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BlackShipsFillt
07-01-2011, 07:48 PM
http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight!!(Windows).zip

It's up, it's short, it isn't in any way challenging, but Zombies explode.

Erstwhile, 48 hours ago....

Okay... I feel like I'm cheating a little bit, but I plan to prototype an idea I've been toying with for the last two weeks, because it fits in perfectly with the topic (from what I can understand).

Basically: House of the Dead with Fruit Ninja slicing for a touch interface.

I have a nasty suspicion that I am not the first to attempt this gameplay, but since I have not seen it anywhere before I am hoping that I can at least do it the best.

I played Rage by Id software for the iPad recently; it looked really good for a mobile device, but it didn't play very well. What it did do for me was make me realise is that there aren't actually very many good rail shooters for this platform, which I find kind of strange because it seems to me that touchscreen devices are perfect for rail-shooters (rail-shooters being a more casual form of a FPS and touchscreen devices having a positional interface). What I found even more bizarre was how bad the Rage gameplay was. One finger would move the camera around (of course being limited to only 60 degrees off of the rail), and another would touch a button to make the gun fire. This was kind of awkward and thusly I thought to myself: "Why did they make this so unfun when House of the Dead already exists and would be a far better representation of Rage on this platform? Especially considering HotD has dismemberment and iOs Rage does not?"

And then what I thought was (while ranting about this with Luke from Tasty Poison): The only thing that would be more violent and cathartic than House of the Dead for the iOS would be House of the Dead with a slicing/ninja interface!!

So I really hope this has not been done already and I somehow spaced on it. Someone please put me out of my misery if I have.

For those of you that don't remember House of the Dead, it was a rail shooter arcade game where the player points the gun at the screen and shoots monsters. If the monsters got up to the player and attacked him/her or the player killed too many innocents then the player would lose. The monsters for the most part were effortlessly dismemberable, except the bosses, a single bullet and heads and limbs would fly off or explode, and the monsters would come from many directions as the player wound down the tight corridors. What was beautiful about HotD was that it was fairly easy and excessively violent... especially if you played it on a PC with unlimited ammo and the ability to fire as fast as you could click.

What I want to do then is essentially the same, except instead of pointing at what I want dead I want the player to draw slices with their mouse/finger and I want those slices to separate bodyparts. Like Fruit Ninja, slicing through things will be easy, the trick will be not killing the things that the player is not meant to kill while still killing all the others.

I feel a bit dirty doing this. This kind of concept is really a mashup of already commercially successful products, it's less innovation and more refinement. Not really something I want to make my modus operandi, but shameless (or shameful) commercialism doesn't necessarily negate fun (well, that's what I'm here to test).

I can probably only spend one day on this, please let me know if this idea fails to meet the criteria. I will be updating this post with links once there is something to show.

[edit: It looks like this sort of thing does sort of exist on Wii and Kinnect, but so far that doesn't deter me]

FuzzYspo0N
07-01-2011, 07:59 PM
And infinity blade, its totally just a rails slicer, fruit ninja clone :D

Chippit
07-01-2011, 07:59 PM
Yeah, sounds a bit Red Steel, but Red Steel's not on rails (to its benefit, in this case, I believe).

Still, don't think such a thing exists for iOS or mobile platforms, so I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

BlackShipsFillt
07-01-2011, 08:20 PM
Thanks! hmmm... Red Steel the enemies seem to take multiple katana swipes and fall down when you kill them, unless that is a parental lock setting? Dismemberment is key to House of Slicing (or whatever this is called) working... it's meant to be a relaxation aid like Fruit Ninja is... I think the new Metal Gear has some awesome slicing, much better than I can achieve though, but that's closer to the effect that I want.

I could have also said that this is meant to be fruit ninja, but killing zombies instead of fruit and on a rail, that isn't how the idea came about, and that isn't the soul of the idea, but what I do not want is to be anything like Rage.

Chippit
07-01-2011, 09:28 PM
Thanks! hmmm... Red Steel the enemies seem to take multiple katana swipes and fall down when you kill them, unless that is a parental lock setting? Dismemberment is key to House of Slicing (or whatever this is called) working... it's meant to be a relaxation aid like Fruit Ninja is... I think the new Metal Gear has some awesome slicing, much better than I can achieve though, but that's closer to the effect that I want.

I could have also said that this is meant to be fruit ninja, but killing zombies instead of fruit and on a rail, that isn't how the idea came about, and that isn't the soul of the idea, but what I do not want is to be anything like Rage.

Yeah, you're quite right, there's no actual violence in Red Steel, other than being able to slash some props. Just the similarity in concept, really :P

Fengol
08-01-2011, 01:16 AM
oh snap! (http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showthread.php?16140-48H1-Infinity-Combo)

I can't wait to see what you produce! I started my project in Unity but I'm still struggling with 2D graphics on the damn thing!

I've also been talking to FlintZA about why aren't there more "on rails" kinda games on the iOS. The gameplay is also perfect for high quality visuals!

BlackShipsFillt
08-01-2011, 02:46 AM
I don't think I'll be getting any "high-quality visuals" for this comp :( ...Maybe programmer art if I'm lucky.

I've got some passages and breaking things... but I have yet to make it interactive.

edg3
08-01-2011, 08:18 AM
Heh, prototyping challenges arent always about the visuals, if you make what art you manage work for you, and make it fit, you will get some points for art (we arent looking for Crisis 6 or Half-Life 7 ;) )

BlackShipsFillt
08-01-2011, 01:52 PM
Okay, some progress for Slice of the Dead (The level layout)

http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight_Progress.jpg

And the rudimentary passage

http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight_ProgressPassage.jpg

WiledBill
08-01-2011, 02:45 PM
These look great! A different texture for passage floor might be a good idea. The shading in this one makes it look a bit like cieling tiles.

BlackShipsFillt
08-01-2011, 06:27 PM
Here's the Zombie that Luke has done for Ninja of the Dead (It looks much better than my ****ty floor tiles)

http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight_ProgressZombie.jpg

BlackShipsFillt
09-01-2011, 02:50 AM
Some more progress for Zombie Cutter, you can now actually cut zombies, not in an awesomely accurate way like Metal Gear, sadly, but still in a rather more violent way that shooting stuff in Rage:

http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight_ProgressZombieCut2.jpg
http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight_ProgressZombieCut3.jpg

edg3
09-01-2011, 08:33 AM
Oh wow, you really like your gore dont you :P looking forward to the first playable

BlackShipsFillt
09-01-2011, 02:23 PM
Okay... the first build is up :

http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight!!(Windows).zip

It is really short (about 1 minute)... It isn't a complete game at all, it isn't challenging in any way, but you can slice Zombies into pieces :)

Fengol
09-01-2011, 04:02 PM
I am in awe! When I grow up I want to be able to make games like this.

But please, PLEASE put in the boss. I feel cheated just breaking down his door and ending there! If you can add the boss then the game would be complete no matter how short.

BlackShipsFillt
09-01-2011, 05:56 PM
Thanks!

I agree, it needs the boss, we're under a lot of pressure right now (with Pocket RPG) so there just wasn't time for it. I tried to get Luke to build a boss today, but he got caught up in another deadline.

Maybe in a week or twos time when there is a breather then I will be able to revisit it!

What I also really want to do is create/steal an algorithm for perfect mesh slicing, that way the player will be able to actually draw the exact cuts (like I believe you can in the new Metal Gear). It could be quite a tricky thing to get right, as my maths is not all that hot, but sometimes I surprise myself.

Fengol
09-01-2011, 06:28 PM
at the same time, there's exact and there's approximate meaning, so long as it cuts in the right direction it doesn't have to be perfect (e.g. a horizontal slice versus a vertical slice).

BlackShipsFillt
09-01-2011, 06:42 PM
Ah, but if I had an algorithm do it, which then may as wall be close to perfect since perfection wouldn't cost much extra, then I wouldn't need to create multiple versions of each mesh, I could take any mesh and slice it, which would make level design really easy and therefore the levels could be really interesting.

Gazza_N
09-01-2011, 07:51 PM
This is kickass. I love the look, I love the different animations, I love the score bonuses for slashing at random crap, and I especially enjoy the game telling me who I've slain with my +5 Swishy Mouse Trail of Death. Best part is that it FEELS like HotD. Kudos to you guys. I'm jealous. ;_;

Fengol
09-01-2011, 07:55 PM
Like Mike Tyson said to Jeffrey Dahmer at the cannibal cafeteria "All You Can Eat" buffet; "No Professionals!" :P

vii
09-01-2011, 08:34 PM
Like Mike Tyson said to Jeffrey Dahmer at the cannibal cafeteria "Everyone You Can Eat" buffet; "No Professionals!" :P

Fixed :P

herman.tulleken
11-01-2011, 04:18 PM
Ha ha, I enjoyed this (after playing a million cutesy-i-wanna-puke games on the iPhone lately, the gore was refreshing). Nice smooth controls. (Why did I not get to slash more artists...only poor "Luke", which I take is your art guy?). But yeah, it was a bit easy and short...looking forward to that boss!

pieterator
11-01-2011, 09:41 PM
For 48 hours worth of development, this is friggin' amazing. I must have played this like 10 time in a row. It is absolutely barrels of fun (Oh! include barrel slicing :). I really hope this prototype develops into a full game, as there is nothing more fun than slicing through zombies like ripe watermelons.

Nice job.

Fengol
12-01-2011, 05:57 AM
It clearly demonstrates the power of Unity3D. Even if you've only used GameMaker before you'll quickly get into Unity (advanced GM developers should definitely check it out) and there are plenty of free videos on how to implement various features and the StackExchange Answers site is very well looked after.

And like most GM devs once you done a couple of projects you'll start reusing resources like scripts and scenes.

BlackShipsFillt
12-01-2011, 02:28 PM
It really helped to have an artist on the project, he handled all the character modelling and animation, otherwise I would have spent a lot of time focussing on that.

And Unity is designed for first person shooters, so the workflow on Slice Fight was just about impeccable (I was surprised by it, I had time left over at the end (but then Luke the artist left) ).

By the way Fengol, did you manage to get it working?

Fengol
12-01-2011, 03:09 PM
Yip! Thank you. Now I have to de-construct!

WiledBill
13-01-2011, 07:15 PM
Great game. The final version should be a bit more challenging ... and you really need that boss :-).

I like the idea, love the graphics and the sound fx is the cherry on the cake. Well done!