect.
I can tell when your boss moves from the background into the game area, I think it's the lighting, don't know if that can be "fixed" but it could be disguised with a multi-axis rotation or other movement on the boss, so there's a lot of 'noise' for the lighting change to hide in.

Yeah thanks . It basically is a render to texture effect. But yeah its is a bit obvious. The change because of the fact that I use 2 directional lights; One thats illuminating the background and another which is lighting the game objects but is matching the angle relative to the background camera. I might have to tweak it to look right.

You could probably hide it by making it flash white (or another color) to show that it's coming in, like I know DDP and several other games do

That would work and I was considering using it but I really wanted to challenge myself it trying to do it seamlessly might need to tweak it a bit.

That makes sense. But how are you looping your background models? Or have you actually just constructed a massive level?

The looping is done because the model is really similar over its entire length so I just make the camera loop back to a similar part of the tunnel and BAM, looping background.

[Dave_K.]

If you want to 100% legal proof yourself music-wise, take a look at the newgrounds audio portal as the general music license only requires you to give the credit to the music composers.

Couldn't you get around the music copyright issue by streaming audio from youtube or similar online sources? You could also allow customization for people to put in their own URLs, while recommending a "default".

[Kaiser]

If you want to 100% legal proof yourself music-wise, take a look at the newgrounds audio portal as the general music license only requires you to give the credit to the music composers.

Couldn't you get around the music copyright issue by streaming audio from youtube or similar online sources? You could also allow customization for people to put in their own URLs, while recommending a "default".

Nope that would be still a copyright violation if the material was copyrighted to begin with.

[n0rtygames]

Just look for music released under creative commons attribution based

[EmperorIng]

you can even ask some cool dudes around the forum who make music... >.>

Anyhow, I am interested in how the deflect mechanic works. Is there a way it is limited so as not to make it a potential crutch to dodge everything? EG, hard to pull off, some bullets can't be reflected, etc.?

Though I definitely liked what I saw in the video, though the white ship with white background is a little hard to read.

[Primalfido]

you can even ask some cool dudes around the forum who make music... >.>

Anyhow, I am interested in how the deflect mechanic works. Is there a way it is limited so as not to make it a potential crutch to dodge everything? EG, hard to pull off, some bullets can't be reflected, etc.?

Though I definitely liked what I saw in the video, though the white ship with white background is a little hard to read.

I made the 'deflection' sphere a little bigger here in order to show off the mechanic but the idea would be that you have to have the right timings in order to use it. Possibly even different timings for different bullets? I don't know.
Anyway one limitation comes from the fact that deflection has an 'energy' value and is depleted every time its used. However the more bullets you deflect at any one time..The more energy you get back. So the deflector would use say 20 energy...and each bullet would give back 2 so if you deflect a couple of bullets constantly you'll run out of energy, deflect 10 bullets at a time...and you'll basically get a free deflection. Another is the fact that constantly hammering the deflector will prevent you from using it for 1 second and you'll lose your 'Chain' (gained from consecutive successful deflections, its why I deflect even when I've kill everything on screen) which acts as a multiplier to the score of subsequent enemies you kill.
So yeah I could just change how much the deflection costs, how much you get back and how long to penalise you for..and possibly add different timings to different bullets

Oh and I never noticed how much the ship blends...its like my mind is filtering out all this stuff because of how long I've been staring at this level

[BPzeBanshee]

If you want to 100% legal proof yourself music-wise, take a look at the newgrounds audio portal as the general music license only requires you to give the credit to the music composers.

Couldn't you get around the music copyright issue by streaming audio from youtube or similar online sources? You could also allow customization for people to put in their own URLs, while recommending a "default".

Nope that would be still a copyright violation if the material was copyrighted to begin with.

In addition, that wouldn't work on offline sources or people and not everyone has ADSL2+3GSuperhypermegaultra broadband fiberoptic awesome-o internet connections.