I have created an army

Day 3: Basic movement

After remodeling some systems, it's now pretty easy to start building in the A*-Raycasting-Framework™. Each player has a specific unit (to be set at any desired time) that can start moving to any chain of points on the map, determinable by where you click your mouse. Now all that is required is let the pathfinding determine the points, and I'm set!

Interface

Our interface or HUD is similar to that of League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth en Demigod. It works, so why change it.

This version of the HUD is a mock-up, the final version will be build by Sjoerd Buikema who is a 2D- Artist and a friend of Tom.

Mock-up Map

Unfortunately there is not much time for level design, so we decided to base the level on one of the League of Legends maps. The level we are using as a reference is the Twisted Treeline, a 3v3 map. Although the most of the pathing will be the same, there may be some variation because our units differ in size from the League of Legends heroes. There also will be no creeps in our game.

I made this mock-up map for testing purposes and is a direct copy of the Twisted Treeline map. The final map will be added later on.

Measurements

To be able to have a good understanding of the unit and level measurements I made these visuals. As you can see the unit measurements are expressed in meters. This is because unity works in meters.

Note to self: adjust 3ds Max units setup to meters.

Mars

So the game is set on the planet Mars. The greater part the level will exist of a desert with red Martian dust. Boundaries will be made out of hills, rocks, space debris and scrap metal. Visual examples are the game Red Faction: Guerrilla and the films Red Planet and Total recall.

Day 2: grid

Since Unity (quite surprisingly, I must add) does not enjoy creating a bunch of grid tiles, I'll need to work out pathfinding in another manner. After a lot of searching and thinking about it, I'm going to use a slightly cheated version of pathfinding that uses raycasting (see very refined picture above).

Basically, the pathfinding system is going to cast rays that detects whether something is blocking passage up ahead. It's going to cast a bunch of rays to see what directions are good to go, and then continue raycasting from those new "safe" points until it reaches the target. Much like A*, but without a grid. Hopefully, very spiffy! :)

APC

The base unit is going to be a sort of futuristic version of an American military APC. Every class can be distinguished by its turret and amount of wheels. The main color is goin to be NASA white, with black and gray highlights and decals. Good examples are the Lunar 2 in the film Moon, the APC in Aliens, and the Mako in Mass Effect.

Graphics

Since we’re building the game from the ground up, we also need to create custom graphics. And more important, acceptable graphics that can be produced in a limited amount time. This means that the models have to stay low poly and there can be no rigging or complex animation. I also intent to avoid complex texture work.

That why I decided to replace the humanoid heroes with vehicles, existing of a body, a turret and a bunch of wheels. And since I’m a sucker for science fiction they or going to be space vehicles, suitable to ride Mars to be exact.

Day 1: Systems

Yesterday, I set up the primary hierarchy, implemented camera scrolling and your basic hello world things. Also, you can now click anywhere on the map, and it'll tell you where you clicked and on what. Selecting units and giving orders is just around if I can get the grid to not be completely inefficient and slow when loading :)

Game Crunching: Initiate

After midterms evaluations and necessary time in the sun, we've started the Crunch on the Final Game™. Within a month, we're going to recreate a gimped version of League of Legends! This is not at all an overly ambitious and impossible plan, but I believe that we can do it if properly pulled through, which for now is what we're doing :)

At the moment I'm setting up the basic systems (camera, lighting, pathfinding) while Django is creating a style guide and reference unit sizes. Stay tuned for more pics, and wish us luck :)