OUTRIVAL: The Game I'm Making

Update:
So I lied and didn't take a break from map stuff.

The floating islands have been a huge WIP, questionmark, and concern from Day 1 when I decided I wanted them in my game. Originally they started as very small and would have maybe 3 tiles (of the 89) on the islands. A couple months ago I said I was working on a massive update and it would be "awesome":

Lastly, I started on a massive update to the map which will be the biggest & most ambitious update yet, so we'll see how that goes... It'll probably be weeks/months to realize my goal here, but I'll likely post some progress updates throughout. I think it's going to be awesome.

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I posted an update (above), showing some wide shots of the block-out, but no detail.
Since then, I've been building out the islands and have completed a "first pass" on them all. I'm pretty happy with the results, they are far from polished, but much more closely match my vision.

(The character here is a little stiff, will fix in the future)

I recommend watching at 1.25x (or faster) speed for the running parts at least. Also muting or turning down the volume a bit (footsteps/breathing are bit loud and mundane, also the music isn't the most ideal).


Notes:

• This is supposed to be a territory control game where you run around capturing "tiles". There are 89 total tiles and now 11 of these are in the clouds (on floating islands).
  
  
• I like the idea of the islands for a couple reasons:
  • The land here will be the most desirable (contain the greatest benefits for your team)
  • The portals/bridges offer some natural chokes which will force more combat. Forcing combat without utilizing a "circle" is something I consistently dwell on.
  • Some strategy involved with trying to take the islands, but leaving your grounded-tiles defenseless.
  • Under the islands will be a wide expanse of land with no main objectives (might add a resource objective), but can control the main portals that take you to the islands.
    • Will force teams to pass through (or go up to the islands) and not dwell in the middle of the map much. Either fighting on islands or in enemy territories.
      
• Everything is very rough and unpolished. There are numerous graphical elements I'd change given enough time & money.
  
  
• I wanted a floating "city" in here somewhere but it'll need to wait for another time. I'm scrapping this idea until some future point where this "game" actually becomes something (if ever).
  

Challenges:

• Clouds. I wanted to feel like you were in the clouds. Volumetric clouds are risky due to performance issues. Most games use simple planes with an animated texture. First try was using a bunch of these, but I was not achieving the effect I wanted. I searched all over for a "Cloud solution" and finally came upon one from a Sky Asset I found. I acquired the asset and ripped out the cloud portion and added it to my existing sky. It works pretty good, performance takes a little hit, but I'm still running around with 60-70 fps (in the editor). This is usually decent and should be better in a packaged build.
  
  
• Height & Size. Distance is a big deal in games, but I really wanted to feel like these landmasses were huge, and high in the sky. They are pretty damn high! But there are some issues with rendering objects that far. I need to decide what should be actually seen, without hurting performance too much.
  
  
• Making the islands match the rest of the map was a big deal to me too. I wanted to continue using UE4's landscape tools and not model the island completely. Utilizing landscapes allows me to make quick changes to the terrain, keep the same texture as the rest of the map, and also benefits performance. So the Islands are utilizing some additional "floating landscapes".
  
  
• Water. I always love the visuals of waterfalls from floating islands, seems common in most fantasy imagery. Waterfalls were easy enough as I already had the assets, water was also easy but unfortunately can't be consistent with my ocean water. It's a different asset, very basic, but looks good enough.
  
  
• Right now there is no fall damage, so jumping from them is fine. I'm debating how to handle this in the final game.
  • Preferably I don't want fall damage in the game
  • I could continue to allow jumping off, but it seems "weird". Also bypasses the Portals (choke points) I've been trying to create
  • I may add a "portal" in the sky that warps you to a spot if you jump off.
  • Or I could add invisible walls that prevent jumping.
  • Not a huge priority atm to solve
    
• Bridges. They are a quick solution for now without requiring portals everywhere. The bridge asset is good but not what I'd consider ideal for floating islands. The supports just float in the air instead of being grounded. Ideally bridges need to be custom-modeled for this environment. I went with the quicker method for now.

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Now I'm most likely refocusing on other items for a bit.
Same list from 2 months ago is at the top of my priorities:

• Hit Scan ability template & implementation for the few gun-users that are in the game.
• Win Condition(s) need to be created & implemented
• Resource Deposits / Acquisitions
• Experience Gain implementation

Daidraco said:

I would imagine that the Win Conditions would be something you would want to wrap up before anything else. I could imagine it would get stale looking at just a laundry list of stuff to do/fix/change if you cant even .. well, enjoy it in its most basic form. Grab a bunch of us with some test clients and let us log in, smash it out in a buggy wreck and win a game or two against each other. Some ideas you may think will be feasible will likely be crushed under actual players. That is, if you are really thinking about using this game to show a dev. (Cause they're probably going to think about every hole they see in the concept vs delivery.)

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Well, there are a lot of things that need to happen to get to a win condition, so honestly they aren't really a priority. They also shouldn't be too difficult to implement. I already know what the initial win conditions will be, just need to implement.

There are a lot of challenges with multiplayer honestly and it's an area I wish I had more experience with.

Tmac said:

Damn. Why haven't I seen this before. Awesome job Ravishing . When can we play it?

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I have had a goal of August 2020 to have most of the basics in and be able to have some people log in. We'll see...

It's a long journey honestly, especially for a solo dev trying to create a multiplayer game. If I was doing a single player game I'd probably have something released by now

Since last update (April 21st) I had taken a few weeks break and then been slowly getting back into it.

A little update video:

Gun Abilities are in a very early phase. Guns are probably the most intricate type of ability since there are massive expectations on how Guns should act & feel. This game will not have the most realistic Guns. It's not an FPS. But they should still feel good. Right now Guns are in a spot where I can create a basic version of a variety of gun types, Full Auto, Semi Auto, Burst, Spray/Shotgun. All of the Guns are Hit-Scan. Audio is the biggest area to improve right now (Muted in above video). Right now only 3 characters wield a gun.

While Projectile abilities (Fireballs, etc) were the most challenging type of ability to create (replication issues out the ass), Gun abilities just have so many little details. Right now I'm not even including a Reload system, ammo currently regenerates. There's no scoping in, no recoil, no accuracy % adjustments based on anything (moving, etc), no damage fall-off (at distance), no headshots (or other damage modifiers based on hit locations), there is a small amount of "bloom" in some cases (FortNite RNG).

Fact is, abilities will be very basic for as long as this is a 1-man project.

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The UI is a constant challenge and it's no wonder Games have large dedicated teams just for the UI. I am never really happy with it, but I continue to iterate. I know the UI is a major area of concern for me in any game. I've updated a lot of the front-end/lobby. Still not 100% happy but imo it's an improvement. Eventually I'll update the in-game UI again.

The login/registration process has always existed just a new look. I am using Amazon's GameSparks for the login system.

I've decluttered the Lobby. Less "stuff" in your face. I never highlighted the Lobby in the past, but the gist of it is:
Pick a Champion
Select a "build" of 5 abilities for that Champion (a Template system is created for quickly saving builds).
Pick a Skin/Style
Join a Game
Adding Team Lobbies & Premade groups is a far-off stretch goal.

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I have added the First Win Condition which is simply "Capture X number of tiles". Where X is currently a number between 36 & 62. (Randomly selected by the server upon game creation). RNG for testing purposes. Will eventually hone in on a good number. There are 89 total tiles on the map. So the numbers represent capturing between 40% & 70% of the map.

It's a very basic win con and I have a few other ideas planned.
2. Total Domination (last team standing)
3. Blitz = Accumulate X number of points for your team. Acquire points via Kills, Captures, etc.
4. Artifacts = "Capture the Flag" type of game - steal the "artifacts/flags" from the opponents, win after capturing them all.

The idea behind multiple Game Modes is to find what works best for this "Match-Based 3rd Person Large World Territory Control" type of game.


end.

Daidraco said:

Just ideas out of my own head.

- Skins for monetization Im guessing? If so, then I think its perfectly appropriate. Following LoL's idea of purchasing a bulk of "Ravishing Points" (see what I did there?!) with real life currency. Win games for basic currency to purchase heroes, or have them purchaseable with RP. Same as LoL.

- Is there a theme? I thought the game was fantasy oriented, but now characters are reminding me of starcraft. If there is a theme, what is it? Is there anywhere you can read about each champions background/lore? Something to connect the player to the character and the character abilities to the lore? If you can connect a player to the idea behind a champion enough that it resonates with them, you should have a returning player that wants to get better at playing that champion and by association, the game. If you like the direction, I would suggest a Time Traveler theme - the island only has enough power to create one portal and each team has its own home to go to.

- I think you have a few different options with ammo. One, just be finite. Once you're out, you're out till you reset/die. Another could be charge points. So its finite until you capture a tower. Once you capture a tower, you refill all your health/ammo. Or, on that same note - you could have certain towers that when captured refill individual items. You want ammo, you're going to have to go in 2 towers deep, and capture that one. You want a health refill, capture that outer tower. etc. Or, you have random NPC's (minions for example) that are constantly waging their own little war. So if you kill enemy troops, a random drop would be ammo/health+.

Ill come back with more later, I'm sure. Just getting busy at work all of a sudden.

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Awesome. Thanks for the ideas & taking a look.

1.) Any monetization would certainly follow the MOBA trend where currency buys skins & faster unlock Champions. Especially with no dev team to keep generating Battle Pass rewards. Also I would never have Loot Boxes. I'm not opposed to a Battle Pass system but it couldn't be done with just 1 person. I see Skins as purely $$$ whereas anything affecting gameplay can be unlocked by playing OR purchase to unlock faster.

2.) The theme right now is heavily influenced by "Paragon" since all of the characters are from that game. (If you didn't know). Epic Games Releases $12 Million Worth of Paragon Assets for Free
I actually would change the roster/look heavily if I could. Paragon assets are very next-gen assets btw and will need a LOT of optimization. Or maybe UE5 will handle them better, idk I like to consider the theme as "sci-fi fantasy". I see it as kinda like Star Wars or Avatar... future-tech but with civilizations that are tech based, magical, or just very basic.

3.) I'll consider some of these ideas for sure. I do have a system in place to increase team power based on tiles captured. Mostly +stats, with some +extra effects here & there.
3a.) I would love to add some NPCs, especially big NPC objectives, but I am not planning any NPCs while the team size = 1.

2 Years of Development Trailer:

BIG UPDATE

Hey... so here's the deal. After 2 full years of working on this monstrosity of a game, I decided to do a pivot to something much more manageable for a solo-developer and something I can guarantee to release. That doesn't mean I've given up. It just means this project is being put on the back burner for a while. Everything is a lesson, and I've learned a tremendous amount on this project. But a Multiplayer game is super difficult for 1 person to manage, especially since I'm an unknown and it'll likely get buried in the sea of games out there, and thus become unplayable.

This new venture is a Single-Player story driven game that will take 2-4 hours to complete. My focus is on story & visuals. I'm 3 weeks into this new project and have made some significant gains. Leveraging a lot of work I've done on OUTRIVAL. My goal is an April 2021 release and a Preview in February.

I guess I'll turn this into my own little dev blog so as to not spam the forum with a bunch of different threads, as long as that's ok

Caliane said:

is outrival out there being played? patreon, EA or anything?

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Hey, no it is not, and the new game is a single player consumable story, so I doubt there will be much hurt feelings I have yet to release a game. I feel like starting small is a good decision in navigating any pitfalls that come with doing so. And then refocusing on a multiplayer game might become more realistic in the future.

Update for "The Companion":

I've been hard at work on this game and have been putting out clips on Twitter & stuff.
Getting good feedback overall.
Here's the latest.

If you want to help me out, please Wishlist on Steam
For more consistent updates, you can Follow my Twitter

Utnayan said:

That's awesome. I'll wishlist it. Who is conducting the music? Fantastic scores.

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Hey thanks!
So when I started posting this game I was getting tons of solicitations from composers/sound people (and still do). And I ended up giving a guy from Australia a chance.

faille said:

I assume you already know but looks like epic have a bunch of other assets free:

[PC] Epic - Free Unreal Engine Assets (e.g. Polar Sci-Fi Facility, Medieval Docks etc.) - Unrealengine.com

Deal: [PC] Epic - Free Unreal Engine Assets (e.g. Polar Sci-Fi Facility, Medieval Docks etc.) - Unrealengine.com, Store: Unreal Engine, Category: Computing

www.ozbargain.com.au

not sure how suitable they are for your game though

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Hey thanks, I've been grabbing them every month, they can be helpful. Epic started giving away monthly assets last year. I have a pretty large library now lol