An older perspective, or The One Where Rachael Realizes Her Mistake

The first person look for this game is awesome, if you're on a large screen. 

Sub-Zero Squirrel Games, LLC

February 16, 2016 - Little Rock, AR, USA

After spending the last couple weeks working on bringing you a first person version of this game, which we love (see our previous blogs), after trying it out on a couple of mobile devices, we realized that we were heading down the wrong road.

Do you need glasses?

I do. I've needed them for years, and do wear them. But that's beside the point which is that in this perspective view, that the TFOS get smaller the further away you are from them. Of course, that is the very nature of perspective. However, when you couple that with the small screen of the mobile devices, you might as well hand the player a microscope to use along with their phones. Aside from a few professional labs, and high-school science classrooms across the nation, there aren't microscopes readily available, and I doubt people are going to bring one with them while sitting on the train going to work, although I very much would like to see that happen. I imagine it goes something like this:

"Excuse me, Mam, are you playing Teratrons From Outer Space on this train today?"

"No, I'm researching a cure for cancer, why do you ask?"

"Because I'm trying to play TFOS, and can barely make out what I'm looking at, can I interrupt your research?"

"By all means, please. I'm just wasting time; you're the real hero here!"

So what do we do now?

Rest assured, mobile gamer. This game is for you and that is our target. While we don't want to throw away the work we've done here, we want to make this a enjoyable experience (sans microscope). Luckily, we've been using version control, and can go back to an earlier iteration. Joe's going to refine the 2D layout to allow us to use more of the screen. Meanwhile, I'll diff the code to see what I've changed since we took off on this foray into perspective.

And all the work we've done in the last couple weeks? That's not time lost, per se. Of course, it does move us back a little, but not that much. March 1st may be out of reach, but not completely. I've managed to quash a couple bugs in the meantime, and we do want to branch this project off in the future, so the work Joe's done with the 3D modeling isn't going to go to waste.

That future project? XBox/PS/PC, of course. During early development, we added controller input. This game is actually a lot of fun with a controller or keyboard and/or mouse. The 1st Person perspective also plays really well on the larger screen space, and we also get a lot more freedom with textures, particle systems. and other performance concerns. Also, that gives us a chance to explore some new mechanics as well! You can get some of the early Prototypes from our website:

http://SubZeroSquirrel.com 

under the Deep Acorns Tab. There's a forum called Untitled Space Game. For Windows only.

Next Up: Meet the Characters in Teratrons From Outer Space 

Until then, Stay Frosty,

~Sub-Zero Chuck

Cockpits (Nothing Dirty)

     As you all know, from our social media prolific lead developer Chuck, we have decided to take the Teretrons into the 3rd dimension.  Now, we decided to do this for several reasons which I won't go into here (If you want to know read his article: http://subzerosquirrel.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-new-perspective.html .) So, the questions I asked myself as I started transitioning from a top-down 2d game to a first person 3d layout, were "What shouldn't I see?" & "What should I see?"

What I shouldn't see:

     A frame.  Meaning that in a first person view there would be no frame, no screen that you look down on your world like a god ( I don't know if your god has a frame he or she looks though, but mine does with a score, extra lives... you know the works.) No, I have to see through the eyes of man, and that means I can't just be hangin' out in space.




What I should see:

     A cockpit, and glass, and controls, and displays, and PRETTY LIGHTS!  Almost all of these were sorely missing in our first attempt. Our current look, while pleasing in it's own way... is also sterile and flat.  There is also a lot of screen space wasted.  Waste not, want not right?  The only control that seemed to fit on the screen was the fire button.  The rest were just placeholders, and none of the other options I tried were much better.

My first attempt at a cockpit:

It was really just and chair and a control panel.  Here I was just working with space.  I played for a while with adding and subtracting different components, trying to figure out what was actually necessary.  I didn't like my first chair, so that went.  Chuck and I both thought the control panel got in the way too much, so... gone. I finally added everything to the ship design, and condensed down to a more minimalistic design:



This is the state of it as it stands now. I think I will add yoke controls to the left and right sides of the screen, and move most if not all of the UI elements to look like they are projected on the glass, on the sides of your cockpit glass.  Tune in for future installments of me rambling. :)