I am a part of this awesome game, Alien Overrun (Gamkedo #4)

Finally, Alien Overrun is released. It is a 3D low poly style Gamkedo game about defending yourself against aliens by gathering resources and building towers. Basically, a Tower Defense/light RTS game.

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  Alien Overrun Gameplay

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  Alien Overrun Creative Mode

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  Alien Overrun World

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  Alien Overrun Menu

I modelled the Mage Tower in the game. I also did the selection, info and edit UI + discovered that lovely font to use in the game. Other than that, I did a bunch of physics experiments and stuff behind the scene.

The game turned out so lovely. If you are into Tower Defense/RTS games, you MUST give it a try!

Play Alien Overrun Here!

I am a part of this awesome game, Wild Drivers (Gamkedo #2)

Woohoo! Another game released by Gamkedo Club! Split screen 3D Racing Game called Wild Drivers. It is made in Unity and has neat racing mechanics. If you are like me and your childhood is filled with games like NFS II SE, you would want to bring in a friend and play this game with him/her!

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  Wild Drivers Main Menu
  

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  Wild Drivers Single Player

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  Wild Drivers Split Screen

I joined the team late again. But this time, I think that I did plenty. I focused on the audio which means that I added two music tracks and all the sound effects (I think 5 sounds but not sure). I also did a little camera animation sequence that plays as a background in the main menu. Apart from that, I added the change view feature (with the ‘V‘ key) and the 2 buttons to toggle the audio in the main menu.

Do play this game and give some feedback. It is a fun game especially when you play with someone.

Please play this game and give some feedback. It is a very decent looking game and quite fun to play. I am sure you would enjoy it. 😀

Play Wild Drivers Here!

My Models: Mage Tower

Here, I have done some modelling for another Gamkedo club game.

The tower is quite cylindrical but the studs/tops of the tower distracts the cylinder shape quite well. The two cones are for holding the magic.

There are two models: first one in which I have tried the texture painting feature, the other one (without texture painting) is supposed to be used in the game.

The models are made in Blender 2.8 beta. The software is fantastic. I wish they release the stable version right now but never mind.

I have used SketchFab to upload and share the models here. These models can be viewed from any device and on web. That’s cool, isn’t it?

Mage Tower Texture Paint by bilalCh213 on Sketchfab

Mage Tower by bilalCh213 on Sketchfab

Develomare – How I Made It? (Part 1)

I made the game called Develomare for the BlackThronProd (BTP) Game Jam #1 as I mentioned that in the previous post.

But how?

As you guys know that I am a fan of Unity Game Engine. Therefore, I watch the video tutorials on YouTube that are related to Unity Game Engine. A few months ago, I stumbled across a YouTube Channel called BlackThornProd. He makes awesome Unity tutorial videos.

One day, he decided to do a Game Jam and he posted a video about it. I watched it and decided to join the Game Jam. The theme was beautiful. It was “Game Development”.

It was a 7-day Game Jam. Unfortunately, I was one day late when I saw the video. So, I already had one less day to make the game. In other words, there was no ‘Day 1’.

Day 2 and 3:

I immediately opened Unity but when the empty text box asking for project name appears in front of me, I just couldn’t think of the game idea. It’s not like I don’t have ideas. The problem is that I have lots of ideas.

Recently, I watched some of the games made in Unity. One of them is Inside by Playdead. I really like the art style of the game and the overall gameplay. The game’s ending is something. No spoilers. Hehe.

I wanted to make a game like Inside. Of course, it is such a big deal to create such a game. I obviously couldn’t make a game like that in a mere 6 days. But I wanted to touch its art style and environment feel. I somehow wanted to bring it in my game. And I feel like it is possible.

I named the game, DreamScreen.

Now, I need 3D models. And I am just so bad at making them. I am still bad when it comes to modeling and stuff in Blender. Thanks to Unity’s Polybuilder, it seems a little bit possible.

I made the character model in pieces. For each piece, it is just a simple cube. All I did is change the position of an edge/2 vertices. Then, I put them in a sensible hierarchy in order to animate it.

Character Model

Hierarchy of Character Model

It is not the best. But it seems okay to me. After all, it is made for the game that I have to complete in the next 5 days.

I made a very simple environment. Again used cubes only. Roof, walls, floor and some columns here and there. I added some square holes in the roof. Then, I set the directional light in such a way that the light passing through the holes in the roof, makes a pleasing angle. I added Unity’s Post Processing Stack (Version 1, not 2). With that, I added Bloom, set the Color Grading to ‘Filmic’ and tinkered around with Depth Of Field settings.

I want my lights to be volumetric. So, I added Aura – Volumetric Lighting from the Unity Asset Store, of course. But it didn’t work the way I want it to be. I settled with white square Sprites. The idea might seem odd but it looked way better than I expected it to be.

 

A shot during the game.

Now, I want my characters to have idle and walk animations. Thanks to my hierarchy setup, the animation seems easy and I did it pretty fine. The animation takes most of my time. There is no IK or anything like that. Unfortunately, I find it hard to fix the foot digging into the ground. But it was not that much noticeable. Programming the walk was a piece of cake. I added the step sound and the ambient sound as well.

Animating bunch of cubes to make it look like someone’s walking…

Then, I slept.

If you have already played Develomare, you might say that I am talking about some other game here. That is because there is some serious twist at the end of Day 4.

Stay tuned for the next post and take care!

C++ Programming Series: What’s next?

You wanted to get into game programming.

You found out that C++ is the real deal.

You came here and started reading the first post of the series.

You practiced and moved on till the end.

Now, you are confused about what to do next?

(By the way, it applies to all the enthusiastic people who learned to program for the sake of making games.)

What you need to do now, is to google some simple C++ 2D Game Development Libraries.

Back in the days, SDL2 was my choice (I still use it a lot). SDL2 is pretty neat and it just clicked with me. But it does have drawbacks (for example, no easy-peasy shaders). If SDL2 is your choice, Lazy Foo’s SDL2 Tutorial Series is probably the best place for learning it. I also learned SDL2 from there.

People recommend SFML a lot. Even though I don’t use it, it won’t hurt you to try different libraries in the start and just go with what feels right.

Fewer features won’t hurt. But less personal compatibility will…

That is why I use SDL2. Even if there is not that something you need, you can craft your own hack to go through it.

Why not the OpenGL library or just any library to make 3D games (like Call Of Duty and GTA)?

DON’T!

It’s impractical unless you got a thousand experienced people of all kinds working on it.

-_-

Why not a game engine like Unity for making 2D games?

Yeah, you can. In fact, it is awesome. Go and do it.

But you may consider this. They have a GUI, an editor and all fancy stuff that eases game development. And that makes your brain lazy and kinda limits your creativity.

I am not saying to build a game development career upon some C++ 2D Game Development Library (which honestly, won’t hurt). I am trying to imply the fact that doing code by hand and visualizing the game in the head will give you a much deeper understanding of what a video game is and how video game actually works.

And when you are satisfied with that experience, you can go with Unity like me.

How this deeper understanding thing works on a higher level?

It works. But you may not be able to see it working. Unconscious, maybe.

To see it in effect, just compare yourself with the one who went directly into Unity and you will realize yourself. You will be able to pick things faster than he would.

And please, take my words with a grain of salt.

So, that means I, as an individual, am stuck with 2D forever?

Hell no!

I recently started learning Blender (free, open-source 3D modeling and rigging software) and it seems like 3D is a viable option for any solo developer.

But yeah, as a solo game developer, no Call Of Duty or GTA forever. But awesome games like Gone Home and Inside are always a good option for an experienced artist and game developer.

In the end, I would like to say to make as many complete games as possible. With every completed game, your experience gets higher exponentially as compare to half-baked games.

Here is the summary:

Programming -> 2D in Game Library -> 2D in Game Engine -> 3D in Game Engine

What if I learned C++ for some other purpose?

Well, I don’t know the specifics but you can go for that purpose as hard as you can.

Sorry, I don’t have much advise on that, other than the fact that you shouldn’t go big on whatever the purpose is. Always try small and then, step towards bigger things.