Freerunning and Physics news - Guns of Theory

It's an update post! It's been a busy semester, but to be sure, progress on Guns of Theory continues to be made, little by little. Now the player can equip weapons and freerun with both hands, sight their gun up, blind fire from behind barriers in a physically intuitive manner, and customize their body and eye color. Here's a little montage cooked up for your viewing pleasure, showing off some cool tricks and features.

The game is definitely feeling solid. It's got a very base visceral mastery, even if there's not much in the way of in-depth gameplay, as physical feel has been the focus of development for quite some time. I really want this shooter to feel good first, above all else. I think the key to that is a sense of control. Everything the character does should be the conscious intention from the player. Running, jumping, grabbing and crouching are all mapped to their separate buttons and it requires some finesse to master this system and perform some truly daring tricks.

At the same time, the gameplay is intended to be based off of physical believability. For instance, the player can't switch directions in mid air (source engine style). An important distinction from other shooters is that the guns themselves take up space in the game world. If you press up against a wall, your gun will be pushed away from it. A serendipitous side effect of this rule is being able to force a rifle around corners and over ledges, allowing the player to shoot behind cover without being exposed: Blind fire.

Hopefully a nice balance can be struck between the feeling of control, yet also the feeling of believability, now and into the future. So far so good.

Anticipate seeing a new build with these features and more after Christmas; I'll have some free time next week. I really want to get a Team Deathmatch mode and some solid first party maps made.

Nathan