SuperTanks! Playable demo (based off battle tanks, with a bit more work)

[Zaptruder]

Hi all,

Have been stealthily following along in this section without contributing much, but that changes now!

I’ve reached the end of this section… all while creating my own assets (or using the ones already in the unreal engine) to follow along with the challenges. At many points, I kept tinkering with my project after the lecture, and it’s been a fun ride.

Anyway, pretty much everything I’ve done in this demo, has been learnt through this course (and about half of Unreal’s starter video tutorials), so huge kudos to Ben and Sam and anyone else helping them put this course together. I go by the adage you get out of (learning) what you put into it… but really they’ve made it easy to get lots out of it!

Here’s the link to the game:

https://mega.nz/#!twgx2IjY!yfyg0RDhjHzWWqMxbYIpuCPLuN1_nFw5FI5yqK4ZBlE

The game concept is that of an arcadey arena tank shooter. The missions are tough and designed to be repeated until the player rises to the challenge. The aesthetic is gamey and fun.

Some screenshots to get some interest in here:

Few caveats.

I’ve made the demo quite hard. I still can’t consistently win the demo, despite hours and hours of practice.

The tank now has suspension and moves around like a dream!

Also appreciate any feedback on the game itself.

Definetly plan on continuing to extend the game, with more missions (not sure how to track the tanks been destroyed so we can move onto the next level right now), more units, more weapons, improved AI as well as VR support. If it’s well received, will put real work into it and even turn it into an actual full fledged game! But that might be getting ahead of myself yet!

If you’re getting a false positive virus warning on the .exe, download this one from Googledrive to replace it. It should be using an industrial grade scanner, so you can be assured that it’s ok.

SuperTanksV0.04.exe

edit 26/08
I’ve updated the demo!

• The new version allows for a complete loop in gameplay (provides you with death menu when you die and congrats menu when you win).
• Holding R pauses the game and provides you with a much more obvious indicator of how much longer you have to hold to restart (about 1.2 seconds).
• Also I’ve added suspension (doesn’t visibly move the tracks, but significantly affects the handling for the better).
• As a side effect, it significantly reduces the number of crashes I’ve experienced (although hasn’t removed it completely).
• A second side effect is that it makes the tank much faster; although I’ve tweaked the numbers related to tank movement since to get movement into an enjoyable place (it’s faster now).
• Provided a reload progress bar indicator - makes it more obvious as to when you can and should slow down or stop to shoot.

Give it another shot if you’ve seen it already! You might be pleasantly surprised!

Next up is to develop more levels for the game. Aiming for 5 to demo with, with a variety of opponent types, secondary weapon, etc.

[Gemini]

Hey Zap. Just so you know, my anti-virus is flagging this and automatically quarantine the .exe.

[Zaptruder]

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll investigate on my side. Can you tell me what AV you’re using?

[Zaptruder]

Ok, I’ve scanned through my files with three different scanners, and they’ve all come back clean.

Certainly, I’m not smart or malicious enough to add a virus to the .exe

I’ve uploaded the battletank.exe into Google drive, which should have an industrial grade virus scanner for files under 50mb, so you can download from there for assurance (just place it into the Supertanks V0.03/WindowsNoEditor/ directory).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6YRnQ9RsH9eTENvRDRjYzRsU1U

[Zaptruder]

Anyone managed to give this a shot?

[axelglzc]

I get this when trying to run it

[Gemini]

Never got that error. Weird.

[Zaptruder]

Hi Axelglzc…

Did you… download the .zip from the mega folder too? The .exe is the executable that you place inside that folder to replace the one that’s there if you’re having issues with your antivirus flagging it.

I checked on my end with multiple anti-virus solutions (with the original .zip) and it didn’t come up for me (and my computer is clean), so as far as I can tell, it’s just an erroneous warning from one or two AV solutions.

Uploading the .exe to Google was simply a way of using their antivirus scanner to prove it was safe (ironically if you upload files larger than 50mb, it won’t do an AV check, which is why I haven’t also uploaded my .zip file there).

Thanks for trying anyway!

I’ll reupload a new build along with a video in a couple days.

[axelglzc]

That was a silly mystake from my part hehe, I’m now playing and will get back to you soon.

[axelglzc]

OK so, your game is pretty damn hard, it really is BUT it’s also a great deal of fun.
I just loved the thank exploding animation and I really liked how you went further into developing turrets shooting different kinds of ammo. Also, the turrets are pretty good looking.

Some things I would suggest:
Balance the difficulty
Maybe in the future add a secondary weapon?
How about a respawn option?
Maybe increase the reloading speed

Note: I noticed you have to aim a little to the left if you want to hit things.

Good luck!

[Zaptruder]

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

The difficulty as stated was intentional - but I totally recognize that as a ‘starter’ mission, the demo is way too hard. Once I get additional levels loading, I’ll be able to create starter missions that provide a gradual difficulty curve.

Additionally, I want to scale difficulty by providing the player with a range of equipment and the chance to earn it.

At this point, I’m mainly trying to make the meats and potatoes (moving and shooting) of the game as good as I can before I move onto the progression gravy!

Secondary weapon is a good idea, and one I’ve been thinking to add for a while (there’s a little machine gun on the front of the tank that doesn’t work yet), which will help finish off enemy tanks, or give the player the ability to shoot while the cannon refreshes.

But the primary cannon having a slow refire rate is intentional… the idea is for the player to take shots carefully - each shot counts, and they’re punished for missing (or at least they’ll have to keep their momentum up).

Having said that, I’ve recently added a reloading progression bar which provides you with a much clearer understanding of when you can shoot, and therefore how much longer you need to keep moving around for to avoid getting shot.

I’ve also improved the restart option (which is respawn… I think I’ll make the labelling clearer) - the game restarts quickly and easily and is an important feature of the game functionality (i.e. keep each cycle short and sweet, let the player have many attempts, until they beat the level - they’re not significantly punished for death).

Regarding aiming… yeah, I noticed that too. I think that’s due to our aiming code - I’m still using the same one as I wrote during the section lectures. I’ll have to refactor and shift it over to a more reliable method. It’s causing problems for me especially in VR, where it seems to take the center point of the left and right eye and toggles between them constantly.

[Zaptruder]

I’ve updated the demo with a number of improvements! Worth checking out!

• The new version allows for a complete loop in gameplay (provides you with death menu when you die and congrats menu when you win).
• Holding R pauses the game and provides you with a much more obvious indicator of how much longer you have to hold to restart (about 1.2 seconds).
• Also I’ve added suspension (doesn’t visibly move the tracks, but significantly affects the handling for the better).
• As a side effect, it significantly reduces the number of crashes I’ve experienced (although hasn’t removed it completely).
• A second side effect is that it makes the tank much faster; although I’ve tweaked the numbers related to tank movement since to get movement into an enjoyable place (it’s faster now).
• Provided a reload progress bar indicator - makes it more obvious as to when you can and should slow down or stop to shoot.

https://mega.nz/#!twgx2IjY!yfyg0RDhjHzWWqMxbYIpuCPLuN1_nFw5FI5yqK4ZBlE

and

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6YRnQ9RsH9eRHFXa3pLX3JGb3M

for the .exe if needed.