For the past 2 weeks the team has enjoyed a well deserved vacation, but now we are back and ready to work.
Before we left for vacation however we showcased the game at Breda University of Applied Sciences where we got amazing feedback and we’d like to thank everyone who came by to support us!
This week has mostly been setting up the planning for the next few months and laying out a list of tasks for our team.
We look forward to releasing a build for everyone to enjoy, for now join us on discord if you have any questions. link
That is all for now, but we will have a lot more to show in the coming weeks so stay tuned!
Have a good flight,
Dave Ruptash
Lead Programmer
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Development Log #4 ~Art/Audio Update!
Welcome back Captain,
This week we have been busy on implementing a lot of art and perfecting the image of our game. We hope you enjoy the following and look forward to hearing feedback.
Our first player ship. This will be the ship you use to pilot around the galaxy we have created. The colors are still a debate but for now we are content with it.
This is the space background for our current space sector. It is part of a parallax background which means different layers will move at different speeds based on the player. We hope that this will give the feeling of wanting to explore the game not only horizontal, but vertical! (Although this is not possible)
Our first finished piece of environment concept art, this was used as the baseline for the room we would have to finish for our vertical slice.
Our first 3D environment! There will be a few more days of iterations before we deliver it, but it won’t drastically change. They style is clear and the motivation is ever higher!
Additionally,
We are working with Wellcooked Audio to set the tone and feel of the game through music and sound effects. We started off with a list of reference tracks ranging from sci-fi classics, surfer rock to orchestral epic scores. Give it a listen at Out of Space Radio playlist on spotify: LINK
After a lot of back and forth, Wellcooked created the following combat track meant to play while engaging in on-foot combat.: 1.01 track We were getting closer to the combining all the elements that we wanted. For our next iteration we focused on modifications to the synth to make it more appropriate to the time period, as well as removing any aspects that would take you out of the setting like the more complex drum patterns. This is where we are now:
Finally,
We have made a community discord as well as a youtube, twitter and other social media accounts. You can find the full list on our about page.
Have a good flight,
DoubleDoorGames team
Liking us on Social Media, sharing our posts, etc help us grow and reach a bigger audience. The bigger the audience the more feedback and the more people get to experience our game ːsteamhappyː
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Development Log #3 ~Action Time
Greetings Captain,
For our vertical slice design-wise we aim to deliver a fun, challenging and engaging experience of players boarding a ship, navigating through its rooms accompanied by your squad whilst facing off against the enemy crew. Creating that gameplay starts by creating a barebones loop working for combat: Enemy can shoot the player, player can get damaged, player can die, player respawns and tries again. Now we have players and enemies fighting against each other. The only issue was: It’s not fun or engaging!
Our solution to this is on one end creating a meaningful challenge for the player and on the other end providing the player with varying meaningful solutions. Meaningful challenge is something we’re delivering with the enemies. Our initial basic enemy was clearly not doing a good job of trying to kill the player. We’re in the process of making it more aggressive, have it move around more, and communicating clearly to the player when it is going to take an action.
In addition to that, a new sniper enemy was developed that made use of our Ability system. Whilst the ability system would mainly be used to have the player obtain abilities by having them be assigned to their crew members, the functionality of our abilities allowed us to easily apply different behaviors to enemies as well. The sniper would be equipped with a piercing bullet, which could shoot straight through the player onto his other squad members. Area of effect damage is incredibly dangerous to the player and their squad. This way, the sniper with its high projectile speed offered quite a punishment for those players that couldn’t evade or defend against the shot. This also encouraged players to prioritize taking out the sniper enemy over the basic enemy.
Enhancements to the level by means of environmental hazards and cover offered additional challenged and solutions to the player. Environmental Hazards encouraged players to have to be more aware of their pathing inside a room, influencing player positioning. Cover allowed players to use their positioning to get to a more advantageous defensive position. Whilst it not being majorly important with the currently provided enemy challenge, the pillars in the level already greatly influence player movement and make navigating and fighting in the rooms a lot more interesting.
More tweaks are being made in these final weeks of pre-production, and week after week we are seeing our vertical slice growing more and more fun.
signing off,
Adriaan Scheepers,
Designers
Liking us on Social Media, sharing our posts, etc help us grow and reach a bigger audience. The bigger the audience the more feedback and the more people get to experience our game ːsteamhappyː
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Development Log #2 ~ PCG Magic
Hello everyone,
This week we have been hard at work on a tool to create procedural levels in our game, we called the tool Universe Tool. Our brave team of programmers have been working with QT to provide a tool for the rest to use.
The tool utilizes grammar graphs and rules to create a level layout and outputs a file that unreal can then load and represent in a scene. This allows us not only to create a layout for the level, but also gameplay such as placing keys that unlocks other rooms or boss rooms.
A outsourcing team using Houdini are creating room templates for us to use, this allows for a lot of variations in rooms as shown below:
https://www.doubledoorgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/wk4_interiorGeneration.gif
Hopefully the tool will be complete soon so we can share more about its results! The next post we will show off some early gameplay of the game, showing off some very early prototypes we made.
Have a good flight captain,
Dave Ruptash
Lead Programmer
Team Double Doors
Liking us on Social Media, sharing our posts, etc help us grow and reach a bigger audience. The bigger the audience the more feedback and the more people get to experience our game ːsteamhappyː
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Development Log #1 ~The Concept
Introduction Throughout our development we will be posting updates and sharing our progress with anyone interested to read! Following is an update on design and art department. They’re excited to show you what they have been working on. Take a look.
The Captain of A Crew As a captain of a space vessel tasked to explore the galaxy, you face off against the hordes of evil, accompanied by your loyal crew whose skills and teamwork allow you to overcome any challenge both within enemy ships as well as in the hidden waters of space.
When players board ships or space stations you are able to gather your most trusted crew members to join you on your mission to vanquish the evildoers or maybe just, claim some loot? Check out the some early concept art!
When exploring space you are bound to run into evildoers or other adversaries that will not see eye to eye with your ideals. Here’s some early concept art of a player blasting an enemy warship:
Your crew members will provide you with valuable insight and skills to allow you to defeat more evildoers and explore the mysterious sectors of space. Overcoming challenges will reward you with special pieces of equipment and perhaps new friends!
Defining the Look
With our reference being drawn from science pulp fiction the artist wanted to create something that not only retained that authentic feel but also felt new and refreshing. This is an illustration of the effect we want to shader to have on our objects:
Nick and the Double Door Team.
Liking us on Social Media, sharing our posts, etc help us grow and reach a bigger audience. The bigger the audience the more feedback and the more people get to experience our game ːsteamhappyː
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Check out our Website: https://www.doubledoorgame.com/
