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View Full Version : Multiplexity: 7th Division



K4Z
18-03-2007, 05:57 AM
I’ve come into the comp a little bit late this year, and just made the deadline for stage 2 (Thanks Savage). But I’m determined to stick with it till the end.

Anyway, I now introduce my entry so far:

<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Header.png</center>


Quick Overview – Genres
Ok, I’ll get straight to it and tell you what you wanna hear the most. My two genres are, Platformer and RTS.

Quick Overview – Story
7th Division follows the wartime efforts of the Australian Imperial Forces as they held back the invading Japanese army along the Kokoda Track within New Guinea during WWII.

Game play
The game uses a semi 3 dimensional world, the game is rendered in true 3D fashion, but gameplay is locked to side-on view.

As I’ve mentioned, my two genres are Platformer and Real Time Strategy. Both are implemented at the same time, allowing the player to switch between both modes of play at any time. I have also taken a more modern approach to both these classic genres.

RTS
The base genre (if you could call it that), is RTS. The player controls individual units that form a squad, using a typical Select, Move, Attack style interface with the mouse.
The RTS element follows the current trend that minimizes or eliminates resource management and production, and focuses more on the micromanagement of units.
This means that 7th Division focuses heavily on the strategy and management of the units themselves. This allows soldiers to concentrate on and take advantage of Cover, Fire and Maneuver tactics, Suppressing fire, Flanking, etc, all in Real Time while acting as a single squad.

Platformer
At any time throughout the game, the player has the ability to directly control any soldier within their squad, using a Platformer style. This allows the player to precisely control the unit in an arcade fashion that would be outside the scope of the AI logic, and react quickly to unforseen events.
This mode is implemented using the mouse to aim the weapon, and keyboard for movement. Unlike typical 2D Platformers, this world has depth, allowing the units to move towards and away from the screen, along the Z axis.

Mechanics
Engine
I’m using an engine that I’ve been slowly working on for almost a year now. It uses Jedi-SDL mainly for window and message handling, and OpenGL for rendering.

Graphics
As stated above, the maps are rendered in 3D, but gameplay is from a side on view like most 2D Platform games.
I use simple Height Map techniques for the terrain; however I use a thin rectangle map instead of a square one, that I have dubbed a ‘Terrain Strip’.

My engine is still nowhere near complete (I’m doing more work on the engine than the actual game at the moment), so my Skeletal Animation system is still in pieces and unusable at this point. Because of this limitation, I’ve decided to use pre-rendered sprites for the soldiers, and for just about everything that will be animated.
Static objects, like scenery and terrain, will be 3D models.

7th Division is set entirely within the thick mountainous jungles of New Guinea, with an overall cartoon style. I’ve opted out of using Cell rendering with Shaders at this point (maybe in the final release), but to keep the style, I’m using smooth shaded solid colours, and Silhouette outlines, with low poly models.

Game play
7th division tries to simulate a bit of realism, by taking heavy use of Cover. Each unit can hide behind every piece of scenery on the map, to take cover from enemy fire. Some cover is better than others, the most used cover would be the trees, and each soldier can lean up against a tree for cover, while still being able to fire at the enemy. Cover like a tuft of grass is useless against a bullet, but it will help to minimise the enemy from seeing you.

Screenshots
Just a couple of shots atm, the soldier is just a place holder graphic that I made.

<center>
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/th_7Div-A1.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/7Div-A1.png) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/th_7Div-A2.png (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/7Div-A2.png)
Using a tree as cover . . . . . Hiding in the grass
</center>


Anyway, I could talk forever about this project but I’ll stop here, for now at least :D. But if I were to compare this idea with any current games that I have played, it would have to be like mixing Soldat with Company of Heroes.

-KAS

vgo
18-03-2007, 07:45 AM
Aww, that guy in those screenshots looks so cute! :)

savage
18-03-2007, 11:23 AM
I like the cell shading.

Traveler
18-03-2007, 12:43 PM
Ohh,.. nice!

Looking forward to playing it!

WILL
18-03-2007, 04:26 PM
What more can I say. Your graphics are always amazing, best of luck mate! ;)

Huehnerschaender
20-03-2007, 08:46 AM
Nice one! I was already wondering which entry this could be, while watching at the stage 2 highlights video...

Looking forward to see more of it :)