Since I was a little kid I've always wanted to make a video game, I've just always really struggled with learning code. Luckily for me and any other aspiring game developer, the process of prototyping a playable game has never been easier.
The Concept
For this project, I was inspired to do a battle royal shooter like PUBG for Fortnite BR, but make it browser based and focused on smaller scale engagements. The idea is to create an online multiplayer game like Agar.io or Slither.io, where players can drop in and out of a persistent battlefield and compete for a high score.
Now, knowing nothing about video game development I researched a few different engines, but the final choice came down to Unreal and Unity. In the end, I decided to go with Unity, because for this project I will be relying on as many store bought or free assets as possible.
Now again, knowing nothing I had to look into some frameworks I could build off of. I came across a set of scripts for Unity called UFPS, which allows me to easily create a basic first person shooter.
Making The Map
Creating the game world was by far the most time consuming task. I used a plugin called MapMagic to procedural generate a landscape. Next I obtained a few 3D models of buildings, city items, debris and began placing them to make an overgrown urban scene.
Netcode
Netcode was also fairly simple, pre-existing scripts allow me to sync the UFPS framework with the Photon Multiplayer Cloud, which is a free service (for small games) which provide cloud and p2p networking for your game.
Roadmap / Playable Build
I still need to implement a player spawning system which will insert new players in a random spot on the map, along with spawning loot for players to find hidden throughout the forest and city areas. I also am working on a map system, so players can keep track of their locations in game.
You can download a simple team-based build for windows below, but the servers may not be working correctly all the time as I make tweaks to this game.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aWwlKWKPk07g7VeAXEN1giksm-zbhI6E/view?usp=sharing
I look forward to developing this game more, and will continue to post updated builds along with my progress.
I've been meaning to try it out. I will totally try this after work today! The thought of building a video game has always been exciting, yet daunting to me as well. I might put some more thought into that after I check this out.