Nitrosodium's Alternate Controller Project

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FINAL BROADCAST

The next project has begun. Continue my journey at @nitrosodiumfmpsequel. After that... who knows.

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Gameplay Video

It has occurred to me that I have not yet posted my full gameplay video, so here it is.

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Adding Music

Music adds a vital level of atmosphere and emotion to games, and I want to include some for Fulcrum. I decided that for the Hangar level, I wanted something militaristic and drum-heavy to represent the wartime theme, but also somewhat suspenseful. This is the last moment you have before you're dropped into enemy territory, so there will be some general tension, but also order - things are going to plan, at least for the moment. I knew that Kevin Macleod did a lot of this type of music in the Action Cuts album, so I had a browse and eventually picked his song Dangerous.

However, the Canyon has a very different atmosphere. The tension has reached a crescendo and the fragile order of the Hangar is gone, leaving only chaotic combat. Metal would be the go-to genre for this, as seen in games like Doom. So I looked for various free-use metal songs, and settled on Grim Reaper by DEgITx.

This is how they sound in-game. I personally think they fit amazingly well, and contribute heavily to the atmosphere of each level. They help to get across the vibe that I couldn't quite fully portray due to technical limitations - without music, for example, the Canyon is a fairly short orange corridor with some enemies sprinkled throughout, but supplemented by Grim Reaper, you can really feel the adrenaline-pumping chaos of the battlefield. I suppose immersion would be the right word to describe it.

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Finishing Technical Touches

To prepare for eventually packaging the game, I changed a few things in the project settings.

The game starting level is now the hangar.

I have also given the game a unique splash screen and icon when it gets packaged.

The splash is a little diorama I made outside the canyon. Various things are going on here, including a Rocketeer being bombarded by a mortar launcher, a Rammer flipping a Kamikaze, and a building going down in flames. I think it conveys the chaos of the game quite well. The icon is just a close-up of a Shooter.

My next move was to remove various Print Strings I had in the text, such as this one in the health pickup. It makes the game look more professional with their absence, in my opinion.

I also turned off the draw debug type for the Autocannon line trace. I don't think this shows up when you package a game anyway, but it will make it look nicer even when I play it in the editor.

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Adding a Start and End Level

While I now technically have a win condition, it's still very barebones. Starting the game will immediately thrust you into the game, and finishing it (by killing the Grenadier) immediately restarts you. A menu of some kind would work well, but realistically you'd be playing this game with the twin stick system, and wouldn't be able to navigate buttons with a mouse.

Then I looked at the original Quake. While it does have a rudimentary menu, the difficulty and episodes are selected through an introduction map. I could use a similar system in Fulcrum, maybe some sort of garage or depot where you start before shipping out to the battlefield.

I made a new map with an aircraft hangar, showing the plane that will take you into the canyon map. I want the player to drive underneath the plane into a collision box, which will bring them to the canyon.

However, I also added a quit function. If the player drives onto this elevator, it quits the game.

In order to explain all of this to the player, I added a new widget.

In order to have the widget display exclusively on this level, I used the Level Blueprint, which concerns code that will only play on a single level. I may also use this system to do level-specific music if I have time.

Here is the hangar level in action. You can see both the quit game and next level functions work, though I think having an ambient whirr of the plane's rotors would elevate this scene, so afterwards, I added a looping sound cue of an industrial heater.

This should be present in the next video I do.

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Designing the Boss Tank

Using what tools I had (models, textures, projectiles etc) I put together this as a possible boss. I'm currently calling it the Grenadier, because it launches the BP_AerialBomb from both barrels like a grenade. To make it distinct, it has the tiger stripes as its primary colour, and its barrel housing is green like the bombs it fires. It is also twice as big as the regular tanks and has 500 health. This means it can take ten rockets, so I've added some to the airstrike alley in case the player has already run dry.

As you can see, it is fairly dangerous. I don't think it's totally unfair - while I did die to it, you could probably stay clear of its short-ranged bombs and you'd be fine. I like how it tends to demolish a building as it drives towards you; this was unintentional but it helps create a cinematic introduction to it.

I also added a widget just to make things especially clear. Killing the tank restarts the level.

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Plans for 12/2/25

Today is the day I finish the map with a boss. Because this is the last day of development, I will need to work quickly.

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Choosing a Level End Idea

Having weighed up my options, I think that a bossfight will be a good way to finish my game. Compared to the other ideas that require explaining things to the player, a bossfight will come naturally in a game like this. It is also low-cost when it comes to time and complicated code, so it should be done by the end of the week. Unfortunately I'm out of time for today, so I will start work on the boss tank tomorrow.

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Level End Idea 3: Extraction

Let's go with the idea that the player being dropped into the canyon was an accident - the cargo locks got fried when the plane went down, and now you need to escape from enemy territory. You'd be fighting to reach a zone where some type of aircraft can pick you up, and that'd be the end of the level.

In Deus Ex, you leave most levels on a helicopter. The pilot character, Jock, starts off working with UNATCO (the counterterrorism group you work with at the start of the game), but once you defect, he goes with you. At various points throughout the rest of the game, you rely on him to fly you out of dangerous situations.

PROS:

-It provides a more realistic goal for the player than just 'fight a boss'.

CONS:

-It will require new models, animations, and code, which may take more time than I have left.

-Like Idea 1, there will have to be widgets or even voice acting to explain the objective (i.e. the landing zone is marked with a flare, drive your tank there and wait for pick-up).

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Level End Idea 2: Bossfight

Having the level end with you fighting a powerful enemy is fairly standard in terms of game design. It lets you put the skills you have learnt to the test, and works as a satisfying climax for the level. For Fulcrum, I would probably make a new enemy tank class - larger and more powerful than the others, but not so different that it would require more models to be made. I could just size up and retexture one of my pre-existing enemies and use that.

I have been fairly inspired by older shooters throughout this project, and bossfights were a common staple of games of that era. What was also common was releasing the first episode for free as Shareware, which would almost always end with a boss level. Doom had the Barons of Hell, Duke Nukem 3D had the Battlelord, and Shadow Warrior perfected the formula by having its Shareware boss escape at the end, therefore prompting players to buy the full game and finish the fight. These condensed mini-campaigns would showcase all the best bits of their respective games, which is more or less what I'm doing with Fulcrum: a short experience with all the cool setpieces packed into it, to show what a full game would be like.

PROS:

-It is a satisfying conclusion to the level.

-It is a very clear objective: when you see the massive tank, blow it up.

-It shouldn't require too much coding, which is important with such little time left.

CONS:

-There isn't time to make the boss tank super distinct compared to the regular enemies.

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Level End Idea 1: Destroy the Thing

One possible idea I had was that the player would need to destroy some important structure; maybe a satellite array, fuel depot or pumpjack.

This would play into the war atmosphere with the destruction of important strategic objects, but it raises the question of why your faction wouldn't just bomb it instead of sending a tank. If you were sent to destroy something like an artillery gun, this would make more sense - it would also explain how your plane gets shot down at the start, but then again, it doesn't explain how the other plane performs its bombing run without taking any hits.

The plot of Quake 2 is very similar to this. You play as a space marine who crash-lands on the planet of Strogos (home to the Strogg, naturally) and you must shut down the Big Gun so the rest of the human army can get past the defences and continue the assault. Most of the game is taking you closer to the Big Gun, and then once it is destroyed, you join up with your men for a final assault on the Strogg city, and then kill their overlord, the Makron, in his space station. If I made Fulcrum a full game, I would probably have a similar narrative, having the player fight through various wartime operations as part of a larger campaign.

PROS:

-It gives a reasonable explanation to why the player is dropped into the canyon in the first place.

CONS:

-It will require extra coding (i.e. widgets that display the objective) to get the point across.

-The player could misidentify the strategic object (i.e. if they have been told to destroy an artillery gun, they might see the mortar launcher and mistake it as the objective.)

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How to End the Level (and more level work)

I've filled in the "airstrike alley" with some burnt tanks, and also added a large fortified wall between it and the final section. I want it to look like the airstrike blasted the doors open, but in the level they are static objects, just for the sake of time constraints. I will refer to this small walled section as the Stronghold, just for future reference. It'll be the last section of the game, and will hold whatever ends the level (i.e. some sort of exit). This means I need to consider how I will have it end.

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Plans for 11/2/25

It's the last week of development, and I need to create a win condition for Fulcrum, and fill out the final section of the canyon map. Once I have a proper experience with a start and end, the rest of the week can go to refinement (and eventually the start of the FMP.)

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My Time at Game Anglia

Yesterday we went on a trip to the University of Suffolk to show off last project's games as part of Game Anglia. My group of three displayed Wallpaper of the Mind, but only one person played it due to us getting moved to the very last time slot for showcasing. He enjoyed the game, though had some trouble navigating the map, though this is somewhat to be expected, with it being a maze-based game. I gave him a few navigation tips, but mostly tried to stay ambivalent, so the game could speak for itself. At the end, he said that his favorite elements were the fonts at the end, and the texture work. Technically, this means 100% of players liked it though.

It is hard to say what elements needed refinement from the playtesting. WotM was a maze-based game, and so I wouldn't change the map design just because someone got temporarily lost in it. I think that the objectives were made clear to the player, since he knew what to do and found each item relatively quicker. The art design was especially well-praised because he identified that he was in a care home almost immediately after starting.

I also got to play some games. I played Foques, a horror puzzle game where you play as an arctic fox trying to avoid mutant animals, which seemed very promising. I could sense some John Carpenter influences in the enemies - very fleshy and toothy. I haven't played too many horror puzzle games as of recent, so this was a nice look back at the sort of game I would have played in my childhood.

I also tried out Valerie, a sidescroller which seemed to be a homage to Celeste with its various platforming mechanics (mantling, air dashing, et cetera), though it also had some interesting bubble mechanics that doubled as a launch pad and a way to incapacitate enemies and obstacles such as spike walls. The demo was two hours long, which would be impressive enough on its own except it was also made by one guy over several years.

Another game I played I have unfortunately forgotten the name of, but it had an interesting perspective where you'd always be facing forward, but it was 3D. You went between strange islands that represented people's memories, and had to solve puzzles that involved drawing lines between eyes. They started off simple but quickly became more complex, with new features such as staring eyes that would shuffle the tiles around, and softlock you if you did them in the wrong order. It was cool, but not something I would play in my own time.

The final game I played was Task Time, a Gangbeasts-esque party game where four people could compete against each other to do various tasks such as a paintball fight, avoiding lasers from the sky, and eating as many mushrooms as possible.

Events like this are a great opportunity to network, and so I talked with many of the game designers, to get an idea of the development process of each game, and also to become more well-known in the local gamedev community. Unfortunately I forgot the username of the Discord account I made specifically for this, so I could only give out my Itch.io handle. I'd like to think I made good use of the time spent though.

After the demos were all showcased, we went through the Awards Ceremony and Industry Talks. The latter of these consisted of various game designers talking about the process of developing their games, and how they got into the industry. I found that becoming a QA tester was often an inlet for a lot of people, and then they moved up through the ranks, so that could be a way in for me if I decide to join a studio in the future.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience, but one piece of feedback I have for the Game Anglia organizers is that the exhibition space was too small.

The red highlighted areas are where the stalls were - the demos were essentially spaced out along a corridor, and so moving from stall to stall required pushing through dense crowds or going around through the equally packed seating areas. For the next show, I would recommend finding a gym or other large hall for exhibiting the games. Otherwise it was good.

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Solving the Alert Widget Problem

The issue was that the widget would appear on my viewport when the enemy spotted me, but not disappear. I stand by my point that this is probably an issue with the widget not disappearing on death, so if you kill an enemy within 0.2 seconds of it noticing you (i.e. spamming rockets), the code for it to remove the widget doesn't trigger in time.

Now, the Shooters have code that removes their widget on death, but when I went through the other enemies, I found that the Rocketeers didn't have this code. Because I didn't make the enemies children of each other, changes to their code through the 'master tank' (i.e. the Shooter) doesn't affect the others. They're just duplicated versions of the Shooter. There are three Rocketeers who get killed in the last video - two in the airstrike and one I kill with rockets beforehand - which overlays three ! symbols onto my screen and doesn't remove them. I tried to replicate the sequence, and it worked like a charm.

As a quick addition, I realized that it would look cooler for the airstrike to leave char marks (the BP_Mortar projectile's decals decay after ten seconds.) However, I didn't want it to use the regular BP_Rocket with its flames at the back either, so I made BP_AerialBomb, a green flameless version of the missiles that leaves char marks forever.

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Making a Bombing Sequence Part 2: Destructible Buildings

I wanted to put destructible buildings in Fulcrum for many reasons. Firstly, it adds a new level of interaction to the game, and makes things seem more reactive. Secondly, it adds to the effect of the bombing sequence.

Various games have some level of demolition in them. I was very inspired by the destructible buildings in Build Engine games like Duke Nukem 3D.

The screen shakes, explosions flash, and large parts of the level geometry crumble into the ground. I decided that this sort of explosion would work better than any more realistic method (i.e. Chaos physics) since it fits with my somewhat blocky art style, and I don't have time for much else.

This is the code for the building itself. It can be triggered by the player, but I am leaving this in because it is a piece of emergent gameplay. At this particular moment, I am not lying about the rules I have set up for the players, and they can break the scripting if they want and destroy the building before the plane even begins its sweep.

This helix of barrels is designed to replicate the spreading explosions of an old-school Build Engine destruction event. Just in case they don't trigger (or the player triggers the destruction but doesn't hit a barrel), a single Explosive Pulse will spawn at the top of the barrels to kickstart the chain reaction.

Here you can see the whole sequence in action, and my admittedly shoddy voice acting as the bomber pilot. There was a mild glitch where the ! widgets didn't leave my screen, and I think this happens if the enemy dies before the 0.2 second delay to remove the widget has played. I will try and fix this as my next order of business. Otherwise, everything works fine.

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Making a Bombing Sequence Part 1: The Plane

One of my plans for this vertical slice is a big setpiece, where a plane flies through the canyon and performs a bombing run. This sort of thing was used to great effect in games like Half Life, giving them an intense blockbuster-like feeling compared to the less cinematic games of the past.

Assuming I've linked the right timestamp, you can see an Alien Aircraft drop down some troops, before a fighter jet carpet bombs the area and an armored vehicle rolls through some crates into the area. It was scripted sequences like this that set Half Life ahead of other FPS games, and it's something I want to replicate.

This is the area past the mortared pipeline. I added a few buildings and a junked Rocketeer to make it more interesting. Ignore the barrels covering the tall building, that'll come up later. When the player goes over that collision box, it casts to the bomber plane in the distance and it begins the bombing event.

I didn't find out that a strafing run actually refers to an attack by automatic weapons in the aircraft until I had named the events, but it's fine. It flies across the canyon and out of sight, while dropping bombs (just the mortar actor repurposed) every 0.25 seconds. I have positioned it so that it obliterates a squad of tanks, who all have their health set to 50 so they die with a single hit from the bombs. However, I felt like this wasn't enough destruction, and so I went about making a destructible building. That'll be covered in its own blog post.