Adding the First Defense to my Survival Game

Scarecrows are known for doing nothing but that all changes today. When the enemy robots attack you are going to need some help so what better than a scarecrow to scare them away.
Discord - / discord
#unity #gamedev #devlog #indiegame

[@ShafterPlay]

Recognising that your code from 2 months ago was bad is how you truly know you're getting better at it. Keep it up!

[@overphildev]

Yes it's definitely a good thing but redoing code is not my favorite

[@coolyo_kai]

the fact that his game was only started 6 months ago and has gotten this far is amazing.

[@overphildev]

Thank you I appreciate it

[@1z34t7]

Add a creeper like enemy

[@Sweenus987]

Just a note, your bullet model includes the casing which would get ejected when firing. Good progress though and refactoring your code often is always good practice. As for enemy detection and the enemy detection of the player, a distance check-based approach would also be good as it's fairly quick. You could complement this by having a large boundary area to detect against initially and then just do an AABB (since movement is on a 2D plane, could just make the check 2D) check against the enemies, adding/removing them to a list, then do slightly more expensive distance checks of those enemies in the list. This method can also lead you down spatial hierarchy-type stuff like quad/oct-tress which are good for optimising performance.

[@overphildev]

Oh whoops you're right. I forgot how bullets worked lol

[@askzmj]

Hey, instead of using the trigger to detect the enemy or use a bunch of raycasts, you could use Physics.OverlapSphere(). This way you could also add enemies that are immune to the crow to increase the difficulty. Also, itwould be great of the crow started with some bulltes in it so it can start firing as soon as you place it down

[@overphildev]

Those are both good ideas thank you

[@goldendodo.]

Idea: an ammo crate where if you place it near a turret and put ammo in it the turret will consume ammo in crate first so you don't have to reload each turret individually

[@overphildev]

That's a cool idea

[@HojuMedia]

@@overphildev Ive been replaying valheim and found that I couldnt go back to it without this feature from the mod valheim+. Furnaces/smelters pull ore and coal from nearby chests, then depositing the ingot aswell and items can be crafting using materials from nearby chests. I'd highly recommend this to you...since im gonna be playing your game lol :)

[@Population_Zero]

Why is the scarecrow have to be crafted with bullets if it doesn't come with bullets

[@folkejohansson2767]

Being able to upgrade the scarecrows would be cool. Maybe it starts with 1 gun in the face but upgradable to have guns on it's arms too or a better hat for better detection.

[@overphildev]

That would be cool

[@ruffedout4730]

Chainsaw man vibe

[@charlvanniekerk8009]

Loving the process of your game creation. I love your learning attitude and really enjoy seeing you improve exponentially with every episode. Your doing great! Cant wait to see what your top secret edition is!

[@overphildev]

Thank you I appreciate it

[@Vryformal]

Great improvements! Also I think adding a translucent shader to the grass and leave would help a lot

[@overphildev]

Thanks! One day when I get back to the grass I'll try it out

[@Decaf.]

"We fire the whole bullet that's 65% more bullet per bullet"

[@overphildev]

See you get it it makes sense lol

[@azjeffs]

This video was awesome! Huge improvements to the game and so awesome to see such a clear demonstration of your skill set developing faster than you can keep up!

[@sirtorus]

It’s cool seeing how your game dev skills are improving! I’m planning on working on unity also in the near future.

[@wazaDev]

Awesome progress really love the approach you're taking when adding new stuff

[@micahpohl2641]

Hey, love the series and seeing how you and the game grow! Maybe give the scarecrow a lower amount of inventory space to hold bullets and maybe progressively gain more damage and/or inventory space through upgrades like an upgrade pathway where you could choose how you want the scarecrow to function. Can't wait to see more, keep it up!

[@overphildev]

That's a good idea

[@minireceka2091]

I really like the improvments,this is amaizing.I would say that even SOME DEVS can't make improvements like you,its even impossible to do that much improvements to a game in 6 months. When there is a good dev,there is always a good game...

[@Steveplays28]

Nice work dude, looks great already!

[@dontwanttobeknown3611]

Great Video, love the improvements ❤

[@DrPsychotic]

Wow this game is coming along really well! keep it up :) you make me wanna work on my minecraft clone again

[@overphildev]

Thank you, and go for it

[@ziro7616]

Great vid, great progress as always. Even if it's largely code cleanup, always great to hear from you! I know this isn't really relevant to your recent changes, but I've been thinking about how to make the rock (now scrap) drops look cleaner. 1) Probably the easiest: change the enemy despawn to be an opacity fade. That way you can spawn the scraps inside the 100% opacity enemy, but they only become visible as the enemy fades. You'd probably want to actually remove the enemy collider and everything as soon as it dies (even if it's still visible), because otherwise it might feel a bit clunky. 2) Make a few gibs, and have those be the item. For example, the enemy robot might collapse (or explode!) into its head, pole, and little wheel sector. Picking those gibs up would give you scrap. Pros: would probably look much cleaner, would make exploring new enemy drops more fun (short term), allows logical model reusing without it looking cheap, drops could be scaled easily (for example: picking up the head now gives you 3 scrap instead of 1, but you'll probably have to deal with dropped item bundling later anyway). Cons: more work, dependent on how high-res your gibs are it might end up being more resource intensive, and as we all know in coding there are a million negatives that we'd never anticipate :\ Have a great day, keep up the great work!

[@overphildev]

Those are some cool ideas. I hadn't thought of just using the body parts as scrap metal but that makes a lot of sense

[@KevIn-tu4fv]

I really like your videos and this game is looking better and better !

[@overphildev]

Appreciate it

[@adam-sl2ih]

Love this series! Really inspires me to make my own survival game.

[@overphildev]

Thank you! You should totally do it, I have been having a ton of fun with this and would encourage anyone to try it.

[@bev2224]

Thank you for uploading this it’s inspiring me to get back in ❤

[@overphildev]

Good luck with your project!

[@anniesheldon3692]

im so glad to see more updates on this game! would you consider doing a day/night cycle? i love when games have sunrises and sunsets. also, maybe implementing some simple flower textures in the grass? just like some tiny white flowers drawn on I feel like could add a lot. keep up the good work!

[@overphildev]

A day night cycle is coming. I think it could work really well with a solar panels

[@coolyo_kai]

super excited to see where this goes

[@Navebackwards1]

Great job, Phil! Just the image of a sprinkler with guns is hilarious. Here's my feedback for placing objects: Make it so the player can rotate objects you can place like the scarecrow and chest. Keep it up, friend!

[@overphildev]

Thank you! And yes rotation is coming just didn't have time before this video

[@squffed]

this game is really coming together it's great to see :D

[@Vthisgoat]

Heres an idea. Maybe you could caves around the map that would have items. There could also be certain enemies that only spawn in them at night and day. You could also add so if you get damaged from your leg, you go slower, and from the arm, you attack or break things slower, and for the head, you go a little blind.

[@overphildev]

That would be pretty cool

[@goofy9203]

scarecrow, no turret with bullets shooting in a row

[@dessh2o]

For some reason, I don't see a lot of survival games doing this. But I think you should add some events, such as like a Meteor strike or Volcanic Eruption. You obviously dont need to make it now, later when you become more experienced. But also add some new biomes. Idk ill list some: Jungle Forest Temperate Forest (The main one u have rn) Plains (with some lakes and animals, tall crass etc) Desert Marshland Snow Tundra Taiga Thats all I can think of on the top of my head, but maybe some fantasy ones? Mushroom Biomes Crystal Biomes (Like instead of leaves the trees are made of crystal, purple grass etc) yeah idk just some ideas to make the game more adventure like

[@ChristianPretorius]

This game has potential

[@overphildev]

Glad you think so

[@coolyo_kai]

frustum culling would also improve grass by a ton and you wouldn't have to use LODs although it might be hard to implement depending on how you are spawning the grass

[@overphildev]

Yeah there is plenty I have to try still

[@weirdscenechick676]

something i think might help the feel of the game when you start refining animations (which will probably be a while) is adjusting speeds. having an animation faster at the start makes it feel better imo, but experimenting with animation speeds is a pretty simple way to make gameplay more satisfying

[@overphildev]

Yes the animations will definitely be tweaked a bunch. When I get there I'll have to try out having them faster at the beginning

[@sansho88]

Hey great vid! That's so cool how you are progressing! Btw, a little tip: to set manually what gives damages to your ennemies in their own class isn't really a good practice. What if, in the future, they can get damages from knives, golf clubs, animals, etc ? You'll have to put things as you've done with the bullet... Instead, you can put a script in your bullet which gives damages to any "alive" collider it meets, and instant destroy it (unless it can pass through some colliders and gives less damages after...). And by "bullet", I mean "any weapon" ofc :) (hello friendly fire from the SCARE-crow

[@overphildev]

Yeah I'm still working on optimizing all my old code but my plan is to have each enemy have a damage multiplier based on damage type. So like some enemies will be weak to blunt damage while others might resist it.

[@sansho88]

@@overphildev Yeah I understand, and that's also what I had in minds. Imo it's better to play with setters and getters, specially in these cases. For example, you can use a setter which takes as parameters, with the amount of dmgs, a type (blunt, piercing, etc). Or you can also get the type from the gameObject tag, as you want ofc. And then, still in your setter, you just have to apply some coefficients. And voilà! :)

[@JohnnyDave129]

Just an idea: Make it so you can fall into water and that you can also craft a stick from woood and throw it at the enemy or a tree and it does damage

[@VEETEEGameStudio]

This game is shaping up great

[@leemclafferty5622]

I would make enemies target based on damage. It seems easy to cheese enemies by bringing them in range of the turret then just run away from it while the turrets wail on it.

[@overphildev]

Yeah that could be a problem. Once I get some more enemies and defenses in I'll work on balancing them all

[@usbtypec.]

This game is coming along great! One recommendation, however, is you may want to change the health bar from facing towards the player to facing toward the camera, especially because in situations where its directly to your left, the hp bar may just be too skinny to see.

[@overphildev]

That's a good point

[@stephenboling2313]

I'm going to make a list of things that I wanna say. Notyhing is coming from a "malicious"(if that's a good way to put it) heart. But overall man keep it up. Features that you kinda sorta "need" if they align with your thoughts. 1. You're probably already doing this, but a need to rotate objects is mandatory. 2. Basic player guns now that you got the normal bullet. 3. Again you're probably already doing this, but planters that you can place those dirt spots down on would be nice. 4. Death animations would also be litty. Rather than making individual animations you could do like a set animation for all enemies like a white flash of electricity. This would help save time on art, I'm not an artsy person so this is what I do. These are suggestions from my viewing POV. 1. The rolling just looks "clunky" if that's a good way to put it, IDK if it is the camera or animation or what but every time I see it it just doesn't feel satisfying like how a roll normally feels. 2. Now IDK if you have put any thought into this, as it isn't a feature you're probably not going to be working on anytime soon, but what are your views on automating resource gathering and/or crafting? I imagine at some point you'll have a bunch of SCAREs everywhere and they'll run out of ammunition and it would genuinely be a soul suckking experience if the player was forced to run around everywhere filling them up. Additionally The gathering for that large amount of bullets would be fun draining. Same for individually crafting, which could be fixed by making yourself able to craft large amounts of the same object with a slider or number input. Granted anything automation wise would probably be locked or hard to do until midgame IMHO. 3. The house that you are trying to protect cause you're inside of it. IMHO I want to suggest you make this like a one(or more) story building that you can walk around inside and put stuff down. Having just a "box" with needs(the food you supply to your crippled body) makes for a bland and not so fun King you have to protect. I'm not saying make something extravagant, but something that you can have like two rooms to put stuff in as well as like maybe a door that you put food into a slot kinda like a library dropbox. But to make sure there is definitely basebuilding you can make it not be horizontally expanding but vertically expanding for more floors. OR just make sure you can't expand it so the player is encouraged to expand. If you do this, I would make it to where you can't build planters inside. Nothing of this comes from a bad place, but those are definitely something I would like to strongly suggest to you.

[@overphildev]

Hey thank you for all the feedback I love all the ideas you are putting out. I agree rotation of objects is a must, ill be adding that soon. For the rest I actually have plans to add things like guns amd planters. And with the robot theme I've though of some fun ways to automate but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Doing a consistent death animation is a great idea. And I think the animation is really what makes the roll look clunky. I'm not too happy with most of the animations right now but I will be fixing them so hopefully that fixes the dodging. I also like the idea of having a home you can decorate. And don't feel worried when giving feedback I really like when people have ideas for mechanics and improvements. To me it just means they are invested and want it to be cool. Plus it also motivates me to be better, so I'm always open to it.

[@stephenboling2313]

@@overphildev For sure dude. I'm learning Game engine number three(its actually unity lmao) while working a full time job and am about to publish a game I've been **helping** develop so I love overall Game Design and specific mechanics.

[@LemurG]

To me the journey of coding and actually getting the result you want is so much fun! I am really loving this series!

[@bored0fbeingbored623]

Maybe for the robot(player) when it is low on health it has sparks flying out of it. And to heal yourself you could use scrap metal.

[@EcthelonEvendil]

Quick idea going forward: With the turret you have introduced an inventory that can only hold one type of material (bullets in this case). To make this obvious, the slots in that inventory could have a faded version of that sprite in the empty slots so that it's obvious to the player what to look for. If you're later going to add different types of bullet, you could use the same silhouette for all of the bullets so that they all fit the shape shown in the slots.

[@overphildev]

That's actually a good idea

[@Sharlenwar]

I'd have a setting for the scarecrow where you can pick for it to shoot at the nearest, furthest, and lock on. That way the player can decide what that scarecrow will do. :)

[@overphildev]

Yeah I think this could fit pretty well. It works well for balloon tower defense

[@MilkyBoi67338]

You should add circuit boards to build the defenses

[@amazingpotatoes6782]

It might be interesting if you could add a tool that could change the terrain for more unique styles of base building

[@overphildev]

That could be interesting

[@JohnnyDave129]

Also maybe make the first gun shot from the scare crow explosive and every other time it shoots it’s just a background noose

[@Geckomon_unboxing]

You should add bioms like the desert and mountains

[@socialskillz3780]

Nice Video!

[@Dairyhead]

Is there any way to add a number above the scarecrow to indicate how many bullets are left? And perhaps an easier interact with loading the bullets, for instance loading it while right clicking (or whatever interact key is programmed) while holding the bullets?

[@overphildev]

Yeah I'll add an ammo indicator at some point. I haven't fully decided how I want it to look though. And a simpler interaction might be a good idea. Since I want to enable multiple types of ammo I don't know how yet. I'll have to do some trial and error to see what works best.

[@itsGoatHD]

This is super cool to watch and super motivating for myself, but I wanna ask since im not completely sure. Isnt there a possibility you have many turrets and many enemies late game and you will need to make it so items that drop near eachother that are the same type merge into one pile so you dont have maybe 100s and 100s different pieces of scrap metal dropped onto the floor at once. Couldnt that cause major lag? Cause it seems like the metal is dropping into 5 different piles when the robot dies

[@overphildev]

That's a good point. I might end up changing that

[@kawaiiqueee3489]

I am most curious about the fog you've mentioned and if it's a gameplay feature. Will the enemy robots and scare crow turret have their vision obscured along with the player? This thought I just had reminds me of Silent Hill. I know it's a wayy different game but in Silent Hill, you can't see the enemies coming but you can detect them with a radio. The anticipation of combat does wonders to engage the player. I wish you luck on this game! It looks so interesting!

[@overphildev]

The fog I want to add is just a general distance fog so that you can't see forever. This also makes it so things further away can use worse models without people noticing. Or the grass can just be removed and noone can tell But haven't actual fog come in as a random weather event could be interesting

[@stevensonjr]

My choice would be that the scrare...crow would lock on the ennemy the closest to the player, not the closest to itself.

[@overphildev]

Someone had suggested making it so you can set which targeting method you want it to use, and I think that could be a good idea

[@karakter222]

Do enemies just stand around while the scarecrows are killing them? They should react to it and attack the scarecrows

[@overphildev]

Yeah right now there was a bug where they just let it happen. Will fox that soon

[@videorowtv5198]

The game looks great but please fix the bullets, there shouldn't be a casing after it's fired, it's just a storage container for the powder

[@overphildev]

Whoops you're right I'll fix that

[@JustAnotherRandomDude]

An idea for the robot would be for him to show his status on his face, like if he is out of bullets, a image on his face would appear, or if he is broken

[@overphildev]

I actually really like that idea!

[@user-od6fw8cr8v]

There is also a method called spherecast in case that it helps somehow

[@overphildev]

I'll look into it

[@arctiformgames]

Nice!

[@PauPerezRoy]

You shouldn't use colliders for detection, either use one raycast that are directed to the closest enemy (or player) within a certain angle or a CircleCast/SquareCast, which works as a collider but better (since the collider as trigger doesn't dettect not moving objects)

[@random-zw3gw]

This looks fun, i spend hours on the maps when making games like this, maybe try some grass patch models instead of individual, it can really help perf, are you using an engine?

[@overphildev]

Yeah I'm using unity

[@doomande]

So just throwing an idea out, what about making a turret that shoots water that either pushes the enermy robots back from your defences, or stops them for a short while?

[@overphildev]

Yeah I have been thinking about making a sprinkler that doubles as a weapon that stuns enemies

[@doomande]

@@overphildev A sprinkler sounds a bit like an AOE thingy since it would spray water around itself. I was more thinking about a scarecrow with a waterhose that sprays a single robot... now that I typed out "spraying" did I suddenly imagine one of those small flower spritzers that you use at home

[@ishrathameed9943]

You got s new subscriber

[@overphildev]

Glad to have you!

[@starplatinum3305]

Very cool but, isn't everything broke, it just spawned the same items with the same position scale and rotation? I thought it would be cool for a small explosion after that, and the items flew out a lil bit

[@overphildev]

That's a good point. I just have it working now but I will be adding polish like a small explosion later on

[@FORRT9513]

Now all the game needs is a weather system (don't have to implement it if you dont want)

[@overphildev]

I do plan to add a weather system at some point but that will be later down the road

[@FORRT9513]

Your game is awesome

[@lazercatanimations]

Bruh why does the gun shoot the entire round and not just the projectile?

[@overphildev]

Because I forgot how guns worked lol

[@Yusuf_Efef]

You are wery good

[@miguelflorentino7450]

I WANT MORE !!!!

[@LiquidMark]

epiccccc

[@Vryformal]

Yay

[@overphildev]

Yay

[@DamageMaximo]

I swear I saw this channel with more subscribers than this, I guess I halucinated

[@overphildev]

You're just looking ahead lol

[@fakiAZer]

yee new vid

[@minireceka2091]

You are gonna start to make a building vid?

[@overphildev]

I plan to start working on the base building soon

[@GonziHere]

Hey, random note, but your bullet is bullet and it's casing. The casing doesn't fly to the target :).

[@overphildev]

Oops you're right

[@IanMott]

woooooot

[@mememakers]

you could add racast scypher to the robots

[@eliman2006]

Ayyy I'm his favorite 😂

[@codewordslinkydog]

What about a water gun . Then they rust and seize up then you could break them up for scrap metal

[@overphildev]

Yeah I think my plan is to have a water gun and sprinkler be the early game weapons then later you get actual guns and things

[@ghillyboy350]

What is the name of the game at 3:52

[@overphildev]

Valheim

[@SamP05]

Make different bulets do different damage

[@minireceka2091]

When are u gonna upload a vid?

[@overphildev]

I try to upload every 3 weeks

[@lilshark248]

You should add some polish to killing enemys. It feel off rn

[@1z34t7]

Add new enemys

[@overphildev]

Soon

[@1z34t7]

@@overphildev i hope so

[@kevinny0625]

69 views noice

[@overphildev]

Nice

[@consciencecuber]

First

[@DamageMaximo]

nope, you weren't first lol

[@consciencecuber]

@@DamageMaximo grr

[@splatfan6691]

5:50 you dont need to pass in a new Vector for head2.transform.lookat, you can just pass in the transform:head2.transform.lookAt(target.transform)

[@shawnio]

these things take literally 30 seconds to implement, instead of drawing everything out for ad revenue, put some actual beef in your content. like what the hell is this man. 6 months, it should be more than a stick figure some grass and some pathfollowing code.

[@ziro7616]

Tell me you have 0 software development experience without saying it directly 😍😍😍