Devlog 01: Reseach and exploration

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the page and first devlog of Lance a Lot!

Lance a Lot is (or will be) a fun multiplayer couch PvP game where little knights carry oversized lances to try to push each other off the arena so that they can be the last person standing and claim victory! The game aims to be chaotic fun in its gameplay, through wonky physics and environmental hazards to avoid or lure your opponents into. 

This project is a collaboration between Andó Borbála, Castelein Léon, Jansen Tim (3 game artists), Pirolo Anthony, Sleeckx Seppe (2 game developers) and Vansteenkiste Luka (game sound designer). Lance a Lot is a student project for the course Game Projects at Digital Arts and Entertainment (Howest).

This devlog will give you weekly updates throughout the development of this game. This first post will talk about our first prototypes and the very early stages of the development.

Working in Unity

Looking at some aspects of Unity 6 compared to Unreal Engine it is very clear why we prefer using Unity. First and foremost, since time is of the essence in this project it seemed that Unity was the better choice all together. Scripting is obviously a big factor in choosing the right engine, since Unity uses C# it is fairly easy to get the hang of it, compared to Unreal Engine and it's C++ scripting. Though Unity is more beginner-friendly, doesn't mean that it isn't powerful for seasoned developers. Since photo realistic graphics aren't necessary in our games Unity is also a better option. Another big argument for Unity is the fact that the asset store is a real treasure trove, making it easy to make prototypes and develop games. This is also made possible through the huge community that it has, making sure that any problem you have is probably already solved!

The artists in our team are more used to working in Unreal Engine, so, besides developing an art style for the game, they were focused  this week on learning how to apply their knowledge to Unity. Two prototypes were made. One prototype to test the creation of shaders and materials instances using the shader graph. And another to test how to create particle effects. Next, we’ll focus on expanding our art style through an art bible, experimenting with a stylized water shader for the moat surrounding the arena in our game, and testing a rigging and animation workflow.

Mechanical Prototypes

We now have 2 prototypes in the works in terms of movement, but for now we'll cover one since it also has some other features. Currently the movement is build around a simple acceleration system and Unity's physics materials to make the player and walls bouncy. Our goal in this game is to make it clear that the knights everyone will control are too little for the lances that they are carrying. This is made clear by making the knights slippery and bouncy, adding to the overall goofiness of our game.

Another prototype that has been made is one of the random events our game will contain. This event is the gust of wind that will "sweep" over the map. Players can get pushed into this gust of wind by other players or just accidentally walk into it while it's passing by. When a player can't get out in time, he'll probably fall to his doom and lose the current round. Players will also have to look out for items getting caught in this, since they can push a player further away if moved with enough speed.

Next up is a prototype for adding the actual local multiplayer for our game. Since we're using Unity 6 we tried using one of the new systems/components added in this latest version. The adding, assigning and input for the players is pretty straightforward and nothing much can go wrong with this built in system.