Balls of Steel
by Magnus Blikstad · 03/12/2008 (2:49 am) · 13 comments
Working with Martin and Thomas...
Some of you may have read Martins blog about our little get together just a short month ago. The plan was basically to have something done in roughly two months, well, let's just say we're ahead of schedule!
While using unity have it's annoyances, it does allow you to very rapidly get your game up and running and very rapidly start fleshing out the gameplay (we had the first prototype of the game done within the first 24 hours).
Balls of Steel!
So, what is the game then? The game itself is a pretty simple concept. You have a puck, you have a gun... shoot your gun to move the puck over to the goal. Of course things are never quite that simple, now are they? There's of course an opponent on the other side trying to do the exact same thing!
Without further ado, some screens for you;
menu
Goal!
uh-ohWhat's left to do...
Still some bug fixing left before the game is ready, but it's very rapidly approaching being done. We're looking into distribution options at the moment so stay tuned.
#2
03/12/2008 (4:45 am)
you are aware of the very cool pinball game with that exact name right? even had a duke nukem pinball machine with him talking an stuff... 
#3
03/12/2008 (5:02 am)
Remember the reallife game Crossfire? This is exactly how it was played, you shot steel ball bearings at "pucks" which slid across the table into the other's goal. It was pretty sweet. 
#4
03/12/2008 (5:06 am)
Hehe, yeah, crossfire. Our first "guns" looked like ramps like in crossfire... :-)
#5
Ramen-sama; yes, we're aware of it... and we decided to simply not quite care... ehm. =)
Chris; heh, yep. The original ideas more or less spawned out of strange memories of crossfire. (at the time neither of us could actually remember the name of the game though, but we ran across it at some later point).
03/12/2008 (5:46 am)
James; the first version will have one board, it's definitely on the "things to do eventually" list to add other boards.Ramen-sama; yes, we're aware of it... and we decided to simply not quite care... ehm. =)
Chris; heh, yep. The original ideas more or less spawned out of strange memories of crossfire. (at the time neither of us could actually remember the name of the game though, but we ran across it at some later point).
#6
I guess someone has to ask eventually:
Would this have been easier to create in TGEA than in Unity or not?
03/12/2008 (6:16 am)
Sweeet.. The graphics already look pretty solid.I guess someone has to ask eventually:
Quote:
While using unity have it's annoyances...
Would this have been easier to create in TGEA than in Unity or not?
#7
TGEA (and most definitely TGE) have it's uses, extremely short development times isn't quite a situation where it shines though. =)
03/12/2008 (6:33 am)
Let's put it this way; it would not have been (nearly) done already had it been done in TGEA. (and with TGEA it wouldn't have ran on both windows, osx, and in a web browser... on more or less all graphics cards created in the last 5, or more, years).TGEA (and most definitely TGE) have it's uses, extremely short development times isn't quite a situation where it shines though. =)
#8
A little story for the answer: While I was driving home from the meeting in Copenhagen with Magnus and Thomas, they already started working on the prototype. Driving back from CPH to Hamburg by car took 4 hours. At home I openend my Macbook, fetched mails and got mail from Thomas and Magnus with the URL where to test the fully functional prototype...
From my point of view (without wanting to hijack Magnus answer): No, way easier in Unity. The annoyances from my perspective is the asset server (AS) that has some flaws. You can't really use SVN with Unity when you work in a team so you need the AS. For example the scenes in Unity are monolithic, so only one can change a time. And no update notification mails. Thomas has setup his SVN server that after each commit all team members get an update notification mail with the last checkin comments. I _really_ miss that in Unity although I heard from some guys that got it working (source is available!). Other than that I encountered for me no other annoyances in working with Unity.
Update: P.S. Found the link: See there the video of the guys that connected their asset server commit logs with a scrolling LED... :-)
03/12/2008 (6:35 am)
@James: A little story for the answer: While I was driving home from the meeting in Copenhagen with Magnus and Thomas, they already started working on the prototype. Driving back from CPH to Hamburg by car took 4 hours. At home I openend my Macbook, fetched mails and got mail from Thomas and Magnus with the URL where to test the fully functional prototype...
From my point of view (without wanting to hijack Magnus answer): No, way easier in Unity. The annoyances from my perspective is the asset server (AS) that has some flaws. You can't really use SVN with Unity when you work in a team so you need the AS. For example the scenes in Unity are monolithic, so only one can change a time. And no update notification mails. Thomas has setup his SVN server that after each commit all team members get an update notification mail with the last checkin comments. I _really_ miss that in Unity although I heard from some guys that got it working (source is available!). Other than that I encountered for me no other annoyances in working with Unity.
Update: P.S. Found the link: See there the video of the guys that connected their asset server commit logs with a scrolling LED... :-)
#9
03/12/2008 (6:40 am)
Very sweet game, guys! 
#10
03/12/2008 (9:49 am)
Excellent work, Magnus and team! Looks amazing.
#11
Torque has its uses and strengths and Unity same, but different ones. Was fun to try a different engine after so many years of Torque.
I guess we will post a link to the game itself later for everyone to test drive. But there are some things we need to fix first :-) Want it to be "done" without known bugs.
03/12/2008 (10:13 am)
The physics part alone would not have been possible as fast in TGEA as in Unity. That was one major reason to use Unity as it had physics build in from the start.Torque has its uses and strengths and Unity same, but different ones. Was fun to try a different engine after so many years of Torque.
I guess we will post a link to the game itself later for everyone to test drive. But there are some things we need to fix first :-) Want it to be "done" without known bugs.
#13
I remember me and my brother playing crossfire, whats next, KOJAK? :)
03/12/2008 (2:29 pm)
Nice one guys.I remember me and my brother playing crossfire, whats next, KOJAK? :)
Torque Owner James Laker (BurNinG)
Are you going to have more than one "table" to play on?