Plan for Ian Roach
by Ian Roach · 11/17/2005 (11:24 pm) · 5 comments
Wow so what a busy time its been on illumina lately. I wanted to give a bit of an idea on some of the "Headaches" weve had with getting illumina ready for a playable game of good quality.
I have a newfound respect for anyone whos got a polished game out. Weve had a rough milestone for quiet some time now which we always thought was ontrack very well.
Unfortunetely everything tends to fall apart just before that deadline :) From vehicle exporting problems (LODS/Collision Meshes/Turrets), to some more serious crashing bugs, there just isnt enough time in the day (especially since none of us are fulltime on illumina).
The biggest cutback we have had to make is squad functionality. What was originally going to be rts/fps integration was then scaled back to set squads per team (each with its own squad leaderS). Unfortunetely that proved to bring in alot of other problems so it was cut back even further to a single squad leader per team. After beta i hope to definetely expand on the squad controls/setup.
The History Of Illumina
Illuminas been around garagegames for well over 2 years. Constantly being changed/reworked. but its only in the last 6 months has the game evolved to where we want it. This is all due to Starcave Studios coming onboard which allowed me to start outsourcing some of the much needed art requirements to get the game looking upto scratch.
Ive always had big dreams for illumina. and as most ppl will tell you, dreams dont always come true :( . Illumina was originally scoped to include the following
- 2 races of aliens and humans. both with very different play styles ("think natural selection")
- Heavy reliance on light and darkness (aliens hurt by certain "UV" lights ). This is how the name came about.
My biggest inspiration was the Final Fantasy move : The spirits within. After watchingt hat movie countless times i just love the idea of having "spirit" like aliens that can cloak at will and work as brutal savages (no real thought just attack and kill). To counter that the marines (who look badass in that movie) would have the ability to decloak spirits and make them glow for a small amount of time.
For example when an alien was shot it would light up for a period of time, or when entering certain areas (base forcefields the would decloak for periods of time). Combine this with different types of "spirits", flying ones, quick attack ones, large slow moving ones,the scope was hugeeeeeee.
Humans would rely on vehicles, then aliens would be Vehicles (A slow moving spirit would match a tank e.t.c)
So after realising such a huge endeavor and scope we broke the game into 3 chapters. The first of which you will be seeing shortly when we reach beta.
Heres a brief rundown of the chapters
Chapter 1
Resolves on a mysterious asteroid collision with earths moon. The moon is fractured by an unexpected meteor which narrowly missed earth. The crash causes thousands of meteor shards to hurtle towards earth. The devastatoin is huge with large chunks of cities destroyed.
Another side affect is wild storms, sped up day/night cycles amongst other things. all of which you will see while playing illumina. The game revolves around
- Human to Human combat.
- Good variety of Conventional weapons. Pistols/MachineGuns/Rockets
- Good variety of Vehicles. Both air and ground vehicles.
- Basic squad control and teamwork
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 would change things up in the gameplay department. The first wave of aliens would appear. A limited selection for now.
- Humans versus Aliens
- Small selection of alien classes
- Initial rts/fps integration
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 would be the final chapter and include all the features not yet integrated
- Introduction of cloaking/uncloaking concepts
- Full Rts/Fps integration
- Full Selection of Aliens.
Illumina As It Stands Now
So anyway back onto where Illumina is right now :) . Well we missed our deadline and as a result need to cutback on some ambitious features which will just have to wait until after beta :)
Heres what illumina contains right now
- 8 Weapons Per side. Pistol,2 light machine guns, 2 scoped machine guns, 1 heavy machine gun, 1 sniper rifle, 1 rocket launcher. All weapons have alternate melee attacks for when you run out of ammo .
- 7 Vehicles per side. APC, Assualt Helo, Dropship,Heavy Jeep, Light Jeep, Heavy Tank, Light Tank. All with a variety of weapons.
- Fully integrated Day/Night system (thanks To John Kabus). Fully customisable. from the timescale to the start time of map.
- 4-5 items per side. C4, Grenades, Flashbangs, Smoke Grenades, Nightvision,Medkits
- 8- 10 maps. Ranging from snow, to desert to forest environments. Both indoor and outdoor gameplay.
- Basic Squad Gameplay. Team Selected Squad leader who has ability to call in airstrikes, drop supplies for his teammates and assign waypoints. Played from the soldiers point of view , he fights in the battlefield just like every other player.
The beta makes use of all the following wonderful GG Products
- Time Aste Environment Pack 1
- Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack
- Mojo Audio Explosions Pack
- Sci Fi Furniture pack
So thats whats coming your way soon. We just have to fix a few last minute things and rework some gameplay .
And for those who have been kind enough to read my whole plan. Heres a pic or 2 :)
and some quick movies. showing the animations, the vehicles (none of them where drivable so there just static shapes), some of the bases, and a few other cool things.
www.illumina-game.com/vid1.avi
up to
www.illumina-game.com/vid7.avi
Anyway back to scaling back features :)
I have a newfound respect for anyone whos got a polished game out. Weve had a rough milestone for quiet some time now which we always thought was ontrack very well.
Unfortunetely everything tends to fall apart just before that deadline :) From vehicle exporting problems (LODS/Collision Meshes/Turrets), to some more serious crashing bugs, there just isnt enough time in the day (especially since none of us are fulltime on illumina).
The biggest cutback we have had to make is squad functionality. What was originally going to be rts/fps integration was then scaled back to set squads per team (each with its own squad leaderS). Unfortunetely that proved to bring in alot of other problems so it was cut back even further to a single squad leader per team. After beta i hope to definetely expand on the squad controls/setup.
The History Of Illumina
Illuminas been around garagegames for well over 2 years. Constantly being changed/reworked. but its only in the last 6 months has the game evolved to where we want it. This is all due to Starcave Studios coming onboard which allowed me to start outsourcing some of the much needed art requirements to get the game looking upto scratch.
Ive always had big dreams for illumina. and as most ppl will tell you, dreams dont always come true :( . Illumina was originally scoped to include the following
- 2 races of aliens and humans. both with very different play styles ("think natural selection")
- Heavy reliance on light and darkness (aliens hurt by certain "UV" lights ). This is how the name came about.
My biggest inspiration was the Final Fantasy move : The spirits within. After watchingt hat movie countless times i just love the idea of having "spirit" like aliens that can cloak at will and work as brutal savages (no real thought just attack and kill). To counter that the marines (who look badass in that movie) would have the ability to decloak spirits and make them glow for a small amount of time.
For example when an alien was shot it would light up for a period of time, or when entering certain areas (base forcefields the would decloak for periods of time). Combine this with different types of "spirits", flying ones, quick attack ones, large slow moving ones,the scope was hugeeeeeee.
Humans would rely on vehicles, then aliens would be Vehicles (A slow moving spirit would match a tank e.t.c)
So after realising such a huge endeavor and scope we broke the game into 3 chapters. The first of which you will be seeing shortly when we reach beta.
Heres a brief rundown of the chapters
Chapter 1
Resolves on a mysterious asteroid collision with earths moon. The moon is fractured by an unexpected meteor which narrowly missed earth. The crash causes thousands of meteor shards to hurtle towards earth. The devastatoin is huge with large chunks of cities destroyed.
Another side affect is wild storms, sped up day/night cycles amongst other things. all of which you will see while playing illumina. The game revolves around
- Human to Human combat.
- Good variety of Conventional weapons. Pistols/MachineGuns/Rockets
- Good variety of Vehicles. Both air and ground vehicles.
- Basic squad control and teamwork
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 would change things up in the gameplay department. The first wave of aliens would appear. A limited selection for now.
- Humans versus Aliens
- Small selection of alien classes
- Initial rts/fps integration
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 would be the final chapter and include all the features not yet integrated
- Introduction of cloaking/uncloaking concepts
- Full Rts/Fps integration
- Full Selection of Aliens.
Illumina As It Stands Now
So anyway back onto where Illumina is right now :) . Well we missed our deadline and as a result need to cutback on some ambitious features which will just have to wait until after beta :)
Heres what illumina contains right now
- 8 Weapons Per side. Pistol,2 light machine guns, 2 scoped machine guns, 1 heavy machine gun, 1 sniper rifle, 1 rocket launcher. All weapons have alternate melee attacks for when you run out of ammo .
- 7 Vehicles per side. APC, Assualt Helo, Dropship,Heavy Jeep, Light Jeep, Heavy Tank, Light Tank. All with a variety of weapons.
- Fully integrated Day/Night system (thanks To John Kabus). Fully customisable. from the timescale to the start time of map.
- 4-5 items per side. C4, Grenades, Flashbangs, Smoke Grenades, Nightvision,Medkits
- 8- 10 maps. Ranging from snow, to desert to forest environments. Both indoor and outdoor gameplay.
- Basic Squad Gameplay. Team Selected Squad leader who has ability to call in airstrikes, drop supplies for his teammates and assign waypoints. Played from the soldiers point of view , he fights in the battlefield just like every other player.
The beta makes use of all the following wonderful GG Products
- Time Aste Environment Pack 1
- Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack
- Mojo Audio Explosions Pack
- Sci Fi Furniture pack
So thats whats coming your way soon. We just have to fix a few last minute things and rework some gameplay .
And for those who have been kind enough to read my whole plan. Heres a pic or 2 :)
and some quick movies. showing the animations, the vehicles (none of them where drivable so there just static shapes), some of the bases, and a few other cool things.
www.illumina-game.com/vid1.avi
up to
www.illumina-game.com/vid7.avi
Anyway back to scaling back features :)
#2
We're using a similar system with squads per team, almost like a "chain of command" method. We figured thats as easy to produce and keeping a fairly complex system for players.
Scaling back features does hurt sometimes, but a way to look at it is seeing how you cam make a system work in a more economical way, getting the general idea across without losing too much of your original idea.
Love your videos...keep up the good work!
11/18/2005 (12:47 am)
Looking good man :))We're using a similar system with squads per team, almost like a "chain of command" method. We figured thats as easy to produce and keeping a fairly complex system for players.
Scaling back features does hurt sometimes, but a way to look at it is seeing how you cam make a system work in a more economical way, getting the general idea across without losing too much of your original idea.
Love your videos...keep up the good work!
#3
11/18/2005 (5:45 am)
I'm so excited about this game. Keep it up guys. I was impressed with the destroyable walls in the first movie.
#4
Ian this is looking great so far. The smoke looks kind of funny but it's an interesting style. The squad commands being slimmed down sucks but at least it may be simple enough for even me to play now :) You can always release updates later or add your extra features in a sequel. Good luck man.
-Ajari-
11/18/2005 (6:46 am)
Sup Blake! Ian this is looking great so far. The smoke looks kind of funny but it's an interesting style. The squad commands being slimmed down sucks but at least it may be simple enough for even me to play now :) You can always release updates later or add your extra features in a sequel. Good luck man.
-Ajari-
#5
Btw: just checked out vid7, nice day/night transitions.
11/18/2005 (7:36 am)
Hey Ian, wow I love the character model - very cool!Btw: just checked out vid7, nice day/night transitions.
Blake Lowry
It's great working with these guys on this GIANT project :)