Wake

http://gameproject.fullsail.com/gpgames/index.php/2012/11/wake/
Please follow the link to see gameplay videos, images, documents and even download the executable and try the game for yourself.

Wake : The lobby system

For Wake, it was very important to us that players can create and join games easily. I spent some time this month laying the foundation of our lobby system. At the moment, the game only supports local play, but I'll be making an effort to get online play working this month.

Creating a game right now is simple. All the user needs to do is select "Create Game", name the server if they wish, and select start game. When they do this, the game runs a what is called a listen server. Basically, the user that created the game is running as a server and client at the same time and uses the network to transmit data the same as other clients will. The user also has the option of running a dedicated server, which will not allow them to play the game, but simply run the server so that other clients can join the game and play.

Soon, I'll be finishing up the master server. The master server is a simple program that keeps a list of all the servers running games, so clients can get access to their address and attempt to join the game is there is space available. It's a bit trickier than that as many computers are usually behind a NAT device that gives the computer a different IP than the one that is seen globally. This will require some researching into NAT traversal to figure out how to connect users. When this is up and running, when a server starts, it will attempt to register with the master server so that other clients can join it.

When a player chooses to "Join Game", they will be brought to a simple server list. The client will broadcast for servers on its local network and display any local games. The client will also attempt to connect to the master server a retrieve the server list. The player can than choose from any games with space available to join and start playing. So far, I'm pleased with how easy it is to set up and start playing a local game. Creating and joining games on separate networks is the next challenge I look to face and I can't wait to get that working. Check back soon for more updates on Wake and some in-depth discussion about the facets of the game I'm working on.

Wake : Alpha Gameplay Video

We've completed the alpha month of final game project at Full Sail University and here's a look at the progress we've made over the past few weeks. We now have the three weapons we planned on having from the original design in the game a functioning properly and they're using some spiffy weapon models. We now have a lobby system that allows clients to pick the game they want to join. We also have a new level that was built with our level editor, as player models and animations. Check out the video!

Wake : Core Gameplay Video

Here's an early look at Wake, the fast paced, multiplayer, first-person shooter that I am working on. The game currently only allows two players to connect and compete, but we're looking to expand that number very shortly.  Right now all of the visual and audio assets are temporary. Still have plenty of work to do, but we're off to a pretty good start.

Wake : Introduction

So, I'm in the final stretch of the Game Development program at Full Sail University. For the last 5 months of the program we're teamed up with fellow Game Development students and tasked with creating a well-polished game. It started in July when we had a week to develop a game idea, pitch it and see if we get the green light to start designing and developing the game. While nearly every game made during final project is a single player game, our team wanted to push for something that hasn't been done. Multiplayer first-person shooters have been one of my favorite types of games for as long as I can remember and much of the team was equally interested in the idea of creating our own multiplayer experience.

We nailed our pitch and got the go ahead to start developing Wake, a fast-paced, networked, multiplayer, first-person shooter. We spent the rest of the July writing a design document that would detail many things from gameplay, level design, art assets, animations, HUD elements and so on. By the end of July, we had a solid starting point for developing the tech that would be able to run the game.

Throughout the month of August we've been tasked with writing out technical document, which explains all of the various systems that we will use to run the game. For example, we needed to detail the entire networking system, which systems communicate with networking, how each user will start and connect to games, and so on for every system in the game.

Once we were finished the technical document we could begin programming! For the past few weeks we have been hard at work trying to meet the deadline for the core of our game. For core, we were required to meet a list of requirements that were necessary for our game to work. We basically needed to have two players, connected over a local network, be able to run around and shoot each other and compete to be the first to five kills. While not without our struggles, we were able to pull through and reach our goal.

While we met our goal for core gameplay, it is still a very small representation of what the final game is intended to be. We still have the months left to add features like weapons and powerups, as well as integrate models, effects and animations we receive from the guys in the art department, and work to better balance and polish the game with each iteration. This is just a brief introduction to the process of creating Wake, I'll be back shortly with more detailed explanations of how many of the cool features found in Wake are being implemented.

Check out www.wakegame.com for more information.

Recording input experiment

I've had this idea in my head to make a game where recording the input of the player is one of the key mechanics of the game. I haven't decided where I'm going to go elsewhere as far as gameplay, but I've seen a few games that have used this idea and they were all puzzle games. I think I'm going to try an implement it in some type of action game, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Anyways, the first thing I wanted to do was get started on figuring out how I would accomplish recording the players movements. I thought about it for some time (probably longer than I took to program it) and came up with the solution shown above. While there was a few ideas I came up with, I felt the best would be to just record the players input and re-simulate all of the actions. While this means that more processing power is going to be spent calculating collision and such when I start adding other elements to the game, I felt that since I'm going for a 2D game it wouldn't be too big of an issue. Doing it this way saves me from having to record the players position every frame, which will be a hefty memory savings in the long run. When I start adding in running, jumping, shooting, or whatever else, the way I set the system up is pretty flexible, so that process shouldn't be too painful. Check back soon for more updates as I continue to experiment with this idea.

Some More Medusa

Check out our development blog during the creation of the game HERE.
Check out the game for yourself HERE.