You can find the previous devlog here!
Paint Punks is a character-based first-person shooter inspired by games such as Overwatch, Mad Paintball, Valorant and Q-Clash. Characters each have their own unique abilities and stats to aid their team in battle.
This devlog focuses on new content I have been adding to the game and older features that I have been adding more polish to recently. To prevent this update from becoming too long I left out some of the smaller changes and additions.
New characters
In the third devlog I shared the first set of 5 characters I created for Paint Punks. Since then I have added 4 new characters! Meet from left to right: Misty, Cooper, Fiola & Diallo.
I want to release the game with 15 playable characters, so there are still 6 more characters left to create. Character modelling is not my expertise, but I am especially happy with how Misty and Cooper turned out.
Main menu upgrades
I spent a solid week polishing up the game’s main menu. Some highlights include:
- New character icons in the character select, drawn by my friend monvallaria.
- Prettier borders around the characters in the character select.
- The ViewportFrame containing the character preview has been removed in favor of showing the character inside the world itself. This improves lighting and fixes some anti-aliasing artifacts caused by the ViewportFrames.
- The UI now extends all the way to the sides on mobile phones with a safe area on the left/right.
- Characters now play an animation when selected, adding some life to them.
New assets & materials
Ivy
Pretty maps require pretty assets. I created a new mesh to decorate walls with ivy. Each mesh is only 6 triangles with a 128x128 color and normal map applied to it. Combining multiple meshes will create beautiful sections of ivy on walls.
Bamboo
A friend of mine inspired me to try my hands at some bamboo. These bamboo stalks are low-poly cylinders that use a very simple normal map to create depth.
Materials
Finally I added some more materials. The introduction of the 8 new materials beta opened up some more slots for me to fill with custom MaterialVariants. I used these new slots to add roof shingles, cardboard, foil and fabric.
New abilities
Since the last devlog I programmed two new abilities. The first one is a throwable shield that expands on impact. This one is assigned to Fiola. I also added a deployable enemy sensor for Diallo. This one reveals enemies through walls for your whole team when they get close enough to the radar. Both abilities are demonstrated in the video below.
Other additions
Some other small additions I made since the last devlog are:
- The ability to earn coins through gameplay.
- Coins can now be purchased.
- A new UI animation that plays when the game ends.
- Character performance and match results are tracked to help balance the game.
Release plans
The release date of Paint Punks will have to be pushed back a bit due to a few problems. I am currently using the new UIFlex beta in many places in my UI, but the feature is not yet enabled in live servers. I am also using physics controllers which have (had) some game-breaking bugs that prevented me from running test sessions to collect feedback.
That said, the game is very close to release. Assuming the above problems are soon fixed, all that is left to do is add is 6 more characters, turn the greybox maps into pretty versions, add a few more abilities and add some more UI icons.
As always, let me know your thoughts!
I can’t wait for release!