3d action game development
I'm still not finished with my current game project, but I took a break from it for nearly two months to prototype some ideas for next project. The main problem I want to get around is that there is too much work for a solo developer. How can I make smaller games?
But it still has to be something I want to play and am excited about. So I tried a few ideas. In the end, this game idea both excites me the most and seems the most doable workload wise. It is not necessarily less work than others, but it is heavier on art rather than programming, which suits my interest more.
In particular I really enjoy animation, even if I'm not that great at it. This project will have a lot of animations that I'll have to make.
Briefly, it is a third person roguelite action game in which you use a solely a bow and arrow. You are an Amazonian warrior on a quest to defeat evil monsters. In theme I want it to feel like those old Ray Harryhausen adventure flicks. I've enjoyed the hell out of Souls games but they get old with the overly grim and often grotesque themes. I wanted that sense of adventure without having to be so grim and dark.
Anyway, what I have done so far was mostly R&D to figure out general development pipelines, but there is some actual visual progress to show:
The main thing I wanted to get handle on first was animation pipeline. Because I haven't really done much animation at all in unreal. So I first used the paragon characters to setup a basic controller where you can run around and shoot some targets with the bow.
I don't want to be locked into trying to frankenstein together other peoples animations, so I started getting some practice making my own animations. So far I've got down the basics for locomotion plus a shooting montage. There will be a lot more to do for complete animation blueprint, however this is enough to satisfy basic gameplay and I feel that I'll be able to create all the animations to a satisfactory quality for the many monsters.
I've used Advanced Skeleton to create a rig on the Daz skeleton. THe character is from Daz and I made the toga in Marvelous designer. I just slapdashed things together for now. I will continue to iterate on the character design here and there as I go. There are a number of accessories also blocked in but I'll work more on the character later.
The hair is stolen from paragon sparrow. I'll probably just keep it though, making hair is too tedious and this one fits perfectly.
Code-wise I have the basics of the character controller ready to go. You can run around, shoot arrows, interact with the stuff, there is some simple flight physics enough to make the shooting fun... so next we need some enemies to fight... But that's a big ordeal and I wanted to do something a little easier. So I started with blocking out the first level, which will also serve as the vertical slice level.
I had a hard time getting started because I've never done a blockout for a game like this before. I always try to use the best tools for the job so I don't waste precious energy, and I had a lot of indecision over whether I ought to do the blockout in maya or unreal. In the end, I decided to stick with doing it in maya so that I have zero restrictions in control, ergonomics, and speed. But it does mean that I have to export to unreal and double check often to ensure scale is appropriate and so forth.
I tried to only focus on the playable game path and not get bogged down with background stuff. It's hard to come up with something from nothing, so I just took a map of archaic Athens and used that as a loose guide. Then I define a checklist for all the gameplay beats that I want and just start looking at the map and see how they might stitch together.
I just use some locators to indicate where each beat could happen. This is about as far as I can usefully go with the blockout, so next step is that I'll have to get the enemy AI going.
My own game means I get to make everything how I want, :). One thing thats always bugged me about these types of games is that the environment is always scaled up a bit. I expect its for gameplay reasons, but it just always bugged me that like hallways are large enough for a giant. I'm going to try and keep it such that we keep that old world, quaint charm. The setting is early bronze age, so I think the architecture might be more like you find in afghanistan, rather than huge marble temples you might think of when ancient greece is mentioned.
Offer a sacrifice at the shrine of asclepius for healing
I've tried to do the blockout with gameplay and pacing in mind, and set it up so that extending or shrinking the playable space will be easy later on. This was one of the big reasons I wanted the blockout done in maya rather than unreal. It is much easier to make fast selections and wholesale changes in maya (at least for me).
An example here is "the harpy gauntlet". Here I intend to introduce the player to an airborne, ranged enemy that will harass you throughout a mazelike corridor. My initial idea is that a single harpy should be a big problem, however it could be that so much trouble from a single enemy without scoring a kill could be too much stress and not enough fun. So maybe it will end up being a handful of enemies spread over a larger space, so that you can get some kills to keep up your spirits. Won't know until gameplay, so that's why I prefer a workflow that is fast and easy to make changes.
I am also the environment artist though. It's not practical for me to do a complete job of all the different discplines. So if I can get a little art prototyping done at the same time, I try to do that. This is another benefit to doing blockout from my DCC. I can quickly whip up blockout+ models in order to start developing a sense for general architecture designs:
For instance, setting up some slightly more sophisticated collumns and inlaying some materials to represent designs on this religious building was a lot easier for me to do in maya. It wouldn't be appropriate thing to do at this stage in a team environment, however since I don't really do any 2d concepting, I just mix in a bit of "playing around" like this which serves a similar purpose.
One thing I wont be able to do is have bazillions of unique animations with super tight hitboxes like you need for a good souls like game. Thats major reason I chose to keep it ranged combat only. But I dont want it to be a game where you just backpedal and funnel dumb enemies, or just snipe from a distance. I want to keep player constantly moving - it should feel like cat and mouse. So I am trying to make it so that once you get into an arena, there are no viable camping spots, and if the enemies can generally move as fast you can, then it should be such that you have to do a lot of weaving around the environment in order to create space enough to be able to get a shot off.
Well anyway, that's some of the ideas I'll work towards. Next up will be some enemy designs and animations and after that should start to see some basic gameplay.
I'm happy to receive any critiques or suggestions along the way about art designs, animations, anything really.
Replies
Okay, got some actual gameplay going on. Although I am just sticking to typical mythological creatures for the enemies, of which there is no shortage of concepts I could pull from, I wanted to wait until I've actually had a chance to fight them quite a bit before I consider how they might look. Now I have played quite a few hours against these guys so I begin to get a more clear vision how their silhouette should be, how they should move, what colors to be, and so on.
You'll have to use a bit of imagination, but the standard unreal mannequins here will become greek hoplites-turned-zombies. Just cannon fodder beginner enemies. They can kill you fast though if you let them get close.
The big red will be a satyr, which actually wont be a big heavy enemy whatsoever, but rather agile. It makes pretty wide flanks before charging, so I think some animations that make it look like its springing on its little goat legs during those flank movements would be nice.
The blue guy with a gun will also be satyr, but a skirmisher variety that flings javelins.
This previous week was almost entirely code focused, but next phase will be designing these enemy characters and getting some basic animations blocked in. For now, similar to the character, I will forego polish and just try to get the art pipeline intialized so that I can easily iterate on them throughout the project, and for now the major artistic focus will be on shape language.
The gameplay seems like it is most fun when its focused on crowd control so I think being able to easily identify targets within a chaotic crowd will be important. I think silhouette and color will be the best ways to accomplish that so that will be first priority.
I'll also start a second pass on the level blockout - the first thing I've realized is that most of the arenas will need to be larger and more open. The game gets pretty stressful in tight spaces so I don't want to do too much of that.
Seems like you're off you a good start, looking forward to seeing more!
Looks like a fun project! Cool setting!
Played Resi4 recently and really liked the way crowd control worked there: slowing down a crowd of enemies by targeting certain areas, when staggered open for a follow up attack dealing area dmg.
Ability to place traps would be interesting too. And friendly fire (Medusa creating lots of new statues :P).
Regarding the visual design, maybe you can find solutions that allow for iteration and avoid uncanny, something like mannequins or statues. Or more abstract like Ashen.
Surely you planned many things already, looking at the thread just made me very excited, hope you don't mind :D
Keep it up!
@Bolovorix thanks!
@Fabi_G , thanks! I hadn't considered player placed traps, but I have sketched out some ideas for environmental traps. I was thinking that some enemies might not be possible to defeat directly with your firepower, but have to be lured.
Regarding visual design, I took a look at Ashen and thats definitely a neat look. I feel that I lack the imagination for much stylization though. Even as a kid I pretty much only enjoyed "realistic" styles. I don't doubt that realism is not the best choice of styles for a developer like myself, but without a concept artist to guide me, I don't think I could do very well at it.
I have a Gorgon boss planned and there is friendly fire with enemy archers, but now that you've mentioned it I am thinking about the glowing eyes attack and how it might turn the cascading horde into stone at the very last second as you cower behind a pillar, lol.
Few notes about development:
Took a left turn before getting back into level blockout. I was feeling pretty certain that the gameplay lacked a needed mechanic, and if I added the mechanic it could change things up enough that it might effect level design needs.
When playing, there was too much back peddling - felt too reactionary and not predatory enough. I dont want to feel like the doom slayer necessarily wiht 100% push-forward type of combat, but also dont want the other extreme where it is just running backwards to lead dumb zombies into a funnel. That's not fun.
So I added a javelin which is more powerful than bow, and you can throw it without having to stop moving. But less range and you can only carry one at a time. Charge the bow will drop the javelin.
Some messing around with it:
I feel that it plays nicely with the way bow combat works - they complement each other pretty well. It gives more opportunity to be bold on the offensive and gets you into situations where you have a little dance with the enemies which is when game is most fun. To hell with caution! lol
As you can see, animations are very rough. This is because 1, I am not very good at animations yet, and 2, I am trying to just do bare minimum needed to service the gameplay at this point. At first I wasn't even going to make any animations and I just had the javelin fly out from in front of the character, but I felt that it was difficult to get a guage on when you had javelin.
Here's some play testing first level after blocking it out in unreal
The basic synopsis is:
I have two cinematics planned for this level, one at the shrine and one prior to the boss fight, but I will likely save that until the very end (of production).
There is a lot of "final" art even though its really just a blockout. That's just because I've used some of the many free assets from unreal marketplace. I figure it there is some stuff ready-to-go that it close to what I'm going for, getting that much closer to final look sooner is good.
I'm pretty happy with the pacing, difficulty, and fun factor and feel like it's ready for other people to play. Before I bring to public though I will add a few more behaviors for the enemies, and get them to have at least a blockout mesh so that you can understand what they are.
The biggest task will be animations for each enemy type - though for now they only need basic locomotion, a single attack, and an additive to represent when they are wounded. Since it is likely that much changes this early on, I will only bother with bare minimum animations - just enough to convey the gameplay.
There is also some unique game mechanics that I doubt anybody will pickup on without some visual feedback. Namely the bleed-out mechanic. Once you hit an enemy they bleed and will eventually die (even if you shoot their pinky toe). How long it takes depends on where you hit them, and what type of ammo. But without a particle effect to show the bleeding, plus animations to indicate that enemy is wounded, I think people will think that enemies randomly dying is a bug.
I have not blocked out the last part of the level, at the foot of the acropolis and then on top of it. The remaining gameplay in those places will have unique enemies requiring unique code, animations, and models, so I think I'll forego that for initial playtesting.
(…I'd assumed was rhetorical?!)
However TBH, I think it's all relative.
Basically in my opnion probably determined by ones character traits/workethic i.e. what might be a personally reasonable investment of time and energy on this piece of software may not otherwise suite someone else, in terms of scope or even whether paid or free-too-play passion project because I think working towards eventual finalization, is reward enough although not forgetting someone actually having fun playing what you've made, in the first place.
That said, solid start - but lol looks like a ton of work lucky me, I just like modeling stuff with hard edges :)
Edit:
You'd mentioned coding, just curious if referring too Maya scripts or something else?
If the idea is to use this exercise as a way to learn and practice something you enjoy (eg animation) then keep at it. As they say, you do you.
If this is meant to become a game at some point i suggest you reconsider before you comit to such idea.
Reasons being (brace yourself!):
- it doesnt look fun to me, maybe because its not quite my type of game, nevertheless it should be fun and this doesnt look like fun. What it looks like is a generic third person from 2005. And its not just my impression, there are multiple wip games here on pc and those get more attention than this.
- its a huge task, so yea, going solo you either have to pay to outsource some of the work (which kinda puts under question the "solo" aspect) or scale down. Scaling down depends alot on how good the idea is, ie. if the core gameplay loop is very good then the rest of the game could be somewhat barebones.
Of course you can automate some tasks to make your life easier and take advantage of the huge library of free assets but still, this looks kinda ambitious and before comiting make sure you have a good base idea.
Its easy to fall into the trap that if you can quickly build up a prototype, you can also make a full fledged game. The reason its easy nowadays to build a "game" is because someone else already did most of the work for you (eg the game engine). And you are doing things at speed not taking into consideration best practices and optimization. There's a saying that basically states when you're 90% done you have 90% more to go. When youre doing a prototype you do 10% thinking you did 70% or more because everything is "almost final".
The difference between a triple A and an indie/solodev game is that of quality, most of the time. So knowing your game will lack polish and the art quality is so&so, what you are left with is the gameplay. That should be above average at least, to get any attention.
To summarize, im not saying you shouldnt do it im only giving a heads up as someone that has multiple prototypes done but no game finished, reason being, its a different type of beast.
@teodar23
all valid concerns, but this is my third game. This was winner from several prototypes I did because this project is more aligned with my favorite disciplines in game dev. Also bear in mind, I've put about 3 weeks of work into this so far.
@sacboi
It is a lot of work but I enjoy it.
Did you think about first person camera? Painkiller, Dark Messiah and Thief come to mind as FPS with projectile based weapons. Any gameplay aspects that make it neccessary to be a third person camera? I imagine switching has potential to reduce the amount of work: less player anims, room for fakery, less camera struggles in narrow environments, etc. Of course depends on execution and will likely introduce other challenges :D
To be honest @Fabi_G , I haven't really given that a proper consideration.
The inspiration for the game started probably waaay back when I first played Morrowind. I always played archer builds (same in subsequent elder scrolls games) but I wasn't completely happy with how it worked in those games.
Later there was Demon Souls and the rest of the Souls series and again I always enjoyed playing archer builds, but it was barely feasible in those games. I wanted to be very fast and nimble, but have that challenge of aiming a slow firing, physics based projectile without any sort of aiming aid.
Mount and Blade offered the most compelling archery to me - the only problem I had with that game is that I really like the structure and focus of smaller, story/action focused games more than sandbox.
So this game is the answer to that game I've been wanting for so many years. The common theme across all these games is that its always third person. Hard to nail down why but I have just always enjoyed that the most.
So far the major downside to third person is like you mentioned, it doesn't play great in tight spaces. Of course level design can be built around that and so far I think I've been able to position things such that there isn't too much fighting with the camera, though it definitely does introduce some design restrictions.
My major beef with first person I think it that it seems very impersonal. Like, you lose touch with the character and then I feel like there is a subtle shift in way you experience the game. Its more about you versus the situation, whereas if we see a character dodging and sprinting and mightily pulling the bow, it seems to make me think more about the character versus the situation. More like when you read a book and them empathize with the characters, versus reading some dry history that just says what things happened. If that makes any sense.
Also, to be blunt, I feel that a strong female character adds sex appeal, which is surface level but probably the biggest selling point can be added to a game for the most likely audience. Aside from that, female heros seem to be popular right now, however I feel they are usually done poorly. "Mary Janes" and such. So I wanted to make one that was what I consider a proper hero.
I've emplaced some code to detect directional changes. From that the next step is to have some animations which trigger so that the character will make foot plants and such to help make it feel more realistic and modern. And even though this will slow down turning, I think it will make controller feel more agile. I'm pretty sure that should work but if its a huge hassle I'll look into using Motion Symphony which will simplify things a lot - only reason not to is because I'm trying not to spend any money until at least vertical slice is done.
I'm also going to experiment with some root motion dodges. I don't want to have a dedicated dodge button (like souls games) if I can avoid it, but I have an idea where if we are moving at top speed and have a sudden direction change, it could automatically perform dodge in direction before changing orientation. Sort of like a football (american) player doing juke manuevers but traveling in same direction. I am not sure if this will work or not so its an experiment.
Reason I want to avoid extra buttons is because I want to keep the challenge pure and simple - like old school mario, anybody should be able to pick it up and understand how to play in 3 minutes and from there it's just seeing how far you can go using those same core skills against ever increasing challenges. That's not to say I'm against adding a dedicated dodge, but it does open can of worms so I avoid it if possible. Anyway, that's a tangent.
Ah yes, good if such a project aligns with ones interests. Forgot you also wrote that you're interested in animations. Based on my own (small) experiments, I just worry when much weight is on visual/non-gameplay features - will the whole thing die if they can't be realised within budget? But I suppose that's also game development in general: hard to execute a plan start to finish, at some points re-evaluation and as a result from that redirection is necessary.
On the animations: I think the running animations and/or transition to aiming in the last video looked a bit awkward, wip status surely plays into that a fair amount too. Could be in part due the sudden turning of the character between walk/run direction to look direction when aiming. Maybe the option to walk/run (slower) while aiming would make it feel different. Image player going backwards while aiming forward at the enemies towards them. Watching some videos of people doing running/waking archery might give some ideas on possible state.
Got curious about other third-person games with archery combat 🤓 AAA examples I could think of are Horizon games and newer Tomb Raider games. An UE3 game that had some archery-third-person-combat elements was "Hunted: the Demon Forge": B-movie vibes, bit repetive, but interesting for a short time. Results of a steam search with the tags archery + indie + third person, I thought looked interesting, although quite different to your project, were "The Pathless", stylized, reminded me of Shadows of the Colossus and "Project Sparrow", a competive PvP arena shooter built around the paragon character. Overall very few games using those tags.
Looking forward to see how it continues. Keep it up!
@Fabi_G Yeah for now I only use minimum time to block in the animations and not doing any polish. There are no transitions at all so its a bit janky. But playing feels smooth and responsive so getting animations to fit will just be a process of iteration. But its only a single main character and I don't have any special abilities or anything beyond basic locomotion and the the two weapon types, so I'll have plenty of ability to just keep refining it over the course of development. For now, I mainly focus on getting everything (both code and art) to have some basic placeholder in, before I go into detail at any one area.
As for project budget, I just try to get it finished in ~1 years time, and I do all the work myself. I don't have to sell the game to pay mortgage so there is no stress about that - but of course the goal is to make a game that people are willing to buy and tell their friends about. There is too much involved with making the entire game that I pretty much don't think too much beyond the design of it and technical problems. I just trust that if its a game that I thoroughly enjoy playing, enough others will so long as they can find it. That's reason why I want to get a vertical slice done first - not because I seek publisher help, but just so that I can start showing off something interesting as soon as possible.
I would like to hire a musician at some point though I wont think about money until I have something proper to show off. Then it will be easier to get help if necessary.
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Today I've done a little work towards getting my own model in for one of the enemies. This is to be the Melee Satyr (in the videos, its the huge one that rushes you):
First time I've opened zbrush in well over a year. Thankfully not much has changed so I was able to get around.
I am only worried about the basic shape at this point - the sculpt is a bit blobby and unrefined but its a good chance that I play quite a bit with this guys shape. One thing I've learned is that its pretty much pointless to evaluate teh model in zbrush or maya or marmoset - anywhere other than animating in the game engine and seen from players perspective. It can just be so much different from that unique perspective. So I try to just whiz through a basic sculpt, I won't even retopo it for now - just get a quick rig and some basic animations going and start fighting the enemy in the game. Then it will be easier to figure out what it really needs to look like.
Aside from his shape though is how he moved. I have an idea that he runs kind of chimp like, and then makes a loooong leap for his attack, so the stubby goat legs and long ape arms I think should play into that. But we'll see!
This enemy will probably get pretty long fur cards around his beard and neck. Sort of like a big cape. I want it to look pretty wild and beastlike since it will be a slightly rare and dangerous enemy.
The concept I'm going pretty much directly off of is this:
Though I feel it's a bit darker than I will likely prefer, so I'll end up tweaking a bit. This guy also looks majorly dangerous, but there will be a more powerful miniboss in the level (minotaur), so I don't want him to look like he's the baddest dude. Probably the size and shape of horns is the biggest thing that makes it look badass, so I may scale those down.
Art is always never simple, because it doesn't matter if you're doing pixel art or PBR - there are methods of increasing the fidelity of both, and the bar never stops lifting. You'll just have to decide what artstyle you prefer, and when it's 'good enough'.
Some thoughts on the last video: The player always stopping while aiming and shooting and the slow recovery after a dodge break the pacing a bit. Would look cool if she makes a sidestep while aiming to dodge a projectile. I think having the action look fluent to someone just watching would be great to generate interest.
I also think the enemy archers jump too much (too high?), so it looks a bit comical. I would expect creatures like that to have a bouncy step but use jumping just to get over obstacles. Maybe they shoot, then change position (to get in the players back?), sort of like a sharp shooter.
Keep it up!
Correct true to life, maybe a horse really far away and hardly visible can be free in the bg. lmao.
Not something i thought I'd ever read but i am amused by the free old-p.c. convo. (ah the memories) so many cats.
Back to game, mmm that is one decent use of these a.i. action scripts at least, smarter a.i. movements, more human rather than go here routine. I am almost certain since a lot of games like to stay online only, which 'i and others are starting to dislike' that they will be using online a.i. situations/enemies.
which i see the only usefulness to these scripts. If you went that route, yeah keep it simple best way to weed out all the bugs that could happen, i only mention anything that it be considered or written down on a notes section of your processes to achieve layout excel sheet, "game-plan", or whatever.
Yeah, it can be clean exposure, either panty or gigantic afro having bush, you do not see anything (lips action, brown eye) so, i do not see any issue and the "africanis" walk around to this day with their top bits out so even that is fine to me. Nakedness is the lower half I've read studied anyway.
To purchasers:
Yeah, I'd try to appeal to every audience since a variety would be best, so cast a wide net it is a delicate process i am sure so i suppose to research into how other products achieve this might not be a bad idea. (i find they usually stand on the safe side of things and having a younger audience would be a good idea, which is why f0rt-n1te did/does well) the kids have the time, they kids hardly care for $, so they targeted them at a right time.
Looking forward to more updates, no need to respond right away unless you want to, i get it, i like to somewhat procrastinate myself.
OT:
Btw if you don't mind, been searching for a UE4..2x download for ages but can't seem to find it anywhere, even on epic's site....so any pointers would be appreciated.
So while I'm not qualified to make any kind of declaration about what is good game design, I can share some personal opinions from a gamer perspective...and just as someone with "a fresh pair of eyes."
Regarding some of the issues you outlined above:
I think as game/level designers you should allow yourself some artistic and creative liberties. It might be cool to have the level flow from tight spaces then into larger open plazas and vice versa to mix up the action. Perhaps even some Z space. It may not be historically accurate, but I think that would be more fun then just all large open flat spaces all the time.
To your point about believability, it's almost never something I think about or question when I play a game so long as it's engaging visually and play-wise. I think for me personally, that is just the conceit of videogames.
I actually don't mind the linear nature of games (In fact, I love single player narrative driven games) A game like half-life 2 comes to mind: it's pretty much like a roller coaster, but I'm sure they must employ some clever design tricks to make it feel a lot more dynamic.
I guess all that is a long winded way of saying that if I'm playing this game I wouldn't really be walking around and thinking "Hey, the Parthenon isn't supposed to be that close to the city, or athenian streets aren't this cramped...what hogwash!".
It should be more like "Whoa, I think that's the Parthenon! Is it on fire??! or Oh crap! I almost got picked off by that harpy! Maybe there's some cover nearby?" (well, as an artist who had to learn some art history, I totally would, but you know what I mean
This may or may not align with your goals...just thinking out loud.
Would megascans + mixer be a good option?
I am splitting the blockout into two phases. First phase is just to get minimum needed to play the level. I am not going crazy with gameplay needs yet. I think it will be better to get something pretty sooner so that I can being marketing ASAP. Gameplay doesn't have to be perfectly tuned for that because I only have to showcase edited videos.
But I think it is important to keep in mind primary goal for the enemy as it relates to effecting players decision making process. Shouldn't just add complexity without clear goal in mind. Right now they do, for the most part, achieve gameplay goal of forcing player to keep continuously moving and confounding typical anti-archer gameplay. They work best when paired with ranged enemies and are a bit boring on their own, however pure anti-melee gameplay is what I am using in beginning areas as basic tutorial. The game looks similar to many but it requires quite a different tactical mindset that I think will be difficult for people to get to grips with at first.
In one area at least I have been able to tune the level layout such that with several runs through it, I play different each time and cannot find an ideal way to get through, and I use up much of the space running around. To me that is best case because we get maximum use of the space and I don't have to invent tons of little baubles to hide in every corner in order to incentivize exploration. Gameplay should just take your everywhere naturally.
Not sure what you mean about not being able to use unreal without $? Should be able to just download it and get going. When starting out you'll face more editor instability naturally just because of doing things in incongruent way. But I rarely crash the editor after using it for a few years. Even if it does, it reboots in matter of seconds so doesn't bother me at all.
Some random notes that came to mind:
-I like the addition of the cypress trees. They break up the skyline. It might even be a good idea to have other types of trees for some variety in shape and size, as some areas can look a bit manicured.
The only thing that bothers me - the legs look too naked and unprotected. It feels like she's running barefoot.
I'd add shin and forearm protection. Probably something light and elegant like cuff bracelets.