Justice: Swift and S.U.R.E [Failed, Tutorial Kinda Done?]

[Digitalistic]

"Swift and S.U.R.E" is a top-down driving action game where you play a renegade driver for hire named Kaiden Swift. During one of his jobs, Swift discovers the local government is corrupt and must undertake a series of missions to help put things right!

The game will consist of a series of point-to-point driving missions, each in a small section of city, wherein the player will have to deliver a package or transport a person or some such nonsense to help further the cause of bringing down a corrupt government. Pursuing him are the Justicars, a sentient race of cybernetic crime-fighting cars. Luckily, he is not alone.

His partner is S.U.R.E, the Sentient Utilitarian Roadside Entity, a prototype Justicar that escaped the factory before production and has since befriended Swift. Together, they are the ultimate weapon for whatever driving-based mission shenanigans I come up with.

I plan on keeping this relatively short, ideally around 10 missions at a few minutes each. Think old-school GTA, only with just the driving. Each area would basically be a small piece of the city in an open-world style where the player has to decide the best route to their destination. The Justicars will be out in force, so the player would have to contend with them and likely alter their chosen route to avoid capture.

[reverkiller]

Have you thought about what the city is going to be like? It seems to me that in a game like this, its really important to get solid map designs in order to create a nice flow. How open ended do you intend the game to be? Will it be a driving around the city picking up missions or will it be the assigned missions?

[Digitalistic]

I'm thinking it'd be pre-assigned, otherwise it'd have to probably be a pretty big city.

It would also allow me to keep things kinda small scale and focus on making specific encounters.

For example, one mission could start on one corner of the downtown area and end at the opposite corner of the downtown area. Another mission might take place in a similar manner but in a different "map" in the same "city", like in a residential or office area.

I'd like to have maybe 4 different maps created of different parts of the city, and then depending on what the mission calls for will determine which one gets loaded when you play the game.

[Darien]

You had me at sentient cybernetic crime-fighting cars. :-o

[Digitalistic]

I'd like to get some input if possible.



What do we think, as far as camera is concerned? I wanted it have some kind of top-down view, but I'm realizing this also means I can't show a whole lot of the road/environment.

[Abel Toy]

That looks quite small to me :O

[Darien]

I'm concerned that we can't see enough behind the car; if pursuit is a major mechanic, it might get frustrating not being able to see the Justicars until they're right on your tail. The scale looks a little bit off, too; the road seems to be about 14x the width of the car, which is really really wide.

[Ian Snyder]

Hard to say from screenshots. Cameras systems are nearly impossible to judge with accuracy until you are experiencing them.

[Digitalistic]

I'm concerned that we can't see enough behind the car; if pursuit is a major mechanic, it might get frustrating not being able to see the Justicars until they're right on your tail.

This is an excellent point, but I'm not sure about showing a lot more behind the car. I feel like it takes focus off where they're going.

Also, agreed about the roads being huge. It was a bit silly, but was mostly for testing purposes. I've made them smaller and moved the camera back a tad, giving me an angle I really like.



This doesn't show much more behind the car, but I feel like I can make pursuers known with lights/sirens/etc.

[reverkiller]

Adding some sort of HUD doesn't seem out of place. It could be a map or something as simple as telling you the distance to the closest car

[Darien]

Perhaps a rudimentary "radar" mechanic would be beneficial, to give the player a rough idea of where the Justicars are. Nothing precise necessarily; maybe just a compass dial with an arrow pointing to the nearest enemy, and a red glow or something that intensifies as he gets closer.

[Digitalistic]

Have been unable to make any serious progress, but I did get a few things done.



I have enemies, but currently, no AI scripting to make them do anything, so they're more like crash dummies right now. Also got a couple HUD elements added in. Still need to add some kind of life bar, timer, and make the map (GPS) actually be a map.

I'm hoping the flashing lights on the justicars will be enough to convey their distance to the player, but I won't be able to tell until I've got some kind of AI working.

It's kind of sad how much time it took me to make the Justicar texture. Not being an artist, this stuff is super hard for me. I'm using the car from the Unity car tutorial, so I took the texture, and after a lot of dabbling, I managed to convert it into this:

[Darien]

I think it looks great, personally.

[Digitalistic]

I'm still trying to get even some basic AI working, but in the meantime, I've made a combat system!

I have made a game where you can shoot cop cars. Edginess++; The idea is that the enemy cars are indestructible. After all, they're robot-beings. They're not going to die easy. However, they have a weakness in the form of tires that can be popped. It takes a bit of aiming, which can be tough at speed, but two direct hits will pop a tire.

Pop a tire, and the Justicar will lose control of itself. Pop them all, and it will be rendered useless, forcing it to shut down for repairs.

I decided a couple screenshots wouldn't be enough to actually show it, so I made a video instead.

[Digitalistic]

I've got me a city and a working minimap!



I'm also getting to the point where I think I may not be able to finish in the time remaining. Doing AI is a pain normally, but for a car? Yeah, it kinda sucks.

Regardless, I'll try, and hopefully I can get a mission or two completed.