Blog Post

Spring Break, Third Person Shooter Part 1

It's noon on Tuesday of Spring Break week, and I spend almost all of my waking hours since Sunday morning sitting here programming. This is the project I've mentioned a few times before. The plan is to make a tactical, squad-based third-person shooter. The game will play in a number of self-contained "missions", each of which will be characterized by an important "planning phase" and then an "execution phase". During the planning phase, the player will complete a scouting mission (perhaps some sort of mini-game) to acquire information about the area the mission is targetted at (blueprints and maps and such), and will use it to lay out a rough plan for his squad members to follow. Then they and their squad complete the mission in the 3PS part of the game. The most notable elements in this part will be the ability to climb on and over walls and obstactles, and enemy AI and difficulty that should enable and encourage the use of stealth.

So far, all of the work has been on the shooting part. I have the basics (movement and collision), some very fun particle effects (flying shell casings, dropped clips, and bullet holes and impact effects), and a simplistic climbing system that allows hanging from and climbing onto map elements (just a few big boxes so far). I will post screenshots tomorrow, by which time I hope to have the split animation system worked out so the player character will stop looking like some kind of crazy contortionist.