The Longest Snow Day - Treehouse Turret

[legacy-MattRyan]

The look and feel of The Longest Snow Day

It's meant to look like a cartoon, so many of our characters will have a very simple look to them. Simple shapes. Because of that, we drew some inspiration from C&H; Ed, Edd, and Eddy; and other cartoons. Since the only other snowball fighting game out there is the South Park game, we're trying to distance ourselves from that franchise as much as possible, so you probably won't be seeing any yellow snowballs or swearing little kids in our game (esp. since we'd like to have this game considered an "E for Everyone" type title.

Now, when Epic releases the UnrealEngine 3.0 in a couple of years...then we may be talking about an update to our game with a more "teenager" feel to it. Seeing the new engine at GDC has really got my creative juices flowin' (don't worry, I've got a towel )

[legacy-dumbass]

Originally posted by TheGhengisKhan
I was kinda thinking of Calvin & Hobbes

Oh yeah, that's it! It's closer to Calvin and Hobbes :haha:

[legacy-TheGhengisKhan]

I was kinda thinking of Calvin & Hobbes

[legacy-dumbass]

I like the feel of this mod, the characters remind me of a modern Charlie Brown Peanuts gang :up:

[legacy-Lee3dee]

WOW! Thankyou to all of you, who suggested some great ideas. You've given me the added fuel to go back and fix it. I especially liked the idea of the sign "no girls allowed" lol.

I also thought for an onslaught map, with vehicles we could use sleds, with mounted snowball launchers on the front, and it would take place on a mountain

Matt and I recently went to GDC and alot of people have been following our mod and I got alot of new ideas . Alot of people said that it makes a change from the guns and corridors of other mods. Currently, Im working on 6 house designs for the neighborhood with garages that contain the usual mess. but i'll be going back to the treehouse next week for a little update in the mesh

THX everyone for your support, more images coming real soon

[legacy-ctzn99]

Re: Re: Instead of Ladder?

Originally posted by MattRyan
We're treating the entire treehouse (ladder and all) as a "turret" so once someone is touching the treehouse, if it is there teams treehouse, then they may hit the use key and immediately be behind the snowball-pitcher. [/B]

Excellent idea, possibly better than ladder or the ramp.

I'm picturing this massive field of snow mounds, igloos, and tree forts strung together with bridges. Snowballs flying through the air (hey is that one yellow?) and the image of oversized parka wearing goons diving for cover.

Let your imagination run wild, you have a great idea here.

[legacy-MattRyan]

Re: Instead of Ladder?

Originally posted by ctzn99
Instead of a ladder running up the front how about a spiral ramp or set of boards that start at the back of the tree and twist out, around and up to the front.

Kudos, looks great so far.

The ladder is only for show. I think that in the end it will be 1)Simpler to just make the treehouse something "enter-able" by using the "Use" key, rather than making the user climb he ladder 2) Gameplay will go much faster when the player only needs to be touching the treehouse to enter it.

We're treating the entire treehouse (ladder and all) as a "turret" so once someone is touching the treehouse, if it is there teams treehouse, then they may hit the use key and immediately be behind the snowball-pitcher.

[legacy-ctzn99]

Instead of Ladder?

Instead of a ladder running up the front how about a spiral ramp or set of boards that start at the back of the tree and twist out, around and up to the front.

Kudos, looks great so far.

[legacy-MattRyan]

Originally posted by blot21
My concern is that since this is a turret that you just jump into, you won't be able to move from window to window to door. How is this being handled? It seems to me that the turret would have a position for each window.

We'll probably modify the treehouse to have the snowball-pitcher on the deck of the treehouse. The deck will face out from the corner or side of the neighborhood block that the team has captured Our new game type is a little bit like Onslaught in that for victory, one team of kids must take over/control more neighborhood blocks than the other kids to win.

We've yet to test this game type, so it's all theory right now. For now, we're just trying to get all our static-meshes, maps, models, animations, and other various art to work correctly in the game.

[legacy-blot21]

Originally posted by MattRyan
We're designing the treehouses to be like the turrets in UT2k4. Up in the treehouse will be a baseball pitcher machine that has its hopper filled with snowballs. The character walks up to the base of the treehouse, clicks use, and is in the treehouse, behind a snowball-pitcher These will be placed at key points throughout our maps that have the new gametype that we are currently working on

The turrets in UT2k4 can turn 360 on the horizontal plane. From the screenshots you've posted, it looks as though these turrets will be more limited. I assume you will be able to fire the snowball machine out of the two windows on the sides of the treehouse and possibly out of the front door. My concern is that since this is a turret that you just jump into, you won't be able to move from window to window to door. How is this being handled? It seems to me that the turret would have a position for each window.

[legacy-Walker Boh]

Nice! Looks like something out of Calvin and Hobbes!

[legacy-FOZZI]

Very cool, the concept kinda reminds me of that first south park game.. with the snowballs, dodgeball and all. :up:

[legacy->X<]

cool... that is all i have to say

[legacy-Ironhide]

good job on developing a mod that isnt

1)SUPER EXCESSIVE COOL LOOKING WEAPONS

2)WW2

3)WW2

4)VIETNAMWAR

5)WW2

6)UNREAL:RETURN TO HOT KARL

7)WW2

8)TACTICAL REALISTIC TERRORIST SHOOTER

9)REALISTIC TACTICAL SHOOTER TERRORIST

10)port of [insert movie/game name here]
:up:

[legacy-MattRyan]

It's funny that you mention that Studmuffin

At our website we plan on writing tutorials on how we do what we do. Most of the material online either deals with Max and not Maya PLE [comes free w/ the game] or the tut's use Maya PLE on the old UT and not 2k3. We also plan on conducting interviews w/ eachother to find out what kind of person it takes to do what we do (i.e. "So, Mike Dulany, what did you study in college to be the programmer for the mod team you're working on?")

Thanks for the nice comments!