Zyga Hunter - Release
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I released the full soundtrack on Bandcamp, downloadable for free!
Zyga Hunter - Sprint 7: Beta!
We are almost there! Zyga Hunter is almost complete and I gotta say, it's looking awesome. Development of the third level took a fraction of the time spent on the Warehouse and Power Complex. Yet it feels like the strongest. Everything was building up to this.
This sprint, I took on 19 points worth of work and completed 17. I concentrated on getting the caves level into a playable state and bringing it up to (and above) the standard of the first two levels. I also spent some time working on various quality of life improvements and bug fixes. So many little things!
I have this habit of voluntarily overworking myself, especially when I get excited about an idea. When we started out, I wasn't planning on getting too attached to this game, but, um... that happened.
The Zyga
The Zyga cave is home to none another than the Queen herself. I designed her based on one of my earliest Zyga thumbnail sketches. She started out as something like an octopus with an alien twist. She ended up much like that, but even weirder than expected. At some point I accidentally messed things up with symmetry and split the model open, but I decided to make that intentional and turned it into a seam, much like the watcher has.
One brilliant idea happened by accident while we were having fun messing around during a meeting. I was streaming my Unity window, and started playing with the scale of the Zyga. I placed a massive gathering of tiny, baby rams in the caves level and saw them run at me. And made a massive feeder Zyga that freaked everyone out.
Then Mark suggested that we actually use the babies as part of the boss fight. Have the queen spawn Zyga grubs between attacking the player directly. It made so much sense and we all got really excited about that idea.
I started with the feeder as a base, gave it the ram's legs, added new elements including the pores like the watcher has. Wanted it to look like something that could morph into any of the Zyga types. Be glad I'm not showing you the tongue.
And last but not least, the Ram miniboss. Rambo received a facelift at the last minute. I was not happy with his design or animations. He was too soft and mushroomy. I made him a lot pointier, with some hardened carapace pieces. I know that was my original intention, it just didn't quite work out that way at first. He looks awesome now, and scary.
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| Part of me hopes this image shows up in someone's dream years later |
Level Design
The big, big thing this sprint was the caves level. This was a rapid, crunch heavy process, but the results are more than worth it. The Power Complex saw some aesthetic changes, but it was pretty much in good condition at the end of last sprint. It was finally finished once I dropped in Chance's new vats of mystery liquid.
It is honestly kind of beautiful to see how far this game has come. And in so little time! I had my brother playtest this level, who is obviously not the ideal tester being a family member who's tested other versions of the game, but I'll take what I can get. Feedback is feedback! It's important to show your levels to someone else, even when you know they're going to be biased. They might see something you don't or give you an idea for where to go with it.
Which is exactly what happened.
The cave is a culmination of everything we've learned about our game. Based on what we've seen and heard from playtesters, the core gameplay is hella fun. People like trapping Zyga more than they like the machine puzzles. So in the Caves, the objective is heavily Zyga-based, with only one simple "put the key in the thing" style puzzle (instead of three).
Music
The cave had such a great ambience already, and it needed a track to match. Since this is the final level that the game has been building up to, it was important that the music fit that theme as well. I started by experimenting in Unity with the existing track used in the warehouse, but with the pitch shifted down quite a bit. I followed that theme into composing the final track, where I took some of the pieces from In The Machine and rearranged them into a darker, longer, and distorted take. I think it's my personal favorite so far.
From here, things are really looking up for that final build. I'd like to go back and add some overhead VOX audio to the Power Complex and Caves level, which should not take long at all. There
are a few things left we want to refine, a couple of bugs that it would
be really nice if we could fix, and of course that one last, very minor hub level we
still want to add in. The hub is going to be simple, but should still be pretty. We are in a very good position right now to be able to refine the game while also fitting in these last additions.
Zyga Hunter - Sprint 6: After Alpha
This was possibly our busiest sprint yet. We just put out our "feature complete" Alpha build and had... a feature or two left to complete. My work at this point was getting harder to track, but I completed 26 points out of about 30 total. Some of that consisted of cards that came up along the way.
Level Design
The power complex finally came together. It is complete with puzzles, zyga, and a boss at the end. Once I figured out what I wanted to do with it, it was pretty much a matter of hammering out the necessary scripting and refining the level geometry.
I got started on the caves, and I could tell from the start that this level was going to go a lot more smoothly than the others. We knew going in that we wouldn't be able to playtest this one nearly as much as the others, possibly even at all. That being said, I feel good about our ability to make a fun and rewarding conclusion to the game. We learned a lot from the previous levels, and I feel that I have grown considerably as a designer.
Music
We have a soundtrack now! I started out by coming up with a demo for the main theme, which I shared with the team. It was received very positively, so I worked it out into a full track, called Hi-Cordia Dawn. Then I started kicking around some ideas, and came up with unique tracks for the warehouse and power complex.
Here's the track that plays in the warehouse.
Asset Creation
Art-passing the power complex level involved some asset creation on my part, for all the things that occur to me while building out the level. I made a lot using pro-builder to get the overall shape, then ended up exporting those meshes and reworking them in blender. The cylindrical objects below started out as the flashbang grenade Derek modeled ages ago. We switched that over to more of a bomb than a grenade, but we like to recycle.
I replaced the warehouse machines with some proper models, built from exports of the pro-builder assets. They have so much character now! I also gave the missing components new textures to go along with it and stand out more in the level.
I also finished up the concept model of Hi-Cordia, and turned it into a proper game asset with textures. It looks gorgeous if I'm being honest. The textures and poly count are quite well optimized, too. A lot of this model is in the distance, where it can can afford to get very low res. We planned to have this view in the city center level, but it looks just as good in the power complex.
Zyga Hunter - Sprint 5: Power Up!
Sprint 5 was a very slow one for me, but I was able to get a start on the Power Complex. I completed... 3 points!
All my time was spent on the Power Complex, rebuilding its geometry by tracing over Mark's primitives using Probuilder. After spending so much time on the warehouse, I was struggling to remember how to even start. At this stage, it was taking me a little while to figure out where to go with it gameplay wise. It isn't much, but hey. It's something players can check out, and maybe there's something we can learn from that.
I spent some time on the Power Complex, but not as much as I would have hoped. The level in our Alpha build was not playable from start to finish, but the
overall layout and level geometry was there. I continued toying around with the city level, but it's not in a state that I would like to show off just yet. The city is even more of a head-scratcher than the Power Complex.
Good news is that I finally got access to the Unity collab! Things are about to heat up. Next sprint is going to be crazy.
Zyga Hunter - Sprint 4 The Zyga Come Alive
This was another interesting sprint for me, where I balanced my time between level design and character modeling. I completed 26 points this sprint, between level design, modeling, texturing, animation, various bug fixes, and getting a playtest build together.
Level Design
Through most of sprint 4, I focused on reworking the Warehouse level to get the lighting right, and replace some of the dev textures and simple shaders. I did some preliminary work on the City Center, but I'm finding that it may be too daunting and has some design complications from being such a large map.
The Zyga
The three basic types of Zyga are at this point fully modeled, textured, and animated. And they are freaky. The mini-boss is a work in progress right now. The sniper is also ready to go but not in game just yet. Lemme tell ya, seeing these guys in game for the first time freaked me out!
ZE-2001
Our robot is fully textured, and animated now! His design ended up somewhere between Wallace & Gromit and Half-Life, which feels pretty appropriate for the classic sci-fi vibes of our game. I just think he's so cute and neat.
Zyga Hunter - Blog Post 3
We did it! It is nowhere near finished, but we have a game that can be played, and we think it matches the core of what we're trying to achieve.
This sprint, I pivoted my focus towards level design. I completed 16 points worth of work, which represents everything that was involved in the level. So that includes refining the gameplay, modeling props, adding audio, and a whole lotta scripting. 7 points rolled over to the next sprint, which included concept art tasks.
Level Design
From the start, our plan was to have Mark blockout the levels and plan how they fit together, while I would handle the details. I spent a lot of time in ProBuilder, tearing up the floorboards and rebuilding new geometry in its place. Mark's blockout was an excellent guide and starting point. From there, the level evolved as inspirations and new ideas emerged on the way.
The basic premise and overall layout remained the same: Repair three machines, capture all (or most) of the Zyga. The arrangement of objects and lighting changed significantly over time. I started by rebuilding the catwalks and placing shipping containers in the spots Mark had already laid out. Then I just... kept adding the containers. They gave me a great way to break things up and think vertically. The way these crates are haphazardly arranged convinces me that the aliens who live here simply never learned how to stack efficiently.
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| Work in progress shots |
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| Blockout to final |
Andrew did some fantastic AI work, and the creatures are really what drove the design of this level. Seeing the way the Zyga move around pointed to ways I could design for their strengths. AI is really about finding ways to make the enemies look smart. They are truly dumb as bricks, but occasionally show signs that appear to suggest intelligence.
Modeling
Getting the Warehouse level finished involved a small amount of modeling on my part. First was the shipping container, then came the machine parts, and lastly, rubble. These still need textures and other improvements, but they all have UVs.
Scripting
A decent amount of scripting work was involved in adding life to the warehouse. Setting up scripted events as a level designer is something I was already comfortable with thanks to my modding experience. I am very familiar with the map trigger and event systems used in GoldSrc and Source, so the programming here was a matter of creating basic tools that resembled the ones I already know.
The first scripting task that came up was the camera clipping. I could either design around it and never let an object obstruct the camera, which I did not want to do, or make objects fade out when they get too close to the camera. I wanted to let Andrew focus on the core gameplay systems, and this seemed like something that would be quick and easy to accomplish. It was exactly that. You can see it in use in the videos later on.
Sometimes I had specific ideas for how I wanted things to play out. For instance, I wanted to place a watcher Zyga in this shipping container purely to catch the player's eye and get them to notice the spring nearby. If I let the watcher roam free in the container, it would not be able to be seen most of the time and players would likely miss it entirely. So I placed an invisible wall in there that would block the navmesh. Now the watcher moved around only a small portion of the container.
Problem solved. Then I remembered that the player is supposed to be able to catch all the Zyga. Now, I had to do some smoke and mirrors.
When the player passes through the trigger circled in red, the original watcher is disabled, and a second one on the other side is activated. This one won't go inside the container at all, and roams around a small area. There is a slightly hidden path that the player can take to reach this watcher by going through and on top of some stacked shipping crates. The player only needs to cactch 7 of the 9 Zyga in the area, so it's not fully necessary to reach this one.
Audio
This was not something we originally planned to include in this build, but something I got inspired to do along the way. It's important to me to start thinking about sound design sooner rather than later. My focus was to give the player guidance and feedback. The player should regognize that a machine needs to be repaired (because it beeps), and they should know when they fixed it (because it hums). Creature, player, and ambient noises can come later.
First, I wanted a beeping noise for the broken machines. That did not take long. Next, I had an idea for a robot intercom system as a way to feed the player objectives and information. I shared this with the team, and they liked what they were hearing, so I recorded some more lines. The sounds for the machines came mostly from recordings that I already had. Most of the sounds in this build were made from my voice, my guitar, and basic tones.
Next up: More concept art (probably)
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Zyga Hunter - Blog Post 2
Hello again! Sprint 2 has been very productive for me. I took on several tasks this sprint, totaling 19 points on the Trello board. I completed almost everything I set out to accomplish. Only one card rolled over to the next sprint, worth one point.
Models
I always like to start out basic, even if I know I'm capable of more. These guys are low-poly and have no textures, but the shape and size is really what matters. The team should not have to wait for art assets to be completely finished. The designs should still be a little bit malleable at this stage.
Here are the Zygaa! Their models are unfinished, but that's part of the idea. I wanted to get something to the team that we could start to use in Unity. Each of them has a rig, but the ones I gave to the team are static models for the moment. Having basic versions of these models means that Andrew can program movement and behaviors more accurately. These will also help Mark check for scale while blocking out his levels.
Textures
Here, I got a chance to use some of the skills I've learned in my modding experience. I wanted to make a custom set of developer textures to use while blocking out our levels. The idea is to treat these like a sort of ID map. I have been spending a lot of time with Substance Designer in the last few months and came up with a workflow that works really well for me.
I made made these textures to fit a variety of specific types, with four different colors, and some metallic variations. This allows the level designer to plan out the level's aesthetic without having to wait on finished textures. After the level geometry is blocked in, we can decide on the textures that it needs. The level designer can very easily swap in new materials during an art-pass.
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| Demonstration of how to use these textures in Unity |
Art
The visual style of Zyga hunter continues to evolve. I drew up some reference sheets for the Zyga, and continued working on my concepts in 3d and 2d. I made some improvements to the environment concept model in Blender. Thanks to Derek, we now have a name for our city: Hi-cordia.
The previous illustration of Hi-cordia had some glaring issues with scale. The buildings were way too large relative to the cylinder, or the cylinder wasn't nearly as massive as I meant it to be. We got to talking about how the structure should simulate a living environment, and we settled on an idea for an artificial sun system. There is a series of pillar structures with massive lights at intervals throughout the structure. The lights fade and change color over time as the day passes, but they also change to indicate the state of damage in that area of the city.
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Zyga Hunter - Blog Post 1
Zyga Hunter is a science fiction game about a robot called ZE-2001, who is designed to hunt the alien monsters known as Zyga. Fight monsters, collect trophies, and solve puzzles inside a mysterious alien city. My roles on the team include 2d and 3d art, as well as level design in a supportive capacity. In the first sprint, my assignments included concept art for the different types of Zyga, the robot ZE-2001, and the game's environment. I was also tasked with making art assets for the paper prototype, which was simply a reuse of my finalized concept designs.
The Zyga
I started by drawing up several thumbnail sketches of different creature designs. We wanted to have three different enemy types, with the possibility of others later on. We also plan to included mini-bosses and a final boss later on, but those will materialize once level design is further along.
Above you can see my initial thumbnail sketches. I referenced various fictional creatures as well as real world animals and bugs. I tried to get a good variety of designs that had some similarities. The three main Zyga types include scavengers, lookouts, and tanks. We reviewed these as a team, and selected three designs that we wanted to proceed with. Below you can those three designs developed further.
ZE-2001
Next task was to give the same treatment to ZE-2001, our robot protagonist. This one proved to be a little more complicated than the Zyga. I referenced several fictional and real-world robots. Again, I tried to come up with a good variety of designs, but as I went along I found that I was drawn to some ideas more than others.
We reviewed these as a team, but none of us could really agree on a single design. We were able to narrow it down to three designs that we liked. Instead of refining just one of them, I took a step back and came up with a new design combining those elements.
I presented the sketch on the left the next time we met as a team. It felt right to all of us, so I refined it into the design on the right. We found our little robot.
The Environment
The environment was probably the trickiest thing for me to work on, and provided an interesting challenge. We spoke as a team about what we wanted for the setting, some sort of alien city with a mixture of bright sci-fi scenery as well as dark industrial areas. I had an idea in my head of what kind of city this should be, but I couldn't be sure how well it matched what everyone else had in mind. Inspired by Rendezvous with Rama, I pictured the city inside a massive cylinder out in space. Instead of drawing this one, I found it easier to throw together a 3d concept model as a starting point.
The above image was made in Blender, rendered in a drawn style. Didn't quite get the scaling right, as the cylinder should be much larger compared to the size of the buildings. I showed this to the team, and it turns out that the concept of an O'Neill cylinder was very appealing to everyone.
