Tuesday 9 October 2012

Onyx

The Unbit project is currently on haitus until I get this out of my head.
More info to follow.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Crunch time over.

Done with the work stuff. The software is now in closed beta nearing release with only 2 updates before release so I can relax a little.

The development of unbit will soon continue.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Crunch time

I won't have time to work on the game this week because I have to restructure the API i wrote at work. Including the app that uses the API.

But I have an excellent desktop background I will upload when I get home.

Friday 16 March 2012

About the gameplay design and the evolution of the Unbit

The concept

I had a lot of thought put into this. About a year ago I came up with a concept of self replicating blocks. Each seeder block would replicate itself to the available positions in the grid and mark it self inactive while marking the replicating block active. The active block would the continue to do the same. Bit of recursion there.


This is a proof of concept I did back then. Green are inactive, purple are free and red are active blocks.
I call active blocks seeders.



I knew wanted to create a top down shooter where player would fight seeders and eventually beat the level. But at that time I had no idea what the gameplay design would look like.

The Blocker Project

I decided I would create a top-down-shooter multiplayer arena type of game where players would work in teams to eliminate the other team. Weapons/armor would be random spawned across the map and there would be a LARGE variate of weapons and power ups. Player wouldn't just pick up a weapon or a powerup and use it but it would go in thir inventory and they would use it for limited amount of time when they press a keybind for that weapon/powerup. The seeder mechanics at this time was pushed as a 2nd level quirk. There would be a seeder bomb (rarely spawned as a weapon) that you could use.
I figured since I'm a C++ network programmer in my daily job design/programming of the support protocol would come easy. It did. No worries there.

Not long after, I realized that there's a similar game from an indie company that followed my line of thought exactly. And it looked awesome. Can't remember the name but I will edit this article when I find out.
So I ditched that gameplay design alltogether.

Few months after that (the game was on haitus) I was talking to my friend one evening explaining the seeder mechanics and showing him the playable 0.1.5 version when he told me: "You know, this reminds me of the BitTorrent seeders and it seems to me you are fighting them".
I was WTF- struck. And immediately the idea of Unbit started to take shape in my mind.


The Unbit

Finding the similarities of the torrent seeders and my own contraption I figured I will make a game about one single bit. Part of the larger group of bits but where all other bits would showed (push away/bully (not a native english speaker)) him a side and said: "Let the real bits do their job. Don't interfere!" Hence comes the Unbit. Fighting inside of computer as part of the antivirus program against the corruption of the system. Levels would be designed as a part of the system (hard-drive, memory, net-card...) and you would have to defeat the virus in the end. It will still be a top-down shooter but this time it's single player and with story elements.


The Plot

I can't reveal much about the plot yet but this is some basics.
You are the Unbit, unaccepted, you are not even a Bit in other Bit's minds. But as faith wants, you are the one that saves the CPU. You will fight against the self replicating entity known as anacrx.028 and the lady's name is Arrianne. Your name is a name of the game. I won't tell it until the first youtube trailer.

GFX assets created

I grown tired of placeholder gfx I used so far.
These are 2 corrupted bits images including the early player concept.






The 3 colors in the player concept are weapons and the top part of the player will be able to rotate enabling you to change weapons when encountering different variations of corruption.
Red one is a fast but week. Blue is average. And Green is heavy weapon. In game you will have to choose wisely otherwise you will be overwhelmed.

Today is Friday and it's payday (YEY!!) so that means a coding weekend. Since I finally got my internet connection online again expect some status reports. I plan to implement level rendering, player/wall collision and some basic corruption if time allows.

Thursday 15 March 2012

Update

Been busy coming up with the overall gfx direction, game design and story elements.
I have a pretty good picture of what I want a game to look like. Also I came up with the name.

This is the start level design. And I expect all other levels will follow this gfx style. This was chosen because the game is happening inside the computer and this somehow corresponds with tech-look.


Red and blue circles are story wise elements. And blue area is a secret (not so secret now) area. Small circles are weapon and armor locations. Bright green squares represents level exits. Yes exits. I intend to have few different level exists that lead to the different areas on each level.

Also the working title if the game has changed and is now called "Unbit".

Friday 17 February 2012

Update

Ah. Friday. And I even have money for beer, cigarettes coffee and food.
Got my new projectile math done with. Can't wait to come home, buy beer and start coding.
Maybe even a screenshot if things go right.
It's coding weekend. So DND.

Also, I will start to work on the script this weekend.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Update

Done with new event system. Currently implementing proper bullet algorithms. This time bullets won't stop at where the player is pressing the mouse button.

Friday 10 February 2012

Update

Testing new cell states and level loading and visual presentation in engine.

This is a test level loaded from disk with different cell states.
Added some new class objects: Engine, ResourseManager, Cell, Model, Object,Player, and Seed.

Thursday 9 February 2012

Update

New engine is designed. This time properly.
Also I decided on few changes in the way information is presented on screen. Mostly seeders.

I can now load/save levels from disk. I also added some new cell states, so now we have active,inactive,object,destructible and indestructible cells. I will probably add few more when engine coding is finished.
Added the player,bitmap,level,system class objects.

EDIT:
You can download the concept version here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?de2i3hluj6x0imp

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Update

Development will continue from 0.1.5 version.

I'm currently restructuring engine and fixing bugs.

Wednesday 18 January 2012