Robot Arena Game

[tomgsx]

Hello everyone,

As implied by the post title and forum section - a small group of us have recently started putting together a robot arena game using Unity3D. Currently there is 1 dedicated artist and 2 individuals working on coding. I would like the game play to be very much similar to RA2, of course with some improvement using modern gaming engine physics. For now, and I know this is not ideal, there will not be completely customized robots like in RA2 However, we are working on a system to allow for individual part replacement to improve the robot's current systems with an interactive garage interface, i.e. faster drive speeds, increased weapon force. I know I used to check these forums regularly in hopes to see progress on some previously mentioned projects on this forum, but it seems motivation and/or real life issues have been interfering with their progress. So hopefully a few of you may get excited as I am to see this project grow, I am pretty stoked about having such a talented artist making awesome arenas and robots to implement. As of now, this project is a baby and is only about a week into development.

Anyways, here are a few simple demos to give you an idea.
Garage Component Highlight (incomplete)
Hammer Bot (first draft)
Blade Bot (third draft)
Spike Bot (first draft)
**EDIT: Although I may post links in future comments, I will include all active web-player builds here as well**

*first draft = very rough functionality*

**Reminder, this is in incredibly early stages still - but I will incrementally update this webplayer version as we make progress.**

Please feel free to provide feedback and suggestions along the way.

*edit* If you have music/sound fx design skills and would like to assist in that area, please let me know!

[Lemonism]

Looks interesting, certainly. Not much to say so far, but what you've done already looks promising to me.
I'll definitely follow the progress of this game.

[Badnik96]

Looks pretty good for a small tech demo. I'm a little sad that the hammer and rammer aren't currently playable, but that's a small nitpick. I'll definitely be following the progress of this.

[Jonzu95]

Looks promising

[tomgsx]

New temporary link for feedback HERE.

Still waiting on more models and textures (gui is still being worked). I improved the physics of the saw blade so it's less wobbly and jacked up the torque so it's a lot better than the previous build. For the parts system, at the moment replacable parts will highlight in green when your cursor over them, once it has been clicked  - pressing the middle mouse button will replace it with a small motor, LShift+middle mouse will replace it with a medium motor (this is just for testing purposes at the moment - that being said, atm only the actual motors will spawn it the correct place with middlemouse/lshift+middlemouse). The idea for the time being is once a part is selected, a menu will be available on the right hand side of the screen with upgrades that can be applied to it. Let me know your thoughts/feedback.

[cephalopod]

Surely if you're being given pre-made bots with options to upgrade bits... you'd just upgrade everything? Unless you have plans for weight/currency or something. It's a nice demo though, would be cool to try some of the other bots.

[tomgsx]

Yeah, there will be some form of in-game currency gained from winning single-player matches. They will all have their own variable values set, weight included. Also by having 3+ functional prefabs for each component type, it will be easier to expand on the robot-building features later on (i.e. custom bot building, if I am not burned out by the time the game is playable).

[tomgsx]

A lot of changes to the physics and structure of the bot, unfortunately you can't really tell on your end - so I added some little spark particles and smoke for <25% health. And I know you guys want to try out other bots, but each one is going to be a completely different setup, so that will have to wait until I am content with this first bot's setup as sort of a template to go off of.

DEMO

[cephalopod]

Looking much better already. :)

[tomgsx]

I have a very primitive version of the hammer bot, but having a ton of difficulty figuring out how to make the joint base more solid. Most likely I will end up doing a completely custom scripted method instead of Unity's PhysX joint system. Keep in mind, you will most likely see it flop around like a wet noodle at some point or another.

TERRIBLE HAMMER DEMO
(Hold LMB to pull it back, release to let go)

[Mouldy]

Wow, awesome stuff!

[tomgsx]

Here is a functional prototype for the spike bot.

SPIKE DEMO

[Lemonism]

Interesting control scheme, like playing an FPS game. Imo it works quite well for the spike bot, but the hammer bot's controls I don't like so much, just because I think the hammer should start up rather than down.

[tomgsx]

Appreciate the feedback from everyone so far. And I will look into changing the default position of the hammer to it's up position. Also - WASD control without camera panning, if you use the arrow keys you will get camera panning while turning. Everything is of course still subject to change, just playing with different options to see what is the most preferred.

[Badnik96]

I can't get the hammer bot to work properly, and I've also managed to leave the arena in the spike demo. Just letting you know so you can fix it for a later demo.

[tomgsx]

I plan on redesigning the bot movement script entirely, the one currently in place was made by a previous coder that is no longer working on the project. It is a primitive move script, so you can climb walls and gravity doesn't take effect while the chassis is moving. The hammer bot is being reworked as well to use a different setup as PhysX joints in the current demo are not working out at all.

[I Like Tacos]

This is starting to look pretty nice. Is the movement going to be more physics based? Like with spinning wheels and the robots can get flipped over?

[tomgsx]

Yes, that is the plan. The movement for the time being is just a quick simple script for prototyping and getting a general idea of how the weaponry is going to work. I will most likely be using more accurate vehicle physics for movement with individual wheel colliders. Of course it's going to take some time as I'm the only one scripting for now.

[toAst]

im getting a fatal content error unfortunately.