UAHDX Progress #5: Rebuild and Thanksgiving preview

UAHDX Progress!

Part 5: Rebuild and Thanksgiving Preview

   Unfortunately, after co-developer Josh looked at the coding from the previous post, he determined that we needed to recode everything from the ground up. Not only was this due to my lack of knowledge of how the OOP in C# for Unity3D works, but also because, due to what he described as the "spaghetti code" and how I structured it similar to a procedural-based language, nothing would have worked in a network multiplayer game, due to objects lacking their own methods. In the past few weeks, we have recoded everything from the ground up, so that it would be optimized with the OOP features and for multiplayer.

   In the process, we have fixed scripts, added scripts and features, and optimized features. It took days to finish, but we plowed through all of the grudging work and reigned victorious over our personal and professional work outside of this project. Specifically, we have added self-illumination textures so that pucks and paddles will glow with a parallax diffuse, mostly finalized the Credits screen, and cleaned up the Battle game modes. Specifically, we have finished all powerup objects (except Army, and Swap places, which may be scrapped entirely), added powerup handling in order to activate and deactivate powerup effects, added a proper music support, added a powerup HUD, and have added a username text to float above paddles. Furthermore, at the request of our professor, who gave us a creeping requirement on our project's SRS, we have added a feature allowing the players in a netgame to email each other the results.

    Below is a YouTube video demonstrating all of the new changes. Although not shown in the video, the core code of the game also works with the other difficulty settings of the Battle Mode. (We have yet to adapt the existing code and test it for the 2p Air Hockey mode and for the Pinball mode.) What is left to complete for the video game project is to integrate netcode for online multiplayer, implement AI, implement proper raycasting for each player in their own player fields, and adapt the code for Air Hockey and Pinball modes.

  C&CC welcomed! Planned ETA to device/PC software stores is early 2015.

  -EagleSoft Ltd

UAHDX Progress #4: Gameplay, Scoring, Powerups

More UAHDX Progress!

Part 4: Gameplay, Scoring, and Powerups

       It been a week or two, but the UAHDX team (Josh and I) are kicking it high gear for more development action, especially since our time for working on this school project is running out! (It's due by the first week of December, and we still have much to do in a short time.)

       Since our last post, we have coded and begun to implement many features. We are currently working on the Medium difficulty, Battle Mode game scene. Due to how we are coding and designing the game, each game mode/difficulty combination is modular, and relies upon a core set of scripts and resources. After finishing with our 1st game scene (the Medium Battle Mode), the rest will go downhill. We have plopped our 3D game models into the game, have implemented proper scoring, the announcer for scoring, and a scoring HUD. We have also added the ability for both a human and CPU to control the paddles. The former feature is quite functional and bug free, while the latter feature is in the early stages of development, and needs improvement, especially with coding an intelligent AI with removal of collision issues. Each paddle can only move within a certain area, with some interlap between these fields for multiple players in the Battle Mode.

    Furthermore, we have imported and implemented a majority of the main game sounds. A powerup collectible object has been created; however, the glue-logic for allowing a player to keep powerups and use them at will is pending to be written. This glue-logic will be performed using an invisible powerup thinker. We have, however, begun implementing some of the powerups, especailly those which are based upon physical objects. Such powerups include blockade, bumpers, portals, multi-puck, and army. These powerups will be dis/enabled by the game engine using our powerup thinker object.

    Below is a video showing everything is action, as to the time of this writing. As a developer of the game knowing its inner-workings, I cheat (a lot), in order to show off the features. My paddle (the red one) can move anywhere, and I can dis/enable Unity gameObjects and features on-the-fly using the Unity Editor during runtime. I do this so that I can focus the video recording on specific aspects of our progress. There are a few bugs in the video, but overall, the progress is fine.

C&CC welcomed! Also, if you know me personally in the real world, and want to Beta test the game, email me. I'll be sure to add you to the Credits screen :).

-"Tamkis" (Tony) from the UAHDX team/EagleSoft Ltd