Shooting bugs

For “Gateway”, shooting is the main action, which means it has to be perfect…

“Perfect” can mean a lot of stuff for different people, but for me it means that the player hits what he aims at… With a 3d view and a 2d input device (the mouse), this can be really challenging!

Case in point, aiming the electro-cannon can be a bit of a challenge… When the player clicks on an enemy, he is expecting to hit that enemy, but when he clicks a bit to the side of him, he expects to hit that point. But if he does that, it will feel like the weapon is shooting almost arbitrarily! This is not a matter of maths, it’s just how it feels…

Currently, what the game does is see if the player is clicking on an enemy and aiming at the center of the enemy in that case, otherwise it does world ray-casting and aims to a point one meter above that, unless it’s a wall, in that case it aims straight for it… All of this surrounded with glorious imprecisions and the fact that the enemies aren’t really 3d… For example, aiming at the enemies’ shadows counts as a terrain hit, but usually that’s not how the player feels it, it feels like the game is misbehaving, so I have to use the shadow as part of the object as well… It’s weird, but it feels better…

So I’m playing around with this, trying to see what combination gives the exact feeling I want… With projectile weapons, it’s easier to give this feeling, but beam weapons are much harder…

Still, I think I got some balance between all the parameters, need to test it further…

Now listening to “The Crucible of Men” by “Iced Earth”

Link of the Day: This is fun, I’d totally watch it!