Hello folks! And welcome to another installment of ForzeBreak updates.This week all hands are shifting their engines to get this game up and running for its first high milestone test drive that will determine the future path of development. To that end we have begun to tune all of our major mechanics and new additions from previous weeks:
New network lobby for our online mode
Game menu updates
New timer and slight modification to our round rules
Tune ups and revisions for both cannon and missile power ups
Split-screen is a bit more congruent with our online version
UI revisions
War Buggy control tune up
Arena Environment upgrades
New in game skybox with custom lighting
Networking Party
As we continue to test out and improve the network capabilities of our game, Jason has created a new lobby system that will allow players to join online matches a bit easier and that will be the setup for more option implementations for our game in the future. So far our networking system consists of a player creating a match by hosting and then the other players join that match, but this gives the host a slight advantage in the game as they were able to play before the other players are able to join. This meant that the host could get power ups early and other things that would place them ahead. Now the match will only begin once all players mark their ‘ready’ status in the new lobby. Meaning they all spawn at the same time. Not only that but this lobby will eventually allow players to choose their color, vehicle, map, and more. But all of that it for later stages of the game. For now we have some visual upgrades that will make the menu experience a bit more enjoyable to see as they wait for other players.
And the winner is…
Based on feedback from our weekly playtests, we have decided to slightly modify our round rules as a way to further test out whether players can get straight to the action and intentionally push others around. To that end we’ve added a timer and also reduced the number of lives to one instead of three. The main intent behind this change is to have quicker rounds and determine winners more easily. On previous versions players fell down and it took them awhile to realize that making others fall was the way to win the game. So now the game displays who the winner is and players usually make the connection to the goal a bit more effectively. This change of course will go through more changes but for now it seems to do its job as players can quickly set a rematch.
Power up Tune ups
Last week one of our major gameplay implementations was the addition of power ups that the player can collect and use to their advantage to push other players. I’m more than happy to say that they have proved to be quite fun to our audience. But like every other new implementation, they require revisions and tune ups so that they enhance the game rather than break it. From our observations it seems that by instinct players have the expectation of these power ups to work like a 3rd person or 1st person shooter. That is actually not a bad expectation to have, however it is not the same to shoot a cannon from a slow and steady pace of a walking character compared to a vehicle running at high speeds doing all sorts of crazy turns and swift movements. So Jason and Robin continue to work on them to make sure that players are able to understand more intuitively what each of the power ups does and how to use them. Especially since these power ups are meant to push and damage, not destroy other vehicles as most players assume when they first get to try out weapons.
Nevertheless these power ups have left a good impression on our playtesters as they wish to see more over the future and have some great ideas of their own on how they could use them (e.g. using one of the powerups to do a vehicle version of a grenade jump both to damage another player and to dodge at the same time). Now that we are getting closer to have working versions of our ‘projectile weapon’ type of power up our next step in the near future would be try out the next type which would be the ‘physical weapon’ type. This quick prototypes would enable us to get valuable feedback on how to implement both. For example, a projectile weapon’s reward would be the range that it gives a player as they don’t have to get as close to inflict damage. But a ‘physical weapon’ type would give more damage to the enemy when colliding with them if a player is skilled and fast enough to dodge all of the incoming fire. So it all ties back to the different playstyles that we want players to eventually develop during the game each with its own balanced cons and pros but players are not limited to them, they could always collect different types and even become jacks of all trades.
UI 1.5
Last week I managed to finish the first iteration of icons that we had planned to test out as we look for efficient ways the game can communicate valuable information to the player about their status in the game. As I’ve mentioned last week, these would be things like how much damage they’ve taken, their boost energy, and which power up they collected. Robin made sure they were up to date with all the information that goes through our code and now players have a visual guide of these key elements that they would need.
The couch greatest hits
Our split screen mode has also received its updates to be more congruent with our online mode. To explain it briefly, the game in our local game mode handles the information differently than it does in the online version, especially since it is displaying four different players at the same time on the same screen. So some things have to be tweaked and formatted differently to make it work. Nevertheless the game it is still the same and is just as fun, and it is continued to be worked on to have that great nostalgic couch experience present.
Continuing on with the tune ups and improvements for this week, our beloved War Buggy has some new tweaks that make it more responsive so that players feel more in control. During its first test drive it felt too fast and easy to go out of controls if players were not careful. Now it feels closer to the player’s noble steed as they head into battle.
Lights, Camera, Fight!
Ring, Martha, and myself have worked together on setting the stage for the players to duke it out to their heart's content. After many revisions it seems that we’ve finally come close to an arena that it is not only easy to navigate around, feel around the right size, have good design areas, but also look really cool to set the bar on the potential this game has. From combining different design models, textures, sky box and lighting, this map is one of the big steps as we continue to bring our creative ideas to life.
