-Work In Progress- One Eye'd Billies Adventure & Fun Center
Hello fellow Islandville residents!
I have been pretty quiet and hard at work on the next location. It's coming along nicely so farrrrrgggGGHHHHH! Sorry. My pirate voice slipped out there. ;)
The next arcade/location coming to The Coin Game will be called "One Eye'd Billies". It's a Family Adventure and Indoor Fun Center that was inspired by the old road side fun centers all over the world. Bonus points if you can guess the original building that inspired this very old original Arcades front skull facade.
Billie's is roughly 2 times the size of the UFO arcade. When it is finished, it will be located at the Mountain bus stop on the water near your home. It will have a wooden dock/pier that runs all the way around it on the water that I can expand on in the future if I need to. The coming area will feature a fun pirate theme and another full arcade with about a dozen or more new arcade machines and coin pushers, an 18 Hole indoor Putt Putt Golf Course, a couple of shooting galleries with goofy reactions for scoring a hit, Pizza take out/delivery area, a radio controlled boat pond and a pirate themed prize counter stuffed with all kinds of new treasures and prizes to collect or pawn off to Barry.
I have also been working on a smaller update to Survivor Mode that will be coming before I have this next location complete. Some of the things I am working on for the next update are as follows.
- Sitting down mode: The ability to be able to sit on any chair or bench.
- Another vehicle or customizing the golf cart? Still not sure.... What do you all think?
- Tweaks to the Damage and Health systems.
- Tweaks to current machines
- More bug fixes!
[h2]OUTDOOR BUILDING TEASER PICS:[/h2]
I have the exterior of One Eye'd Billie's almost done. I have the base textures completed but still have to go back and add some more little details here and there.... but the main "feel" of the next location is starting to come together. Here are a few pics of the outside of the next location... REMEMBER THIS IS NOT RELEASED YET!
I have to build and finish the physics for the arcade machines still. Those will take me some time. I do not like to give time lines or dates... so I wont. haha. You can rest assured that I am working on the game if I am not sleeping. ;)
In the next developer blog I will talk more about the contents on the inside of Billies. I am sure that is what you are all waiting for. Things like new machines, putt putt golf, RC Boats and yummy stone fired pizzas. I will be showing more of these coming features as they get closer to completion in other dev blogs.
[h2]INDOOR EARLY MODELING TEASER PICS:[/h2]
Here are some early work in progress pics from the interior of Billie's. You can see the mesh is not textured and only contains simple colors to "test" the layout. I like to build locations in a "raw form" like this first and then "test play it" to make sure it feels right. There is nothing like finishing an entire 3D building and then the fist time you play it you realize it sucks. haha. Each location goes through about 2-3 of these "nudge sessions". I sit there and play it. nudge it. Play it some more.... Nudge it. etc. At any given time there is about 4-5 major pieces of software open at one time just to work on one item. Its a crazy workflow nowadays but mainly I am usually just organizing files and folders. I sometimes think that is what most "game devs" do all day is make new folders and organize files for a living. haha. The modeling and coding for me is the easy part and time flies when I am doing that.
Currently, this week I have been working on the Putt Putt Golf Course. You know how hard it is to come up with 18 unique but playable golf holes? Whew. It's harder than I thought. I am still changing and tweaking a few of the holes with additional obstacles. Hole #17 is a "Plinko" inspired hole that will require a bit of luck to get a hole-in-one. Many of the holes are inspired from the old side of the road smaller parks. No big overdone loo-pity loops or 100 foot drop offs here. I like to go for "realism" and things that would exist in a smaller town / population that would be working with a smaller budget.
The arcades owner One Eye'd Billy isn't made of money and he is a simple Bot. He likes Wood Fired Pies (Pizzas) and a nice dockside sunset to charge his solar panels. He is also a heck of a sailor and the original captain of the ship that brought him and Uncle Phil to this wonderful place a long time ago. You can see the original wooden beauty on display in the harbor that he and Uncle Phil built with there own two hands.
He told me in an IslandMail the other day that he may even be into playing a few rounds of Putt Putt against you youngsters to show you who the real pirate is. More news on that later though. ;)
Here are some pics of the inside of One Eye'd Billie's in Unity. WORK IN PROGRESS
[h2]EXTRA ARCADE MACHINES TEASER PICS:[/h2]
And for a little extra teaser..... Here is just a sample of some of the new machines coming to The Coin Game.
I like to work on MANY things at once as it allows me to keep it "fresh" in the office and not get bored working on one thing for too long. It also allows me to stand back and look at things before I make big decisions or direction changes. I kind of go around a big "virtual workroom" and just do a little sculpting on something and then I move to another and sculpt a little more. Currently at this time I am working on about 12 machines and two buildings. haha. Whew. Sounds like a lot when I say it out loud.
These machines are just modeled and have not received their final graphics treatments. Once textured they will get placed in Unity next and given baked lighting, physical colliders and then the scoring systems are put in last. After building more than 60 different machines over the last couple of years I have templates now. Being able to start from a custom built template is allowing me to build machines faster. Machines that would take me three weeks a year ago, are now getting completed in about a week. I am really finding my stride with One Eye'd Billies and cant wait to show you all the new fun stuff coming. That's enough for this blog post. I need to get back to sculpting. ;)
Ill be working hard.... stay tuned for more and stay safe out there.
Side Note: The Coin Game will be increasing in price very soon to about $11.99. So get in now while the price is still low! I am also working on a Supporter Edition with some cool extra cosmetic doo-dads for the characters to show your extra support of the development of The Coin Game. More news on that in the next blog.
Thank you for supporting The Coin Game!
Kevin