#Voidseekers (Spooky co-op exploration FPS)
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If I was smarter I would have gotten invested in a project that didn't rely so much on lighting lol. But I'm figuring my way through it. Godot 3.5 currently, so I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of good features in 4.x, but alas, my sad computer is incompatible with Forward+
I like the visual styling and muffled soundFX
Thanks kindly! Its a lot of pretty simple models with some texture/normal map fakery for the most part. I was planning on going the low-poly/PSX route, but my respect to the lo-fi gamemakers out there because it's way harder to get looking right than I ever expected before trying it myself.
now I'm shooting for solidly "mid-fi"
current task is enemies, and sorting out pathfinding and AI
I'm actually kind of surprised I haven't been able to find much in the way of (3D) zombie games built in godot, though I could absolutely be overlooking somebody's cool projects. I figured there'd be tutorials and examples galore for zombies, which is basically what I'm trying to get right for behavior/navigation
i really like it !
fact that you add objects that can be used and exist in an realistic environment too is an nice touch. When you also have some gameplay mechanics added to them that are nessesary to accomplish somethin some time is eaven greater. Bin that can have some loot or tools in them,some bins can be attached to an small puzzle to get some good stuff but also the time is not stopping so the enemy can attack you when you do the puzzle..... or the sink that can maybe wash up some tools that dont function with its dirt on it or wash something away to get an specific puzzle piece. @vocal hollow
Glad you like it! And yep, that's exactly my thinking. The gameplay is mostly about exploring, so I'm trying to add plenty of things to find and interact with to keep it interesting. I definitely like the idea of littles puzzles that leave you vulnerable to enemies, too. I've always been a sucker for the hacking minigames lol
Those are later on the todo list, but they're absolutely something I want to add
reminds of Doom 3 | Quake 4
Oh yeah, those are high on the inspiration list. I'm a big fan of that whole era of scifi visuals 👌
@vocal hollow for the kind of puzzles that get you good loot or hints or even puzzle pieces imagine the player is out of ammo, the enemys are near and the player can hear them so he needs new ammo or he dont survive the next part of the map, he finds an locked up locker.
so it would be fun when the puzzle that you need to solve, is physic based so it can be fu**ed up by the player because he is nervous and cant solve it correctly because of it.
Also to make is more thrilling back in the old ps1 and ps2 days the resident evil oldschool games has an save system you only can use when you find an specific "ink roll" for an Typemachine that saves your game, without it or over use it ,the game dont gives you any savegame anymore and this made saving more tactical and stress full. People loved it back in the day
do player see only the mouse when they use something in first person perspective or do they see the hand they are controlling or something different ? @vocal hollow
when the players just hack an locker lock the puzzle behind it can be made more creative, when its only an "i know numbers so i type them in" its only slow time that hurts you.... physic based puzzle for an lock can be something the same as the ols operation game where you cant touch specific things or you lose or at least lost an point and when you do to much fails the lock jams and cant be opened anymore
starfield has the worst lock puzzle game i have seen in the last 15 years
oooh yeah, there really are some fantastic mechanics and lessons to be studied in those games. Resident Evil, System Shock, etc. And the mouse only has a reticle at the moment if you're using something like a gun or equipment. Might have to give it a really minimal pointer for just keeping track of the center of the screen though. Still working on all the GUI stuff
and I 100% agree. Creative puzzles are great. Nothing wrong with a simple "find the combination" lock or something, but I think the ones that make you do just a bit of thinking under pressure can be really fun. Haven't heard about Sratfield's lock puzzle though lol
Starfiled is like "here are X layers of pictures,find the right picture thats can be fit by rotating an another set of layers".........
its so boring and easy its only time consuming
just looked up a clip. Interesting. I can see what they were going for with a "digital lockpick", but yeah. Seems like it could get tedious
your inspiration can be Amnesia,Metal Gear Solid 1 from Playstation 1 era and SOMA. these 3 would be an perfect fit for what you want to do.
oooh yeah, i almost forgot about Soma. Definitely good games.
hmm an tier 1,2 and 3 lock would be nice
tier 1 = just time consuming not physic based and easy
tier 2= time consuming,it can fail when you mess up the physics and medium
tier 3= can be solved quick with skill,but is heavy on physics AND you need an hint to start it or to know what to do. (the hint can be randomly generated like the password paper in old source engine games)
This project kinda reminds me of Doom 3. Cool stuff
🙏 🙏 🙏
For sure
Hey, I wouldn't turn down a comparison to either of those lol. Excellent games
the world need more games where stress can also be an fun factor in gamemechanics
And here's hoping it plays fun! one of the current tasks is getting multiplayer up and running. I've been testing solo, but co-op is always an entirely different experience
amen lol. a little bit of stress/tension can be great. must be a reason horror games are so popular
but pls NO JUMPSCARES
I feel like there's potential in your game for using lighting as a stressor. That opening bit of the level that was super dark had me thinking that immediately haha
Jumpscares are the cheapest form of scaring an player and has nothing to do with real horror its an mechanic only to push adrenaline to make people more addicted
ohhohoho yes, that's the idea lol. I was just looking at ways to have enemies flicker lights or put them out entirely as like a hint that they're close or something similar.
Oh that's perfect
and metal gear solid 1 (ps1) like see and hear radius for the enemys and mecahncs to trick them + and hide mechanic from Thief: Deadly Shadows. would be great.
@covert frigate
Or some kind of mechanic that affects the player's flashlight
There's also GTFO's mechanics that make the enemies sensitive to light
imagine one player is hiding in an locker and has no ammo and is at near death, the other player hides in the shadow and just throws an important item behind the enemys to distract him so that he search an another area so that the the first player can come out of the locker and get healed by the hiding player BUT now they need thier important item back.
@vocal hollow
GTFO is another big one I was looking at, yeah. mine is very similar. Enter ship > explore > try not to wake up all the badguys > fight when they invitably wake up > get your loot/objective and get out
GTFO definitely has a fairly untapped gameplay loop that is a nice mix of horror, stealth, and shooter. Good game to take inspiration from.
I want to play it now haha
Sounds like you're on the right track! I'll definitely be following development 
it would make sense here that the players wera spacesoits that can be damaged too and you need to repair them when something damaged them to hard or the player will suffocate. this would set an counter as an pressure on the players.
funny you should mention lol. Really outdated clip, but throwing your items/equipment is definitely doable (you can throw it a lot farther now by holding, but you get the idea)
hmm so to make it more horrible when an player dies in coop he mutates because of the "what ever is in the atmosphere" to an monster to that is not played by an player anymore. Bonus is this monster has the loot of the old player
Thanks kindly, and glad to hear it! Fingers crossed I'll have a demo out sometime in the near-ish future to let people try directly👍
hmm maybe an charging mechanic to throw it wider and even make a little bit damage with it ?
and noise
absolutely, yeah. kind of trade between keeping that ammo and fighting, or chucking it and hoping you can slip by
if you get caught now without that ammo though, tough luck lol
so players will always be like "shit i need this...... but i also want to survive SHIIIIT"
Would be cool if you could like toss your magazine? I'm just imagining needing to distract a beast and then thinking "yeah I'll just throw this whole ammo can that I could've used to kill it with" 
Or maybe there's junk around the level you could pocket specifically to toss, but it takes up an important inventory slot
the cone of view and sphere of hearing for the enemy should be layer based with higher chances to be seen or heard by it as near you are and to spice it up, this chances variatet a little for every spawn of enemy so it doesnt feel the same evey time and is not very predictable for the players.It also would make every run more unique like random placed puzzles,items,lockers,doors and so on.
shit i want to play it too now
the latter, yeah lol. limited inventory is the plan, and some stuff you need to carry back to your shuttle to recover, so you need every slot you can get.
its fun to think about the possibility's
For sure. Only cautionary thing that comes to mind is you don't want the player to miss out on a cool tossing/ distraction mechanic because they never feel it's worth sacrificing the item they're throwing
Unless it's just a juicy fun way to kill them in which case go off haha
It really is. That's exactly what got me trying gamedev in the first place. Really just a blast to put your own ideas into a playable game. And I'll look forward to sharing it!
haha absolutely. I'll have to see what people think playing it too, because that's definitely a concern. balance between stealth/combat is going to take some work to get right I'm sure. If most players are anything like my friends, their first thought is just going to be "BLAST BLAST BLAST" lol
thew fun begins when some items itself can also interact with other things when you toss them, for example toss an ammo box at an open energy cable that is also an damage source because its broken....... BOOOOM the ammo bock explodes and acts like an handgranade........ on the other side destroy an health box ,the liquit that comes out of it attracts in an very big area enemys around it for some time. there can be many tactical advancements with inventory items. Or the magnesium flare that can blind enemys for some time can also burn oben tier 1 lockers 🙂
It's also totally up to you how important you want either element to be as well. That's probably the most important thing 😁
when you have the first gamemechanics ready the possible mix ups gets chear endless, the balancing of them is the only hard part.
i really like to see where this is going
🙏 🙏 🙏
and you can call me here when you need help with ideas, i am an game designer with no talent in programming but its also fun to help and share some ideas. @vocal hollow
Absolutely! and appreciated. I'm looking forward to getting the game "done" to a base, fully-playable level, because after that it's all player feedback and fun content/mechanic ideas. There's so much stuff I want to do with it
probably more than i can actually manage, but I like to dream big lol
Scope creep do be a demon in all of us
for progressing game mechanics just make the base mechanic
get one enemys done with all his behaviors
get at least 2 puzzles done
one map
some objects that players can interact with but are not important yet
the base feel,look and atmosphere of the game
and not every gamer feedback is also an good one some people come from so diffrent background that they want thier own game in your game
make an online survey https://www.surveymonkey.de/ and only ask on point questions link "is the game to dark,to bright or just right ?"
"how do you like the toss mechanic ? from 1 for bad to 5 for awesome"
and so on
dont ask them what they would implement

i am an gamer too, but when i help people i also see thier position as gamedev to make thier game they imagine. so i only give them advice to make thier ideas bigger
only when someone explicit dont know what to do in an specific situation and ask for "any" idea than i come up with my favorites that are outside the norm of the game mechanics the gamedev already had described
heck yeah, that's the way to do it
and I'm always a fan of outside ideas
helps keep the ol' brain cogs turning
i am afk now its late here and i am very tired
ah and make list, list of things you find good and an list for each thing and how you would get there in gamemechanics wise
than how you make this with godot
and mindmap is alos an MUST !
i am very creative and have some times ideas i very like but dont write them down in deatil and get angry when i cant renember this awesome ide with X that make Y because all depends on Z"
happens to often
so make list and an mindmap
every little step an player experiance should be in the mindmap
so now
i go to bed
see you tomorrow
oh yes, my idea/implementation list has been a constant friend through all of this lol. I'd forget it all otherwise. But yeah, let me keep ya from bedtime! And thanks for bouncing ideas around with me!
peace 👍
ok i think about some things this morning:
- tier system for locks is not an good idea ,when the map is modular and random generated in the future,it can happen that to many puzzles of this kinds would be tidius for the player.
So an simple physic based puzzle for locks that can variate in difficulty and only sometimes is locking chest,locker or even doors is enough.
2.Before an Map starts there are many static lights that render light and shadows for the map.
To not make an whole new code that let you harder detect in shadows, just use Rays (same tech for enemy vision) that are emitting from lights,when an raycast emitted from an lightsource hits an player character the "special" raycast of an enemy can see the player youtube.com/watch?v=_wFUaDf-Qyw
and
youtu.be/U0VBk2InzkA?si=MFTfvMwqIr2JMl4A
and
youtube.com/watch?v=4OYlmhpB9Ww
So to make it simple every enemy has eyes ,the eyes have an invisible cone shaped 3d object attached to them that is also the border of the raycast.
outside of this cone the enemy cant see you.
So i would make 1 raycast that is big but it rotates randomly in the whole cone alone real fast, this will spare performance AND would make an little delay for view detection.
So an second cone slightly bigge and wider also has 1 raycast but moves slower and is thinner than the first one.Now an third one thats way bigger and wider as the second one with an thinner raycast version as the second one but also slower in moving and this three field of view cones simulate good vision for something that is very near,not so good for something far away and and bad vision for something really far away.
So any lightsource that emits light has also eyes but only one cone with an very fast raycast in it.
When an lightsource raycast hits you (this means you are not in the shadows) the "special" Raycast in the three cones of the field of view of the enemys can see you now.
To make this simple the normal Raycast in all 3 cones can see you every time they hit you,than there are also 3 "special" raycast in each cone that are gigger,faster and longer as the normal ones but this "special" raycast only can detect the player when an lightsource raycast hit the player.
like an switch "if the player is hit by an lightsource raycast,this "special raycast in the field of view of an enemy also can detects this player"
this is the easyest way to make an system that let you harder detect outside from an lightsource using an flashlight,flare or whatever also would activate the "special" raycast detection.
@vocal hollow
when i thionk of it it would also work with real time light that changes where light and shadows are in an room where you can move big objects that cast an shadow
aaaaay, very nice. And sorry for a lack of response. Been out all day, but I dig it. and funny enough I just made a raycast vision detection system for enemies that's very similar
I hadn't considered doing it with lights though. That's actually a really clever/lightweight way to do handle visibility
I watched a breakdown awhile back on how some stealth game did a really cool lighting system where they used a white shape representation of the player and had a camera viewing it to detect lighting level based on the white/grey value. I thought that seemed incredibly cool and indepth, but way too overcomplicated for anything I'd need lol. Just having a raycast in the light firing off at players in range is a very good middle ground
ah, here we go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYPjKQpLG6g
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In this video, we discuss how to build a light based stealth system! We talk about how to make it performat and simple to sue!
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for anyone curious, I did in fact end up aping GTFO's sleeping enemies mechanic using just a raycast for flashlight detection. I'm sure this isn't perfect, but so far it's working marvelously
First attempt had a "light area" on the player's flashlight that would wake up enemies who were in it if the light was on, but that was a pain managing line of sight and passing back info back and forth between player/enemy when lights were turned on/off, or when multiple lights were on, etc.
I'm bumbling my way through a lot of this stuff, so this kind of feels like a duct taped solution, but so far it's working well
probably going to need to make the raycast look up and down to check for head and feet also though, for the cases where a player is standing behind something that's exactly at waist-height but is still obviously visible
On piece of duct tape at a time
ok i think an enemy with vision that can see you and not see you when you behind something is the bare minimum to the system that should be work first.Than add more mechanics to it.
And yes the level of Gray detection is also an good way to do it but the question ist what would need more performance and is easyer to scale.
in my system the situation where the "special" raycast can see the player is triggered by raycast of an light source. this also prevents that player A is triggering it BUT Player B is easier detected even when he is not in the light. My System is an filter system for each Player and can be scaled up at the moment where the enemy "special" raycast work.
For example:
In you map are very different light sources like the light of an puzzle with buttons, this little lights also will cast an raycast, you just make them slow and very short.
And an Flashlight in your hands that wake up specific Enemy's is an cool idea.
When you also have an hear-system there can also be very dangerous enemys that only can react to sound, so in some parts of the map you can imagine an room with 4 of them, they are wandering or even sleep like bio-landmines and you need to avoid sound.When they hear something they wake up and charge in the direction where the sound was, they also grow spikes that will act like an morningstar is running directly to you.
Just an idea.
Back to the Raycast-Detect-System
When an lightsource hit an player with its raycast, more or less the player has an "condition" like you have after you touch poison in an rpg.
Its temporary and only last 2 secounds until an new lightsource raycast hits you,it can be the same from the same lightsource of course.And the 2 Seconds act like an countdown that begins from new every time an lightsource Raycast hits you.
So the main trick here is when only an very small part of an player is in the light,you dont want enemys to see you 100% better because of this very small part.So its Fair that the 3d Cone that is the border of the Raycast movement is always a little smaller as the height and length of the lightsource area.
The 2 second countdown, and the detection area that is a little bit smaller as the real area that is flooded with light and also that an single raycast is just fast scanning the area, acts also as an delay system.
That means in Moments where the player runs from shadow to shadow, the chances that an enemy detects him is never 100% there is always an little chance to avoid that an enemy can detect the player even when he was an short time in the light.
@vocal hollow
and i also already worked out how we can make very simple an hearing system too. but before this and everything gets to complex "we" i mean you need to have done the seeing system
@vocal hollow
Could you give your enemies an invisible collider big enough that the raycast from the center of your light would touch the edge of the collider when the edge of the light touches the enemy?
Let me know if I explained that poorly lol
That may end up becoming too jank now that I think about it.. hm
the raycast solution is the cleanest i think
yeh, that's a smart solution to be sure. that's more or less what I had at first, but i ended up needing a raycast just to double-check anyways, so I figured why not cut the area entirely and just use raycasts.
Edit: You could almost certainly make a better/smarter detection system like you're talking about, but I've realized for my game scope I mostly just need simple, polished systems moreso than anything really impressive
i have an hear solution with raycast
And yeah, no worries I gotcha. I should say too I'm actually pretty far along on detection systems and enemy stuff, I'm mostly just reworking it currently for efficiency. so by all means lay it on me 
i am all ears lol
first of you already know i am not an programmer i just look at mechanics and find an solution, in theory.
so
1.every sound source needs an number that represent how loud it is.
2.when an enemy spawns it connects with raycast automatically to every possible sound source in an area that is from logic point the maximum how far away he can hear.
3.the trick is the raycast send every secound an tick to the connected sources and give back how far they are away.
4.When an sound source is making an sound the script subtracts automatically the sound source number from the distance the raycast has send.The number that comes out will be compared to the maximum of hearing range of the enemy.
5.the magic now is also every thicc object an wall gets per script an number that shows how thicc it is. this number adds an number to the comparison too.
what you get is an system that hears something with the help of simple math that only connects with things that are in range and only gets activatet when sound is playing, because thicc objects has an positive number you simulate very quick only with math when an sound is in area in the same room without something between enemy and soundsource and an situation where sound gets quieter because an wall is between them or something else. Its an arcade simulation of sound.
so no one needs an invisible sphere that goes trough every object in the map
for me raycast has many other cool mechanics
raycasts are absolutely useful, and amazingly inexpensive where optimization is concerned. Though that is admittedly a bit more in-depth than I'm probably going to be able to work out, but I certainly like the of per-obstacle sound muffling.
you could get a very impressive stealth system out of that sort of thing.
other games has an real time sound simulation going on .......... and thats just to much knowlage for me to understand
you are free to use my ideas
when i get an demo taste of the game 🙂
oh yeah, some of those games you read about where they spend months working on incredibly complicated systems for all this stuff are really impressive. And here's hopin' I'll have one fairly soon (and by that I mean in time for the steam spooky fest) 
you have the motivation and coding skills, it will be all good
other reason why i love stealth mechanics is i hated this open world games where you are 2km away shot someone and at this point the whole world knows where you are on the point, like you have an GPS in your ass........
thanks kindly! I'll be excited for people to try it out
Simple + good is good
ha! yeah I've seen some every now and again like that. one enemy alerts every enemy
this is unironically the biggest brain gamedev philosophy (at least imo lol)
also gps pathfinding also sucks, at least aaa companys can make the movement a little bit more random
It's been a hard pill for me to swallow lately because I've been trying to find ways I'm willing to scale my project back in order to make it more reasonable haha
But it's definitely a good motto
when you some time need help to think about solutions or gamemechanics, just ping me here. @vocal hollow
You got it, amigo 👍
and I absolutely feel ya there. like i mentioned with rewriting enemy AI, I've been spending a good amount of time recently trimming down all these "totally necessary features" i thought were brilliant two months ago lol
hard not to want to put in every feature your heart desires
in my mind you build the lego blocks first and when you have all blocks you need ,you build with it the game
never make to much at the same time of different systems
For sure. Although I guess sometimes you have to implement it to know that it doesn't need to implemented haha
lol yeah seriously
some inside of an old dev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMVQ30c7TcA
I talk about game development caution and how it seems to be affecting newer games.
Interesting watch. This really does feel like it's become a major problem in a number of industries in the past 10 or so years. I can tell ya from personal experience it's quite bad in science/research as well.
On the plus side though, I do like to think that does leave the door wide open for indies. Seems like there's been a flood of creative risk taking in the indie arena recently.
plenty of great projects in this own server, even 
👍
I almost thought this was Void bastards (or whatever that game is called) looking at the post embed and the name. Looks very nice ! Would love to play one day
Thanks kindly! And haha yeah I'm helping grow the increasingly large pile of "Void Somthing'ers" titles on Steam lol
it is no longer Wednesday, but I got the enemy alert system workin' great 
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ok seriously tho who keeps letting grandma out
Whiterun has a 9.4% unemployment rate (any austin)
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I have heard many a good thing about Jolt. Currently not an option for me with 3.5, but it's definitely one of the 4.x features I'm looking forward to diving into when I either get into a new project or port Voidseekers to 4.x somewhere down the line.
but even more than that, I am really eager to see AI assisted animation/mo-cap take off. It's right on the edge, not quite usable without some serious tools currently. But that'll be a gamechanger when it becomes more widely usable. My respect to talented animators, because that stuff is hard to get right
In other news, I've been out for some family stuff for a bit, but the work continues
the "wednesday my dudes" yell is quickly becoming my go-to placeholder sound. Also needs effects on the weakpoints themselves and some hitbox fixes, but i'm having fun with it so far
Haven't had much time recently, but outside of fixing that guy up I've also got enemy behaviors to a point where they're probably 'good enough'. AI overlord managing spawning and hordes and all that fun L4D stuff. Two enemies in now, just lacking polish and animations.
little guy who does very little damage but can alert hordes and grab you to slow/hold you in place for bigger baddies. Exploding guy who lopes around and tries to blow up on ya, can be blown up to take out other enemies, but also makes a lot of noise.
probably needs a third to round things out, at least for demo purposes, because i'd love to have more down the line. current thinking is a stalker type enemy that puts lights out and looks for an opportunity to ambush. I'd love to find a good way to make use of godot's negative lights, feels like it could make for some cool effects
Using meme sounds as place holders is genius 
I’ll remember that, pretty good idea, don’t need to constantly open up audacity 
this would translate well into VR, great idea
@vocal hollow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8A57l0ASxA
Cybernetic Sunburn is an indie immersive sim made in Godot. Follow along with my devlogs to see how far I get!
In this episode we look at node communication in Godot and creating an interaction system.
Internet has been out for a couple days now. Good excuse to stay productive at least lol. Immerse sims are one of those genres that always impress me. Especially the devs that put all that work into fleshing them out. Very cool stuff
And maaaaaan, its outside my skillset at the moment, but the idea of building in a VR mode is so incredibly cool. Definitely something i hope to take a shot at in the future
you should check out #xr message @cinder trail is a pretty good guy who did already a couple of flat to vr conversions of godot projects
Yeah on my GitHub is a good deal of flat screen projects that I converted to VR if you need some ideas of how a traditional flat screen game can be made into VR with the Godot Xr tools assets that are available. The good thing is you can see the change logs to see the evolution of the original game and what stuff I did to convert them over. They aren’t probably anywhere near as complex as your game but hopefully will give you an idea. https://github.com/teddybear082
Many thanks to you both! I love me a good Github read, and this is some really cool stuff to dig through 👍