Games Production - Researching into other First Person Shooters

We, as a team had decided before the project started, back in the Christmas period, that we wanted to create a first person shooter. This was going be an extremely difficult task and would require a lot of work, but the perks out-way the risks in this case and decided that a challenge for the team would be best. This time around, we have a fairly large team, consisting of 7 members. There are 3 Concept artists (one environment, one character and one prop), 2 Environment artists, 1 Character artist and 1 Game designer.

I felt that before the project, one of the best things we could do is market research. This was looking into other games out there, primary First Person Shooters, seeing what feel we want the game to have, how we could make it fun and what our game unique.

After talking to the team, we all decided that we wanted the game to have a retro feel behind it. It had to be fast paced, where the player is constantly is on the run, enemies are less an obstacle, where the player takes their time to defeat them, more, rushing through them. One game in particular a certain member of the team referred us to, was the original doom. This was one of the first games to have the player fight enemies from the characters eyes, at the time, fully immersing them in the game. There's many things that the game does right, which we want to include, such as the pace of the game and the level design. To make our game original, there are aspects that we wish to avoid. One such is the placement of the gun. Times have moved on to incorporate a realistic feel, like you are actually looking through the characters eyes, so instead of having the gun in the middle of the screen, it will be placed on the right. We have also decided that we are going fro a 3D game, where as compared to Doom, which has 2D sprites as its enemies.

DOOM (a godfather of the First Person Shooter).

A game in particular, which caught our Game Designers eye, was the recently released game, Wolfenstein: The New Order. This is a modern game that manages to retain the feel of a retro styled game, but convert it to a modern audience. It is a remake of the classic Wolfenstein game series and manages to feel like a fast paced game, while including many themes from the original. As we are creating a 3D game, this is a good inspiration. We have many stretch goals, one being the inclusion of other guns, but if we do not reach that target, the gun that the character starts with needs to feel fun enough so that the player doesn't become bored.

Wolfenstein-The New Order

Another timed game that interests us is Quake. This is very similar to Wolfenstein and Doom, as it includes elements, such as pick-ups and and fast paced action. Again, this is a game we need to look towards as inspiration. The pick ups will be something that needs to be included in the game. It keeps the player running, instead of letting them camp in a corner until all of the enemies are defeated. They have to push themselves and take risks in order to succeed in the game.

Quake's Health Pick-ups.

Update - Due to a team decision, we have decided that in the time frame, we are no longer going to construct a level, but will now create a wave based game. It means that we can save on the tri count, the map limit and make the game run better. This is a great idea as our main issue is performance and the limitations that we are restricted to. The way that we will get around the tri limit will be to make the individual assets, such as the walls, pipes, etc and then put them into unity and duplicate them in unity. We have been told, because it is the same asset, it does not count as any tries towards our tri limit. This gives us a bit of breathing room towards the limitations.