Cheers for the comments, I’ve learnt a great deal making this game and it will all come in handy applying it to my other project!
I’ve decided to change the temperature guage (in the bottom left corner) from a clock style to a thermometer layout (i.e. it goes up rather than round). It takes up less space and is slightly simpler. I also made it that when the player takes too much damage, the readout turns red.
Added rudder control (it looks clunky in the video as I am playing with keys)
Smoke that increases in frequency as the players damage increases. Over a threshold you get flames.
Fiddled with the heat overlay graphic
The compass needle flashes when player is hit
Due to a drawback to reducing the FPS using render to texture, I’ve increased the FPS value (so the game runs smoother and flshing shows up as it should)
Player now flashes when hit
Scripts becoming standardised and eliminating hard coding and dependencies
I still have to decide what happens with collisions: you might notice one in the video!
Originally I was going to do this (or in black and white) but from testing I found it was difficult to see objects in combat so I went back to colour. I do plan to have the briefing segments between missions in sepia though.
Yeah, I kinda thought that a sepia tone wouldn’t work that well for actual gameplay. Not in a game that’s supposed to have intentionally poor graphic quality, where you can’t just use shapes to define things very well.
How about an animated film scratch plane placed in front of the camera? Even without the sepia tone, it’d give the illusion of an old-timey film.
And since it’s steampunk, you can just make the argument that they’ve invented color photography at this point in your universe!
I might have to try that out! The only problem might be the resolution of the screen is only 256 pixels wide and any fine scratches might look a bit chunky. But still, worth considering- thanks for suggesting it!
And I continue to rework the HUD. I want to minimise eye travel and group everything together (the left side will be used eventually too).
I just thought of a fun game concept with the engine heat:
Player has a boost button, press it and the player will speed up for a short time but this will add to the heat (putting you closer to exploding). The heat bar will drop by 1 heat point every 10 seconds, so if the player avoids damage they can regenerate some health (i.e. the heat bar) for tough fights.
At the minute the player does not explode at 100% heat in case you were wondering, and the bars are not lined up correctly. Towards the end you can see the heat drop by a fraction (so it does work!).
Also, the boost bar is at about 20% by default as that is the default speed at which the plane flies.
After a day of frustration (and lots of help) I have managed to get my head around basic animation using playAction etc (and learning about the logic brick equiv.). The UI is going through an overhaul as it is a bit static and uninteresting- now as the player uses the boost, so the UI elements chug faster like a mini steam engine! The Python underpinnings are done so all I need to do is make the 2D parts.
The large red square will be the aircraft, and the grey icospheres are an array of targets. The grey disc is the radar ‘base’ with white circular strips to show orientation.
Got some more bits working so here is the 3D radar in action:
I plan to do some work on the icons (perhaps scale as they are in front or get closer, or vanish if they are below the player). I made the icons big in the video so you can see them!
Updates will be slow for a while as I am back in hospital. But the plan is for extra stuff in game like power ups for the player (different guns, health, smart bombs etc).
It will have about 250 tris when optimised. I took inspiration from tetrahedral kites so the wings are not really aerofoils but are instead kite ‘cells’.
Updates will be slow for a while as I am back in hospital. But the plan is for extra stuff in game like power ups for the player (different guns, health, smart bombs etc).
