Paper Cowboys Dev Update - Level 1 and more!

Published February 22, 2014
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It's been a while since my previous update, but I finally have some content to show off for the new level 1 in Paper Cowboys full! The reasons it took me so long:

  • Procrastination: I simply didn't have that creative spirit and motivation. I've been rather busy at my full time work and exercising lately.
  • Overdesign: I spent at least five hours worth of time figuring out that the game play of the 48 hour build was just fine.


I'm still a few weeks behind; by now I wanted to have three levels finished! But now...without further delay...video of level 1 WIP!

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Some of the noteworthy changes:

  • When an enemy dies, they become a stick figure ragdoll and fall to the ground.
  • Barrels and drums are subject to "regular" physics. If you shoot them they rock a little bit. If an enemy hits them they do the same.
  • Tumbleweed!
  • New buildings
  • Cleaner camera movement
  • New environmental obstacles (rocks)
  • Items will drop from enemies and barrels "randomly" with a twist: You are guaranteed an item drop after a number of failed attempts. Furthermore, you must have a hat before you can have a different weapon.


And these under the hood changes:

  • All of the old animation classes I coded for the old version have been deprecated. I now use Unity 4's animation objects.
  • I made new objects for most everything; including players and enemies. They're easier to maintain and more versatile (One prefab can now manage the behavior of four different kinds of enemy instead of having four prefabs).


I've also made some design decisions:



  • I'm not going to let players buy equipment with money. That would just result in players farming for cash, and the better players will always have the best gear leaving the little people behind.
  • I'm not going to have character leveling. This game needs to be kept simple...I will however consider achievements.
  • If using RPC's to indicate players firing or starting and ending their moves is too slow, I'm going to turn to an unreliable model where every player has a single game object with a network view that streams an integer where the bits indicate button presses.


What's next?

I haven't done network testing in weeks, and I have much catching up to do. I also need to add the transitions between levels and the end-of-level sequence.
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