Sumo Basho Game Mode!

In Japan, sumo is the sport of two very large menu battling it out, trying to push each other around, in Robot Wars however it is a chance for the robots to take on the mighty House Robot Shunt, and attempt to push him out! The game made is as simple as that, survive in the ring with Shunt for as long as possible, or get him out of there. You lose if you are pushed out yourself.

In my game the player can pick a robot and then go up against Shunt in the sumo arena to attempt to do just that! Shunts AI will turn and face the player, moving towards them in an effort to push them off itself. Survive the 60 second or get him out and you win! there are problems with how the AI works however, as Shunt is trying to be exactly where the player bot is, if he gets ontop of you, he will sit and spin, with nowhere else to go and not pushing the player around like he should be. There are also a few issues with collision and the robots weapons. These can cause Shunt to jitter around, and flip and collide in all sorts of manners he shouldn't be.

Due to this issues I've decided not to make another playable build just yet, and will try and come up with a solution while working on other modes in the mean time, Shunts model itself isn't finished or textured either. Sumo Basho itself works as intended though, its literally Shunts AI that needs working on. I will start work on another playable mode that hopefully will get released as a build when I have the time, as my final university semester starts soon, and no doubt I will be extremely busy!

In the meantime, please enjoy these screenshots of the newest robots I have created! They will be playable in all modes, and of course, I hope to add many many more yet to come!

Panic Attack

Self righting working as intended

Killerhurtz

Dead Metal (Series 1)

Pinball Warrior Preview!

Playable Build!
Download

I've been busy this week getting together a playable build of the Pinball Warrior mode I've been working on! Its finally ready, but is still in development. I made all the models and scripted everything. The only thing I do not own is of course Robot Wars itself and the music.

I'll keep on developing this in my free time, but in a few weeks uni modules will start back up again and I will be busy working on them, so this will be put on the back burner again. Now that I have a fully completed arena, I can use those assets to put together other modes quicker. I can also model more robots for the player to try! I think I'll make Sumo Basho next...

End of Year Summary and Future Goals

Its the end of 2016, finally! Hopefully it will stop killing off celebrities, muscians and being a generally bad year for the world at large and myself. So I thought to sum up I would go over everything I have achieved and a mini evaluation.

Firstly, I created this blog to record my development process in my game development in June, its been over half a year already! I've aimed to have a blog post at least once or twice a month, to keep up a digital record of my projects. I did this not only as a record, but also as a quick source to show people that are interested in my work, be it potential employers or others. If you're reading this, thanks for being interested in what I love to do!

In the summer months, June - August time, I worked on a Wipeout inspired anti gravity themed racer game, and when I say game, I guess I explored HOW I would make a game like that. Doing this vastly improved my knowledge of programming in the C# language and problem solving as I coded everything from the ground up, and in the end, had working ship and track selector, lap timer, as well as a playable level (in an early alpha stage) that incorporated all of these.

In the last few weeks of summer I used the Construct 2 engine for the first time and created a simple infinite runner platform game, inspired by the Overwatch character D.va! This was my first time using the engine, creating pixel art, and creating a game of the infinite runner genre. I hosted the game via my own GoogleDrive, but after encountering some hosting issues, I uploaded the game to Itch.Io and ScirraArcade websites for the public to play and it gets some good attention! Maybe in the future I will recreate the game in a more complex engine such as Unity and make it a deeper experience for players that holds attention for longer. You can play it here!

During the university semester I was very busy with modules, creating a Virtual Reality game using Google Cardboard on Android phones, programming a text summary software (not my favourite, I must admit) and deciding on a final project topic, which has evolved into ARIA. An Augmented Reality Integrated Acquaintance, again on Android phones. These games have really opened up my skills and introduced me to new hardware and technology, expanding on my development experience.

On the side of my personal project, scroll down for the latest on my Robot Wars inspired game which I intend to keep developing into 2017 and hopefully have a alpha build to play as soon as I can.

In 2017 my university modules will cover my final project, Mobile Technology and building a portfolio, which I am hoping this blog will be featured in as evidence of my work. Happy New Year, and lets make more games!

There's a Firestorm coming your way!

More Robot Wars Development!

I made a Firestorm replica! Isn't he looking pretty hot? Firestorm is one of my favourite flipper bots from the old series, alongside everybodys favourites Chaos2! I scratched not only the modelling for bots, but also threw together a simple concrete themed arena to warmup. It may or may not get used in the game, but hey ho, nothing wrong with abit of practice.

Firestorm was quite enjoyable to model, looking through the pictures of him, a basic wedge with a front flipper, it wasn't until shaping the body I noticed that my current shape was a little flat. I then realised Firestorm has some slight bevels on its edges, to prevent it being beached on its side no doubt, and once I added those, the shape looks much better. I quickly mocked up a texture in Photoshop and it fit almost perfectly right off the bat! I feel like it does hide the bevels a little though, oh well, that can be easily fixed.

I also completed a gray box of the Gauntlet arena run! Like the real life version, there are 3 different paths a robot can proceed down after driving out of the turntable. Each path is different and features different hazards to avoid and score points with! I will also be doing the Pinball Warrior arena, as well as a Sumo Basho arena too in the future (hopefully) and with them I can release a playable demo of what I have worked on so far!

Of course everything is still VERY MUCH A WORK IN PROGRESS! There are untextured things, unfinished models and mechanics because I am doing it to further my skills as a developer, and to try my hand at making a robot combat game since we don't really have any of those! I feel its a great project to practice all my skills as a developer, programming as well as design and art, and it seems I have caught the attention of a friend on Twitter, much to my delight.

I must admit, this was amazingly flattering and great motivation to work on the project, and I am still debating whether or not to share some screenshots with some GameDev communities or Robot Wars fans on Reddit. Thanks awesome Twitter friend!

Today was a good day of development on this project, nice to be able to work on something other than my uni projects (which are eating up ALL of my time lately, deadlines, yay) which I will post on when I have a bit more on them to talk about! Firestorm came out great, and its flipper is successfully emulating physics, something I was worried about my game using, Firestorm tossed those thoughts out of my head, literally!

Life can be dark, wandering without a cause.

But theres lots of fun to be had, on Robot Wars!

Goodnight.

3...2...1...Activate!

The Robot Wars inspired game is FINALLY shaping up and after losing myself in development today, parts of it are starting to look rather pretty if I do say so myself!

For fun I made a rough version of the 2016 Robot Wars arena, complete with a fully textured prototype Hypnodisc to replace the boring grey box version I was using. I also threw in Shunt and got him working to wreck some destruction on some poor robo souls.

In terms of progress, I accidentally deleted the Canvas gameobject without realising... So I need to redo the HP bars and other minor text I had done. Shouldn't be too hard. in terms of gameplay, I also imported the first version of the old Gauntlet arena! I'll more than likely be adding a point system to it, so theres something to actually play, and would also like to do the Pinball Warrior stuff from Series 4+ just to give some more singleplayer-ability. I'd love to flesh out the arenas some more so they look like they're in studios or indoors, would be a good opportunity to practice with the lighting too. All the while making some more bots of course! I'm unsure whether to use more 'real' bots as I don't know what the effects of that are if they ever reaches a releasable stage, or mix in some of my own designs with some of my favourites.

Either way, I'll continue gray boxing for now, as uni work is definitely keeping me busy. More on that stuff as it develops!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

So over the past week or so I have done work on not 1, or 2 but 3 projects of mine! Third year sure makes you be productive.

Firstly I have started developing a AR AI companion app for my Final Project. Inspired by the real life (and super expensive) robot companions you can buy, my aim is to create something similar using the magic of Augmented Reality! 

I've already got a prototype up and running with Vuforia for Unity, coded some basic variables and animations to go alongside them. I am using the Unity-chan asset as she is a high quality, fully rigged model that already comes with a boatload of animations, and being mecanim, I can add almost any other kind to her easily. She currently has differing Idle animations depending on her mood states, and will emote when you feed or complete a game with her! I am currently looking into text input registration for her as well, so you can ask her questions and talk to her, and later, hopefully this will change into speech to text interaction!

Secondly, I've spent about two days working on a little game for a little game jam we hosted at the university (a casual thing) with the theme of  Contrast! Its uploaded to itch.io and you can play it here! Its a simple platformer that uses the Contrast theme to express mood changes, and how things for someone with depression can seem or suddenly turn ill favourably.

Its a extremely simple game, and I decided on the art side of things being a main focus to get the theme across, everything is hand drawn and coloured by me. If you do check it out, well thanks for playing! I am currently also looking at getting D.va Dash to work on there and hosted too if possible!

Finally I did some more robot modelling this evening and created the angry bulldozer himself, the mighty Shunt! He has no wheels because I will be throwing him into the robot game for funsies and i am also currently working on that Gauntlet arena I mentioned, but finding it hard to find time in between university work to crack down on it, lest assured the interest is still highly there and I want to continue it!

I'll try and keep this updated with any future endeavours and updates on all of these current projects as they progress!

Robot Wars Project and VR Development Tests.

Oh hey there! Surprised at myself for being able to make another post so quickly!

We have a 'Emergent Gaming Technology' module here at uni, which has given me the opportunity to experiment with different hardware! I've chosen to go with the awesome Google Cardboard VR Headset.

I chose this for a variety of reasons:

- Its cheap and accessible to anyone with a smartphone that can run VR apps (AKA have a gyroscope sensor)

- Its easy to develop for, as technically they are just Android built games.

- Its a great entry for VR development, being as I have no previous experience at all.

- Should be fun! Hoping to come up with lots of great ideas.

- The material is easy to customise.

I have already modified my own headset with extra elastic bands to secure my phone while playing, cut a hole out for the camera, as well as strengthening the Velcro tabs with some glue. Alongside printing off and making Realiteers RealControl 'RealTrigger' VR controllers. All made out of cardboard! They work by having the phones camera tracking a QR code attached to the controller. Coupled with headphones, the headstrap and the RealTrigger controller, this makes for a surprisingly decent and immersive experience, for way way WAY less than a Vive, Samsung Gear or the Rift, and thats what I love about it all.

In other news, my Robot Wars inspired game is coming along nicely! I try to do a little bit each time and be productive on it. I have a working arena Pit of Oblivion and Flamepit working, hooked up to some player health UI. I am currently working on weapon systems and have a good overall system I am hoping to attached to most weapons in order to calculate damage. The arena flipper is fiddly, as well as getting robot flippers to actually flip and not just lift, but I'll keep working on it.

All hail the Kingbot Robby! (inspired by a friends reaction to the bot)

I also have a wide variety of prototype 'base' bot designs, inspired by real world machines such as Tombstone, Firestorm and Hypnodisc. I set these up because they give a great playable robot base to build my own designs on, or even recreate them faithfully and experiment.

Developer Update! Semester Start!

-Gasp- Is that? Yes! Ladies and Gentle-bots, we have our first 3D draft model of a bot! Bow before the mighty axe of King Robby! Still in his early stages as I am still focused on arena hazards and a HP system before I dive into the fun modelling aspect of things, as well as being busy with university work!

In other news, our little group is going to enter a game jam with a Game Boy theme! 160 x 144 pixel resolution and MASSIVE 4 colour colour palette to pick from! We already have a idea and will hopefully be getting it done before the end of the week! The idea is a simple music themed rhythm game, which I made some concept art of tonight.

I'll keep trying to work on my Robots whenever I get the chance, hopefully I can keep ontop of university to do so! Final Project, why must you hate me so?

T^T

Robot Wars Case Study!

Sorry Anti Grav Racing.

So as a child I loved Robot Wars! Who didn't want to see 100kg bits of metal destroy each other to an awesome soundtrack and splatter bits of metal all over the arena? And don't forget about the Houserobots you had a awesome recipe for non-lethal robotic entertainment.

And a video game.

Now, the official games release between 2001-2003 while entertaining weren't exactly amazing games, not that they were bad either, and I'm certainly not saying I could do better! What the games were though was unique, and after replaying some of my own (and also that fantastic Robot Arena 2 Mod) it got my brain thinking on exactly how things worked.

Lots of the gameplay seemed to be physics based, with the ability to flip robots around and out of the arena, pushing them around and the like. Armour would fly off in chunks depending on the types of hits you sustained, and damage took. So i started my own mini case study on how these mechanics might be re-created in Unity. Things like the arena flame pit can easily be done with a damage over time collider and particles, the arena pit of oblivion would be even easier. i found from playing the games some more the robots themselves would be the harder part.

So I went ahead and created my own robots! I have two bots currently, a spinner and axe user. Both can be driven around and 'played with' I'd love to continue with this, as I'd love to model the arena and implement its hazards, maybe recreate the obstacle gauntlets from the earlier series and create something that resembles a game.

However with university starting again in the next few days and heading into 3rd year I doubt I'll have much free time for my own personal projects!

D.va Dash Live On Itch.io and Scirra Arcade!

Play here!
Itch.Io - https://katd.itch.io/dva-dash (Reccomended)
Scirra Arcade - http://tinyurl.com/gu5nmkn

Edit: I also uploaded it to my Itch.Io page! I'll be posting mini little games there like D.va Dash and Dsyphoria. Enjoy!

So I caved and uploaded the game to Scirras website directly. I didn't want to host it on the website as it seems even more awkward than hosting it as HTML5 through my Drive, but oh well... At least the game is back up and now playable again!