[DarkPlaces][WIP] TigerCake

[jim]

TigerCake is going to be some form of abstract styled first person shooter. May include some humor, so things aren't too serious. Player controls a creature/thing called a DragonAnt, who got Claws and Guns, detachable floating body parts, is like some self-transforming fractal machine elf, and lives in another reality.

DragonAnts are a race of awesome warriors, but the BadGuys stole the Queen of your Hive. Of course an another DragonAnt would eventually become the new Queen, but who's to say the BadGuys wouldn't steal that one too. So you got to teach them a lesson that they can't just come and take your Queen whenever they want. This could be like the story.

//== Weapons
The game could possibly feature a Double Weapon System. Allow players to decide their own weapon/attack combinations. It might be a bit complicated to change 2 weapons, and result in very spammy high damage output for player. For now it's just the right arm weapon that changes, and the left arm weapon stays as the Claw (is used in melee). Alternatively there could be a Flip Weapons System, so you could change which arm weapon changes, but one arm weapon would always be the Claw.

There's currently these 5 weapons:
Claws: Short range, medium damage, fast
Sword: Little bit more range and damage, less speed
Machine Gun: Long range, accurate, low damage, fast
Tri-Gun: Long range, some scattering, medium damage, medium speed
Rocket Launcher: Long range, accurate, high damage, medium/slow speed

Probably not going to be any super weapons with massive damage. They kind of make things too easy, or never get used, because there just weren't enough enemies around. The Rocket Launcher was originally meant to be a super weapon.. so the model is kind of big, could make it a little smaller. Or if there are super weapons, then the current Rocket Launcher is it, and some other model will be the Rocket Launcher. Some weapon functions may be a bit duplicate, and are like Shotgun -> Double Barrel Shotgun... just some changes in the damage output, fire rate, accuracy, range.

//== Plans
There's probably no blood and gore in the game. When I was still doing this as a flight game, I made a feature that made damaged ships spawn some dark smoke and fire, and when they got hit, the model got some "colorpunch" to make it brighter for a moment. I think these are still quite fitting. The character explodes on death, at the moment it explodes into the "ship parts", which are ok for now, but later on the characters could explode into their own parts. Probably not too many, so that multiple same time happening character deaths wouldn't make the game lag with 100 parts flying in every direction.

Player can see the lower body in the first person view, and the upper body looks where player is aiming. The first person view models aren't in the exact same place as the third person model, but it's close enough. Missiles are spawned from tags in the first person models. I don't know yet if enemies do this sort of aiming stuff, it's more important for player to do it. Probably the enemies are dumb and stop moving when they attack, or use some full body melee/charge attack animation.

My goal is to get it done in 4 to 6 months. I also want to sell this thing, but it should be pretty cheap, like 1 to 3 euro. The demo version could have 25-33% of the full version content.

//== Media

[mankrip]

That video looks awesome! And the music sounds great now too, catchy yet relaxing, perfect for action and exploration. Really cool.

Will the BadGuys be tigers who want to make a cake out of the Queen?

[jim]

There's a vortex in the sky with two colors spinning around, and it's (nick)named TigerCake. The vortex was a side effect from mapping a simple sky texture into a sphere and then rendered skybox textures from it. But it's sort of like the whole sky is the vortex. I think I'll make it later so that there's just one vortex in the sky somewhere. Also would be nice if it could appear animated.

Here's some enemy model I had some 2 years ago, with some improvements like I did on the player model. I guess it looks a little like a mini cyberdemon. Not animated yet, just has the one pose. I've tried some combat with them and so far it's more fun than the earlier stuff with the ships. I've made them spawn randomly when picking up the items, and sometimes they spawn stuck into the ceiling, which makes them sort of like turrets. It's a bug, but it added some nice gameplay I definitely need an actual turret enemy too.


And here's my favourite FPS weapon.. the Plasma Cannon! I think I'll make the left claw disappear while holding a gun, so it'll only appear in melee. Or if I do the double weapon system, then it could be there, but the weapons would be held differently. I made melee weapons give player some extra protection, but maybe then the weapon changes shouldn't be instant. It sure made the melee more useful.


The little yellow thingy gives some armor. Inspiration came from some cheese & it's package.

[qbism]

The visual style is unique. The model geometry is simple but the details like rounded edges make it blend with the lighting. I especially like the 'shockwave' look of the blue blaster bolt. Map texture detail and materials are consistent with models, but the map texture patterns are a little too 'human' and regular. Maybe more angular 'insectoid' shapes, hexagon or scaly tiles.

[jim]

Yea, sure, I'll try to do some stranger looking textures. I think I have some scaly looking "moss/grass" somewhere.

Here's some shots of all the items I've done so far. There's now 4 ammo, 3 health and 2 armor items. The larger armor item has 3 colors and 3 sizes. Their colors could be a little brighter. The armor item was again some old model I had done some years ago, but never finished/textured/used. Well, finally it's used.

The ammo items somehow turned very much like in Doom. Maybe I should have tried to think of something else than Bullets, Shells, Rockets and Cells... I have a Backpack model for the player somewhere too! Think I'll finish the enemy character (animations & sound) before making more items, so I could demonstrate some gameplay in a video.

[mankrip]

The ones on the first screenshot are great.

The ones on the lower left and upper right of the second screenshot could use some translucent textures and be shinier, to make them looks less like shotgun shells and to make them as easy to spot as the others.

[jim]

Maybe I make the shells green, since the weapon that uses them fires green projectiles.. and then make the cells blue, since the weapon that uses them fires blue projectiles. The rockets holder could be yellow, like the bottom in the shells. Each item has some glowing part, so they should be visible even in complete darkness.

Here comes some gameplay in a level that is more than just 1 room test level. I added more textures into it. Most are my old ones that were never really used, maybe some are too human and regular, but I'm going to use them anyway. I made the spine like textures from my tech/component textures with some filters. There's also some hexagons in the walls.

Sound effects are maybe still a bit noised, but much better than what they were based on.

[toneddu2000]

You're doing a great job, jim! I like how monsters are pushed back when hit! Sounds seem good too. Keep up!

[mankrip]

The sky needs more variety, and maybe a landscape to give a better sense of distance.

The sound effects are great for me. What could be added are voices - it would be fun to hear all those enemies in the video taunting and screaming at the player.

[jim]

They had some kind of voices, but they're not audible enough with all the gunfire. About the only sounds you hear from them is their sight and idle sounds. They have 5 different pain sounds, but did anyone really hear any of these sounds? They have 4 death sounds + some 6 different explosions. These were like, you get to hear some of it a little when it was the last one to die in the area.

Yea, and the sky really needs something more to it. I notice the sky would look better without the postprocess shader, but even then it needs something to the other side of the vortex. Mountains, sun, moon or a planet. Maybe I'll have a moon that's somewhere near the sun, and then in some later level, it could eclipse. I also done some star sky, but the fog/cloud/nebula stuff didn't look very good with the shader. I think I need to add more contrast into the skies, so they would display more color bands.

[jim]

Here's a whole lot of new stuff... Menu/Etc GFX, all complete, nothing needed from id1 folder anymore, other than an empty folder being there. DarkPlaces got weird when it wasn't there and started saving configs and screenshots to some other folder in C:\... uhuh...

3 new weapons. Bolt Blaster: unlimited ammo, bolts bounce once, slow. Vulcan Cannon: improved MachineGun, 2x firerate, fire min 4 shots, use 1 cell every 20 shots, otherwise get a little slower. Anti-Tank Rifle: high velocity projectile, high damage, same projectile can hit multiple targets, slow fire rate, use 1 shell and 2 cells per shot, without cells less velocity, damage and target penetration. Then there's also a new monster that is meant to look like a Stapler, and it's called UltraPony. Turns out Staplers look like Aliens. Player also got a BackPack, which will be visible in the model if player has it.









Also can I make view models have some depth testing? If player stands in foot/waist deep water and looks down.. it looks like player is standing over the water, not in it. Could be nice for the melee weapons too...

[toneddu2000]

[jim]

I'd prefer not to need to edit the engine. Well, anyway, here's some more new stuff...

New night sky. But I think I need to render the skies at higher resolution. The UltraPony is animated. There's a new little level for the UltraPonies, and a Quake like Start level with some difficulty selection challenges. I also added some ambient sounds into the levels, no longer quiet when nothing's happening, and no need for music. I think I'm going to improve my "ambient_generic" to allow random pitching in it, which would be useful for the sounds that play at random intervals. It was old code from time before sound7 was there, and about the only changes were reformatting it to my new code writing style.

I also made it so that I don't need to write anything to the "Next Level" part in the trigger_changelevel triggers. From "start.bsp" level player goes automatically to "map01.bsp" and from "map01.bsp" to "map02.bsp" and so on. Maybe from "map99.bsp" it wraps around back to "start.bsp". This way it's easy to reorder the levels without having to recompile them. It's still possible to specify the "Next Level", which could be useful for secret levels.

Level end intermissions are now done with centerprints and they display some more stuff, like accuracy and damage stats. Though it would be nice if it was bigger font, and maybe have some background, like the quitbox/etc graphics could be there. Also they could have some kind of alignment that would keep some of the text in the same place for 1, 10 and 100, etc. Level start message could be bigger too.








I made some teleporters and lavapits outside the playarea, because player can get out of the playarea too easy. Air control = run up any slope. Ramp jumps = complete the Techno-UltraPony-Hive in 10 seconds. Jumping out of water seems similar to ramp jumps with some crazy super velocity. Monsters seem to be doing it too. Rocket jumps are ok, because at least then you'll take some damage.

At the moment player can jump up some 112 units. Maybe there will be some powerup that allows taller jumps. No idea about the maximum length, should probably try it too.

Active teleporters are indicated with the volumetric glow. Receivers only have a weak blue light. There could be two way teleporters too. Maybe I'll also have a use button, so you don't automatically teleport or use switches and stuff. I think player would still pick up items automatically? Level exits are those Stargate like square portals. I'll change them if I think of something better.

[jim]

Recently I've been trying some ideas for dual weapon system, as the player looks like it could have that kind of thing. Eventually ended up with weapons at right arm & bombs at left arm. It may become possible to flip the things in the arms. The player models have the animations both ways.



There are 3 types of bombs:
Dynamite: good old big red/orange explosions.
Poison Grenade: explodes into a cloud of poisonous acid.
Shock Bomb: throws the enemies around into walls and each other and possibly stuns them.

The bombs can be thrown varying distance/velocity. Explode if enough velocity when hit an obstacle, otherwise bounce. Explode when hit an enemy or after 3½ seconds.


Player's melee/claws became chargeable weapon too. Depending how long the attack button is held before release, player can do quick hit, multi-strike or jump/pounce attack. The pounce is also useful in moving fast and getting higher than with the basic jump.


Removed armor points. They're to be replaced with a permanent armor and damage type system. Different characters (both players and monsters) resist some type of damage better than some other type of damage. The character colors may indicate their armor resistance. Red colored things are more likely to survive fire and explosions better than green colored things, while the green ones could swim in slime and breath poison fumes.

I'd like to keep the armor models, but don't know what they would give player when picked up.



There's a new player character: The Queen. Her looks may change, I'd like her to be more different looking than the Warrior. Your mission is to save her, but she can be playable too. The characters could have different weapons and stats. I made a bunch of new fantasy styled weapons, some of them could be used, some maybe not. So far only the Dragon Bow is functional...






Turned the offsetmapping on for some more bump. Looks pretty good on the rocks. The bump maps are going to need some tweaking, most don't have enough contrast or are too bright to have enough effect.




With the gl_picmip_world and gl_picmip_other cvars, the game can look something like my first ideas were. Note: the sky didn't actually picmip to that simple orange fade. Had to load it with loadsky command... The models need less picmip than levels, as they're meant to be like the picmip stuff.

[toneddu2000]

it's .. it's .. apocalyptic! Great work jim! It has the same insane pace of epic battles in Doom! It reminds me of good old days! I'll buy it as soon as it's out! Keep up the wonderful work!
Just a side note: please record the game with a volume a little less loud: I had headphones on my desk and I could hear sounds normally!