First 3D Prototype

With this post, I have now made a base game that I'm relatively happy with.  It's certainly not close to finished; there is no actual art yet, several major features are missing, and I may even change the plane controller. However, I now have a prototype of my 3D endless runner kind of game.  From here I can really start creating the game I'm imagining in my head.

I knew that creating a good controller for the plane is crucial since most of the game's feel and enjoyment is coming directly from the plane. I started experimenting with Unity's jet aircraft controller contained in their standard assets and figured I would tweak from there. Although Unity's controller feels good and certainly behaves like you would expect, it wasn't quite what I need for this game. Overall it was almost too much of a real aircraft to work in this arcade-style game about dodging obstacles. So I started over and built a simpler plane controller from scratch. I don't think it's perfected yet but I spent some time making it and it feels passable to me for where I am in this project. The rolling and turning of the plane could be adjusted a bit but I wanted to start working on everything else that needs to be done.

That brings me to the level generation. I found a great little series about procedural track generation by Matt MirrorFish  (link below) that was just what I needed. I put his ideas for creating an endless chain of level pieces together with some procedural item placement I have made before. This let me build what I have now, basic level chunks connected in sequence and randomly generated obstacles placed in each chunk. To finish off the prototype I added some quick UI for the player's speed and distance traveled and put the shader I made previously onto the world.

Unfortunately I am not totally sold on the look of the game yet. While I like the stark two-tone look, I am definitely seeing some readability problems even in my very limited personal playtesting. I always try to put functionality before aesthetics since no one will care that your game looks cool if it's cumbersome to play. My next step will be creating actual art pieces for the level chunks that the player flies through. I'm hoping with some extra definition and texture the walls and obstacles will start to read better in the two color style. If not I will probably have to expand the color palette or look for another way to convey the original case's aesthetic.

After some base art, more features need to be implemented. The most important of these being the pitchfork throwing devils mentioned in Brent Ashe's blurb about the game. I plan to spawn these enemies in a similar fashion to how I'm currently handling the obstacles. After that I will need to work on the final core piece of the prompt, carrying passengers. That is still a while down the road though and probably won't be included in my next update.

Link to Matt MirrorFish Endless Runner series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuldlT8dkudoUKJr76WHIwcoYnVwY1FV4