SpaceSimCentral

Hey everyone!Even though I registered on spacesimcentral a while ago I felt like now is the time to post a bit about the game I'm working on since we're slowly moving towards a playable alpha. So, what is Barrage about?Barrage is a combination of several different genres, from real time strategy to first person shooter and artillery games. You take on the role of your planet's leaders - economic, scientific and military - deciding what to build, research and when and what to shoot. Your goal? Kill everyone in a race for survival. GameplayThe game is focused around multiplayer deathmatch (or team deathmatch.) There are 3 main things to do. Firstly, you need to research new technologies, opening up new and exciting ways to smash your opponents. Secondly, you must manage your economy, balancing between building turrets and restocking the old ones with research and expansion. Lastly, you need to shoot people out of the sky. This is done in a first-person perspective, where you aim and fire in real time, everything from missiles and lasers to moons, black holes and even solar flares at your enemy around your star's gravity well. Will you be able to land that perfect shot? Or will your missiles swing around the star and hit you in the back? Screenshots (Latest planet shader) (Missile on the fly) (Missile launch) (Menu menu background) Besides those, we have a few more screens that show more of the actual gameplay on our website. Please keep in mind though that those are from an old UnrealEngine3 version of the game and don't actually represent the latest build.Thanks for reading so far and of course feel free to ask questions! barrage-game.com | @BarrageGame | Facebook 

Hmm, this is nice concept and if done right could be a lot of fun both in a solo campaign and in multiplayer. The visuals look great, but that is kind of expected if using Unreal4. I take it there is some sort of tech tree or building order to advance your weaponry or targeting systems? Do you plan to have defensive measures as well like shielding and point systems that could take out incoming missiles?

Hey DarkOne,Barrage is mostly planned around the concept of being a competitive multiplayer title so unless we magically get fully funded by someone I wouldn't expect a full-blown solo campaign. Having AI is definitely on our to-do list though, as it can be really annoying if you want to play a match but can't find a human opponent. Your last two questions can be answered with "yes". We do have a tech tree which unlocks new buildings but also other bonuses. We also do have a basic shield system hooked up at the moment, which reacts differently to different kind of weapon types (lasers, missiles, etc). Those stuff isn't carved in stone though because we didn't have the chance to start with proper playtesting our latest version yet. Another thing that's actually not really related to our game but more of a gamedev topic. I'd like to point out that an engine like (UE4 or CryEngine) doesn't make a game automatically pretty. As shown by Epic Games you can also use UE4 to produce a Flappy Birds clone or there are tons of screenshots from UE4 that look downright like a game from 2004. Also I believe you could achieve the very same look with any kind of modern engine (Unity, UE3, Source). In my opinion a proper artist that invests a lot of time into each piece is waaaaaay more important than any decision of using this or that engine. Don't get me wrong, it's not intended as a shameless self-praise but I feel it's not the whole truth if you say that good visuals are expected if you use UE4. I really hope it doesn't come across as an epic rant.

Alright, we got the majority of the turrets implemented so it's about time to start with the visual effects for the projectiles. First one will be used for one of the solar-based weapons and is supposed to be something like a solar flare. The second one will be probably used as the gamma ray weapon.Any thoughts or feedback?Please keep in mind I'm not even close to be a proper visual effects artist.