I'm Nabeel Nauzeer, currently a Post Graduate student at Kingston University London.
Having completed my Bachelor's Degree in IT back in Curtin University Mauritius, I moved to UK to pursue a higher education and to look for better career opportunities.
Welcome to my blog, where we share the exciting journey of "HuntLab", a multiplayer game under development by a team of 5 Students as part of one of our modules called Connected Games Development.
As game developers, we believe in the power of collaboration and the magic that happens when talented minds come together. Our whiteboard serves as a canvas for our ideas, where we sketch out game mechanics, character designs, level layouts, and gameplay features.
(sketches for the game plan)
During these sessions, we engage in deep conversations, pointing at different parts of the board and exchanging ideas. It's a dynamic and vibrant process, fuelled by our passion for game development. We believe that the best games are born out of a collective effort, where each team member brings their unique perspective and expertise to the table.
In this first week, we dived into the world of game concept and design, exploring the creative process that brings our ideas to life. We will be using tools such as Unity, the asset store, Unreal Engine and visual studio for most programming parts and Discord for communication.
(Cover picture for blog thumbnail)
Since the last post, we made a few research work on the different tools that are available which can help us to make our game. Of course Unity and Unreal Engine are the top tier platforms that we should be using but there were also a few more alternatives such as Godot Game Engine.
In addition, we made a few analytics concerning the following points:
- Single player vs multiplayer level design
- Counter play
- Multiplayer game economies
- Balancing
- Asymmetric design
- Matchmaking & ranking system
After researching on the methodologies, we started with some practical advancements, including learning the basic skills required for Unity game development, going in depth with C# language, using photon & PUN and last but least, SQL databases.
We also have a few designs for the game levels, characters and items:
(Floor Plans)
(Initial Character designs)
(Items & Power ups sketches)
(Login & Registration Demo)
Following our progress, we have now made some working prototypes. Those include a Main menu where players can register and login as well as create or choose a lobby room.
We tested the lobby system on a local server just to get the big picture and sort out any bugs before using a global one.
Most of our codes are stored and backed up on GitHub:
The main game mechanics and objectives are highlighted as such:
The following shows the prototypes we have made so far:
A few items were available on the Unity asset store, we just had to import some packages and modify them according to the settings of our game.
We are also keeping track of our progress through a chart:
HuntLab has officially reached the final stages in development. Most of the features are functional and the winning conditions have been finalised as well.
Main features and functions that we have completed are as follows;
- login, sign up and lobby system
- character movement and animations
- hunter attacks and survivor using health item
- dimensionator: disable mirrors
- mirror world: light and dark environment setting
The videos below is a short demo for the progress:
The goal of the hunter is to prevent the survivor from escaping the area and/or eliminating them with their 'spike' weapon which results in a win as shown below:
The goal of the survivor is to hide from the hunter and try to escape the area within the time limit which will result in a win as shown below:
During the development period, when comparing the initial drafts and the final versions of the game, there are a few subtle changes we made. Some items and features have been added, modified as well as eliminated so that our game has a smooth flow.
Main features that have been added are the lightings of the normal (light) and mirror (dark) worlds, animations for different items/power-ups and for the characters as well.
One of the features removed and could be part of further works include 'night vision' or 'hunter vision'
The main reason this feature was eliminated was due to an unfair advantage to the hunter, which allowed them to see through walls and locate the survivor. This would affect the balance of the game and overall user satisfaction.
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