Development Blog

Mob Made Games weekly development blog

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For those of you not subscribed to our newsletter we wanted to update you on some things we have been working on during the last couple weeks!

We have been hard at work on some of the more demanding parts of our game. Most of what we have been working on is the faction system.

(Updates) Adding a diverse group of factions that are interesting and fun for the player. -Spacefaring megacorporation -Freelance Traders -Totalitarian regime -Space Bandits -Etc.

Adding incentives for the player to want to be a part of different factions. Adding strategic advantages for joining different factions . Making faction growth require skill and time. Making the overall faction system fun and fluid!

We also have some new character concept art that you can see above!

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Checkout our developer podcast with the good guys at Space Game Junkie!

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We updated the UI!

http://www.voidborne.com/

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Voidborne has an incredibly vast and detailed 3D Map!

http://www.voidborne.com/

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Grounded: Between the Skies - Update #3

Third update for our puzzle platformer

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Descendants: Voidborne

This week we launched a new website dedicated to Descendants and we created a video showing some of the improvements we've made over the past two months.  In the coming month expect the addition of new combat and movement animations and improved ship and planet models.

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Grounded Update #2

Second development update for our puzzle platformer

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5 - Wet Paint

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Gamma Prototype

Showcasing a prototype built using our in-house engine: a first-person puzzle-platformer that uses manipulation of gravity as the key mechanic for solving levels.

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4 - In Your Interface!

No demo this week folks just solid progress toward the finished game.  Stay tuned for more videos and demos showing the design process.  As always comments and suggestions are encouraged.

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3 - Space Without End

This week we made a big push to improve our map generation and fog of war.  You can download the demo by following the below links:

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Mac

(Note: This build was created with a beta version of Unity and for some reason choosing “Fantastic” visual settings breaks the mouse so use “Good”)

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2.5 - Almost Infinite Space

We are overhauling our map generation and fog of war code.  The new map generation allows us to stream in space as you explore with your ships, effectively making space endless.  Since these changes are so far reaching it is taking a bit longer than expected to implement but expect a video later this week.

 In the meantime here is a shot of our improved 3D placement and our attempts at integration:

-Chris

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2 - Shipping Lanes - CSD

This is the second entry in our weekly video blog.  This week I implemented animated shipping lanes and static asteroid belts.  You can download the latest test scene from the following links.

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Thanks for watching!

For more information about how I implemented the features demonstrated in the video just keep on reading.

Asteroid belts are generated during system generation from a single random seed.  I use the random seed to generate a density, width, size variance and height.  I determine the number of asteroids by dividing the calculated area of the belt by the density.  I then populate the belt by creating instances of 3D-models I created in Blender.  The instances are placed randomly using polar coordinates.  The end result is what you see in the video.

Shipping lanes are a bit more complex.  To generate the shipping lanes I implemented b-splines using a simplified version of De Boor's algorithm.  We want the ships to not only move along the b-spline but also orient with it.  To do this, I take the derivative of the b-spline and set the ship to face in that direction.  To get the ship to move with constant velocity is even trickier. 

In order to calculate the position of a ship using a b-spline I need to pass in a number between 0 and 1.  If I pass in 0 my b-spline will return the start location.  If I pass in 1 my b-spline will return the end location.  Unfortunately all I can be sure of for the numbers between 0 and 1 is that they appear along the curve and in order.  There is no guarantee that the distance between values at .1 and .2 will be the same as the distance between the values at .3 and .4.  This means that if I increment my input number at a constant rate the change in position will update at a varying rate.  Since velocity is change in position over time, this means my velocity will vary.

Fortunately there is a solution.  The derivative of my b-spline is the instantaneous change in position.  The magnitude of the derivative is the effective speed with respect to input at that point on the curve.  Since I want to increment by some amount so as to match my desired velocity I know: |f'(x)|*dx=v*dt

f' is the derivative of my b-spline, v is velocity, dt is the amount of time since the last frame and dx is the change to my input.

Solving for dx:

dx=v*dt/|f'(x)|

There you have it. Controlable velocity when moving along your b-splines.

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1 - Orbital Placement - CSD

This is the first entry in our weekly video blog.  Since I was busy setting up the website, email and social media I didn't have as much time to work on the game.  The video is taken from a test scene where I prototype features and is not gameplay from Descendants.  You can download the test scene to try it for yourself from the following links.

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Thanks for watching!

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Welcome

Hello and welcome to the Mob Made Games development blog.  Each week we post videos showing you our progress from the past week and sharing the thoughts behind our design decisions.  Each week we ask you to participate in the design process by sending your thoughts, opinions and ideas to us at [email protected].