25/06
12:07
I added support for the Razer Hydra motion controllers over the weekend. Moving the arms, picking stuff up, aiming, it’s all much more natural this way.
Buggy? Definitely, but as a proof of concept I’m very happy with it. I’ve got a huge list of possible motion-control-powered mechanics that I’ll try to implement sometime later. 
16/06
02:36
Check out some gameplay!
It was close, but we made it just in the nick of time! Our game is called Armed & Dangerous: Opposing Thumbs, and we’re quite happy with it.
In Armed & Dangerous you play a robot defending his lovely Data Cube. Build a fort, kill the oncoming drones, and defend the Data Cube at all costs. The game is player cooperatively with a friend beside you. The trick is that you both control the same character, a robot, and you have to really work together to win.
One player controls the left arm, the other controls the right arm. Both players can run, look and jetpack at will. All this means you have to coordinate, otherwise you’ll just stumble around and not get anything done.
You can grab things, you have guns, and bad guys want to kill your Data Cube. Stop them no matter what!
Here’s some of our influences:
Jeckyl & Hyde
Trespasser
Enviro Bear 2000
Tools used:
Unity, Visual Studio, Blender, Photoshop.
You can check our dev-blogs and download a playable version on the 7DFPS project page, although the website seems to be down right now. Direct link for windows version:
http://www.ramjetanvil.com/games/armed_and_dangerous/Armed_And_Dangerous.zip
This first version is very rough, only available for Windows, and only playble with two Xbox 360 controllers. We will be updating with more builds and better support for platforms and input devices though.
Stay tuned, and let us know what you think!
16/06
00:12
Armed & Dangerous: Opposing Thumbs
We crunched real hard for the last couple of days, and we’ve produced a playable version of the game in the nick of time!
New features:
Gameplay video will be up in half an hour, stay tuned!
In Armed & Dangerous you play a robot defending his lovely Data Cube.
Build a fort, kill the oncoming drones, and defend the Data Cube at all costs!
The game is played in coop with a friend. Both of you control the same Robot.
Cooperation is really the key here. You run quicker, fly faster, carry more, and shoot harder when you work together. You need to work together in order to succeed.
Note: The game currently only supports the use of *two* Xbox 360 controllers. You can play it solo to mess around, but you really need that other buddy.
Over the next couple of days we’ll add:
You can find the downloads here.
14/06
00:35
Boy, do I spend way too much time building frameworks…
Today I created a weapon management system, so now the game can have multiple weapons, switch between them, and work together with the input and IK systems.
The only two ‘weapons’ are Grabber and Pistol for now, but I’ll be adding more over the next two days.
But I guess with this most of the difficult coding work is done! The next two days will be spent creating an actual game out of this. Guns, enemies, objectives. You know, the whole lot!
Oh, and I also spent more than 5 minutes in World Machine. That stuff was bad.
Music: Autechre – Perlence Subrange 6-36
13/06
01:22
Day 3 saw no coding progress, work got in the way.
Today most of the work was done under the hood.
I spent around 6 hours completely rearranging the core character and IK code, and spent another 5 hunting down a bug that literally crippled the arms. Turns out the arm’s configurable joints settings got corrupted somewhere along the way by a 3rd party tool, but this fact was completely invisible within the Unity editor itself. If you’re using Component Copier at all, read this: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/121405-Component-Copier-now-on-the-Unity-Asset-Store?p=951375#post951375
Much of the eventual gameplay relies on the arms, so it was crucial that I fixed this.
Anway, I regained full control over the toughness of the arms, and can specify exactly how floppy or snappy they need to react.
Other than that I rewrote the input system, so that at some point I can hook up keyboard and mouse too, in an interchangeable fashion. You can now also move the arms in all three directions.
Minor cosmetic changes: Added servo sounds for some of the robot’s joints. Added something that might become an enemy, but is mainly there to test Unity’s navigation system.
Tomorrow! Gameplay! Dragging things! Picking things up! Explosions! Yay!
10/06
22:33
After streamlining the physics and environment Robin and Snoo took the controls and started messing around. This is what they came up with.
Highlights:
- Picking up stuff
- Stacking stuff
- Throwing stuff
- Launching stuff
- Impromtu Riot Shield
And this is without any support for picking up stuff! The riot shield idea is now going to become a feature in the game.
Also, the character is a robot. Yeah, that totally works.
10/06
13:27
Each hand now has its own gun, and it shoots wherever the hand is currently aiming. I added laser pointers to aid aiming, as otherwise it is really hard to know what you’re aiming at.
Even though I still need to tighten up the wobbly physics and create aiming behaviour it already looks quite funky.
Doing this all with physics is quite fun. Instead of needing a recoil animation, for example, I just add recoil force to the hand holding the gun, and voilla!
Todo next:
Robin should be back home later today to continue working on the hand.
Oh, and the subtitle for the game should totally be: Opposing Thumbs
09/06
22:55
Here’s where the character’s arm physics are at:
The transparent blue guides are the IK targets, which the physical arms try to follow. They’re way too wobbly for precise movement, but at least that’s good for some comedy.
The character can already be controlled by two players, but I didn’t have anyone on hand to play the other arm while I was filming.
Robin’s been working on the arm graphics some more:
I certainly hope we’ll be able to get that in-game tomorrow or monday.
Tomorrow I’ll start tighening up the wobbly physics and character control. Then I’ll add several methods to physically interact with objects in the environment (punch, drag, etc.), and then guns!
09/06
15:47
Hi Everyone!
This is us
Martijn Zandvliet: Game Design, Programming
Robin Vink: Game Design, Visuals
Armed & Dangerous
We’re doing a game in which both players each control a single arm of our playable character. Each player will have opposing goals and so will try to work against the other arm.
The arm will work a lot like in Trespasser, simulated by physics and fully supporting interaction with the environment and the arms of the other player. You’ll be able to grab the other player’s arm and knock it off its aim, for example.
Influences
Trespasser:
Enviro Bear 2000:
These weren’t influences right from the start, but after a while we noticed some of this stuff wasn’t completely new. Watching these videos definitely helped us solidify the concept.
Tools
Unity, Visual Studio, Blender, Photoshop.
Where Are We Now
I’m working on the IK and physics solution, which is slowly taking shape:
Meanwhile, Robin is creating the model for the arm: