Dev Blog
Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
This week we have yet another blast from the art side of things! So strap into your cockpit and take aim at these weird ideas!
Typically I’m much more creative when it comes to characters so designing top-down fighters was becoming challenging and I was getting frustrated. To solve this problem I decided to try a new approach by designing the race or pilot before the ship so i could try and cram all the goofy characteristics of the creature into their ships!
Scroungers:
Back when we started development on Starrazer we wanted there to be a mole race with a bunch of mining ships and laser drills and stuff. I proceeded to draw a bunch of said equipment but it really felt like they were missing something. So with the redux of Starrazer I took another shot at their design by first tackling what these weird things would look like outside of the ship. It may not look like much of the gross mole-thing got into the ship designs but it made me feel better about the final designs after getting in that first, loose sketch of the monsters.
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Rough Ship Creation:
We also wanted to create some “Hero” ships with some more complexity. We are experimenting with how ships will look made out of multiple parts. Each race would have a lego-grab bag of pieces so we could combine everything in different configurations. This would (hopefully) keep every sector looking proper as well as giving it a good amount of variety. Also we could use these pieces to create large combinations of composite ships that could be used as enemies or inspirations for more bad guys!
Tackling top-down has been a little tricky, but it’s been fun re-visiting some of my favorite old SHMUPS and seeing how they handled various art problems.
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And another week screams by here at Slick! Nick’s been hard at work re-writing the weapon system in his engine to be able to handle more varied firing mechanics and a whole bunch of other stuff! So be sure to warp in next week to check up on our progress while we continue to craft a totally cool cosmic experience! Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to keep those phase-disruptors disrupting!
-Jesse
Follow us on twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste SlickEntertainment: @slickentinc
Posted by: Jesse Under: Slick Entertainment,Star Razer
Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
Another Dev-Blog has warped in, weapons still hot! This week we have a few more rough ideas we’ve visualized and begun implementing into the Waanderful Engine!
The Loop!
We wanted to get a grasp of what the player would be doing during their star-conquest so figured out a loop involving all the cool weapons! We want to create a constantly changing arsenal in our space-shooter so the player should get used to unloading on their enemies, ejecting the empty module, then snagging a new one. We were also considering using ammunition but have recently thought that limiting cool weapons is kinda lame.
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Ship Set up!
Here’s some more ideas on how ships could be handled. We were initially thinking that we’d add layers of armor plating on a vulnerable skeleton of a ship and then attach weapons to them as well that could be shot off. That actually ended up being really insane on the coding side and we opted for a more familiar approach and are now trying to simply spawn hook-able power ups from specific destroyed ships.
Another thing we noticed art side when creating enemies is that everything looks TERRIBLE from the top. It’s hard to get things looking as “fun” as we did in Shellrazer simply because of the perspective. I’ve been experimenting with a few different ideas on the art side but it is an unseen and rather interesting problem to be having.
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And another week star-screams by here at Slick! Thanks as always for dropping by and checking up on us and going through our development process as we hammer out another fun time! Until next time keep those sweet space lasers from overheating friends!
-Jesse
Follow us on twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste SlickEntertainment: @slickentinc
Posted by: Jesse Under: Star Razer
Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
We’ve been hard at work bringing the cosmic conflict to you! This week we’ll be talking about some of the weapons we’ve been brainstorming up and some light mechanics we are hoping to get in there. Here’s a few of those ideas so brace yourself okay?
Exotic Weaponry:
Sledge Hammers: We wanted to really bring physical punishment into space combat so decided that big hammers and fists and spiked balls would be the ticket. When we first pictured weapons like these we thought about how great it would be if they were physics heavy and would knock enemy ships away as well as apart.
Sonic Cannons: We were playing around with the idea of different shapes of damage. Sonic cannons would have a wider area of influence and could shake apart ships with a long blast of sonic energy.
Rico-Shot: Kind of like a pinball gun that would bounce around close enemies and deal out the damage. Players would get the most out of this weapon when it was fired at a large group of badguys.
Starstormer: Starstormers fire out an area-of-effect storm that damages all enemies in the cloud. activation duration could determine how large the cloud is. players would need to be careful not to fly into the storm and get blown up.
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Snatchers!
We also started playing around with enemy types that would behave differently towards the player. We thought up some mean guys called Snatchers! After you’ve hooked together a decent warship, these jerks are going to fly right up to your ship, munch off some parts, then make a getaway! Once they get that juicy laser cannon or whatever, they’ll lead you towards their mother ship or something equally dangerous. Sure you could just let the Snatcher escape with his prize but you are super angry! Go blow some holes in that terrible thing!
Another thing We want to make sure is that we have just as much monsters in space as spaceships. It’ll be awesome to tear off a slime launcher off of a space-bug and start using it. This will also help us get our space nice and colorful.
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So another week rockets by here at Slick! Be sure to join us next week for some more crazy ideas and tech! Nick is hard at work getting the game running in C++ so we can get people hooking some weapons and mastering space combat right away!
-Jesse
Follow us on twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste SlickEntertainment: @slickentinc
Posted by: Jesse Under: Slick Entertainment,Star Razer
Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
After some shifting around we are back into the groove of rapid prototyping! It’s been refreshing having something as clear to work on as our space title and we’ve been having a blast drumming up ideas for an exciting space shooter.
This week we have some basic weapon ideas for you! In our Star-Razer Redux we want big bosses and tons of cool space weapons so to start here’s four basic ones:
1: The Shield Generator:
We want the shields to be quite active and reliant on the player’s timing and dexterity to be most effective. Our idea is to have the module generate a large blue circle that shrinks back down into the module. While enveloped with the circle (other shield configurations could have different shapes), that part of your ship takes no damage! Perfect for protecting your jarred space-brain!
2. Laser Cannon:
Classic cosmic combat requires us to hack in a serviceable laser weapon. Our idea with these guys is that you can hold them down to deal more damage but they can overheat very easily. When laser cannons overheat they’ll explode right off your ship! Other laser configurations could have different firing patterns or damage types.
3. Missiles:
Big damage but limited usage, basic missiles will pack a punch and track into your enemies but will disintegrate off your ship after the last rocket is fired. We want the player to be constantly losing modules and needing to re-equip themselves frantically. By limiting the amount of shots missile pods have we can hopefully adjust the pace of the enemy waves.
4. Armor Plating:
Sometimes you just need to be able to take a bigger beating. We are hoping something like armor plating could be used to protect more fragile and rare weapon modules. Once their damage capacity has been met they will explode off of your ship. They could very well be to passive for our game but it never hurts to write/draw down some ideas.
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So there’s a few ideas for our basic test modules. We want there to be a lot of different weapons with different behaviors that reflect the race you’ll be tangling with. Part of the fun we want to happen in our space game is chaotic combinations and synergies with all the salvageable weapons you run into. The ideas are all sounding great in theory and it’s a really fun field to brainstorm in.
Next week we’ll have a few more exotic ideas for interacting with your enemies so until them keep those laser cannons searing holes through your foes!
-Jesse
Follow us on twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste SlickEntertainment: @slickentinc
Posted by: Jesse Under: Art Work,Star Razer
Welcome back followers of the fearsome!
And now for something completely different. What?! Another change? Yes! That’s the beauty of being an indie developer; we can work on whatever we want! :) In any case, we’ve been working on this procedural generation stuff so much lately that we feel the need to let it settle and crystallize a bit before we can make up our minds about what the next most important feature will be. It’s not done and over with, it’s just that we didn’t feel like working on it this past week.
This week we decided to return to the idea of Star Razer. The awesome Chris Hadfield just returned from space, so it may be that we were inspired by his awesomeness. Since the last time we touched Star Razer we’ve had a number of cool ideas on how to change and improve the game. We’re going to take out the strategy elements out because they weren’t really working for us. Also, we’re going to take the procedural tunnel-like levels out as well. They generated barriers causing the movement of your ships to become an annoyance rather than fun.
We’re going to treat working on this game almost like a mini game jam: Cram the features into the game very quickly and see if they work. The idea we’re pursuing is actually fairly similar to Shellrazer. The difference being that you constantly collect new guns and ball them together into a giant katamari ball, and of course that it’s all in SPACE! So we expect it to be deliciously chaotic, and hopefully not too confusing! We’ll get back to you next week on whether it actually worked the way we envisioned it.
For now, here’s our entire game design doc:
And yes, we hate game design docs. We prefer visual design cartoons like the one above. It does help to have the almighty Drawbarian around to whip up these awesome little drawings.
Alright, that’s it for this week. Keep those starcannons blasting!
Nick
Follow us on twitter: Nick: @nickwaanders Jesse: @jouste SlickEntertainment: @slickentinc
Posted by: slick Under: Star Razer
