Recently Acquired Time and Possible Projects

One thing I find rather distressing is going for a couple of weeks without making or working on a single game. It acts as an indicator that I've not been allocating enough time for creative exploits, especially the one I'm building a career on! This hopefully will be solved now that my only Monday class, one lasting only a half-semester, has ended. Already having my Fridays free of classes, the length of my "weekend" now exceeds the length of my school week.

Since other people have classes on Mondays and Fridays, there is only a small window of time during the weekend that can be taken by social gatherings and events; with the rest of the weekend being time I can further my own ends. (Of course, this is provided I can stay off of Reddit long enough!)

Newfound time in hand, I have a few ideas for things to work on:

• Supercat
• Basically a good old-fashioned 3D platformer.
• It's an old project I keep having to start over because of new technology and techniques I've been learning. I would love to start Supercat over in Unity, and actually write up an outline/storyboard for the game so I eventually have a finished product.
• For this project I'd force myself to spend a good long time away from the computer completely outlining and storyboarding the game on paper before I even create the project files in Unity.
• Experimental Immersive Game?
• First person physics-based game where your actions are limited only by what you can grab, push, pull, throw, etc. with two hands and two feet. Gameplay to include stealth, climbing, and possibly some free running a la Mirror's Edge.
• CMU Metal Slug
• Just for fun, a game in the style of Metal Slug with myself and friends running around campus (or all of Pittsburgh) with Nerf guns as the characters. Bosses could include Walking to the Sky, the huge fabrication robot in the basement of Maggie Mo, Wean Hall, Dippy the dinosaur, etc.
• Possible gameplay adjustments to make the game less difficult than the traditional Metal Slug formula, or at least more fair. I'm not exactly putting this in an arcade and making it eat quarters.
• This one will probably need the help of a bunch of artists and animators. I could even pitch it as a GCS project, perhaps.
• All-Star Smackdown
• Multiplayer fighting game featuring every character I've ever come up with, and even some friends' characters if they'd like to include them. (The roster might be pretty short if they don't!)
• Gameplay would be less like traditional fighting games (Street Fighter) and a bit more like Super Smash Bros, but not too much like it. Might include some elements of pro wrestling games.
• I may secretly have an extreme desire to animate Supercat performing an elbow drop.
• It's kind of like how last year I thought a headbutt was the most badass move but now I seem to think it's an elbow drop?
• I've never even watched pro wrestling, yet I seem to be fixated on the idea of it lately...
• Irritable Taco Revengers
• Multiplayer first person action game emphasizing messing with your opponents' heads over actually shooting or attacking.
• You don't actually know what team any given player is on. Also if you kill someone who actually was on your team you die.
• Loosely based off of a really excellent LARP that I participate in from time to time. ;D

These are some of the better ideas that come to mind. I could also get to those tutorials I'd been thinking about writing, like how vector algebra applies into skateboarding and submarine games.

Silent Runner - A Submarine Warfare Game

Here's the game I spent half my summer working on and have now completed. In it you pilot a submarine, and are sent on missions to clear territories of hostile ships. At your disposal are a large amount of powerful torpedoes, enemy-detecting SONAR, and of course the ability to dive and hide underwater. 

Do you have what it takes to master the art of marine stealth?

(Now on Kongregate!)

CONTROLS GUIDE:

Arrow keys - Engine throttle / Steer ship

Space Bar - Toggle SONAR

Hold Z - Aim torpedo

Release Z - Fire torpedo

R (or C)  - Ascend

F (or X) - Dive


Hold 0 for five seconds - Restart Level

Music Credits

Silent Runner In-Browser Demo

I've put together another demo featuring more progress on Silent Runner,

and this time you can play it in your browser. (You go full screen if you right-click the window.)

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/cshaffer/silentrunner.htm

Also I've reworked the controls, but don't worry! There's a tutorial level now.

Silent Runner - Trailer and Demo

I've made a trailer, AND a title for the submarine game!

SILENT RUNNER

I've also created a demo, which I guess you could call the extremely early alpha. Version 0.1, if you will.

For Windows

For Mac OSX

CONTROLS:

Holding down the Left Mouse Button puts you in torpedo-aiming mode. While holding the LMB, moving the mouse left or right will change the direction your torpedo will head for, indicated by the red line. Releasing the LMB will fire the torpedo.

If you are holding down the LMB and the dashed line doesn't turn red, it's because it is too soon to fire another torpedo.

W and S, or the Up and Down Arrow Keys control the speed of your engines.

A and D, or the Left and Right Arrow Keys control the rudder.

Holding the F key will lower the submarine, and holding the R key will return the submarine towards the surface.

Pressing the Space Bar will toggle your SONAR. The sonar will allow you to see distant ships through the fog, but can also alert them to your presence.

Holding the Right Mouse Button and moving the mouse will move the camera, and turning the ScrollWheel will zoom the camera in or out.

SUBMARINES! DESTROYERS! SONAR! TORPEDOES!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a bunch of pictures and some words as a bonus.

The sonar display is projected onto the water surface, instead of a clunky GUI window.

The goal of the game is to sink things with exploding torpedoes.

All alone in the fog...

...or are you? Sonar allows you to detect ships you can't see.

Coming Soon:

• Depth charges
• Enemy air support
• Mounted machine guns
• Missions!!!
• Cool stuff I wrote down somewhere but don't remember at just this moment!

In the land of submarines

I'm working on a little submarine game now, which I'll post more about later.

A problem I encountered in Unity with this is that the "drag" parameter used for the physics engine has no direction. (ie: the air friction is unaffected by direction). I think I've managed to reverse engineer the drag formula though, and created a script for directional drag using vectors. Projections FTW!

I'll post something on that later, and also something on the physics stuff I had to figure out for Radical Ostrich. Both will have awesome diagrams, of course.

Radical Ostrich

Here's a test build of the first of my Portfolio-Buffing Summer Games Projects:

RADICAL OSTRICH

Finals Week

Has been putting a serious cramp in my style!
Soon I'll be on summer break though, and will have plenty of time to devote to making random games. I aim to make a whole mess of games to fill up the list at the right.

I've also been doing a bunch of musical work: http://soundcloud.com/clyde-shaffer
For the first time I'm putting together completely original soundtracks for my games!


Time to go eat a burrito. Happy cinco de mayo! XD

Tried to make an entry for Ludum Dare 20

...but I wasn't really able to devote enough time this weekend. Here is what I managed to throw together!

DISCO PARADE

New SUPERCAT demo!!!

I've been working hard and produced a new level, fixed more bugs, and ASSEMBLED A NEW DEMO


-New level: War Barge
-Added a level select at the start of the demo
-New music tracks


Controls refresher:
Arrow keys- move
Space bar- jump
V -Also jump
Z -Attack/Activate objects
(Double tap Z to Uppercut)
X - Mash this to get out of the robot suit
C - Hold to walk


Download here:
http://ifile.it/8kux6yq/SUPERCAT.rar

More work on Supercat

I've gone and reskinned the character models. I am a good deal better at Photoshop now than I was in high school, when I originally made these models and skins. I've also fixed up some more animations.
I've also started some more camera work. I'm writing code that will allow me to specify switches between camera modes based on location in the level editor.

New SUPERCAT stuff!

After a long time of not working on Project SUPERCAT, I resumed development of Project SUPERCAT.

I've gotten quite a bit done over my Spring Break, including but not limited to:

• Automated camera system
• Enemy AI improvements
• The Dogbots can run after you
• The Dogbots can jump over things
• The Dogbots work as a team
• The Dogbots will get you
• Jumping mechanics have been streamlined
• Shooting mechanics have been improved
• Combat has been adjusted
• Supercat's normal attack, the so-called "weak punch" now alternates between the left and right fists. Also damage has been decreased.
• "Strong punch" has been changed to an uppercut, still does basically the same thing.
• Spamming jab attacks is a much less effective tactic now, and ill-advised when fighting multiple opponents.
• New start level made from scratch: Wind Fissure Acts I and II
• Act I - So many windmills!
• Act II - So much fog!
• Two new music tracks
• Various character animations have been redone.
• Act II has a boss

Get the latest demo version here: http://ifile.it/yuwmh3g/SUPERCAT.rar

Controls:

Use the arrow keys to move Supercat

Press Z to jab

Quickly double-tap Z to uppercut

Press the space bar to jump

Grenade Grudge Match is done

As far as the contest I'm making it for is concerned, anyway. I have homework to do. Maybe someday I'll have a brilliant idea to add onto this and come back to it, or just include it in a new project if applicable.

Since the previous post, I've added music blaring from the car radio. It's actually a guitar riff I composed for a previous game, and had my brother perform. I added extra sounds and effects to make it sound like it was coming from a busted-up radio, and not just recorded with a crappy microphone.

Also the cars will explode if they take too much total damage from grenades. The damage per explosion scales with proximity, so one grenade inside the car will blow you right up, while it takes a few explosions outside the car to end your reign of boom. Getting your car flipped over also counts as losing, though instead of your car blowing up you and your driver just fall out and possibly go flying.

In either failure case, the game restarts a few seconds after you get your ass handed to you so you can take in the full extent of your not-win.

When you do manage to win, your car will coast to a stop and pull over so you can bask in the sun and enjoy the one song the local radio station has to offer. If you'd like to play again at this point, simply hold the left mouse button for five seconds and you will promptly find yourself back at the beginning.


...boooring, I wanna play the game now!

More Grenade Grudge Match

Did some more work on GGM.

Now you can "cook" grenades by holding on after pulling the pin.

Also you pull the pin by clicking the mouse button and throw by releasing the button.

That seems like it would be handy information to go with the first bit about culinary explosive techniques.

Grenade Grudge Match

The grenade lobbing explosion-fest for ages three to three hundred!

(Now improved and uploaded to Kongregate!)