[ALPHA] Kaboom Arena - We make things go BOOM!!!
Kaboom Arena is a fast paced game where your primary objective is to survive in the arena by blowing up your opponents with all manner of items and weapons that go boom.
The game is an isometric, 3D-rendered remake of classics like Bomberman but with a more free-form, less lane-oriented design.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Overview:
Your primary weapon is a bomb, that can be enhanced by drinking one of the many different types of power-up potions scattered throughout the arena. Throw the bomb and watch in glee as it explodes.
Your secondary weapon is some dynamite that is dropped at your feet waiting to catch out any other players running behind you. This weapon can also be enhanced to become more of a defensive weapon.
The game is intended to be played by 1 to 8 players on a single arena.
The Story:
You are a Goblin Sapper, thrust into an arena by those pesky Humans to fight for your life, and of course be the source of their entertainment.
You will need to use all your skills of "Da Boom" coupled with your cunning and guile to survive, but not even death will bring an end to the misery thanks to those damn Human Wizards who are always resurrecting you.
Use the gold that your opponents drop to buy more powerful items to bring with you into the arena and maybe give you that extra edge.
It is time to make things go BOOM!!!
Your Player:
Your Goblin Sapper has a couple of attributes that allow you to get a quick indication of their status.
Your health is limited, make sure you look after it because when your health reaches 0 you are dead and will have to re-spawn to continue playing. Find potions of health scattered around the arena to keep it at maximum level. Luckily those annoying Human Wizards have perfected the art of resurrecting you, so when you die you will be able to quickly re-spawn and be back in the arena blowing things up.
Your stamina is limited and allows your Goblin Sapper to make a mad dash to get out of or in to trouble. While dashing around, your Goblin Sapper is unable to throw Bombs or drop Bundles of Dynamite. As long as you have stamina and you keep the dash button held down, your Goblin Sapper will move at double the normal speed. Replenish your stamina by picking up Potions of Stamina that are dropped by other players when they die.Weapons:
Kaboom Arena uses two basic weapons to achieve the level of destruction that is common in the arena.
Bombs are your primary weapon, you start with 5 and you regenerate them at a rate of 1 every 2 seconds. Use the quirkiness of the bounce to catch your opponents out. Bombs arm themselves after the first bounce and have a fuse length of 2 seconds.
Bundles of Dynamite are your secondary weapons, you start with 5 and you regenerate them at a rate of 1 every 5 seconds. Drop them behind you as you move to catch out any opponents chasing you. Bundles of Dynamite arm themselves as soon as you move away from them and they have a fuse length of 1 second.Loot:
During the course of the game, loot will be dropped by other players in the form of gold, health potions, and stamina potions. Remember that no matter what the victory condition is, you should always try to pick up as much gold as possible.
Every time you kill an opposing Goblin Sapper, they drop a portion of the gold they are carrying. Gold can be used to win rounds in certain conditions but they can also be used in the shop to buy items that you can use in future rounds. Remember anyone can pick the gold up, so you have to be quick.
The health potion is the only way of keeping your health at maximum levels while playing. Health potions are instant use items and you can only pick them up if your health is not at maximum level. The potions are dropped when a Goblin Sapper is killed and they will only remain in the arena for 60 seconds after being dropped. A health potion restores 25 health when it is drunk.
The stamina potion is the only way to get your stamina back up to maximum levels, see the stamina section for more information on why you need stamina. The potions are dropped when a Goblin Sapper is killed but only if they have maximum stamina at the point they are killed. The potions remain in the arena for 60 seconds after being dropped and restore 25 stamina when they are drunk.Power-Ups:
During the course of the game, various power-ups will be spawned all over the arena. All power-ups are activated automatically when you run over them and have a limited life span, so you will need to learn to use them wisely and figure out what strategy best suits your playing style.
With the Cluster Bomb power-up, your normal bombs will create 4 "bomblets" on detonation. These "bomblets" will create 4 more "bomblets" each on detonation. The two stages of "bomblets" all have a reduced damage range and reduced damage scale than their parent.
The Incendiary Bomb power-up turns your normal bombs into a wide area destructive weapon that coats everything in flames. The flames will stay in the area for 30 seconds and anyone entering the area will take progressive fire damage.
Your normal Bombs already have a quirkiness to their bounce, the Bouncy Bomb makes this even more quirky. The Bouncy Bomb will continue to bounce until it finally detonates. It has a longer fuse time and can be thrown much further, so be careful when throwing these in enclosed areas.
The Bag of Bombs is one of those cool things that the Human Wizards actually came up with. It is basically a bag containing an unlimited supply of bombs, it however only lasts for 15 seconds from the moment you pick it up. So use it wisely and use it quickly.Items:
Typically the items are purchased from the shop, but there are some items that spawn along with normal power-ups in the arena. Items can only be picked up if you have an empty slot in your hot-bar and you can only pick up one item per hot-bar slot. Some items are singular use and other items have multiple uses, your hot-bar will give you an indication of the type of item and its uses.
The Smoke Screen is a barrel of 5 Smoke Bombs. The smoke screen will remain active in the area for 60 seconds and can be used to cover your retreat or hide all manner of explosives in it. The smoke screen is a once-off power-up and is expended every time you drop one.Website & Forum:
Official Website
Official Forum
Press Kit:
Press Kit
Social Media:
Google+
Twitter (@ggkaboomarena)
Comments
Did some more work this weekend. We now have a fully networked enabled re-spawn system. Not to mention the added background audio and modified audio to work better with the game.
Please Note: The game play is still a little slow because it is just me playing on two client machines ... it will get faster paced with the next release.
Our new website is up and running: http://www.kaboomarena.com/
It is time to release v0.2.0.0 to everyone.
Before we continue, please remember that this is an ALPHA release and by its nature there are bound to be bugs and issues. As an Alpha Tester you should be aware of this and realise that this is not indicative of the final product.
The game is at a playable state now and there are a few features missing, these will be added over the course of the next few weeks ... but I thought I might as well release and see what happens.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Want to ask you a few questions @quintond assuming you are using Unity
1- How did you guys get a console server going?
2- What form of networking are you guys using. What I mean with this can the players walk around even if there is lag or will the server prevent that etc. Just want to know which route you guys took in terms of server validation etc
3- What networking are you guys using (Unity Networking etc)
Are you guys doing most of the networking client side or server side?
So for instance, the movement of the players and the weapons are all handled via replicated movement. Spawning a bundle of Dynamite Sticks or throwing a Bomb is controlled by the server. The server performs checks to make sure the player is alive and they have enough ammo to do the job.
This same process applies to picking up gold and potions and being damaged by the weapons.
We basically built in networking right from the start and didn't try to shoe-horn it in afterwards.
So we are now working on the next release for Kaboom Arena and our plan is to do bi-weekly releases until we get to a Beta state. Below is a list of the next set of features that we want to implement for the next release:
- DONE - Add persistent player settings screen
- DONE - Add social media features (Twitter for now, others to follow)
- DONE - Add in-game chat system
We are also currently preparing the Linux Client and Linux Server builds in order to get our Alpha test server up. I will do another announcement regarding the Linux Client and Linux Server when they are ready.It is time to release v0.3.0.0 to everyone.
Before we continue, please remember that this is an ALPHA release and by its nature there are bound to be bugs and issues. As an Alpha Tester you should be aware of this and realise that this is not indicative of the final product.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Release Notes:
[FIXED] Join server bug where the error message would never be displayed when a server couldn't be connected to.
[FIXED] The arena wall textures where he edge could be seen.
[FIXED] The non-random nature of the arena floor, this is now completely random on each level load.
[FIXED] The non-random nature of the arena pillars, this is now completely random on each level load.
[ADDED] Social media integration for Twitter, see the player setup page for more information.
[ADDED] Persistent player settings including player name and Twitter handle.
[ADDED] In game chat system to taunt your opponents with.
[ADDED] Gamepad support for in game menus and re-spawn functions.
[CHANGED] A lot of the sounds to the final versions and no longer using placeholder sounds.
It is time to release v0.3.1.0 to everyone.
This is an urgent fix to resolve some of the issues experienced during multi-player with the weapons spawning being offset from the player.
Before we continue, please remember that this is an ALPHA release and by its nature there are bound to be bugs and issues. As an Alpha Tester you should be aware of this and realise that this is not indicative of the final product.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Release Notes:
[FIXED] Bug where the weapons could be spawned offset from the player and continued to do that until the player was killed.
This is some game play footage of the Alpha v0.3.1.0 that we recorded during a play test session. You can't hear my voice because my software was not configured to record my Microphone.
This is the raw footage, so you will hear us discuss one of the bugs and a possible solution as well as a host of other topics.
My thanks go to Richard Asbridge and Matthew Leach for making the play test so awesome.
EDIT: Uploaded a better quality video that is much shorter.
But then I tried really hard to look past that, and I still couldn't really see what's going on... The bombs themselves seem almost invisible except for the smoke trail? So the deal is to just throw things at the other player, and dodge things other players throw?
What are the blue things lying around everywhere?
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I've been meaning to comment on this a while ago, have been looking for some solid gameplay first to confirm my views...
Multiplayer games are hard. Getting players is hard because noone else is playing, noone else playing because it's hard to get players. I'm sure you've experienced that difficulty to get feedback/attention if you don't have something really exciting for people to see.
So... I haven't seen anything mechanically that's interesting or gets me excited. You just throw bombs at each other? Like bomberman? But bomberman is really about timing and the ability to react to the situation (it stars out really slow and you can see everything that's happening). I don't see a ramp up in what's going on in this game yet.
You've invested a lot of time in graphics and effects and models and sound and all that, but before all of that you should have worked on the play... Which I don't see yet. Don't know if I'm missing huge swathes of something, feel free to show it off more if I am!
Regarding gameplay I think it looks quite nice except that it is too easy to dodge the bombs. Maybe have the time it takes to blow up a bit shorter because when I look at the footage the bombs get thrown directly at the players but they have more than enough time to change directions and dodge it.
tl;dr
@Zaphire: Thank you for comments. You are quite right about it being too easy to dodge bombs and this was something that was discussed during the play test and afterwards among the team. In light of this we are adding 5 new power-ups to the game (more information to follow).
We have also reduced the refresh timers on all weapons by half and this should change things up quite drastically. This is the primary reason why we play test, to tweak things and maybe change things that don't work.
There are also numerous extra features coming, more information to follow on that.
@Tuism: Thank you for your comments. I am a little confused however, how are you supposed to work on game play without play testing and you can't do play testing without some type of basic working game.
The game has always intended to be multiplayer and I have had to wire in the replication and networking code right from the start (due to some of the nuances of UE4 replication). The play test you see is exactly that, the testing of the networking and ensuring that the base items and loot are spawned correctly and apply to the relevant player when picked up. This was a success and leads me on to the blue items you saw in the video.
These were the stamina potions that are dropped by a dead player under certain circumstances. I had not wired in the stamina ability of dash at this time because I wanted to make sure that the health potions (uses the same blueprint as the stamina potions) was working properly on the network. So that is why you see so many of them on the screen, which leads me on to the next point.
Another thing I wanted to test was how performance of the game was effected when there were so many items on the screen (the shed load of blue potions). The good news was that performance wasn't impacted at all but the arena started getting very messy, so I have now added a despawn function to all items (except for gold) that removes the item after 60 seconds. The sheer volume of items that were on the arena and that didn't effect the performance helped me to work out a way of spawning the power-ups mentioned earlier in this post. This leads me on to the next point.
As you can see in the video, there are no Victory Conditions, I specifically didn't put any Victory Conditions in because I wanted to test how well the server and clients performed after running a game for a prolonged period of time. Ideally this will never be a situation in the final game because of Victory Conditions, the test was a success. The game server and clients ran without performance issues for almost 2 hours of the test.
Now I can test most of the multiplayer features through the UE4 editor but no test is as good as a live test with actual players and that is what this play test was about. Test the basic functions and features and make sure they are solid - done. Test the networking functions and features and make sure they are solid - done. Test the GUI/HUD functions and features and make sure they are solid - done.
Yes the game play needs some work and the play testing (as well as @Zaphire) highlighted that there are short comings and that is why I released the Alpha publicly so early on. The game is far from finished and every step of the way I have stated that but the benefit of being an Indie Developer is that I can change the direction of the game if I ever need to. The game has a long way to go and there will be many more play tests to come and the game will grow and get better but without a solid foundation to work off then I am just going to prolong my pain and agony in the long run.
As for the graphics and the sound ... my sound guy actually does his sound work inside of UE4 and from the beginning he asked me to give him a working prototype with as much of the final graphics and effects as possible so that he could get a good feel for the game and the art style of the game.
What I now have is custom sounds and music made for the game that fits in with the style of the game. It is prudent to note that not all the art and assets and are final however, there are some missing elements and some items that need to still be changed but not much ... and that means the team can focus on the game mechanics and the game play now and because of the rapid prototyping in UE4 by using Blueprints we can quickly change and adapt as we test.
The final note is that during the play test, I made note of about 8 bugs ... all of those bugs are squashed and will be fixed for the next release.
Once again, thanks to everyone who commented ... the video was crap and I have fixed that. The game is lacking some game play elements and we are fixing that ... it is because of feedback like this and hopefully with me providing more information like this post that the game will move forward.
Thank you again and as usual comments and criticisms are always welcome. 8-}
Also I would suggest you get yourself Warcraft 3 (which I assume you got this games idea from anyway :P) and download Mad Balls. Go look at the stage design there and how a simple throw mechanic with "balls" that function differently can make players play for HOURS and HOURS!
Link (Think its this one): https://www.epicwar.com/maps/84564/
Why Mad Balls's game design will help your game.
* The way the stage was designed there was a lot of pillars, walls etc where the balls would bounce against which creates a bit more randomness as well as tactical throws making the game more interesting. For instance your bombs you throw you could bounce off a wall into the enemy.
* There were height advantages. On certain areas you would be able to throw further because of the height and it was also difficult for the enemy to hit you from there.
* When you killed players you got 10G per kill. The gold was used at shops located on the map to buy things like boots (which make you run faster) and even a jump pack which made you rocket jump small distances adding to the fun and awesomeness of the game.
* There were "turrets" in the map where a player could take his balls and shoot it with a much higher velocity almost instantly killing enemies but also left him exposed as he could not dodge. Maybe in your game also have things on the map that a player can interact with which is a high risk to use but a high chance of killing someone when used.
Hope these suggestions will help you a bit :)
tl;dr: Basically I go over the different power-ups we have already thought about and look at some of the ideas that @Zaphire provided us.
@Zaphire: Thanks for the ideas ... there are some very interesting ones there and some that we have already thought of or have a similar but slightly different idea, I will try to cover some of them here.
I will cover Gold and go over the power-ups we have earmarked for the next release later on in this post ... but based on the information you provided and more play testing, there will probably be more to come. Initially we are looking at 15 seconds duration for power-ups, but play testing will give us an indication of whether it is too short or too long.
Before I cover the rest, I want to share the bomb bounces. If you notice, the arena floor is made up of raised and lowered areas, the bombs are all physics enabled and you can get some pretty funky bounces with the bombs. You can also throw bombs in quick succession while running ... the bombs will collide with each other and head in different directions ... I actually used that strategy in the game to catch out Matthew who was low health at the time.
Gold: Currently when you die you drop a portion of your gold based on how much you have ... 0 - 25 you drop 7 every time you die. 26 to 50 you drop 16 every time you die. 50+ you drop 21 every time. Why the weird numbers ... well I counted the amount of gold pieces in my 3 models for the loot piles and used that number ... nobody said I was normal.
The Gold will be persistently stored with your account and we haven't exactly figured out what we are going to do with it yet, but the idea is to allow the players to buy skins and power-ups and stuff like that.
Bouncy Bomb - Power-Up: This power-up gives your bomb a longer fuse and the bomb continues to bounce until it detonates. It also is thrown with a higher velocity and therefore goes further and bounces more erratically.
Cluster Bomb - Power-Up: This power-up turns your bomb in to a cluster bomb which in a nutshell splits in to 3 more bombs at the first explosion (which are immediate armed and not armed on first bounce like the normal bombs), when these 3 detonate they split in to 3 bombs again and then will stop.
Incendiary Bomb - Power-Up: This power up turns your bomb in to a napalm bomb in essence. On detonation it will cover an area for a duration in flames ... running through it or being caught in the flames will cause damage.
Bag'o'Bombs - Power-Up: This power up gives you unlimited bombs (not Dynamite) for a duration. This power-up has identified that we need a cool down on the amount of times you can throw a bomb in succession ... but this cool down will probably only be applied to this power-up ... maybe simulating you having to dig in the bag to throw the bomb. *shrug*
Smoke Bomb - Power-Up: This power-up turns your dynamite in to a smoke bomb and can be used to hide nasty surprises for those following you, or to cover your escape, or whatever else you can think of.
So as you can see, we have quite a few ideas for different weapons and more diversity in the game play, most of the power-ups came from the play-test session but some have been on our back-log on Trello for a little while.
There is nothing stopping us from allowing people to buy things like magical shields that make bombs bounce off in all manner of weird directions. This could be an activation amulet that can only be bought with Gold and has a recharge rate ... maybe if you are killed with the amulet on it drops in the arena and other players can pick it up ... I don't know ... there are many ideas and things we can look at.
Damn ... I am writing a long wall of text again ... anyway ... thanks for your ideas and suggestions @Zaphire, they are really appreciated and I have made a note of them on our Trello board.
A "basic working game" doesn't need animated goblin model, full arena graphics, a bunch of settings screens, etc. A basic working game is just that... Basic. Working. Blocks and blobs. I think maybe what I did this past Ludum Dare is a good example: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/04/21/mecha-cop-a-visual-timeline/
The gameplay could and was tested at this stage. All the graphics were unanimated and just blocks thrown down quickly, but they moved and gameplay could be tested:
By the time I got to this I had locked down how game play worked - any changes to gameplay at this point would have added a huge amount of backward-fixing work:
I'm sure better examples exist but I don't have time right now to go dig them up :/
Otherwise, glad you found what you need to find during your playtest, I was simply saying that it should have happened a long time ago in the development cycle, before the graphics and all the bits that doesn't affect the gameplay was made (and if you indeed found that the gameplay NEEDED graphics you could have made them AFTER the gameplay was looked at and more refined, way more easily than this way around)
Good luck with it. Multiplayer is tough.
UE4 allows me to quickly adapt and change things using the Blueprint system (formerly known as Kismet) and I have from the start made sure my weapons, players, loot, power-ups use parameters so it is quite easy to tweak and change attributes of the various items.
Thanks again for the feedback. 8-}
EDIT: HAHA nevermind I found it and its not exactly the same just looked very similar.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=n8Z79bqoFAI
One of the items that has recently come up that should be available for purchasing with your gold is a set of Bear Traps. You will basically drop this on the arena floor ... anyone running in to them will get trapped for like 15 seconds and therefore becomes a sitting duck.
These are just some of the ideas being sent to us by some of our play testers ... so I am happy with the early release and this is one of the reasons why I love being an Indie Developer. 8-}
So at the end of this week, we are planning on releasing v0.5.0.0 to everyone. This release will mark a milestone as we will now have end-to-end gameplay of all of the core game mechanics. This release will also see us starting down the process of Steam Greenlight as the team felt we needed to have victory conditions before we attempted to do a Steam Greenlight.
- Victory Condition - Gold
- Victory Condition - Time Limit
- DONE - Dash Ability
- Arena Type - Pits
- Power Up - Bag'o'Bombs
- Power Up - Incendiary Bomb
- Power Up - Smoke Screen
- Power Up - Bouncy Bomb
- Power Up - Cluster Bomb
- Player Skin
- Leaderboard and Player Stats
- Persistent Player Gold
- GUI Tweaks and Updates
- HUD Tweaks and Updates
v0.5.0.0 will be hitting the servers by Sunday the 10th May at around lunchtime GMT+2.Gameplay wise, I feel like there's this huge disconnect between what you're trying to make the focus of the game (explosions and throwing bombs) and what the game actually focuses on in the camera frame. You can't really see people at the time you need to see them to throw anything predictively - by the time someone's on your screen they can probably escape anything you do and thus only take damage out of stupidity or inattention. As a player, it's also going to be frustrating when the things that DO damage you are seemingly random events like bombs coming in from out of frame when there's no way someone could have really known where you were...
A dash can help, but if it changes a large percentage of your current view, then it's not actually much good to players because they can't know that using a dash is tactically useful right now if they can't SEE what they're dashing to/from. I think that you need to mess with your basic gameplay values a lot: Change the speed that goblins move at (slow them down in terms of relative screen space they cover vs average explosion size), make bomb throwing more cerebral (like adding in a charge-up-to-throw-further-mechanic) , pull the camera back a lot to allow more of the level to be visible so that planning can happen (and address the issue with the lower half of the screen seeing less actual gameplay space due to perspective), make the levels more relevant in terms of layouts, and even try linking bombs and movement to a combined resource to create choice pressure in players - do they run/dash or turn and fight?
I feel like learning how to spot and solve these sorts of gameplay problems is much more important to building a career in game development than rushing to try and sell a thing.
I am happy to announce that v0.6.0.0 of Kaboom Arena has been released.
This release includes the following changes:
- Brand new user interface that is easier to read than the previous one and fits in properly with the colour scheme of the game.
- The ability to find games on-line using the new Game Flow web service.
- The ability to report hosted games to the new Game Flow web service.
- All players and servers are now allocated a GUID if they don't have one.
- The Pillars are now generated as part of the main arena floor and this should overcome some of the player de-sync issues we were experiencing. This is also going to allow us to have bots in the next release.
- The potion spawning has now been optomised in preparation for the new arena in the next release.
- Some SFX and VFX changes provided to us by Karl Muller.
- Linux server and client support ... yay ... finally. 8-}
The game currently has a 50 gold victory condition built in, once that victory condition is achieved, all players will be notified and the game server will restart the map to begin another round.A dedicated server will be operational for the entire window of this release, if you would like to host your own, please contact me and I will send you instructions on how to get your server ready to support the Game Flow web service.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
I am happy to announce that v0.6.1.0 of Kaboom Arena has been released.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
Version 0.6.3.0 is now ready for download.
[MIGRATED] Code to version 4.8 of Unreal Engine.
[REMOVED] Old debug arena blueprint.
[REMOVED] Old blueprints no longer being used.
[REMOVED] Loot spawning from the level blueprint.
[REMOVED] Some files from being tracked by version control.
[CHANGED] Players now collide with each other again.
[CHANGED] Players now collide with bombs and dynamite again.
[FIXED] Error being displayed when the project is opened in the editor.
[FIXED] Linux build on 4.8.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
While we are preparing the v0.7.0.0 release of the game we have been working on a few outside areas of the game.
Our website has been updated and will now work much better on mobile phones and other smart devices: http://www.kaboomarena.com/
Our forums are now operational and you can contact the developers and participate in the process by joining us at: http://forum.kaboomarena.com/
We have posted our first blog explaining how we came up with the concept and why we chose the name and went ahead with the concept, you can read the blog here.
We are also busy finalising the next release (v0.7.0.0) which will include a host of updates and some new features. We are also including our first game mode called KaBAAboom ... it has something to do with Sheep ... that is all I am saying. 8-}
This release was sneaked in to address some of the issues encountered with the migration to Unreal Engine 4.8. It is also includes the new persistent storage release of the Game Flow service. Version 0.6.4.0 is now ready for download.
[FIXED] Bug where Bomb Collision when Thrown was making the player model stagger and jitter.
[FIXED] Bug where Dying While Powered-Up the Indicator Remains.
[FIXED] Bug where Maps are not random enough.
[FIXED] Bug where Arena Music Not Playing.
[FIXED] Bug where Menu Music Not Playing.
[FIXED] Bug where Bomb Particles Not Working Properly.
[FIXED] Bug where Dynamite Particles Not Working Properly.
[FIXED] Bug where player was not taking damage.
[FIXED] Minor bug with BLUI not displaying properly.
[FIXED] Bug where Sheep was accidentally being spawned.
[FIXED] Bug where arena walls were not aligned with the arena floor.
[FIXED] Bug where arena spawn points were not above the ground level.
[FIXED] Bug where Fire Damage Not Applying.
[FIXED] Bug where Double damage being applied.
[FIXED] Bug where Server not being added when run.
[FIXED] Bug where Server GUID not being sent with Heartbeat.
[CHANGED] Weapon damage to rather use radial damage.
[CHANGED] Animation names for Gobbo.
[CHANGED] Menu to now include a Sheep model as well.
[CHANGED] Gobbo Material to have no power for the material.
[CHANGED] All Game Flow calls to use the Game Flow Blueprint Function Library.
[CHANGED] The message system to use a messages data table instead of being hard coded.
[CHANGED] Some systems that use hard coded messages to use the correct message system.
[CHANGED] The chat window to use the new Game Flow webservice and HTML elements to make it look fancy.
[ADDED] Sheep animations and assets.
[ADDED] BLUI plugin to the project to allow us to display HTML files inside the game and HUDS.
[ADDED] New intro sequence for the game, just for fun.
[ADDED] Blui plugin and relevant source code to enable it in the project.
[ADDED] Blui enabled Chat WIndow.
[ADDED] Game Flow data tables to be used by the Game Flow system.
[ADDED] The code that clears messages for a specific server when a server is first hosted.
[REMOVED] Maze elements temporarily while code is re-factored and cleaned up.
[MERGED] Merge request #12.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
It was around about this time that Epic Games released Source Code access to the Unreal Engine for $19.99 per month and we decided to go that route. Obviously they have recently granted FREE access (not open source access) and so our decision to move to Unreal Engine was kind of vindicated.
Unreal Engine has a concept of Blueprints for the non-programmer types and access to C++ for the hardcore programmers, the C++ however is a hybrid (or watered down version) of C++ that uses the various Unreal Engine APIs to perform your tasks.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/
As for making the decision to move over, that is not my part to tell you, it is very much a personal decision and I will never push one tool over another to anyone. Unreal Engine works for me and I have become very proficient at it ... is it better than Unity ... who the hell knows.
Those that would like to have a run through of the Unreal Engine without having to learn on their own or download the engine ... hit me up on Skype and I can give you a brief run through during the evenings.
All I can say is that Torque 3D and Unity didn't work for me ... Unreal Engine did ... so that is why I use it. 8-}
We are going to be doing a large play test on Sunday the 26th July from 17:00 GMT+2 until 22:00 GMT+2. Please feel free to join us if you want to.
We plan on recording footage from some of the games, so it should be a blast.
There will be a local South African server running as well as a few international servers for those in different regions.
The details of the server will be provided closer to the time. I hope to see some of you joining us.
This is some game play footage of the Alpha v0.6.4.0 that we recorded during a play test session. Mathew, Karl and Katja joined me in this session. You will hear Matthew and I discuss some features as well as a few issues that need resolving.
This is the raw footage, so you will hear us discuss one of the bugs and a possible solution as well as a host of other topics.
My thanks go to Matthew Leach, Karl and Katja Muller for making the play test so awesome.
This video covers two or three complete rounds of gameplay and I decided not to edit and just let the video record. We have identified some areas of the game mechanics that need improving and will be doing another play test when we get this resolved.
So after the last play test, we identified a few flat spots in the game play that need addressing. In the video it becomes apparent that players are able to predict the detonation of the bombs quite effectively and thus it becomes a game of who can whittle down the opposing player the quickest. So during the video you will hear us discuss some options and try to come up with something that will work, the discussion eventually went offline and we came up with the following game mechanic changes.
Random Fuses:
Currently the bomb initiates its fuse on first bounce and then runs for a set time before exploding. We are however dealing with Goblin explosives here, so it is only natural that their fuses would not be so predictable. The fuses are now randomly set on first bounce to a minimum of 0.25 seconds and up to the maximum fuse length set for the weapon in question. The same mechanic applies to to dynamite which is activated when a player exits the arming area.
Radial Damage and Damage Radius:
At one point during the game test, I was able to run through a chain of about 8 bombs going off without getting hurt once, we have since changed the damage radius and added radial damage. The damage radius has been increased to a more acceptable level and we have also now implemented radial damage which means you take less damage the further away you are from the center of the explosion.
Lob and Loft:
Currently the game uses a loft mechanic where the player can throw a bomb in to the air in a nice arc, we realized we needed another way of delivering the bomb. We have now introduced the lob mechanic, this basically drops the bomb close to the players feet in front of them which now makes the bomb predictably even less likely.
Some Power-Ups are now Items:
During the game, it became apparent that certain power-ups were a little useless on their own, the smoke bomb being the primary example. The idea behind the smoke bomb is to hide yourself or to hide all manner or nasty explosives in it, the current mechanic makes your dynamite turn in to a smoke bomb when you pick it up and therefore limits you to only being able to use your bombs in the smoke. We have now decided to move some power-ups to items and implement the item mechanic (see next point).
Item/Inventory:
This mechanic was always on the cards and was a way for the player to spend the gold they earned in game on items that they could bring in to the next match. These included items like Bear Traps, and Turrets, and these were only ever able to be bought in the shop. We have now decided to make some Power-Ups (see above item) to become items that spawn in the arena and this can be added to one of your 5 slots, you can then trigger these items and still have access to your normal weapons. A list of the changes of Power-Ups and Items is added to the bottom of this post.
Stamina Potion Drops:
Initially the game only dropped a Stamina potion on a player death if they had full Stamina, during the play test this became apparent that this was not practical. The dead player will now always drop a Stamina potion (and a Health potion) regardless of the Stamina value of the player. Initially we toyed with the idea of allowing Stamina to replenish over time, but we have decided to go this route first and see how the next play test goes.
Arena Sizes:
The current arena being used is a 10x10 arena with 8 spawn points and we realized that this can be a little big for smaller amounts of players. We have now added different sized arenas: Tiny (3x3 with 2 spawn points), Small (4x4 with 4 spawn points), Medium (6x6 with 4 spawn points), Large (8x8 with 6 spawn points), and Extra Large (10x10 with 8 spawn points). By selecting your number of players in the Host game menu, the game will automatically select the size of the Arena for you.
Arena Design:
We are also looking at changing the arena design a little and will also be introducing different themed arenas in the near future. For the next release we are going to focus on just changing the current arena design and once we have nailed the game play we will start looking at different types of arenas.
So we are now working our way through this list and have nailed about 80% of the items already (the power of Unreal Engine) and are aiming to have another release ready for the next play test on Sunday 9th July 2015. I personally think these new changes are going to definitely add the depth to the game and I am looking forward to our next play test. I will provide more information about the Play Test and the server details closer to the time for those that might be interested in joining us.
Here are the list of Items and Power-Ups that was mentioned in an earlier point.
Power-Ups:
- Bouncy Bombs (makes bombs bounce more)
- Bag'o'Bombs (replenish bombs quickly)
- Short Fuses (shorten bomb / dynamite maximum fuse time but not the minimum time)
- Incendiary (bombs detonate and leave a fire in their wake)
Items:- Smoke Bombs
- Trip Mine (not implemented yet)
- Battle Sheep (not implemented yet)
- Barrel 'o' Orc (not implemented yet but is basically a poison smoke bomb that effects your health and stamina)
* More items and Power Ups will be added once we have the base mechanics nailed and are ready to move on to the final stages for the game.Anyway, thanks for your time and I will keep updating here as we make more progress and move forward to our final release.
TL;DR; Basically we identified mechanics that need changing and we are changing them. 8-}
So we have finalised the entire list except for the items/inventory system. This is about 75% complete and I will be finalising that code tonight and releasing it to our testers. If all goes well we should have a new release by Thursday night or early Friday morning (CAT) in preparation for the new play testing on Sunday.
Play Test moved: Due to some unforeseen circumstances the new play test has been moved to Sunday the 16th August 2015.
While talking about play testing, I have been approached by a few people to start the play testing earlier and therefore I will have the servers up and running from 17:00 GMT+2. Initially I am only going to bring a South African server up, but if you would like to play test and want me to bring up a server in your region, I can provision servers for New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, London, and Malaysia. Just drop me a pm or email me at quintond@gobbogames.co.za before Sunday and I will get the server up for you.
I am also going to bring up a Team Speak server for the play test, so if you want to talk to me during the games and play test, I will be available. All server details will be provided before the play test on Sunday through all our usual channels including these forums.
I hope to see some of you online. 8-}
So since the last play test and the recent updates, I have been working on getting the new Item system in place as well as tweaking the Game Messages / Chat Window functionality. Tonight I have reached the goal and here are the fruits of my labor. I literally have 2 items left on my current list and I will then be releasing v0.7.0.0. This new release adds a lot of depth to the game play and hopefully the players will like the new changes.
This also marks the last build (barring any major issues) before we start our Steam Greenlight push and see what happens there. 8-}
New Message Received and the Chat Window is not faded. You will also notice that we have 10 smoke bombs (5 each in slots 1 and 3).
Chat Window has now faded slightly. You will also notice that we have 10 smoke bombs (5 each in slots 1 and 3).
The game flow service is now working very nicely and all the kinks have now been ironed out. The next step will be to enable SSL on the service and do some more regression testing.
We are pleased to announce that v0.7.0.0 of the Alpha is now available for download. Currently only the Windows version is available but the Linux version will follow shortly.
The release includes a whole host of new game mechanic changes that were identified during our last play test and I hope that you will enjoy the changes.
We would recommend that you go through the Player Manual again as there are quite a few changes.
Change List:
[ADDED] Blui plugin for the Chat Message window.
[ADDED] JSON Query plugin to the game.
[ADDED] Placeholder toolbar in preparation for the new items.
[ADDED] The ability to change the map based on the max players selected.
[ADDED] The ability to lob bombs near to the ground by using the lob toggle.
[ADDED] The base ability to pick up items and then use them from your slot.
[ADDED] The base code to allow players to use items.
[ADDED] The base item that will be used for item pickups.
[ADDED] The code that indicates the current slot as well as switches to the next current slot when a slot is depleted.
[ADDED] The code to clear server chat messages.
[ADDED] The code to decrease player numbers on the server when a player leaves or quits.
[ADDED] The code to get server guid.
[ADDED] The code to get the server list from the web-service.
[ADDED] The code to increase player numbers on the server when a player joins.
[ADDED] The code to indicate a new player has connected.
[ADDED] The code to load server and player settings.
[ADDED] The code to retrieve Player GUID from the web service.
[ADDED] The code to save server and player settings.
[ADDED] The code to select the next and previous items.
[ADDED] The code to use the current item.
[ADDED] The different sized arenas (T, S, M, L, XL).
[ADDED] The different sized arenas loot spawners (T, S, M, L, XL).
[ADDED] The final code to prevent items being spawned when no more items are slotted.
[ADDED] The final code to toggle amounts and reset the toolbar when it reaches 0.
[ADDED] The server guid as the first message on a new server set up.
[CHANGED] Added support for Unreal Engine 4.8.3.
[CHANGED] All the maps to have a landscape now.
[CHANGED] All the maps to include blocking volumes.
[CHANGED] All weapons to do damage fall of based on distance.
[CHANGED] All weapons to do more damage.
[CHANGED] All weapons to have an increased radius.
[CHANGED] All weapons to use a random timer from 0.25 seconds to the weapons max fuse time.
[CHANGED] Fire entity to have a slightly increased radius.
[CHANGED] Some of the arena files.
[CHANGED] The default start-up map.
[CHANGED] The loot spawn ratio for all the various sized maps accordingly.
[CHANGED] The loot spawn ratio on the extra large map.
[CHANGED] The toolbar texture for no items.
[CHANGED] The toolbar texture for smoke items.
[FIXED] A bug where you could pick up gold while dead.
[FIXED] A bug where you could pick up potions while dead.
[FIXED] A bug where you could pick up power-ups while dead.
[FIXED] Bug where chat window was not toggling its opacity correctly.
[FIXED] Bug where chat window was not updating correctly.
[FIXED] Bug where chat window was using the correct server id.
[FIXED] Bug where exiting the game menu prevented the chat window from being rendered.
[FIXED] Bug where html chat window was not receiving correct server guid.
[FIXED] Bug where Re-spawn Menu Not Rendering Correctly.
[FIXED] Bug where server guid was not being set correctly on player.
[FIXED] Bug where the arenas lighting was incorrect and not being calculated correctly.
[FIXED] Bug where the smoke item was not spawning using the loot spawn system.
[FIXED] Bug where the text chat window was not returning focus back to the game viewport after finishing entering a text chat.
[FIXED] Bug where too many game menus were being generated.
[FIXED] Bug where you can pick up More Items than a player has space
[FIXED] Some lighting issues on all arenas.
[MERGED] Merge request #13
[REMOVED] All offsets on some of the arena loot systems.
[REMOVED] Blui plugin.
[REMOVED] JSON plugin.
[REMOVED] The landscapes from all the maps as it was causing lighting issues.
[REMOVED] The smoke potion.
[REMOVED] Unused asset.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
This is a new upload that addresses the issue with the Linux build not working, we upgraded to v3.1 of Blui in the process.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
We are going to be running 3 test sessions on Sunday 23rd August 2015 for v0.7.0.3.
If you would like to join us and maybe take your chances and pit your skills against the developers, please download the game (http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download) for some fun and all manner of things that go boom.
We will also have a Team Speak server up and running, there are limited slots so it will be on a first come first serve basis. Join in the fun and have a chat to the developers at the same time. The Team Speak server details will be made available prior to the test sessions.
We hope you join us on Sunday and help us make things go BOOM!!!
We have released version 0.7.0.2 of Kaboom Arena that addressed a couple of urgent bugs. The play test on Sunday will be using v0.7.0.2 of the game.
The game is currently still in Alpha and we have just released v0.7.0.3, see below for more information or go straight to download it - http://www.kaboomarena.com/#download
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.
We have released version 0.7.0.3 of Kaboom Arena that addressed a couple of urgent bugs.
Changes:
[FIXED] Bug where the dedicated server would not allow players to pick up items.
Please download v0.7.0.3 for Windows 64 bit here:
Please download v0.7.0.3 for Linux 64 bit here:
Please provide feedback through the usual channels.