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Stage Three: Research

Content Research

For my content research, I have focused in on the how the game play of Cosmic Conflict will work, from the mechanics to the content. In this section I will outline a few pieces of primary and secondary research I have conducted to look into the game.

Primary

The primary research is looking into the mechanics of a couple of space related games, making sure I delve into how they work and how this has both inspired me and given me a positive outlook on our own game. I will also discuss how I have used this research to get some quality game mechanics.

 

Space invaders

Space invaders has had a massive influence on the game itself. The basic premise of the game is as follows:

Space Invaders is a two-dimensional fixed shooter game in which the player controls a laser cannon by moving it horizontally across the bottom of the screen and firing at descending aliens. The aim is to defeat five rows of eleven aliens—some versions feature different numbers—that move horizontally back and forth across the screen as they advance toward the bottom of the screen.

The basic mechanics of this game are recycled into the main body of Cosmic Conflict. In our game the player controls two “turrets” on a cargo ship in the centre of space. The enemy drones attacking the ship do not spawn in lines like on Space Invaders but spawn in a more random fashion. The enemies will still approach the turrets and it is still down to the player to destroy them before they get to the “end” – in this case, the cargo ship.

 

Elite dangerous

Elite Dangerous has helped with a number of aspects in regards to the look of the game. The main aspects affected were the turrets’ cannon positioning and the cockpit. As you can see in the above gif, the ship is using two cannons, one situated either side of the cockpit. We are aiming to have a similar setup, having one turret on either side of the screen. What is also shown in the gif is the location of the camera within the ship. We are aiming for similar, making the interior look very hi-tech, but doing so without compromising the view of the outside.

 

Gravity

The film Gravity will be a big help as it shows how objects should move in space. This is very useful because it will allow me to create a more realistic environment for the player to make them feel like they are in space, shooting other ships that move in the correct way. This can be referenced for both the movement as well as the environment as it can also reinforce the look and feel of the game. It does this by the location of the film; just above a planet just in orbit. Below you can see a shot of the environment:

 

As shown in the above gifs, the spaceship, or in the film’s case, the space station, is placed with the backdrop of a planet. This is ideally what we would like to implement into our own game – an exploding planet viewable from one turret, and the enemy ship viewable from the other. The location of the planet in the film can act as a great reference, allowing us to make the game more immersive due to the fact we will have a basic idea of what the environment should look like.

 

 

 

Secondary

The secondary research I have conducted has been carried out by other entities, but still acts as an inspiration to the game designs.

 

EVE Online

The first piece of Secondary research conducted is the game EVE Online. In the post by Reddit user “new_eden_news_bot” on 13/11/14, the above image is shown. The blog is taken from EVE Online’s Dev Blog (Also from 13/11/14), and quotes a game feature that we would like to implement ourselves:

[The seventy five shattered wormhole systems] will have no moons and every planet will be shattered.

This is a very interesting outlook on space, one which we would also like to base our environment on. Shattered planets in Cosmic Conflict will be used to depict the result of war in the Varkis system, showing how rough an area of space the player is actually in, and justifying the presence of the The Asuki, a violent tribe that were left to rot and die, and the current militia group controlling the system.

 

Self driving cars and AI

A big aim for the game itself is to not only create an enemy that heads directly towards the player, but a more advanced variant as well. As shown above, the more advanced AI that Tom and I are aiming to achieve should be able to move independently, finding its own path to the end point: The Cargo Ship. The above gif shows Google’s self driving car, which is sensing its surroundings and calculating how it can get to its end point in real time, avoiding any of its surrounding obstacles. It would be a great achievement if we were able to get an enemy to find its own route to the player, without just going in a straight line.

 

Flight Simulators

Flight Simulators have really helped regarding the research being carried out for the game. As shown above, the cockpit view is clearly and concisely laid out, making sure that the user can view whatever they need to. This can be carried across to the cockpit in the Cosmic Conflict game, which will have a cockpit which is easy to understand as well as having the information clearly and logical laid out.

 

Virtual Reality (VR)

Looking into VR movement has been really handy for the game. It shows the different avenues we can utilise to create a more immersive game for the player. There are two options we could use to implement the VR into the current game. The first would be to allow the user to look around the cockpit and still use the controller to move the cockpit itself, whereas the other one would be to use the VR Headset to move the whole cockpit when the player looks around. If we were to implement this feature into the game, I feel the latter option would be most fitting as it would make the game both easier and a lot more immersive to play. A good example of this feature being implemented would be deep space VR. Although our game would be better fitted using option 2 for VR implementation, option 1 still shows the capabilities.

Of course, implementing VR does bring a lot of challenges along with it. Although it could be relatively easy to implement into this game, we would need to consider the drawbacks from the players point of view. This would include, but not be limited to motion sickness when playing the game in VR. After having a brief look around I quickly found there are a lot of ways to reduce this. The first would be to make the game as smooth as possible for the user so that they did not become disorientated straight away. IGN also suggest a number of ways that this could be avoided from the players point of view. These points included making sure that the player was not playing through performance issues in the game, and simple things like sitting down. The useful part about a lot of these points is that as developers we can recommend sitting down for the game, as well as displaying warnings both when the game is loading as well as if there is a performance issue, to help reduce the chances of motion sickness.

 

Development Research

Primary

Unity

Unity is the software myself and Tom will be using to build the game. It is a very useful tool that uses c# and java script to create a working game within their live 3d rendering engine. It is nice to navigate and use and given my previous knowledge in coding, it will help massively when creating the game.

Art Canvas

Art Canvas is an app on my laptop that we are using to concept different ideas, and brainstorm things that can be implemented into both the game and other things for ourselves. It is very useful as it can be used on the go and help us quickly find a solution due to the fact you can visualise the situation better.

 

Secondary

 

Udemy Course

Udemy is a website where you can learn more about anything you need. They offer courses for Unity, which Tom and I have bought to get the upper hand when coding and using Unity, this is very useful and can be used to help in the future as well. It outlines lots of different features in Unity and how to use them, offering both brief and in depth versions.

 

I decided to look into this course to get a better understanding of the Unity Engine, which allowed me to increase my workflow and stay on track. It covered pieces of work that began at a beginners’ level, and gifted you with the ability to make your own game from scratch at the end. As you do not need to go through each part bit by bit it meant that I was able to find exactly what I was looking for and work from that.

 

YouTube Tutorials

I will also be using YouTube tutorials to solve any issues if I cannot find anything on udemy. There are a lot of tutorials surrounding Unity that can prove useful if I need help solving anything.

 

Below are a handful of tutorials that proved useful when coding aspects of the game. The biggest being object pooling. I used both the online Unity Tutorial, as well as a YouTube video to investigate the best way to spawn enemies, which eventually outlined object pooling, as I discussed in this post. This proved very useful as it allowed us to stay on track, and get the work completed in a shorter amount of time.

 

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is a forum which is used to discuss solutions to any issues surrounding coding. This is very useful to view as it can help when trying to solve any issues, without having to watch any video tutorials, and can be more specific to the user.

 

Source References