The last time writing was indicating that Team Fury had
moved Fury Void from Alpha-phase of
development to Beta-phase deployment.
Since then, a massive collection of advancements have allowed Fury Void to stride to a final release
in the coming month.
To refresh the reader of what Fury Void is, it is a frantic, top-down space shooter combining the
random madness of Asteroids with the
fast-paced blasting of a ‘bullet hell’.
Over the course of the past seven months, a team of 4 students has put
together one of the most successful games of the Dakota State University Game
Design program; steps to completing that success are as follows.
Major tests have been conducted on the behalf of the
game. The first one of note was during a
presentation at March’s start. This
presentation exposed major gaps that may be included in the design of Fury Void; optimal destruction meters,
planet labeling, flavor text inclusion, and further elaboration on the
capabilities of the ship were not apparent/were wanted by the audience. Much more was discussed, but Team Fury would
encourage all to attend the monthly presentations to garner what Fury Void is doing.
Later, Fury Void
was exposed to the local Game Design group established by Dakota State
University. From that, much feedback was
recorded as well as the event was a mark of the first time that Fury Void was mass-tested under the
supervision of the entire team. The main
points of feedback consisted of the game being addicting, there needs to be a
bit of context given to actions, the Xbox controller needs to support axis
aiming, and instructions need to be given to the player. Lastly, an optimization gauge should be added
to judge when a player can move on from a play space; this feature is now on
the top of the development list.
Fury Void has been
proven to be a fun and addicting game, but it is still a fallible game. Thus, the following bugs have been handled
as-of-late: There was text pixilation of filler and intro messages, but that is
corrected; The ship body no longer is ripped from the ship when a black hole is
created; Enemies are on the minimap; The intro cinematic text is centered on
the screen; Xbox controllers support any axis shooting; and, music and sound
plays everywhere.
The final bit to cover would have to be minor features being
added or tweaked in gameplay. The
Difficulty option available to the player has been moved to the Ship Switching
screen. Enemy weapon shots have visible
light trails added to them. Enemies now
have the code structure to be randomly spawned in-game. Any text option that is selected is visibly
highlighted. A ‘warp zone’ has been
added to identify where the player can go to change solar systems. In closing, a smaller arena has been created
( a feature added that was lost at some point in the version control software
).
To come, here are some of the features on the development
list. First, time orbs in the liking of
the energy orbs are to be implemented; they would add time to the clock so the
player could play longer. An optimal
destruction gauge is on the top of the creation list; this gives an indication
as to when the player has done their duty in the given system in destroying
enough of the solar system they are in.
Additional customization options should be given to the player; ship
speed, health, agility, and damage are to be included. Context to what the player does and why they
are doing it is of utmost importance; this feature will require a bit more
thought.
Before the next report, there will be more playtests and
even some professional advice given on the game at the Game Development
Conference. Please pay attention to the
changes to come, check-out Fury Void on Facebook, and play
a beta here.
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