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[APK download] Crashland Reborn

sfaok
Protege
Hi my name is Llŷr. In this thread I'm going to document the development of my VR gamejam entry.



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ChallengePost : http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissi ... and-reborn
Download : Crashland Reborn APK
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In Crashland Reborn, you will find yourself marooned on a hostile alien planet. Armed with only a smart pistol and motion scanner, your will need to fend off waves of increasingly ferocious aliens and survive until rescue arrives.

While the odds are stacked against you, killing aliens yields credits which can be spent on various power-ups for your gun. These will (probably) come in two forms:

• Firing modes (single shot, three round burst, full auto, rockets).
• Upgrades – stackable stat boosts (damage, reload, accuracy, rate of fire, capacity).

Power-ups will be purchased via a HUD that appears when you tap the Gear VR’s touchpad. The HUD will also display information such as credits and time left.

The power-ups will be delivered in the most metal way imaginable - via mortars launched from orbit! These will land in your general vicinity to encourage movement.

The game’s theme and visuals will be a pastiche of films such as Aliens, Predator, Robocop, Dredd and Starship Troopers. Very blocky, 1980’s design with Paul Verhoeven levels of blood squibs.


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There are four salient aspects to my entry:

1. The aim is to develop a fast and action packed FPS that adheres to VR best practices. Of paramount importance is how comfortable the game is to control. All rotational movement will come from the player’s own body, balanced around using a swivel chair. There will be no analogue rotation. I will attempt to create an intuitive control scheme that combines head tracking with decoupled aiming.

2. The game will be wholly designed around a short 10-15 minute experience, which I believe is the perfect length for mobile VR.

3. The gameplay is designed to invoke a constant arms race between the player and the attacking aliens. It will be completely up to the player how they upgrade their pistol, yielding many permutations, strategies and meta gameplay for the community to discover.

4. The aliens will hopefully be driven by a procedural animation system. This means that every encounter will be unique and should result in a very visceral minute-to-minute experience.

I'll leave you with a work in progress render of the alien species you will face in Crashland Reborn, 6 legged terrors I'm calling Frog Demons!



Note: As mentioned I released a DK1 demo called Crashland in Summer 2013 and I will be reusing the name, premise and some assets from that demo here. However I want to stress that the experience I am developing for this gamejam is completely new and will be designed and coded entirely from scratch for the competition.
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok
72 REPLIES 72

sfaok
Protege
"spinaljack" wrote:
Any non-controller support?
Would love to play it.

No unfortunately! Uses every button and stick on the controller. I might eventually have some kind of gesture / gaze shooter mode for touchpad only if I can think of an elegant design. Swipe to change fire modes etc.
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok

Anonymous
Not applicable
Just played for about 20 minutes before I had to take a phone call. Great game! The controls are very smooth and aiming works well. The graphics are very nice and the sound effects work well also. I never managed to survive the 8 minutes yet, probably because I didn't know how to upgrade the gun. I see the directions to tap the touchpad in the screenshots now, so hopefully I'll have better luck after upgrading. The enemies have good animation and can be tricky to kill when they start strafing to the side.

I do find it tricky to use the radar though. I mainly just relied on the sound to let me know where the enemies were coming from because pressing down on the direction pad means that I can't keep moving. Standing still seems to be a recipe for death so I didn't bother using it much.

I assume that there is no run option due to motion sickness concerns? When the enemies were closing in on me two at a time, it would have been nice to able to move away faster. The teleport option takes a while to cue up so I didn't get the hang of using that as an escape method yet. Is that what it is intended for?

Well done game! 😄

sfaok
Protege
"fella1" wrote:
Just played for about 20 minutes before I had to take a phone call. Great game! The controls are very smooth and aiming works well. The graphics are very nice and the sound effects work well also. I never managed to survive the 8 minutes yet, probably because I didn't know how to upgrade the gun. I see the directions to tap the touchpad in the screenshots now, so hopefully I'll have better luck after upgrading. The enemies have good animation and can be tricky to kill when they start strafing to the side.

I do find it tricky to use the radar though. I mainly just relied on the sound to let me know where the enemies were coming from because pressing down on the direction pad means that I can't keep moving. Standing still seems to be a recipe for death so I didn't bother using it much.

I assume that there is no run option due to motion sickness concerns? When the enemies were closing in on me two at a time, it would have been nice to able to move away faster. The teleport option takes a while to cue up so I didn't get the hang of using that as an escape method yet. Is that what it is intended for?

Well done game! 😄
Awesome, thanks for the impressions! Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

Movement speed is slow to combat motion sickness, yeah. The teleport is for moving longer distances. It's not really about escaping from danger but more to position yourself and quickly reach the powerup drops. The next build will allow you to speed up the teleport by buying the "capacity" upgrades. Two or three upgrades and you can teleport around like a wizard. I'm trying to make it so you have distinct 'builds', so this would be one of them.

The motion scanner can get you in a lot of trouble but it is useful for getting an idea where aliens are coming from. I glance at it for split seconds just to get an overview of the battlefield and teleport accordingly. It also shows you how many credits you currently have which is very useful as you get more experienced.
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok

HomerS66
Expert Protege
Awesome, looks great and plays great. It's pretty difficult, not frustrating but fun so that it motivates you to come back.When there is one enemy i try to use only the right control stick for aiming but when there are two or i'm in trouble i use the auto lock help.

This game shows that Samsungs Gamepad is pretty bad for these kind of games or it could be seen as the advanced player modus as it makes the game more difficult 😉

sfaok
Protege
"HomerS66" wrote:
Awesome, looks great and plays great. It's pretty difficult, not frustrating but fun so that it motivates you to come back.When there is one enemy i try to use only the right control stick for aiming but when there are two or i'm in trouble i use the auto lock help.

This game shows that Samsungs Gamepad is pretty bad for these kind of games or it could be seen as the advanced player modus as it makes the game more difficult 😉

Yeah the gamepad makes it tougher than it should be, the game's much easier on an xbox 360 controller or Moga Pro. The right analogue stick on the Samsung is shocking. There are horizontal / vertical sensitivity and acceleration settings in the menu which could improve things.

I tend to use the auto-aim most of the time while playing with the Samsung controller. I'd be interested to see if someone can complete the game using only swivelling though (and not the 45 degree ratchet turning).

I have to say I've only reached the end a few times myself. It can be done though!
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok

HomerS66
Expert Protege
"sfaok" wrote:

Yeah the gamepad makes it tougher than it should be, the game's much easier on an xbox 360 controller or Moga Pro. The right analogue stick on the Samsung is shocking. There are horizontal / vertical sensitivity and acceleration settings in the menu which could improve things.

I tend to use the auto-aim most of the time while playing with the Samsung controller. I'd be interested to see if someone can complete the game using only swivelling though (and not the 45 degree ratchet turning).

I have to say I've only reached the end a few times myself. It can be done though!



I only made it to the blue monsters so far, caught me by surprise, killed one with hellfire but the second one got me, at what time do they appear was i close to the finish line?
And i always feel naked when i want to upgrade the gun and tap the touchpad and am defenseless during that time. 🙂

sfaok
Protege
"HomerS66" wrote:

I only made it to the blue monsters so far, caught me by surprise, killed one with hellfire but the second one got me, at what time do they appear was i close to the finish line?
And i always feel naked when i want to upgrade the gun and tap the touchpad and am defenseless during that time. 🙂


Blue aliens start to appear about 70% through. Buying stuff has the whole risk/reward thing going on yeah :mrgreen:
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok

nilstastic
Explorer
This is one of those game I'll try when the jam is over. Right now I do not really want to see something that make my game feel like crap. 😃

(this looks amazing)

sfaok
Protege
Here's a new APK to download.

Changes:

Capacity upgrades now also boost teleport charge speed.
Added reticule size setting.
Main menu volume boost.
Developer of Ocean Rift. Follow me on Twitter @sfaok

keb33509
Protege
This is amazing! I had so much fun with it. I love having separation of head from body. Makes it soooo much more immersive and realistic. It's a terrifyingly good time , lol.

I thought it was butter smooth and didn't experience a single glitch. I think this proves that FPS VR games are possible on a mobile platform.