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Mammoth Gravity Battles - 3D turn based gravity wars


SpaceMammoth

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I'm an indie dev working on "Mammoth Gravity Battles", a 3D turn based strategy/artillery game for multiple platforms, similar to the classic gravity wars/death star battles. Its going to have four player pass-n-play battles, a story/campaign mode, multiple weapons and destructible planets. I'm very excited about the progress of the game, its coming on nicely.

 

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So, this is a game that actually uses 3D for something else than technological spectacle? That's good!

 

Thanks although if you try the demo you'll see the 3D aspect is genuinely hard to get your head around. Players aren't used to having to think in real 3d, and aiming shots in a (moving) 3d gravity field is very very difficult. I'm working hard on the campaign, the first few levels will effectively be 2d (with the same 3d graphics) to get the player used to the game, only in the advanced levels is the full 3D gameplay unleashed. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Players aren't used to having to think in real 3d

 

That's true and obviously a fault of fundamentally flawed game design for the last decades. Everything has to be 3D because it "looks nice". Most developers don't even think about the fact that most 3D games would function even better in 2D (I'm especially looking at plaftormers, RPGs and typical "board-like" strategy games). These games don't NEED 3D, they just have it because you HAVE to. (Or at least HAD to for a long time now...)

 

I applaud you for actually making use of the third dimension.

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Most developers don't even think about the fact that most 3D games would function even better in 2D (I'm especially looking at plaftormers, RPGs and typical "board-like" strategy games). These games don't NEED 3D, they just have it because you HAVE to. (Or at least HAD to for a long time now...)

 

From a development standpoint, I think I can quite honestly say that the main reason for the change into 3D in all aspects of gaming is because of the shift in hardware.

It might come as a bit of a surprise, but the performance of a 2D engine compared to a 3D engine for even just the simplest of concepts is pretty shocking. So you're right - for a decently complex game, no matter how simple it could be visually, it ends up being more efficient to create it in full 3D, and then tone it down to appear 2D.

 

For example, one RPG-esque project I have been working on for a while now reached the pinnacle of tile-based performance (any additions were beginning to cause noticeable drops in framerate), so we have been porting it over to pseudo-2D rendered in full 3D taking advantage of hardware acceleration and the performance you can squeeze out of modern graphics cards, and although it currently looks almost identical to the tile-based incarnation, this version is running at a stable 120+ FPS with much more complex lighting and shadows being used for immersion.

 

So even if the developers know their concept will be better suited to 2D or 'old-school graphics', if they want to have the advantage of performance on their side (and who doesn't want to be able to have room for better AI, or physics, or lighting, or terrain destruction) then they will likely develop the game in 3D, and perhaps later choose to give it an 'old-school' feel with render-style, or camera angles.

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  • 1 year later...

Mammoth Gravity Battles is finally out on Android and Win 8 stores. To be released on iOS, PC, Mac and Linux in the following weeks.

 

Google Play App Store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MammothThoughts.MammothGravityBattles

 

Amazon Android App Store

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B011GM3ZCK

 

Windows 8 App Store

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/games/mammoth-gravity-battles/9wzdncrdmf4x

 

YouTube

https://youtu.be/Yz0JeHSF69I

 

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