Author: Vermeulen

Gunhead July Dev Log – PAX10, Mission Generation and objectives, VR Test

Vermeulen

Hello again!
For the past month we’ve been focused on getting Gunhead ready to show at PAX West, since it got accepted into the PAX10:
http://west.paxsite.com/indie
We were really surprised to get into this! We’ve always submitted our games to PAX10 and never got a game in so early in development (the build we sent them was a pretty old demo of the game). So we are happy to get some external validation that the game is actually very fun.

Some of the things we are working on include:

Refining how procedural generation algorithms work for adding enemies/systems to ships:

Ship Salaged UI for after a ship is beaten:

End stats shown after failing (similar stats shown after beating the campaign):

And we are working on bringing Cryptark’s Mission Objectives system to Gunhead. These are bonus objectives you can go for to get additional bonus money.

And finally completely unrelated to PAX, we spent a few hours trying out a VR version of Gunhead:
It is definitely fun – and I think we know a good way to handle locomotion for this (not just teleporting). After testing this we decided that if we did make a VR version it would need to be its own tailored experience – a large amount of the game would need to be adjusted, and doing it now would negatively affect the desktop/non-VR version we want to focus on. So if we do make a VR version it will only be after the game is released.

If you haven’t yet you can wishlist Gunhead on Steam to keep up to date on development! It’ll also help us gauge interest in the game from players – and help with our release:

thanks!
– Lee

Wytchwood July Update: Tools and Design

Vermeulen

Hello there! In this update we’ll show some of the behind the scenes tools we’ve made for designing Wytchwood.

Here’s a typical scene in Wytchwood with how it looks when working in Unity.

We’ve set it up so that our game camera can follow our editor camera around. This helps immensely with setting the visual style of Wytchwood. This way, we use a typical workflow within our engine while getting a very good idea of how placing objects is going to look in the end.

The ground in Wytchwood always looks really detailed. We achieve this by using a tool to “paint”many objects on the ground. The problem is when there are so many objects close together videogame cameras can have a hard time determining which object is “closer.” The result of that is one object could be rendered in front of another object when it should be rendered behind.

This is handled with a special camera that renders the ground first,

then the regular camera renders the rest of the scene on top of it.

The blue blob on the ground is the AI NavMesh. We use this to determine if part of the world is accessible by the player and NPCs. In a typical 3D game, a NavMesh might be generated based on placement of floors, ladders, stairs and obstacles. In Wytchwood, it made sense to be able to author it by hand.

This takes a bit of upfront effort but is easy to maintain and really fast to iterate on. It also allows us to specifically define where we want the player to be able to go. Consider the following:

This is an eagle eye view of a scene in Wytchwood. You might see that the navmesh doesn’t stretch down all the way to the base of those rock pillars. That’s because they might get in the way of the player being able to see where they’re going.

The NavMesh also comes into play when we want to make sure that The Witch is always able to find goodies.

And this breezy foliage here I feel is pretty sharp.

We put a lot of effort in taking our beautiful art assets and turning it into a lush world full of breath and life. Thanks for tuning in!

Liam

Gunhead Dev log

Vermeulen

On Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/games/704000/announcements/detail/3428810198737136806

Hello everyone! Now that we are done showing our Gunhead demo at SXSW / GDC, and are working on the main campaign, we’d thought we’d update everyone on our plans.

We started development on Gunhead because we wanted to expand on a lot of the ideas of Cryptark – the mix of high level strategy and moment to moment action – but create a experience that was more streamlined and action based (less resource management / trade off decisions).

We originally thought we’d move away from the roguelike genre to a more typical single player campaign – but after experimenting a lot with the mechanics of the game we decided the roguelike structure works best with how ships / scenarios are procedurally generated.

Here is a example of the start of the campaign (all dialog is placeholder!)

Unlike Cryptark, when your player dies the run will be over, and a typical run to the beat the game (reach the end boss) should take about 2 hours (there will be a option to keep going after beating the end boss however).
Campaign will start by warping into the first ship. You’ll see a map of the generated enemy ship and the systems on it. From here you develop a plan of attack, and buy weapons/items needed for your plan.
You’ll start the campaign with a complete loadout, and find weapons/items in the enemy ships (from weapon pick up spots). Unlike Cryptark, you are not buying your whole loadout between each ship. You’ll keep the weapons you used / found from the last mission, and have the option to buy new ones. We want there to be less trade off type decision making – but still give the option to buy/customize your loadout in case you need something to accomplish your plan.

Preview of weapon stations found in ships to swap weapons / items:


Gunhead will also have a heavy focus on bosses – large enemies that will replace the core in some ships. Bosses right now include the Juggernaut (giant flying enemy shown at end of Gunhead trailer), Arachnix (giant spider that lays eggs), Mechrazor, Slithor (giant flying snake), Observer (giant long legged brain with an eye), and Nigguarth (giant squid tentacle monster).

Slithor snake:

Mechrazer mech:
https://gfycat.com/PassionateClearBlackfish

Follow us on twitter to see some of our other boss prototypes (like a early version of the squid – https://twitter.com/banjoduarte/status/960976709662093313 , or long legged brain – https://twitter.com/Alientrap/status/1002219045477928960 )

We hope to finish a beta of Gunhead this year (and give Cryptark player’s early access) – with a release on Steam / console early next year.

Also ALL of our games are on sale this week – so if you haven’t got Cryptark now is the chance:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/344740/CRYPTARK/?snr=1_5_1100__1100

Let us know any thoughts / comments! thanks!
– Lee

Wytchwood June Dev Update

Vermeulen

On Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/games/729000/announcements/detail/1664523682558985020

Hey everyone! Our team is waist deep in Wytchwood development and we’ve been hard at work on full production over the last several months. But it’s healthy to come up for air once and while, so we’d like to share with you guys what we’ve making on a more regular basis.
Every month, we’ll be giving updates on the progress of the game with new screenshots, gifs, and highlights from the team.

Wytchwood is a narrative adventure game set in a world of fables and fairy tales, so you’ll be interacting with a lot of folks. Through this dialogue system complete with awesome portrait art, you’ll be able to converse, curse, or cure the characters you meet.

There’s also plenty of citters and beasties that inhabit the forests, and you’ll have to use some ingenuity to best them.

In this sequence, the witch needs to get some dog hair to make a spell, but the dog is more than a match for her old bones.
Dogs will eat meat though, so maybe she can trick it into eating some bait infused with a sleeping potion!

That’s it for this time, wishlist on Steam to keep up with our updates!