New Screenshots, Alpha Demo Soon news - B-12

I finally posted a few more recent screenshots. The first alpha demo is getting closer and closer to completion. Making a game like this by yourself takes FOREVEERRRRRrr, but hey, it's my first game and already the most personally rewarding project I've ever undertaken. The only video online is super outdated now and the game looks MUCH better and is way more fun to play. Tons of changes have been made. I will make some new videos very soon, including one with some footage viewable with Oculus Rift.

Some changes since the old preview video:

- Third-person view is gone for now. I'm focusing on first-person only since the gameplay is just more fun and looks better. Plus it makes it easier to keep my main focus on VR support.

- New texture atlas with more variety, other new textures and assets, although pretty much everything is still subject to change in the final game. For now, I like the way things are looking. Not the most original art-style ever, but I'm pretty pleased for it being my first game.

- New main hub that leads you to the four major zones/levels of the game. The whole arrangement/flow of the game is still subject to change, but what I've landed on for now is a main hub with teleporters leading to four large open-ended levels to be completed however you like. Each zone will involve finding your way to 3 main switches that need to be activated to access the boss room and complete the level. There will be lots of other switches and puzzles inolved in reaching the 3 main switches. Each area will also have 3 hidden areas with large monoliths/sculptures to discover and admire. Each area will also have several weapon/ability upgrades to find. As I said, this is subject to change, but I think it's a good starting point for game progression.

- I've gotten much much better at lightmapping with Unity/Beast

- Various important performance optimizations that have made a big difference for a good VR experience

- Level geometry is now 20% smaller which also REALLY helped with VR. I don't know why it never struck me until now that everything was just a bit too large.

- Improved my home-baked AI, although it still needs some more work. AI is super fun and challenging, especially when you decide to ignore everything you've read about nav-mesh/way-point pathfinding and come up with something that uses less code and requires no setup.

- Better feedback for knowing when switches/doors/etc are activated or not activated. (I'd prefer for the final game to have as little text as possible, so conveying mechanics without a tutorial is very important to me.)

- Got rid of all on-screen HUD elements and moved them to B-12's plasma launcher

- New pause menu designed for VR, but this still needs a little work

- Got rid of one-ups/lives and decided to go with infinite respawns. B-12 will always respawn at the last teleporter that was used. There will be a score penalty for every death, most-likely. Including a bonus for completing an area/level without dying. I would like to also add a permadeath option for those looking for the greatest challenge.

- Alt-Fires/Abilities: I got rid of the Mario-style temporary powerups and opted to add the secondary ability instead. This is the violet/purple meeter on the plasma launcher. Right now the only two options are a shield bubble and the 'gravity anchor' for moving around and throwing crates, objects and even some enemies. The final game will have a good variety of these upgrade abilites to find throughought the world. Some offensive, some defensive, some related to movement, etc.

- +Lots more stuff I can't really think of right now..

As a side note I still have no idea whether or not to add any kind of story/narrative to this game. My inclination is to make it a game for the sake of fun and challenge, as in Chess or Tetris. I am very open to feedback on this! Hell, I'm not even 100% on the name sometimes.. Do you like/love/hate it?

Anyway, the first alpha demo release will include the hub area and v1 of the first level/zone. Release time is closer and closer! Just gotta finish up a few areas of the level and work on some more sounds and music. I'm pretty anxious to release it because it is hard as hell to stay motivated when the only player feedback I'm getting is from close friends and relatives. I need YOU to play B-12 and tell me what sucks about it!