Monthly Archives: August 2018

Hit Reactions

So my enemies were lacking some reactions to getting hit by weapons among other things that would make things more juicy, I decided to use the morning to implement a simple hit reaction system.

My first stop was to add a hit animation in a way that would layer over the rest of the enemy systems, so I created a simple 10 frame animation with one pose to see how it looked, I added this to a separate layer on-top of every other layer. Created an upper body mask so that they could still walk and then I just triggered it upon getting hit:

That worked fine, so then I had to figure out a way of establishing the direction the weapon or projectile was coming through, luckily Unity has a dot product function as well as a working sample in the SDK that recognized forward and behind. I extended this to recognize left and right. I also gave it some tolerance to allow for centered directions, so 8 directions in total and a centered one just to cover all possibilities.

I first tested this using a cube and a sphere:

So now that this was working I went back into 3dsmax and made the 8 directional hit poses, roughly, then brought them back in to Unity and named the accordingly. I then added them all to the hit layer I created and placed them according to direction, finished up the transition setup and triggers and voila:

Jack McLantern – New Enemy

Hi guys,

I created the Hell Knight and created some behavior for him, with a variety of attack animations that allow him to be vulnerable to your weapons. I also added patrolling that can be enabled for units and I added shields to skeleton warriors to make them a bit less vulnerable.

Also the archers shoot towards your intended path when you are strafing with a bit of randomness to make it more natural.

Still a lot to do of course, let me know if something is particularly bad



Axe Updates

So I have completed a few updates this week, first some additions to the axe shown in the video

The axe can now be upgraded to increase it’s effectiveness, normally you throw it and it comes back, now with upgrades it can bounce between enemies as shown in the video, with 2,3 and 4 bounces at least (the system just has a limit I can change and a distance of effect, which can also be upgraded.

I also added a few sounds and a small delay when the axe hits something to try to give it some more punch.

Archer feature complete

I added actual arrows, with trail, a bow with an animated string and a quiver as well as sounds for loading, string tension, shooting and arrow-woosh…

So the skeleton follows you and it has a range after which he starts shooting arrows while walking, if he gets closer he stops walking and just shoots arrow and if you move away he will continue pursuit.

I had him running like his sword wielding buddies, but that was a bit too much and would be lead to less variety. So zombies are the slowest, archers are slightly faster, but they have a range and skeleton warriors are really fast, but have a short range (melee).

I will add some randomness to his targeting as well and call him done for now (which means awaiting a modeling and texturing pass, basically polish)

Barrels of skeletons

Hi guys, more on my wip game:

small improvements in animations, added exploding barrels and attacking skeletons with temp wooden sword

I will be making an archer version of the skeleton, as well as a zombie that throws bile. Next are the Hell Knights and the Mini Knights. Oh and Death’s Scythe

Zombie improvements, Skeleton and Gun polish

Facing zombies in the graveyard is the most likely going to be the first experience you will have in the game, I want to make it enjoyable and juicy. So I went over the zombies and made some quick textures, including normal maps, even small details like the chunks missing are noticeable and readable during action, this is probably close to the final look I will be going for, at least for the first version of the game

So I have more free time now and I am ramping up production I implemented all 3 zombies with giblet versions and a new enemy type, also in-game and breakable :

A closer view of the skeleton with flaming eyes:

I also spent some time polishing the gun, both the bullets and the related animations

I will implement some attack animations and post an update during the next days. Then more items and more enemies to finish up what I need for the first level. Stay tuned

Making giblets

So as I was working on one of the skeleton enemies – for which I have the intention of them exploding into bones like I did with Bashing Orcs – I figured I could make giblet versions of my zombies as well and give them that extra juice.

I spent Sunday morning cutting up the zombies and then in the afternoon I implemented the code:

Putting some things together

I put together a small area to get a sense of what I will need to do for levels, I feel I will end up increasing the amount of zombies I thought I would need, so I will also need to work on the random variations and textures to get something that works. Some audio effects also added and some systems added to the gate and chest.

Next skeleton enemies and maybe the zombies can throw something at the player as well, check it out here: