Spread the Choas - 1860 edition

Note: this is unfinished, riddled with bugs and there is no way to win or lose. But the concept is there and it looks pretty! :)

A game made in Unity using HDRP & Visual Effect Graph

Theme

This game was written for the Brackeys game jam 2021.2, with the theme Let there be choas

Story

You play as a demon locked away for centuries. Never seeing the outside until some unknowing people stumble upon your cage freeing you. They flee but you are now free. You can roam the lands watching people run away from you, striking them down with your demonic blasts or taking over their souls creating minions to defend and destroy the humans who locked you away. But be careful, the ages have advanced since you were locked away. You will now be attacked by villagers, ninjas and samurai!

Gameplay

When you spawn in you will be within your cage. You will be locked and not be able to leave. A cut scene will play shortly introducing you to the world. Shortly after you will escape and see the first humans.

You are then free to explore the first person based world seeing what 1860's japan looks like. Upon seeing villagers who will flee, you will be able to target them (on screen controls) and attack them or takeover them.

--The below didn't make it into the game

The more villagers who know about you or that you attack, the higher the chaos and the stronger the enemies that will come for you. Attack 10 villagers and they will hunt you down!

You'll need to ATL+F4 to quit.

Developer Comments

Due to the restrictions of me being sick for a few days, I didn't get nearly as much done as I hoped. I also hit the issues of trying new tech Unity released that (in my opinion) don't feel finished as they should be. There were several elements to the Visual Effect Graph (along with the lack of documentation) that made it really difficult to proceed. I found a few issues with the Timeline which brought development to a standstill until alt solutions were found. (not being able to play animations in a variable position (the timeline sets the position) to name one.

But, this project was so much fun. I did learn a lot of stuff and I really am becoming closer with the HDRP toolset. I love making cutscenes and I got some new voices from online places too!

The models are from synty store.

What I did well

• The use of HDRP to make a visually appealing game with volumes and lights
• The game play idea could have been quite fun.
• Graphics and art do look very pleasing
• The animation system, although buggy, is quite fluid and adapts to many scenarios
• My custom takeover animation.

What I would do better next time

• Don't get sick next time lol
• Don't spend so much time learning the Visual Effect graph.
• Spend less time on cutscenes and more time on gameplay
• I wanted to create an ethereal / demon voice and I'm just not a fan of it to be fair!

New things I've learnt

• More HDRP - I'm slowly coming around to understanding what everything does. I really like it. Much more of a solid system than URP
• Visual Effect Graph - This is mega powerful. It needs more work to allow callbacks but its really easy once you view and play with a couple of samples
• Mixamo animations - They are so nice to use. They need to add a LOT more. But really easy to put into Unity
• Audio mixer groups - It allows you to get all the sounds that play at once and make them balanced. E.g. background music, birds tweeting, russles of wind.

Known bugs

• Some animations hover above the ground
• NPC's turn weirdly (its just a lerp, needs a better animation)
• Voices glitch in some places
• Animations jump between states
• The blast effect delays between dealing damage. (Need to find out how to call OnStop on the VFX Graph)

Updates

V2:

• Added in cutscene skip. Simply press "1" to skip
• Added in ability to unlock cursor. Simply press "escape" then reclick to enable
• Deployed game in development mode. Errors can now be seen if needed
• Fixed bug with takeover not being able to be used multiple times
• Made vision cones wider. Was quite small
• Added in an icon