Hi everyone,
Floatlands is a lowpoly survival-exploration fps game in singleplayer mode with multiplayer to be added later on. Game is currently in early development with set goals.
- You will play a robot as the main protagonist, going up against other robots. Game world will consist of several biomes: jungle, desert, sea and snow. These worlds will be unique all the time because they will be randomly generated. Islands and natural elements will have certain similarities, but altogether the world will be unique every time.
- There will be random events/quests (defending, collecting, exploring) across the world for you to complete. Quests, missions will also be randomly generated in order to bring the unpredictability aspect to the game.
- You can choose different play styles when playing in the world of Floatlands. You can be an explorer or you can be an aggressive player that wants to eliminate threats of well being.
- Important part will be the resource gathering aspect. With gathered resources you’ll be able to build and upgrade your own custom base/shelter and defend from enemies. One other major feature in game is electricity which will provide you with different options in the game, from ability to defend yourself, power up your lights to see through dark nights.
INTRO
The idea for a low-poly game came from our project manager Domen Koneski. He was having fun creating some floating islands in Unity3D and the colored only models really looked good to all of us.
The train of thought naturally went to jetpacks and flying around, defending each island from enemies (mobs in the shape of a helicopter). Andrej, our 3d artist, quickly created a helicopter, a main character for a first person shooter, with a cool looking double-barrelled shotgun, a few animations and other assets.
At that time the first trailer for the upcoming Battlefield 1 was released, which includes a massive Zeppelin. We picked up on the idea and incorporated it in this Floatlands game.
We shared a few screenshots of the scene on Instagram and Facebook, the feedback was well beyond our initial expectations, since we immediately got offers for beta testing, requests for PS4 version and suggestions for further concepts. Next step is to gather suggestions, write down a basic screenplay and create new game assets from that.
We’re really enthusiastic about this project and looking forward to working with our community! We invite you to contribute your thoughts and ideas on our website and social media.
IMPROVING THE VISUALS
These past couple of days we’ve been working on improving the visuals of the scene (better foliage, fog and colors), here is a representation of that:
Important part of the game will be the resource gathering aspect – we already created some basic ones:
- shooting down robot enemies will provide you scrap metal;
- by chopping trees you will gain wood;
- sheep is a source for wool;
- you will also find resources in caves.
Our programmer Vili Volčini (kobi) was busy creating pathfinding for a basic island, which now includes automatic subdividing, really fantastic stuff! He will explain the whole work process in one of our next blog posts, so be sure to check it out!
Our 3d artist added some nice assets like stones and caves with stalactites. Speaking of caves, there will be a whole complex of them under the mountains for you to explore. We also added the first animal – a sheep with a few animations and ragdoll physics.
The next challenge is creating wobbly trees – we’re already experimenting with wind animations for vegetation. That will certainly add some dynamic to the scene.
We’re really happy with the progress of the game and we’re looking forward to implementing mobs, weapons and lots more…
Until next time.
NATURE
Hey, Domen Koneski (game director, designer and programmer of Floatlands) here! Welcome to the very first dev preview which is ment to showcase the progress of our development. We are very happy to be sharing our dev story with you. I’ve got some pictures for you. I’ve been working on island generator, I’ve added every asset Andrej (3D artist) had for me – from a small firn to a huge tree. With this I’ve also successfully implemented a LOD system and found a cool ambient occlusion system which was also implemented successfully. That’s it for the nature aspect.
Resource gathering system is now improved, you can now harvest wood, wool, experience points and rocks. What we will do with it is still a mystery since we are developing this game very iterative.
Edited by: 6Pills
