...and now for something completely different!

Rocket Penguin is on hold for the time being because of schoolwork. It currently needs two more levels before it is "finished", and those are going to be elaborate and over the top stages and whatnot. Namely, they will be a fight with a flying six-winged aircraft carrier shaped like a whale and then a crazy flashy special effecty dramatic fight with a wizard in hyperspace.

This put-on-hold-ing is due mainly to the fact I couldn't BS a way to really integrate it into my two gamedev-related classes Experimental Game Design and Game Programming. The good news is that I've managed to BS together a way to use a different project that I've REALLY REALLY REALLY wanting to get to.

Project: SUPERCAT is rebooted, again!!!

This project that I started in high school and then got shelved because I had created six thousand lines of tangled buggy code all in one script, and then started again Sophomore year at CMU and stopped again because I switched to the Unity engine.

Now I'm well-acquainted with Unity, and also have experience and new skills to apply such that I can do this project decently.

A BRIEF GAME DESCRIPTION:

You play as the titular SUPERCAT, which is much like a regular house-cat except that it also has a robotic armor it can pilot. By switching back and forth between using the armor and not using the armor the cat can do both cat-things like scurrying through the ventillation and people/robot-things like punching baddies and shooting lasers. The game world is the sprawling underground ruined laboratory complex in which SUPERCAT was created. Over the course of the game the player will explore much of, if not all of the complex; discover upgrades for the armor; fight a lot of badguys; and discover the secrets of the SUPERCAT's creation and the destruction of Research Site Sigma.

Things I have working so far:

• Character movement, generalized to be usable by the player in both cat and armor modes and enemy characters.
• Moving platforms
• A system for interact-able objects such as switches
• Dialog boxes, for delicious exposition as well as delivering gameplay information.
• 3rd person camera, controlled with the mouse and performs collision detecting so as not to clip through the environment

The game is ultimately intended for the download-the-whole-thing-and-run-fullscreen format because it will be so expansive and immersive but for now... here is a webplayer demo showcasing what is currently implemented!

Three Down, Two to Go!

Out of the intended five levels for Rocket Penguin, I've now got three fully playable and beatable levels. These of course will still need some tweaking, but at this point the needed changes are mainly aesthetic. Later after I have all five levels playable and beatable, I'll go back and do another pass to polish the various details.

I present for your trying-out pleasure: Rocket Penguin 3/5ths Edition

Secret controls:
Press I to invert the Y axis of your controls
Press P to refill your health

Notable changes:

• Third level "Tundra City" is finished, gameplay-wise anyway.
• City with streets arranged on a grid
• Player can choose to turn at intersections by flying to one side
• Street grid (lattice) pathing implemented, used for both moving background objects as well as enemy copters, and the boss.
• Enemy copters and background cars randomwalk through the city. Cars will avoid U-turns at intersections and follow alternating one-way streets.
• Various visual tweaks
• Jetpack glow flare
• Enemy copters recolored to stand out against background
• Health bar animates much nicer

Lots of Work, No Posts

Wow, I actually forgot to post as I was making new developments on Rocket Penguin this summer.

I'll sit down and write a more verbose update with screenshots later, but the gist of it:

• New level and boss
• Refinements to first level and boss
• Refinements to controls
• Refinements to visual effects
• A bunch of original soundtrack created
• Code refinements paving the way for the rest of the level

And now to clean this apartment for moveout.

Regaining traction...

I had initially figured this summer to be a great time to finish up Rocket Penguin, though as it turns out I've been getting rather exhausted on weekends after a 40-hour workweek at my new internship. 

Fortunately I've started to target specific tasks and get the hang of this working during the week thing.

So without further ado, here's the skin for the quadcopter model!

Rocket Penguin Demo1!!!!!!

I've gotten the StarFox-style flying level worked out pretty well now. I've gotten the first such level to a point where it's suitable to show everybody with a demo, so here it is!

A bit more Rocket Penguin progress

Things have been a tad busy the last few weeks, but during that time I did managed to push forward on Rocket Penguin a bit.

I've started on the air combat gameplay, going for a similar feel to the StarFox series as a sort of flying rail shooter. Currently my challenge is to figure out a good way to lay out the levels in the Unity editor in a way that

• Correlates to gameplay intuitively
• Doesn't degrade game performance
• Allows for interesting encounters (Enemy appears that was hiding behind something)
• Doesn't make it prohibitively difficult to implement level checkpoints so the player doesn't always have to start *all the way from the beginning of the level*.

Here's some screencaps:

Unskinned quadrotor fighter enemy vehicle, also needs gunned.

The intrepid pilot of the quadrotor fighter

Flying majestically over the blue sea

More Rocket Penguin Stuff!

First up: ITEMS

Pictured are the models for three inanimate but nonetheless important objects-

• The Jetpack Fuel is an item that appears in the level, and partially refills the player's fuel gauge to enable flight.
• The Spike Plate is one of many obstacles that appear. Spike plates are extremely dangerous to touch, causing loss of health. They are sure to appear in great quantity and in inconvenient locations.
• Hey, at least it's not a mashy spike plate!
• The Snowball Pistol is the weapon carried by the protagonist, Rocket Penguin. It can shoot out snowballs at high velocities indefinitely.

Likes: Machettes
Dislikes: Meddlesome flying flightless birds

Next up: The first of the enemy characters to be modeled, the Snow Mercenary.

Look at him standing there menacingly with that machette.

A render in Blender, because I can't be bothered to
fiddle around with video capture software at this hour
or else this would be footage within the Unity engine.

He doesn't just stand there though, he will also suspiciously and furtively glance around like the sketchy character he is. Isn't that something!

EDIT: And now a Youtube video of the attack animation in Blender, instead of a GIF. I'm consistent.

Rocket Penguin

With only a couple of weeks left in my winter break, I've just finally gotten back in my groove.

I'm working on a new game I'm simply calling Rocket Penguin. It stars a penguin that has a jetpack. His name is Rocket Penguin.

Like with Silent Runner I've written some semblance of a design document. This time, I'm also trying to create as many of the 3D assets as I can before laying things out in Unity.

As of this writing I've now got a textured model of our brave protagonist. It has not yet been animated, however. Before laying things out in Unity I'd also like to model each of the level items and obstacles detailed in the doc, as well as the enemies. Bosses can come after I've coded the basic gameplay.

Rocket Penguin from sketch to model to skinned model.