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Spark Rising - Build + Battle Sandbox Style

johnmasterlee's Avatar johnmasterlee12/19/13 12:00 am
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3/29/2015 4:17 pm
johnmasterlee's Avatar johnmasterlee
Hey all!

So a bit about Spark Rising. It was born out of my love of Minecraft, as I was building big fortresses and spaceships and such, but eventually wished there was some way to do something with all those things. Like recreate big battles!

So I started to build a prototype of what I was thinking of, got a few fellas together and worked on it in earnest. Then we tried Kickstarting it. And it was successful! Then it was successfully greenlit on Steam. Then we were showcased at GDC. So yeah, it's possible to have an idea turn into something real!

Spark Rising is sandbox FPS or sorts, with a focus on building stuff and then battling. The game engine combines voxels and polys in clever ways, so you can build fortresses, but get the silk smooth framerates from poly terrain.

Since I created a lot of stuff in Minecraft, you can important your creations in from Minecraft and some other voxel programs. This feature will come later in 2015.

The game now on Steam early access, and each of our updates focuses on some new feature and original content.

Check it out!

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johnmasterlee
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03/29/2015 4:17 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Spark Rising has really evolved over the last year. What once was a purely voxel-based sci fi build + battle game, is now more of a mix of procedurally generated worlds with voxel structures as you focus on combat. With such an evolution, we thought it was fitting for the music to evolve as well! Check out this behind the scenes look in this vid:



The original tunes, which are still in the game, have a clear sci fi bend to them. Epic in nature, ethereal at times, and always beautiful. Two tracks were for combat, and two were for building and exploring. Thanks to Clark Aboud the composer, we've listened to these tracks hundreds of times and they still hold up great.

Ongoing, we wanted something that was unconventional, more old school flavored. Something that hits hard fast and would work well for a game trailer, but could also be used in-game with some tweaking. And just so happens around this same time, Dave Dexter the composer reached out to us, saying how he'd love to create some music for the game. Even before we said yes, he created some samples, and they were awesome.

So this vid showcases some of the iterations we took for the music, which is rock flavored, with hints of crunchy guitar and elements of chiptune. This is not a final piece. You'll have to get the game on Steam early access if you want to hear that! But til then, this is an interesting look at how music comes together for a game.
1
03/07/2015 4:51 pm
Level 30 : Artisan Architect
PizzaPenguin_
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I think this is one of the only game forum threads on here that actually looks real and professional. Great job so far! You deserve more recognition.
1
03/07/2015 3:52 pm
Level 29 : Expert Explorer
TheHipster
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This is looking good ;o
1
03/07/2015 3:31 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Wheeeee! Just launched Spark Rising Early Access 3.0 and it's remarkable how much the game has evolved. When I go back and read old parts of this thread, it's like it's a totally different game. Well... technically, it is. We rebuilt the game engine, emphasized different elements of the gameplay that people enjoyed more, and 3.0 reflects our focus on conquest mode where you conquer one world at a time.

I'm able to finally show the early design for our POI system, which stands for Point of Interest. Think of a base as a POI, or a loot cave as a POI. Each one has something interesting you want to engage with, and it has some sort of impact in the game work. Check out this vid for some of the latest stuff!




The visual difference between version 2.0 and 3.0 is quite a step up:)
1
01/23/2015 4:53 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Pleased to finally share with you Spark Rising Early Access v 2.0! This was a long time coming, many months of rebuilding our game engine, changing up mechanics, and establishing a stronger foundation for the game. The game ongoing is a reflection of concepts the crew and I put together in our last 4 Gaidens, and we love the overall direction!

Rather than list the 1001 things we completed in a way-too-long-changelog, here are the more noteworthy changes:
  • All new terrain that allows for significantly larger maps
  • Travel from world to world
  • New movement mechanics
  • New grapple hook
  • New enemy AI system
  • New power ups
  • Boost system lets you collect crystals to charge up super powers
  • New shaders that give the world a more vibrant ultra colorful look
  • Winter theme!
  • Reintroduction of the Die Guys!


1
01/20/2015 10:18 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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So I'm pretty excited because it's getting close to the next build update which we'll release publicly. Right now, I'm just play testing a lot, making sure the new game engine don't break none. Naturally it does! So I made a vid about it. Figure I might as well have fun sharing some of the wackier bugs and glitches. The team is working hard on fixing stuff so much kudos to them!

FUNNY GLITCHES AND BUGS!


BTW - Sorry about my old posts and all the broken images. Website went down and I lost the archive... I'll have to just go back and delete them from my old posts just so things don't look so broken!
1
01/13/2015 6:33 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Hey folks!

So we got around to making a vlog about how the game's terrain has evolved quite a bit. It's pretty fascinating At least I like to think so!

1
01/03/2015 4:52 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Hey all! Happy new year! I'm pledging to do more updates through the year on my persistently ongoing work on Spark Rising. Man... making games sure takes a long time...

So I'm trying something new. I posted up a dev vlog for the team on what we're working on, and I thought I'd share it publicly. You can view the YouTube vid of it here. If people find it interesting, I'll do more!

1
12/18/2014 4:04 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Boy howdy! It's been a while since my last update. It's been months... mainly because we rebuild the game engine. And that sorta stuff is fun. Not!

But the results are great. Game world can be x10 the size now, world geometry much more interesting and fun to navigate, and performance is much faster.

This animated gif gives you an idea of what I mean



Don't quite me on this, but I hope the update gets out there on Steam early access before 2015!
1
09/26/2014 4:03 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Zup zup!

So we just launched a new limited time demo prototype called Gaiden 4: Conquest! It's an early look at some plans to expand the game to include battle maps all loaded into one universe and you flying around from one location to another to do battle. It's janky as hell right now, but it's cool enough to see where things are going.
1
09/20/2014 3:49 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Zup yall!

So the team is starting to make more online vids showing how we create. It's all a bit raw, so don't expect any big reveals. It's just a way for us to open up the dev process for people to learn from.

We'll make more of these ongoing, trying different formats to see what's interesting.

Vblog 08 - Creating an ammo counter

Vblog 07 - Creating a directional arrow
1
09/15/2014 9:44 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Hey all!

Sorry haven't posted in a while. Been mostly lurking here and there. Mostly been making videos. Yeah, so that's what we been doing!

So the game is progressing... though slowly in the last few months. We're been working on some core engine stuff and quite frankly, that stuff is pretty boring and slow paced. Optimization this... refactor that... We been posting blogs on development, even sharing concept art, but quite frankly using text and still images to convey what a game is about seems criminal.

But that's when we realized that maybe it can be fun. People seem to enjoy when we showcase more of our work, so we started to post up more videos. And it's kinda fun! And you seem to enjoy it. So we'll continue to do that more.

So check out our last few dev vlogs here. They ain't pretty, as we aren't great video production peeps, but we're getting better at it! Considering there are so many of you Minecraft fans who are great at video production, if you got any advice, please share!
1
05/18/2014 3:04 am
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Howdy all! Now that you can Spark Rising is live on Steam early access, and we had a bit of vacation to recharge our batteries, we're onto the next update.

So we're dreaming up a new battle map to include in an update to the game. Now that you got a taste of what our game can do, any ideas? We can recreate a famous battle scenario, or a level from a popular game, or ... you name it.

So what's the criteria to making a wicked cool map? Something that makes you go "I want that!" Duh. Something controversial, trendy, or nostalgic, visually wow wow, or a particularly hot genre... or all of this!

Some of the ideas tossed around, but we want to hear more!

* Recreate the level from Donkey Kong
* A battle inside the giant tree from Avatar
* A remake of Retro Rising Rampage, a demo we created a while back paying homage to 8-bit NES
* Battle on the back of a giant flying turtle, Gamera style
* Inside the Death Star
* Zombies!


We'll take one of the ideas everyone votes on, and have a concept artist conjure something up, and from there build in into a new battle map using the same tools you use to create in-game. Should be fun:)
1
04/12/2014 7:07 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Download the Gaiden 3 demo here!

Wanted to share our latest demo level, something we dub Gaiden 3: Titan Rising! If you see the screenshot sample below, you'll see what we can mean by "titan". It's a prototype boss we're playing with.

This demo is limited to one level, and you can't build anything. But it does give you a sense of how a battle scenario unfolds. All of this was created in-game, similar to how you would build something in Minecraft. Except that the purpose to build is ultimately to destroy:) And I should note, this is a pre-alpha build, so everything is very raw still.
1
03/30/2014 9:15 pm
Level 39 : Artisan Nerd
ColbaltHD
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Same it really looks like it has potential. GOOD LUCK!
1
03/30/2014 8:57 pm
Level 19 : Journeyman Dragon
Austin_Craft_
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Looks great. I saw Spark Rising when it was on Kickstarter and it looked amazing.
1
03/30/2014 8:04 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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So I created a teaser trailer for Spark Rising several moons ago, and thought it would be fun to go back and redo that trailer with the updated visual style. The art still isn't finalized but it's neato to see how the game has evolved over the last several months!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySeue6C8lzA

I have to admit though, not quite pleased with the consistency of the art style just yet. It's something I want to go back and address. The interface, characters, the background, and environment aren't quite jiving together. Last month when I started to push the artstyle to be more complex, surprisingly many people didn't like it. The general reaction was that a simper art style better conveyed how building stuff was a key aspect of the game. Their reaction was also based on the fact that objects with more complex geometry can't be created by most people - It's imported in from Maya and converted into an in-game object.

So where we are settled in terms of overall visual geometry is really a reflection of feedback that I didn't expect, but can really see how important it was.
1
03/28/2014 3:20 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Things have been developing at such a rapid clip that I'm sorta loosing track of what I shared so far!

So just to recap:

Spark Rising was greenlit for Steam! Wheee!

Spark Rising was selected for showcase at GDC at The MIX event!

All this has an interesting affect on our launch plans, all for the better. But I'll go into all that next time. What I really wanted to show you all are new screenshots!

So I need some feedback. When we first started this little project, we were clearly inspired by Minecraft and even Cube World when it came to the visuals. We started with a bright, ultra saturated look, and as we progressed, and the game play became more distinct, we wanted to push the art style in a new direction too. We been experimenting with a new color palette, and love to hear what you think. Keep in mind that the look will continue to evolve, so nothing is set in stone.

Enjoy!
1
02/20/2014 4:57 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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BTW - For those of you who like to follow along with behind the scenes sort of things, reading up on dev blogs, I got the team to share more of their thoughts.

For our artist, you can read about how some of the art is coming together here. His last update was showcasing some sketches for concept art he did for Gaiden: Retro Rising Rampage.

I got a design blog going on here. My next update is going to be about the tools we use to project manage game design, something that I get asked a lot from up and coming game designers.

And our tech lead talks about a few things here, though I should give fair warning his updates are really technical in nature!

We update sporadically, though we try to do something every week or two. It's fun to do, we just gotta remember to stop game designing for a minute to pull it off!

I'm hoping to have another build update in the next week or so with some new visuals. I always felt like this was one area we could have pushed a little further. For now, we'll make our early builds available for everyone to play for free since we really value the feedback.

Peace!
1
02/13/2014 2:15 pm
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Hey all,

So the last update I talked about Gaiden 1, a mini-project built within the Spark Rising engine where we had fun creating a retro themed level. This latest Gaiden changes things up a bit and is more sandboxy in nature. We cobbled together some build tools so you can create your own map now.

If you want to check it out, download it, play it for free, and provide some feedback, well, that would be super duper. Feedback we need.

So I should note a few things! This demo is an early pre-alpha version of the game. So it's raw and incomplete. So please excuse the raw and incompleteness. I'm looking for feedback regarding feature set. What sort of build tools would you like to see that makes building stuff more fun and intuitive? I tried to address some of the slower aspects of Minecraft by making certain build functions faster, but I'm curious to see what else we can do.
1
01/14/2014 2:29 am
Level 2 : Apprentice Explorer
johnmasterlee
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Hey all! So it's been a while since I had a chance to post. Holidays, getting fat, and game designing and all that jazz.

One reason why it's been nose to the grindstone is because I just released a demo dubbed Retro Rising RAMPAGE. You can play it for free here if you like.

RRR (for short) is a FPS arcadey homage to 8-bit NES built on the Spark Rising engine. The idea was to test out various features in our voxel game and see what works and what doesn't. It's been a fun experiment, and I hope you enjoy it!

After this, we'll probably work on another "gaiden game", the idea being that we put together a couple of features that we wanted to test and release it. If you got feedback on what you'd like to see next, I'd like to hear it! I should note that RRR is not really sandboxy, since it's such a contained experience. But the next gaiden game likely will have more freedom to build, similar to Minecraft.
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