25/10/2021

Current Work:

On the mechanical side of things, we have a movement system in place that’s a bit clunky but it works for now. We’ve gone with a more top-down approach with the camera angle too and have it rotate at fixed places in the map. We did this as it’s a bullet hell game and a top-down perspective allows the player to react to everything coming at them from any side.

Guns.

We’ve made 3 gun types; a railgun, a rivet gun, and a shotgun each with unique properties and usages. Number values will have to be tweaked as the game progresses but right now the shotgun fires in a widespread with medium steam usage and low damage, the rivet gun fires a single bullet with decent accuracy, low damage, and low steam cost, and finally the railgun first a single, high powered piercing round with a high steam cost and massive damage. The reason we decided to go with multiple guns is due to the fact that players have different playstyles and likes. We wanted to keep our game open too and offer different and varied options for our players and encourage them to keep playing.

A basic steam mechanic that interacts with all the guns and the 3 supplementary gadgets we currently have implemented. We’ve got steam boots that allow you to jump, a grappling hook that allows you to dodge quickly across the screen, and a shield to block bullets at a constant steam cost. We put a lot of thought into this system as it was our USP for this game. We knew that this would make it easier and more accessible to new players while challenging experienced players by having only one form of consumable for guns.

Our art team has been busy also with creating modular buildings that will be used to create the first level, while currently untextured they will be exported and put into the project this week. We’ve shared an image, but don’t want to give too much away just yet as development has only been going on for about 2 weeks. We wanted to make them modular as they would allow us to create a lot of unique buildings, despite them being secondary for the player.

This Week:

This week we’re going to work on having the plot mostly written out with actionable info for each level, which will in turn inform us of how many levels we need to make.

As for mechanics, we’re going to be working on combat this week, with basic enemy AI and combat zones being developed in tandem. But both will be subject to change and refinement over time as even AI alone can be difficult to script in a week,

In the art department, we’re working on more buildings and we’ll aim to get started on the player characters model but it might take more time in the oven so to speak. Construct models are also being put in the works and we’ll have to see how they turn out.