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Tower57 - AlienBreed/ChaosEngine-inspired co-op shooter Amiga4life

made

Arcane
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
5,130
Location
Germany
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A dystopian future in which humanity has found refuge in self-sufficient mega towers... A retro-futuristic setting... A government conspiring to keep its citizens subjugated...

Tower57 is the love child of Alien Breed and The Chaos Engine, a fast paced action / arcade game with lots of insane weapons and challenging enemies. The game is currently being developed by myself (benitosub) and artist Cyangmou.

The core features we are focusing on right now are:

16-bit style pixel art
interactive / destructible environments
an online coop mode designed as a core feature rather than an afterthought
engine designed to promote emergent gameplay
cross platform Mac / Windows / Linux


I'm a bit wary of making this first post too long / boring, so I'll just leave you with a few screenshots, but if anybody is interested in discussing any aspect of the game (be it about the tools used to create the art, the engine itself, gameplay features, or even just our sources of inspiration) please don't hesitate to post here!

Also, Cyangmou regularly streams the creation of the art assets, so if you're a pixel art lover you should probably check out his twitter feed where he announces the streams (@cyangmou)

Cheers!

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More GIFs n shit on the artist's twitter:
https://twitter.com/cyangmou

Forum thread with additional info:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45185.0

Regular updates here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/tower-57
 
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Morkar Left

Guest
Looks great and I like the idea of mixing alien breed with the chaos engine!

Some questions if you insist :)

What do you consider in your gameplay to belong to AB and what is from TCE?
What are your unique features?
Upgrades?
Story?
 

made

Arcane
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
5,130
Location
Germany
Morkar, bro, this ain't my game. I'm just introducing it to the hivemind.

From what I gather, they are focusing on an interactive environments and resulting puzzles (destructible objects, lightning gun triggers switches etc.) It's still very early in development apparently.

The player sprite looks like this (hopefully placeholder):

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Farage

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2014
Messages
596
saw this on tigsource, impressive stuff indeed.
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AlexOfSpades

Arcane
Joined
Aug 19, 2013
Messages
494
Is he half-naked? Oh my god so sexist is this a porn game, mysoginy, aimed for horny teenag- oh wait he's a dude. Okay then carry on
 

warpig

Incel Resistance Leader
Manlet
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
7,364
Location
lmaoing @ your life
16-bit style pixel art
interactive / destructible environments
an online coop mode designed as a core feature rather than an afterthought
engine designed to promote emergent gameplay
cross platform Mac / Windows / Linux
Sounds great, I love Alien Breed. Nice graphics, this is how a retro nostalgiafag game should look like. Will there be off-line coop, two players playing on the same pc like in Alien Breed? That would be cool.
 

Farage

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2014
Messages
596
I like where this is going. Something like Barkley 2 but with a more realistic style to it.
would also play as a bald naked dude yes
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Does this game have problem solving as in Alien Breed and Chaos Engine? I see no mention of solving puzzles or resource management to progress... is there, or is it straight run n gun (I don't mind, either way)?

The visuals are also nothing like AB/CE except perspective, I guess... not a problem, just sayin'.
 

Borelli

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2012
Messages
1,261
Jason Statham and Vin Diesel in one game!:kfc:
Did Alien Breed have mouse controls? Last gif looks like keyboard movement + mouse aiming which gives off a Cannon Fodder vibe.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Did Alien Breed have mouse controls? Last gif looks like keyboard movement + mouse aiming which gives off a Cannon Fodder vibe.

From what I recall, the original Alien Breed (and Chaos Engine) were 8-way digital joystick controlled with only a single firebutton and I think alt/shift(weapselect)/spacebar(special abilities). There wasn't a rotatable target function like in that gif (contemporary controller thumb-sticks make that easy..). Later, non-Amiga versions prob had different controls..
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Looks great and I like the idea of mixing alien breed with the chaos engine!

Some questions if you insist :)

What do you consider in your gameplay to belong to AB and what is from TCE?
What are your unique features?
Upgrades?
Story?

Hey sorry for the late reply, I had no idea about this thread until last night!

From AB : the difficulty, the 2 player mode (AB II), the terminals :D, some of the weapon ideas, the structure of the map in floors (also AB II) are the biggest that come to mind right now

From TCE : the view obviously, the difficulty, the 2 player mode, the maze-like level design with alternative routes, secondary areas you can skip entirely, secret areas, also enemy spawning (in AB enemies were basically there waiting for you, whereas TCE had some really clever spawns imo, like baiting players with loot, or subtle variations in the spawning patterns that would catch you off guard...), and some other stuff I can't go into detail right now without spoiling next week's update ^^'

Upgrades: likely on weapons, but we're still refining that part

Story: same deal, the setting is somewhat well-defined but the details are still hazy, so anything I write now could potentially be obsolete next week...

Cheers!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
16-bit style pixel art
interactive / destructible environments
an online coop mode designed as a core feature rather than an afterthought
engine designed to promote emergent gameplay
cross platform Mac / Windows / Linux
Sounds great, I love Alien Breed. Nice graphics, this is how a retro nostalgiafag game should look like. Will there be off-line coop, two players playing on the same pc like in Alien Breed? That would be cool.

Thanks!

Yes there will absolutely be off-line coop, the game can be played either with keyboard / mouse or a dual stick gamepad :D

Cheers!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Does this game have problem solving as in Alien Breed and Chaos Engine? I see no mention of solving puzzles or resource management to progress... is there, or is it straight run n gun (I don't mind, either way)?

The visuals are also nothing like AB/CE except perspective, I guess... not a problem, just sayin'.

Hi! Yes there will be some problem solving / "puzzles", mostly based around the weapon mechanics (fire, electricity, light / laser, etc. and how they interact with the environment in addition to the enemies) and the co-op play (things like coordinated triggers / pressure plates, combining 2 different weapons to obtain unexpected results, etc.).

However the core of the game remains the shooting / blowing stuff up, the problem solving should be there to add variety to the play styles and help with the pacing of the experience.

And regarding the visuals, thanks, that's great :D ! I mean AB and TCE are two games we love, which have inspired us in terms of mechanics and player-experience, but ultimately we still want to stand on our own two feet and retain our identity ^^' So it's great to hear that we don't come off as just a TCE clone!

Cheers!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Jason Statham and Vin Diesel in one game!:kfc:
Did Alien Breed have mouse controls? Last gif looks like keyboard movement + mouse aiming which gives off a Cannon Fodder vibe.

Not as far as I remember (at least not when I played it on my a500 !), but you are correct, one of the control schemes is keyboard + mouse (the other one being the gamepad). The idea is to decouple the movement from the shooting (ever played Smash TV?) so you can do things like dramatically walk backwards while shooting your pursuers, or strafe down a hallway while shooting enemies through the side windows, etc.

However with the exception of grenades (which we are still refining...) the mouse-cursor merely serves as a visual indicator of the direction in which you are shooting - bullets / missiles / lasers / flames / etc. keep traveling past your cursor until they hit something, as opposed to games like Cannon Fodder where your bullets would land on the spot you were targeting.

So the actual position of the cursor is irrelevant, what matters more is the angle between the cursor and yourself, therefore you're not actually penalized by playing with a gamepad, all you have to do is move the right stick in any direction to shoot in that direction. Hope this makes sense?

Cheers!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Oh almost forgot, playing as a bald naked dude will *definitely* be a possibility :D

Thanks a lot made for starting this thread!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Looks great and I like the idea of mixing alien breed with the chaos engine!

Some questions if you insist :)

What do you consider in your gameplay to belong to AB and what is from TCE?
What are your unique features?
Upgrades?
Story?

Hey sorry for the late reply, I had no idea about this thread until last night!

From AB : the difficulty, the 2 player mode (AB II), the terminals :D, some of the weapon ideas, the structure of the map in floors (also AB II) are the biggest that come to mind right now

From TCE : the view obviously, the difficulty, the 2 player mode, the maze-like level design with alternative routes, secondary areas you can skip entirely, secret areas, also enemy spawning (in AB enemies were basically there waiting for you, whereas TCE had some really clever spawns imo, like baiting players with loot, or subtle variations in the spawning patterns that would catch you off guard...), and some other stuff I can't go into detail right now without spoiling next week's update ^^'

Upgrades: likely on weapons, but we're still refining that part

Story: same deal, the setting is somewhat well-defined but the details are still hazy, so anything I write now could potentially be obsolete next week...

Cheers!

Sorry I forgot to reply about the unique features ^^'

We feel we are unique in at least three ways:

* the destruction: sure, lots of games have destructible environments, but we're trying to raise the bar: litteraly everything on screen is destructible or (in the case of things like walls) damageable, everything that can be destructed creates debris, and everything related to destroying the environment - shell casings, debris, glass shards, enemy parts, explosion scorches, body parts, blood stains, etc. - litters the floor permanently. In one of the upcoming updates we'll post actual pre- and post-battle screenshots; we sincerely feel the level of destruction you can leave in your path really sets us apart from the usual "throw a grenade into this particular wall to blow it to pieces, but if you try that on the exact same wall next to it, it won't even leave a mark" approach.

* the co-op: again, we're not the first or only 2d game to feature co-op play, however we feel that the way in which we are designing the experience with co-op as an integral part of it rather than a trendy mod deviates from the standard approach of "let's spawn twice as many enemies or give them twice as much health" So wel'll have challenges designed specifically for two players, weapons that can be used cooperatively to boost their effects, cool ways to combine weapons - think the "2 step" kills in Mass Effect where one of your teammates will levitate an enemy while you riddle it with bullets mid-air - etc.

* the emergent gameplay: as defined in WikiPedia, "complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics". The (custom) engine we are using is designed using a pattern called "entity, component, systems", which - without going into details cause I'm not sure how interesting it is except for programmers ^^' - allows us to do just that: create a basic set of rules for how all entities in the game interact. I'm talking things like "fire burns", "electricity travels down to the closest entity within a certain range" (I didn't say the rules were scientifically accurate ;) ), "blood puddles slow you down", etc. What the player makes of these rules, and how he chooses to exploit them is what creates the complex and often unforeseen situations.

Sometimes the results are funny / borderline-bugs:
one rule says "fire propagates to entities within a certain range". Normally a fire has a "lifetime", after which it dies out, but if you set fire to two entities close enough, then re-kindle the fire of one of the two entities at the right time, you can create a self feeding cycle of fire where each entity sets fire to the other one before burning out :D

Other times the results are really cool: originally we had the laser gun create a short-lived flame, just a few frames, on the targets it hit - cause, you know, lasers are hot? Well once while playtesting, I hit an enemy with a laser at the exact moment he was shooting at me: the laser created a small flame on the point of impact on the enemy, the small flame ignited the bullet, the flaming bullet came hurling down at me, lodged itself into my leg, and set me on fire...

This sequence of events was not something I scripted or had even anticipated would ever happen - remember, this is just a rule that says "fire burns", nothing in the code specifically handles setting bullets on fire in such or such case. So this somewhat complex situation unfolded thanks to the interaction of several systems that define the rules of the world: and this is exactly the sort of gameplay we are trying to create, a sort of TCE-AB sandbox where we give players the tools to have fun in their own way, and discover their own ways to beat or break the rules of the game!

Sorry for the lengthy post ^^'

Cheers!
 

benitosub

Novice
Joined
Jan 27, 2015
Messages
41
Hey everybody!

We just updated the devlog, thought I would update this thread as well now that I am aware of its existence :D

This week I am posting the update while sick with a high fever, so I hope you’ll pardon me if I go slightly off-track ^^’

As usual we start with some new weapons (just 2 more after these, then we are finished, promise!), or rather new variations of an existing weapon: the fire grenade and the lightning grenade:

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The fire grenade works just as the regular grenade, except it spawns a massive fireball upon impact:

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It can be pretty useful to set things on fire which are outside of the range of your flamethrower (ok so in this case it’s a bit ridiculous, I could’ve just inched forward, but the capture window size is limited :D).

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The lightning grenade on the other hand spawns a bolt of lightning which will send electric jolts down all neighboring targets, whether they be objects or enemies:

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For the second part of this update, we thought we’d take you a bit behind the scenes, and show you how we put our levels together.

When brainstorming which features we wanted our tools to have - i.e., what we would use them for and how -, we came up with the following set of requirements:

- ability to create multi-layered tilemaps
- ability to easily place enemies in the level
- ability to easily place items / props in the level
- ability to easily place and edit lights in the level
- ability to assign loot to particular items / enemies
- ability to place triggers

Furthermore, if this summer’s demo is well received and we manage to secure funding to complete the game, we would really love for players to be able to mod the game as much as possible, therefore we felt the editor should be as easy and straightforward to use, even for non-experienced level designers!

With regards to the first step, the creation of the tile map, we knew there were already quite a few tools available out there - good tools! - so instead of re-inventing the wheel, we decided to evaluate a few of them, and ended up settling on Tiled (which I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with!). Why Tiled? It’s got a community, is somewhat well established, and has an open format which contains all the layer / tile / etc information that we needed ^^ ( http://www.mapeditor.org/ )

For the remaining steps however, we created our own little tool to accomodate our needs. It all starts with dragging a TMX tile map into the editor:

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Maps are comprised of several layers (pictured here, 2…):


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You can easily pan around the map:


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Once you have imported a tile map, you will need a dictionary of possible items and enemies for the level, so you have props etc to place around. This is also done by dragging an “item dictionary file” into the editor (this one is created using another in-house little tool which we may also show at some point if ppl express interest ^^’):


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Once your items and enemies dictionary is loaded, you can start placing things around. It’s really just as easy as drag and drop:


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Obivously you can zoom in and out, select entities, move them around, remove them, etc.:


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Placing enemies is accomplished in a similar fashion:


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As well as light sources:


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That’s it for this week! I really hope everybody enjoyed it ^^ Next week we’ll showcase some new game mechanics again, so stay tuned for more!

Cheers!
 

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