fps coop Reconnaissance

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Reconnaissance v0.4 update
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Screenshots:
(removed outdated ones, will probably upload some new ones later)

A fps coop game (up to 8 players or bots) with horde-based gameplay and with different game modes. Set in the future, You play as a Recon; a well-armed robot scout part of a company that seeks out to explore and recon other planets. An aggressive alien race seems to be standing in your way...

Please note that this is an old project of mine, it is not a beautifull game and has some flaws. I just wanted to update the gameplay a bit to make it more fun and make the player gun look less crappy. If people would be interested in it I may create an entirely new project with similar but updated gameplay and entirely new graphics.

DOWNLOAD LINK (please see install notes below)

Changelog updates


How to install:

1. Unzip zip (through e.g. winrar or 7zip).
2. Delete the shortcut of Reconnaissance.exe if there is one already, and create a new one (right mouse button on the exe and 'Create shortcut'). Now right mouse button on the shortcut and go to the tab 'Shortcut' and add '-nx 200' without quotes behind the target line. So get something like this:

"C:\games\Reconnaissance\Reconnaissance.exe" -nx 200

3. Start the game through the shortcut.

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Features:
* play with up to 8 players
* singleplayer, lan or online
* up to 7 bots with singleplayer
* many different gamemodes (WIP)
* choose your starting position in a fun way
* fight off many different enemies... (WIP)
* ...with a wide arsenal of weapons (WIP)
* quest rewards, supply boxes, items and powerup items

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Controls:

- WASD = move
- mouse = rotate
- mouse left = primary fire
- mouse right = alternate fire
- mouse middle or f or c = melee attack
- space or ctrl = jump
- q or e = thrust
- shift or caps lock = zoom

- esc = hide/show menu
- t = talk in multiplayer
- k = unstuck command
- l = toggle mouse lock (use this when playing windowed)
- b = hide interface (for screenshots)
- m = hide/show minimap

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Weapons:

Energy
Primary fire: shoots an energy/ammo efficient ball dealing okay damage at decent range.
Secundary fire: shoots two energy balls at less than twice the energy cost but not accurate at long range.

Flare
Primary fire: shoots a long range area of effect missile, dealing its damage 2x on a direct hit (1x area + 1x impact).
Secundary fire: launches a stronger missile that travels futher but costs more and is fired at an weird angle.

Laser
Primary fire: rapid-fire and decent attack, less efficient than Energy.
Secundary fire: greater hit-box to be used against flying and/or fast moving enemies.

Flamer
Primary fire: high damage and piercing at very short range.
Secundary fire: even high damage but also high energy costs.

Fusion
Primary fire: fires horizontal disks that pierce enemies with a decent fire-rate.
Secundary fire: fires vertical disks that pierce enemies with a decent fire-rate (handy against flying enemies).

Pulse
Primary fire: shoots a powerfull fast moving projectile at long range. High energy cost.
Secundary fire: 100% chance to stun but less damage.

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Game modes:

Recon. There are several sites on the map you need to defend long enough to explore them and to be victorious. Features semi-random spawns.

Survive. Surive all the waves of enemies. Features semi-random spawns.

More planned, including a more campaign-like gamemode.

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How set up a multiplayer game:

One player hosts a game. His/her lan ip-adres is shown in the upper-left of part of the screen when a game has just hosted. Otherwise see the name of the program/engine window (alt-tab) to see the lan ip-adres. To find out what your internet ip-adres is, check for example whatismyip.com.

Port 2300 is used (default of Gamestudio 3D).

To join, just type the right ip-adres in the textbox. There is not a server browser yet, but I might add that in the future.

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Known bugs:

- if you get stuck, press k for the unstuck command.
- sometimes a client does not join properly, e.g. the client cannot properly fire. Try rejoining.
- after joining, a client cannot properly host a new game or start a new singleplayer game. Restart the game.
- not really a bug, but the bandwidth multiplayer uses might not be enough optimized to be played online/internet (read not lan but internet) with a large amount of players and/or enemies (but especially players consume bandwidth).

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Credits:

- almost everything made by me
- skybox (with the sun) is from AUM
- music is from UT & Unreal
- sounds (not voices) are from Quake, Tribes 2, Stronghold Crusader, Freelancer, Jediknight Academy

Special thanks

- Ch40zzC0d3r, Sivan, DLively, Superku, Sid, Uhrwerk, EpsiloN, Rayp, just thanks to a very big part of Gamestudio 3D community for helping with my code

Enjoy[u][/u]

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I downloaded it and made half of the tutorial. Will take a closer look later...

Oh thanks, I will await your feedback. Tbh, the tutorial is quite different than the normal map, maybe I should remake it. Don't really know.

I am downloading it right now and give feedback later today, too. Apart from that I have to say that your screenshots suck, not because of the content but because I don't get it, they are so tiny and when I click on them I just see an imageshack site without the actual screenshot.

Same here images are all broken. But im downloading either XD

The old links are from imageshack, they seem to have a really weird rule now that direct links don't work correctly unless you pay up for a subscription. I have added new links from imgbay, which is okay but sometimes the site is broken.

Does anyone know a good alternative to show screenshots?

Uploading to imgur

tnx, created a imgur account and updated the links

Looks nice, do you have a gameplay video? (can't test the game right now)

btw. I always use this one to upload images (it's german, though)
They don't scale or convert your image into crappy-compression-jpg so you can either save your jpg's with something around 96-98% quality to get pretty good
images that don't take up too much space or you'll just use .png's (which are a little bit bigger). It also doesn't automatically redirect you to their website so
you can embed the image with a direct link.

Not a bad idea to upload a video. I will see if I can make a video with multiplayer footage.

Also thanks for the site link, I will use that one and imgur in the future.

Okay, so i've played some recon right now and i see potential

So some cricits:

Negative:
- Camera is too limited (I want to shoot higher and lower)
- Graphics have an interesting design, but the texture quality is pretty low and also the game looks like it's made out of "dirt".
- Hit feedback. There is none and i can't say if i hurt an enemy or not
Add some animations and hit markers
- I would like to see some faster projectiles, i could't hit anything over a non-melee distance

Positive:
- The basic gameplay seems good, i like the recon idea
- The controllable drop start is awesome, you can land on better places
- Awesome flying enemies are awesome.<3
- Enemy design is nice, but maybe some more movement wouldn't hurt

Would like to see some updates and play a multiplayer match

Tnx for the feedback, good points .

, fixed, apperently I had capped it on 45 and -45 tilt

, yes graphics are not my strongest suit in fps games. Do think its everything or specific things like player 'hands+weapon', enemies or something else?

, there is a decent chance (based on the damage dealt), that an enemy gets stunned for a short while (~0.5 sec) and than it displays a hit animation. When you get the incinerator perk, you drop burning waste that has 100% chance to stun on hit.

There is also gore/blood, should I increase the amount of blood?

What do you mean with hit markers on hit enemies? Like a number that shows the damage dealt?

, I agree. I already had plans to add a sniper-like weapon that has a very fast projectile speed, but I will increase the projectile speed of some other weapons too.
, thanks, I had a big smile on my face when testing them for the first time

, do you think the enemy strafes enough and often when walking towards you? They do stafe, but maybe not enough yet. And/or I could maybe add a new movement option for them. Next to that I have ideas for adding more enemies that e.g. charge.

, I would like to play a multiplayer match too after the update.

The Game really looks like 1996 XD

@FEL: That ain't bad


Okay, some more comments:
1: What exactly is this? It's brown, it's blurry and dappled. But should it be dirt, sand, ...? You can get pretty good textures at cgtextures.com, maybe you can use this:
Dirt/Mud Texture, just adjust some colors with GIMP or Photoshop so they fit your style.
2: Okay, i got a weapon. But what exactly is this grid representing? It looks like the weapon is carved out of one piece of material without any more details. Try to get some more defined shape in your textures.
3: The enemy textures are quite good imho. But try to get some specular (best with spec mapping) on them so maybe the shell(?) of the enemies reflects some light.



Depending on the game style maybe some explicit animation after a hit, just a shake or something. If you go more arcade game (what would be great) you can add damage numbers floating up or just let the enemy blink red on hit.

Also what other games do is that they flash some kind of marker around the crosshair if you hit something.


For example the panther-alike enemies run towards you, then stand still and spit stuff at you, pretty easy to hit. Just let them run around a bit after they spit at a player so they change position.
Also it's really hard to hit some enemies standing nearby you.

Just another question from my side:
Where do enemies spawn? I would like to know where they come from.
Maybe add some holes on the ground or on the rocks for those bug thingys and so on so the player knows where the waves are coming from.

, nah, more like 2000 . Cause this is how a 1997 looks like (a quite good one I must add) http://rohitbandaru.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/blood1.png And here is a pic of a 2000 year game (at that time it was beautifull, oh how times have changed ) http://dakkster.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/giants-citizen-kabuto_13.jpg Okay maybe Giants looks prettier, but still you get the point.

, okay the terrain texture is something I can improve I think. I am photographer so I can use a more photorealistic image of the ground for that. What I find difficult though is how detail maps work on the terrain, so I need to read some more tutorials about that.

, carved out of unobtainium . But tbh, I found texturing the weapon really difficult cause of the texture wrapping. It also did not help that MED is really unstable here, so I might need find myself a real model editor for that.

, that's a cool idea

, I like the floating numbers idea

, again good idea

, they actually spawn at holes, so they come out of the ground. The holes are a bit camouflaged, but should not be to difficult to find. There is however (on purpose) a bit of a random factor on which hole an enemy spawns, so its more difficult to spawn-camp them. But most of the time they spawn on a hole that is the closest to you.

I've played it a bit earlier today and only want to give some notes before I go to bed:
- I can see that a lot of effort has already gone into the project, so good job so far either way. It's always difficult to keep and find motivation to work on a project for a longer time.
- The player and camera movement/ code needs some work, it's one of the most important aspects of the game/ a shooter. IMO the arms should have a very slight delay/ follow the camera when it pans and tilts, i.e. just smooth the angle difference and do not set it directly.
- The weapon handling is not yet satisfying in my opinion, sorry. Try to give the weapons more impact and humph and boom, from a feedback perspective (bigger bullet impacts on walls and enemies), and the projectiles are a little slow.
- The tutorial seems relatively well-made. I didn't die but the note "when you die you have to redo the whole tutorial again" disturbed me a little. Try not to annoy your players, esp. when they start the game/ do a tutorial.
- The second wave of enemies on the map was too strong, I died pretty quickly. Maybe delay the spawn of the tougher enemies for 15 seconds.
- I found it to be pretty cute that the bug-like monsters flew into the air following me on the highground. <3

Great feedback ,

, what helps is sometimes setting my mind to zombie modus . But yeah I agree motivation is not always the easiest part, you probably experienced that yourself alot with an (almost) fully fledged game like Superku.

, funny idea, I'll add it to my to-do list.

, I will see if I can do something more with the explosion effects.

, yeah bullet holes are still missing, I will add them, good point.

, fixed

, that's good to hear, I wasn't really sure about that one.

, , I will change both the note and that the player won't have to redo everything.

, you have to help me a bit here; are you talking about the tutorial, the recon gamemode (with the blue i's) or the survival gamemode (with the orange text)?

, they just want a hug

I've played the recon gamemode and tried to secure the second place downhill (with the structure and the "rock tower" some meters left to it).

Btw. the bullets do not hit in the place where the (center of the) crosshair is pointing at. Take the tutorial for example and fire some projectiles on a wall. You will see that the bullet holes/ hit markers are placed some quants to the right on the lower side of the crosshair (because the projectiles probably need to be oriented differently depending on the distance to the crosshair center).

, thanks will be fixed.

, I improved it now, but it is probably something that will never be perfect cause even in games like Unreal 1 you can see that the projectile is not in the exact same spot as the cursor when e.g. being close to a wall and fire. Its a minor thing I think though, I personally did not notice it until you mentioned it.
What could be though that on a very big resolution it is more visible, have to check that.

Anyway thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated.

Update v0.2

Version info v0.2 changelog:
- added a new big map (for longer games).
- added hit indicator numbers with information over enemy state.
- armor-, health- and speed bonusses give twice the boost (e.g. now a single health boost increases hp regen by 2%). Collect those items!
- new enemy that loves jumping (you will see :D) & added 2 new waves for Survival
- new sniper-like Pulse weapon with as secundary fire a stun shot (good for escaping or for multiplayer).
- overhauled Laser weapon.
- player weapon projectiles move much faster now ( ~x2).
- enemies strafing changed, letting them faster flank you but giving you more time to fire at them.
- enemy strafing ability now also dependent on difficulty level.
- changed altered fire of Flare weapon a bit.
- improved graphics a bit of many things like enemies, terrain and weapons.
- Rebalanced waves in Recon mode: large wave (starts after 6 min instead 4 min, less chance to spawn ranged enemy, 1 enemy less and only triggers when there are few enemies on the map) and after reconning a point 1 less enemy spawned lateron.
- changed tutorial a bit.
- ranged spitter enemy deals less damage (from 6 to 5) but is more mobile when attacking.
- camera angle less limited.
- hands rotation more smooth.
- mouse cursor now shows the direction of projectiles better.

Also I added a list of the available weaponry, could come in handy although the new hit indicator numbers also give alot of information.

Energy
Primary fire: shoots an energy/ammo efficient ball dealing okay damage at decent range.
Secundary fire: shoots two energy balls at less than twice the energy cost but not accurate at long range.

Flare
Primary fire: shoots a long range area of effect missile, dealing its damage 2x on a direct hit (1x area + 1x impact).
Secundary fire: launches a stronger missile that travels futher but costs more and is fired at an weird angle.

Laser
Primary fire: rapid-fire and decent attack, less efficient than Energy.
Secundary fire: greater hit-box to be used against flying and/or fast moving enemies.

Flamer
Primary fire: high damage and piercing at very short range.
Secundary fire: even high damage but also high energy costs.

Fusion
Primary fire: fires horizontal disks that pierce enemies with a decent fire-rate.
Secundary fire: fires vertical disks that pierce enemies with a decent fire-rate (handy against flying enemies).

Pulse
Primary fire: shoots a powerfull fast moving projectile at long range. High energy cost.
Secundary fire: 100% chance to stun but less damage.

I don't really know if people are interested in this but if you do, let me know what you think of the idea to add the possibility for players to add bots in singleplayer. The support for more than 1 player is already there (cause of the up 8 player multiplayer), I only need to add AI itself for bots.

They would act the same as real players; difficulty would be increased for each bot, they would pickup weapons, gain item bonuses for each killed enemy, enemies would also target them. Ofcourse they won't be as smart as real players in multiplayer, but I can still let them follow you, use thrusters, jumping and perhaps even let them recon. It would be funny in singleplayer to see 8 robots rain bullets on groups of enemies . Combined with the setting to increase the amount of enemy spawns, you would get a real battlefield.

Would you think bots for sp will be fun?

Even if no one will get interested, you actually should give it a try! Because of experience that you'll gain from working on it! It worth a try. I'll be happy to test it out when you'll have playable demo with AI!

Greets

Hi 3run,

Yes it would love it if you could test it. I have a published folder of the newest version still lying somewhere, so if you want to try it I can upload it.

But please consider the following when giving feedback; in the future I can only update the bot AI and maybe add some other extras cause there's 2 technical problems for me to work on this:
- I still used blocks in this game so I can't use it with my own made map editor, only WED, but for me that's like 10% efficiency in making maps compared to my own editor .
- There's some duplicate code in the scripts which makes it a bit of a mess for changing stuff (like all ai behaviour). The size of the project doesn't help here either.

If you still want to test it I will upload it .

Sure! Upload! About duplicated code and so on, it's ok unless I'll be able to see the code And about maps (and visuals in general) I don't really care how placeholders looks like, the most important this is, how it works out all together!

Greets

uploaded the new version with bots

, I meant with that that I won't be able to change major things in the code

, technically it aren't placeholders, just ugly (fairly old) selfmade models . The problem here is that I cannot replace everything cause some of it are blocks (and I don't really use WED anymore).

I think that's a huge waste (well yeah, it depends on your project), since there is no really good alternative to work with blocks (and I do really love them!). I always use WED and for some basic levels (oldschool games ), it's almost perfect, but yeah it's could be more convenient to work with


I'll give it a try

Edit: I can't download it.. tried different browsers (web-page is not available).

Best regards!

, I can open it in Firefox and I see it has been download a few times, so it has been uploaded. It probably has to do with that Gamefront isn't very very browser friendly, so if you can try another browser if that's not possible if will provide a second mirror .

, WED is really outdated . Even when starting with GS3d I was already spoiler with Warcraft 3's world editor, so I never get used to WED even after quite some while trying. In a perfect world I would prefer to being able to place blocks in my own editor, but I don't think that is possible. But I think the only thing I miss is the lightning offered by blocks. And perhaps BSP/portals now that I have pro too but region_set seems to be able to do the same realtime (seems like a really handy feature).

@3run, and did you manage to download it? I can upload a second download mirror if needed.

Version info v0.4 changelog:
- since this is one of my older projects, the game source code is a bit of a mess which does not really motivate me to do big updates. However,
I still found it a bit of a waste so I tweaked a things to make this game more fun & a bit better:
* player weapon & thruster have a new texture (only for first person which is the main view anyway)
* player projectiles fly faster (* 1.5) -> was still to hard first to fire accurate
* player weapons fire faster (* 1.5) -> to make it a bit more interesting, basically combat is faster now but you can still die
* player weapons consume less energy (cause of faster firing too)

a very sympathetic style.
when the scary monster would not, it Kære 100% kid friendly

I have also been amazed not bad about the music.
Unreal 1?
It´s on my "to play" list.

Ifound one smal bug: sometimes the Player is stopped, I think it´s somethink with the colusion

Thanks! The music is indeed from Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament.
This is a fairly old project, but I think I can fix that collision bug. In the meantime, if you are stuck press and hold 'k'.

When I toggle window mode, everything get's fucked up



Edit: another quick tip for your sparks particles from bullets, make them move away from the normal of the wall, take a look at this:


Also, some other things that I noticed.. too much test on the screen, it's really hard to aim because of this, maybe you could place them somewhere else on the screen (top middle or lower middle position on the screen):



And one thing about movement, is it intended to have such a low gravity force? I mean when you jump up, player is like floating and then slowly going down to ground.



Greets

have 3DGameStudio a possibility to block the system Mous Clicks in Windowmode?
For playing FPS Games in Windowmode?

You can just lock the mouse inside of the game window. That will do the trick.

, you mean in my game ("l = toggle mouse lock (use this when playing windowed)"), or if you are interested in the code so you can put it in your own games I can post it here if you want.

, oh forgot about that one, I will fix it.

, tnx

, you probably play in low resolution than? Good point though, I quess I will place the text at the bottom left than ontop of some gray transparent bar so it is still readable.

, yes it is intended since you play with a floating robot. In the tutorial section it doesn't make much sense, but in the other levels it is handy combined with your thruster to quickly get over high/rough terrain and ontop of structures.

@3run how do I lock the mouse in the engine window?
I do not want deactivate the engine window by klicked out of the window, by looks arround with the player.

, copy the code within the spoiler tags and call lockmouse(); or unlockmouse(); . Could be that you need to include #include <windows.h> or #include <stdio.h> .

, apparently I accidently uploaded version 0.4 with a .sav file of my options settings, which is why it is so messed up on your screen. Deleting the SaveOptions0.SAV probably solves the problem.

-edit, omg I just noticed weapon and thruster are invisible in tutorial modus , fixed in next version