TDTK4 Preview

Not going to lie. I've been spending most of my time working on TDTK4. It's been a great fun and things are coming along really well. Which is why I really feel compelled to temporarily put other stuff on hold and focus on this.

It's almost 'done'. I'm just in the process of testing and getting things ready for AssetStore. So it won't be long before it's submitted to the AssetStore. There may be more addition to come but I think it's more than sufficient in it's current state for first release.  I can't wait to see what people think about it. Here's some sneak peak, taken straight from the demo scene.  :)

Since things has been finalized, I will briefly talk about the major difference between TDTK3 and TDTK4.

First up is the path system (obviously). The new system can support branching paths which I've talked about in this post. Then there a more comprehensive perk system, which support the modification of just about every stats available on a unit/ability/buff-effect, both in the form of modifier(+) or multiplier(x). Next, First-person-shooter mode is dropped, at least for the first release. And finally, the no so obvious change, a much better optimized code base. 

Of course, there are tons of little improvement here and there that are simply too many to be mention individually. I'll leave it for you to find out yourself.  :)

Next TDTK?

This may have been coming a long way and I've been asked about TDTK4 a lot. Since I've been casually working on it and made a reasonable amount of progress, I might as well make it official that TDTK4 is currently in development. Here's a glimpse of the new UI.

Of course, it's by no mean complete but as I'm looking at it now, it's going to be better than the previous version in almost every way. There are more options available to get the setting you need. It supports more features. The perk system are much more comprehensive than before. All this, with much less code. That means it's much easier for me to maintain and update it in the future. And also easier for user to mod.

That said, I'm leaving out FPS mode at the moment for a few reasons. First it's not really the main selling point of the framework. Second I don't think too many people are using it. Third and the most important reason, it's kind of tedious to support the touch input for FPS mode. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan for virtual joystick on touch screen by any mean. When I first started working on FPS mode, it's fun and interesting to play with it using mouse and keyboard. The problem is it hasn't cross my mind that I'll have to add touch control support. So eventually when people are asking for it, it becomes kind of a pain for me. In short, FPS mode is dropped for now. I may add that in a later update but we'll see.

Either way, it's looking rather good for now. I've no idea when it will be ready. To clarify, I'm not working on it full time. Just using it as a way to keep myself from burned out working on MechCorp.

MechCorp has been Greenlit!

It has finally happened! The little game that I've been working on has been Greenlit! As cliche as it sound, I like to thanks those who has given their support to make this happen. You have my eternal gratitude!

Now the work begins to push it over the finish line. I can't wait!

Weekend project - a new path system

Once again I decided to spend the weekend working on something novel. And this week, it's a new path system that may or may not be the back bone of next major TDTK upgrade. I'm not sure where I get the idea from but wouldn't it be great if the creep can choose the shortest between multiple branching path. And following short video demonstrate the the concept in working.

It's still a very flexible system. There is not limit to how many branch a path can take. Branched out paths can rejoin, or not, or branch out to even more path. Either way, the creep will always look for the shortest way to get to one of the potential many end point at every branching point.

The best thing of course, in my opinion, is the code. For what it's, it's cleaner and easier to maintain than the old code in TDTK. That is the one thing I'm most please with.

However I should clarify that this doesn't mean I'll be actively working on TDTK. It's just something I'm casually working/experimenting on weekend atm. Until it's finally released, MechCorp still takes precedent over everything in my schedule.

MechCorp, Now on Steam Greenlight

Clicking this will take you to the steam page

This has been coming for a long time. But it's finally happen now. MechCorp is now live on Steam Greenlight. I've been dread this moment since it feels like throwing all my precious work into a pit of great unknown. At the same time, It's so exciting to see how it will unfold. I'm going to keep my finger cross and pray a lot.

Here's the complimentary media piece that comes with a major news release, in the form of a full gameplay video

The game is not complete yet of course. It's still missing content, specifically a main plot. And the gameplay balance is still need tweaking. But for the first time since the start of development I think I've got a rather solid core gameplay and mechanic. So much so that I'm confident that I'm not going to make any more major change. That's why I think it's time to put it on greenlight.

That said, there are still a lot of work left to be done. I'll probably still need to spend quite a few months on it. But it would be nice if it can be green-lit and given a place on Steam before the actual game is done. It would also be very nice to see what are the general response to it.

Anyway, enough rambling. The whole point of this post is to ask for your support. So if you are still reading. Please go vote for it. Here's the link again:

A million thanks in advance!

MechCorp Battle Gameplay Video

Finally, I'm back at work after a rather long break. It's why there hasn't been any post for the past one month.

Before the break, I talked about posting a gameplay video. Seeing the game is almost ready to be shown, I took the time this week to record a full battle and here it's. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to let me know what you think about it.

MechCorp Update (20th January 2017)

I've said I'm going to do a gameplay video in my last post. Well I'm afraid that is not going to happen. I've decided to delay things a bit until its more ready rather than rush it. Consider that I'm going to take some time off starting new week, I'm not sure when is that going to happen. But you never know, there's a chance I'll just do one out of the blue.

While there are no video, I do have some screen shots of the battle scene with the new environment. Enjoy!

MechCorp Update (11th January 2017)

Happy new year!

It's time for another development update for MechCorp. I'm now at the stage of getting ready for Steam Greenlight. So what I've done since the last update is a lot of polishing now most of the core component is now in place. Thing like UI and presentation has been given a lot of attention. The AI has also gone through a big overhaul with AI unit now using abilities. Most visual and sound effect has been put in as well. It almost feels like it's ready for release, except that there are still a lot more work needed to be done. Game balance is still off the wack, performance optimization are needed, more content need to be added, etc.

One surprise addition is that I've decided to make use of the low-poly scenery asset I've made over the last few posts to build the environment for the battle scene. I know it's not changing how the game play in anyway but visually this has given a game a big boost. It's making a huge difference in my opinion. Surprising the low-poly (and stylized) asset do goes really well with the existing setting. These are some of the settings I've for now. Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress.

Not going to lie, I feel pretty good about the project at the moment. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I can't wait to get it done and get it release. That said, I plan to do a game-play video showcasing the game in very near future. Probably next week or the week after.

MechCorp Update (7th November 2016)

I'm very surprise to find out that it's more than a year since the last MechCorp update. While I have occasionally took breaks to work on other stuff, I promise that I have not for one moment try to stop working on the project.

So what progress I have made since the last update? In a way, lots. But I have also taken a few steps back. The truth is I went back to the drawing board again, and done a bunch of redesign, for the n time. I have almost rebuild the whole game from sketch this time. But I believe all the changes has make the game a lot more better. 

First off, the battle system. I have ditched the directional attacking and replacing it with a shield system. Each unit now have hull and shield. Basically the shield must go before the hull can suffer damage. Naturally a unit can only be destroyed when the hull is depleted. Now each attack (based on ability or weapon) deal different damage to hull and shield. The strategy is to use the optimum attack to maximize the damage.

Another big change comes in the form of crew system. I have ditched the clunky pilot system. The new system is more intuitive and offers more strategic option. Without giving too much away it's a bit like a card system where you can put the card in different slot to gain different bonus.

Finally, the the starmap. It's now a free-roam mode with fog-of-war. Meaning the player is free to travel to anytime anywhere on the starmap. To make things more alive, I have throw in moving AI party that goes about on their business. It's still a wip this. The goal is to allow exploration, which can leads to finding treasure, or surprise attack by hostile AI party. These also allow more dynamic quest event that require more player interaction.

To sum it up, Each system is more closely integrated with each other. It certainly feel like a much better design game.

Sadly I don't have any interesting screen-shot to go with this post except the two (never shown before) mechs on top of this post. Well, guess I'll just post the ninth thousand iteration of the mech configuration screen.

Note to self: get someone to draw me some pretty artwork that I can post.

Ancient Frontier

So this is a project that I've had the privilege of working on, and hopefully still be working on it until the release, Ancient Frontier. Taken straight from the official description, "Ancient Frontier is a cinematic turn-based strategy PC game with RPG elements set in the far future. You command the fleet with combat inspired by games like XCOM, Master of Orion or Age of Wonders. Players will explore, conquer, pillage, or liberate the frontiers of space. Take control of massive fleets of capital ships and support craft as you play through multiple campaigns."

It's not my project obviously. I'm just working on it on a free-lance basis, coding and giving some input to the design. Anyway that's beside the point, I'm making this post to let you know that the studio has just started a kick-starter campaign for the project. Please check it out and pledge some support if you like what you see. 

Link - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/81834518/ancient-frontier

Thanks for reading!

Coming Soon...

Taking a break from MechCorp, I've been working on something new (you can probably tell from the gif above), a toolkit about top down shooter, fittingly name TopDownShooter-ToolKit (very original I've no doubt).

Now I'm not going to shed all the detail here until it's done.This is just a quick post about what's coming.

Like TBTK and TDTK, this new toolkit is aim to allow building of as many kind of top down shooter gameplay as possible. User can build custom unit, weapons, abilities, collectibles of their own within a reasonable confine. The toolkit should accommodate most of the gameplay mechanic found in typical design.

Unlike TDTK and TBTK, the structure of the new toolkit is a lot more free form and open ended. It support a variety of objectives for each level. It also comes with various utility tool for level design to create various set piece. I have to say, I've lost count of time I end up play instead of testing the demo scene. It's quite fun! I can sure see myself working on this for a long time to come, there's so much potentially fun stuff I can add with this one.

Personally, I find the most satisfaction in the coding. Which is a lot more better than my past work. Now that I've done that. The OCD in me is urging me to go back and revise TBTK and TDTK with the new improvement I've made.

At the moment, I'm polishing stuff up and working on the documentation. If you are still guessing, yes this is coming to AssetStore, unless it's rejected for whatever reason. Until then, enjoy these sneak peak.

Timed survival in arena - taken from one of the demo scene

Some of the editors, perhaps you can tell what feature are supported from these

Endless side scroller, checked.

MechCorp Update (9th October 2015)

Before I start a wall of text, I've uploaded an alpha build. So if you are interested or have time on your hand, please give it a go. I will gladly accept any feedback. So here you go:

>> MechCorp Alpha Download Link <<

If you need some fancy stuff to convince you, take a look at this:

Now we got that out of the way, so what's new in this update. Well, as usual, a couple of a big change and a series of small tweaks, which feels like a lot to be honest.

For a start, a new contract system has been added. These contract will act as the objective in each section. The player complete a contract in one section, then move on to other section to pursue the next contract. The contract varies, some have multiple stages and objective and some are very straight-forward. The spice things up a bit, each of the contract has a set time. The contract is considered failed if it's not completed in time. This should give the player the dilemma to rush or to give the squad time to recover after each battle.

Then there's the new system where player can assembly their own mech, provided they have the blue print for the mech. The blue print can only be obtain via random encounter through exploration.  Building new mech will also require parts, which can be collected from various source. So instead of purchasing new mech from the shop at a cut throat price, there's another alternative.

Repair system has been changed as well. The player can choose to repair damaged mech at any time for a fee. However it takes time to do the repair and mechs going through repair cannot be deployed for battle.

Other than that, the main UI flow has been overhaul some what, to give the player more sense of traveling to another location and make a stop. Each location has random job listing, which are basically one off battle player can choose to engage in for various reward. Finally, player can now dock in station for a fee to past the time. This serve as a way to rest the crew to boost morale as well as waiting for the mechs to be repaired.

So basically these are the major changes. Now if you haven't give the demo a go. Do it now!  :)

MechCorp Update (27th August 2015)

It's update time again. In fact it has long overdue. Good thing that I've actually got quite a lot of stuff done. The game is approaching its beta state at this point

So, the most notable different between the last update is the visual. I have overhauled almost all of the UI. You will notice in the screen shot I have got custom produced asset now instead of placeholder. The star-map have been enhanced with some really cool parallax effect. Everything has been made to be more interactive in general. The difference is dramatic I have to say.

Moving away from visual, the most important stuff is I've made quite some change to the game itself. Apart from the existing resource that the player need to manage, a morale system has been added. The morale would affect how the units perform in a battle. They would have some impact outside the battle. Let just say it's not a good idea keeping the morale of the crew low. Of course the morale is affected by how well the squad is doing on a whole.

Then there's combat. A new flanking system is added so that unit's facing is taking into consideration in an attack. Attacking a unit from the rear will grant a bonus. So it's a good idea for the player to try to flank the opponent while keeping their own back covered. This is to give the battle another layer of tactical depth. There's actual reason now to try to move the unit around other than just getting them into attacking range.

To compliment the new system, a considerable amount of work has been put into AI. The AI will take advantage of the flanking. Some AI unit will actively try to flank the player while some will be very defensive. All in all, it makes for a more dynamic combat.

 

So I guess that's all the update I have for now, unless I talk about the less exciting stuff such as save system, or goes into detail explaining all the tiny detail and polish. So until next time.

MechCorp Update (11th March 2015) - Colors!

Feels like ages since I last post something. But this time I'm back with many cool update about MechCorp. Most importantly, there are eyes-candy.

First, more customization option for the mechs. By which I mean the colors on the mechs. They no longer stay grey. And also there are skins. Well there's only one for now. I'll see if I can put more in later.

Then there's the combat. Thing has been spiced up a bit by the addition of randomly placed obstacles on the grid. This should make line-of-fire a more prominent role in the game and making the game more tactical.

These two are the obvious visible changes since the last update but they are not all. There have been other progress as well. A simple plot has been added, giving the overall progress of the game more context. The pacing of the game has also been re-structured around that. So the game now has a clear objective in which the player needs to work toward with certain sense of urgency.

To put it bluntly, all is well at this point. I'm pretty pleased with the progress and how the game is shaping up.

MechCorp Update (4th February 2015)

A little gameplay footage, I didnt record the sound unfortunately

It feels like it has been an eternity since I last posted. I've been hiding in the mountains working on MechCorp and I've done an awful lot since. I think.

So I've ported MechCorp from to Unity4.6, rebuilding the UI from NGUI to uGUI, update the TBTK component from the older version to version2. In the process, I've done a major restructuring to the coding. I've also done some redesign to some major component the gameplay. It's quite an operation to say the least. And I'm quite glad I manage to get it done within 2 months. Considering I've manage to take the project past the point where it were before the update. The only 'but' is the new build hasn't got a save system like before. I figure that can wait.

The new gameplay offer more stuff to do and more reasons to explore the world. I feel like it should give a tighter experience. Basically all the major component is done at this point. There might still be room for one or two features that I really want to try but that's my feature creep sneaking in. I should be able to just focus on building content and it wouldn't be straying too far from my original vision.

By the way, I would like to have someone playing it and give me some feedback. So if you are interested in trying it out. Please let me know and I'll be happy to send you a demo.

TurnBased-ToolKit v2.0 (Work In Progress)

Well well, what do you know. Following TDTK, I've been started to rebuild TBTK from ground up too. I've only created the package a little more than a year ago. It is not even that old. But my OCD gets the better of me I guess. 

Consider that many user do end up doing modification of their own, I think it's only right I clean up and streamline the old code, which is pretty messy at place. The turn logic is quite dodgy on hind sight. Not to mention there's lot of patch work since I've added stuff like hotseat multiplayer, fog-of-war and cover system, etc. The goal in the new TBTK, is to redesign all those features as an integrated system from the start. I'm quite happy with the result so far. I'm sure another who want to mod this in the future would appreciate that. On that note, if you are trying to mod the current released TBTK, I do apologise...

I've also taken the opportunity to redesign most of the editors to make it more manageable, if not more intuitive. The spawn/deploy area on the grid for instance, now can be painted using mouse in SceneView. Instead of painstaking setup factions information across different component using Inspector, there's now a window to do that with all the information at a glance.

Also the grid system has been overhauled and now it can support a much much bigger grid. See for yourself, the next image is a 80x100 grid. Keep in mind I still haven't test this thoroughly so while the grid generation is not an issue, other aspect of the game might be. We'll see.

It's early days and I still have a long way to go. I barely manage put the key components together at this point. But I do hope you like what you see.

TDTK v3.0 Sneak Peak

I've been silence for a long long time. Since June last I remember correctly. For those who are interest in the reason why I fell off the grid, I took a 2 weeks break. Then I got hook to Mount&Blade for what feels like a century. But for most the time I've been missing, I've been cracking on MechCorp. I've completely what I consider a early alpha state demo. Then comes Unity4.6, which brings me the reason of this post.

I've stated in the past that I'll add the new uGUI support to both TDTK and TBTK. And I've also stated in the past that I would like to rebuild TDTK from scratch, reason being the coding is getting harder to maintain after all this extension and addition. Plus I wasn't as skilled back then. And so I set to work on the new GUI, before I know it I'm rewriting whole framework from scratch. And before I know it I've working on it for 2 weeks. I never thought it would take this long when I get started. And the scary thing is, it still quite some way from done.

The good news is, the new framework feels so simple and streamlined in term of coding compare to the old one. I think this will be great for anyone who like to modify the code themselves. Or at least it will be much easier for me to accommodate any future modification request. I feel like all this is worth it.

The editors has also been given a face lift. It's just subtle changes here and there but I hope they are for the better. Well at least now the full tooltip support should reduce the needs to refer to the documentation. Here are a sneak peak of SpawnEditor and TowerEditor, do keep in mind that they are work in progress.

Finally there's the new UI itself, I hope you like what you see.

Apart from what is shown, there are some other completely new stuff that I like to try and add. Very exciting about to see what I can achieve with the idea.. My hope is to get this done asap. Then move on to TBTK to give it the same treatment, before getting back to MechCorp. I really cant wait to get all these out in the public. Have to say I haven't been this exciting for quite some time. 

Now back to work, make things happen!

MechCorp Update (28th April 2014) - Tactics

This is a milestone and I've been wanting to make this post. Let me just start by saying the project has comes along way, after many iteration of UI design and mechanic change. The game is finally at its alpha state, looking like.. a game.

Obviously the core concept doesn't change. It's still very FTL-ish, with squad based tactics and progression a la XCom. What I've done in the past 2 months is establish the base premises of the game and redesign the UI to match that game. My take? Game design and UI design are tough!

Anyway, given what I've done so far, I like to talk about the tactical aspect of the squad. It's by far, the most demanding elements of the gameplay in term of design.

From the get go, I wanted a fast pace turn based battle, as opposed to XCom where you really have to take time to decide a move. For that, the emphasise should be less about the player decision on the field but to the composition of the squad and the general tactical layout before the battle. So the grid which the battle take place has been simplified and shrunk greatly. There's no cover system and fog-of-war. It's all about the hostile unit composition and how best to minimize the their damage output while maximize ours.

There's damage type to consider, energy weapon deals energy damage will be absorb by shield. Ordinance based weapons deal kinetic damage that by-pass shield and damage the hull directly, but they have limited ammunition. Shield will recharged over each round so wearing down the shield doesn't make any difference unless you get to the hull.

Then we have the mech's class. There are 3 type of mechs: Assault, Support and Tactical. In a nutshell, their are tank, healer and dps. Assault mech has active shield system and is more capable of soaking up damage. Support mech can repair friendly unit and provide buff/debuff. Tactical mech, while less armoured and has low mobility, is capable of dealing aoe damage from long range. Each mech class has a signature ability or two which reflect their tactical role. For instance, assault mech can detonate a EM blast that damage all surrounding unit with a chance to cripple them for a round. Support mech can link up it's targeting with adjacent friendly unit, granting a bonus in attack.

And there's mech modification. Each mechs can be fitted with different modules to boost certain stats. Defensive modules to offer more protection for Tactical mech, offensive modules to boost a support mech fire power, etc. There's even a chance that you can add extra ability to a mech by using modules. An assault mech that can repair itself maybe?!

Well I think there's a lot about setting up a squad that can handle various enemy/situation in a battle imo. Hopefully that plays well in game. I'll probably talk about some other aspect about the game in another post.

MechCorp Asset Update (24th March 2014)

I know my update has been slow lately. Been trying to work on MechCrop as much as I can, while keeping up with the support and update of TDTK and TBTK. It doesn't help that I got sick for a few days. 

MechCorp has taken quite a leap. I've give the most of the game element a lot of thoughts and redesign, mech customisation, combat system, UI, etc... I thought I've done a lot but there's still so much more to do. I guess I will talk about it when everything has come together. Anyway here's some new mechs and weapons model.

MechCorp Asset Update (7th March 2014)

Textured the mechs for MechCrop. I'll just let the image do the talking...