Castle Marauders

Inspiration

I've always wanted to make a castle raiders type of game that's both casual and fun, but can also be for serious gamers. I'm always thinking of successful classic genres and bringing them into the modern 3d and virtual world. I've noticed that there isn't much niche porting of such genres into the VR world with the care and attention it needs to attract players from that time and also new young players experience this type of platform. So that's why I decided to pursue developing this game and experience, because that's what VR should be about, the many different worlds and possibilities one can enjoy with friends and family.

What it does

Castle Marauders is a fast-paced action-adventure game that immerses players in a epic medieval battle against each other. Choose your side: defend the royal castle as noble knights or storm its gates as fierce Viking raiders. Engage in dynamic team-based modes like Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch, where strategy, skill, and survival are key. Navigate treacherous terrain, overcome challenging obstacles, and outmaneuver your enemies in a quest for glory and the spoils of war.

Players can select a variety of weapons to choose from that will keep growing in various updates.

Weapons

Medieval Knights Sword

Arabian Scimitar Style Sword

Viking Swords

Chinese Warlord Swords

Giant Fantasy Sword

Knights Long Sword

Bow and Arrows

Large Weapons

MedievalCannons

Large Stone Catapult

You have enough in your arsenal to defend or conquer the castle, but first you have to make your way on an adventure through the shoreline and beach of castle avoid obstacles, dodging enemy fire, avoiding dangerous animals and defeating the royal guards of the castle. The royal guards can simply choose to attack the shoreline or simply hang back and defend the castle with their powerful arsenal of weapons and traps. Earn high scores as a Castle Defender or Viking and win hidden prizes along with new skins and weapons in coming updates. Become top player on the leader boards as number one defender or charger.

How we built it

I had a lot of ambitious plans for this project, but I quickly realize with being just a one man team and all the testing I had to do, I had to limit many features I wanted in the game and focus on gameplay quality. I developed a unique API and management system to track all player data with things like hits per person, damage, and death that are being tracked. I also had to manage the data very well with data very well with data packaging techniques due to the memory limitations I'm working with, which was very interesting and I think improved my skills for efficiency and working in limited environments.

I was disappointed that I could not add keyed, or motion capture animation into the meta horizon environment, so I had to get back to some old school math to and creative 3D modeling techniques to animate some of the elements in the game, which was quite a challenge working with the server and client side timing difference. Everything worked out well and I learned a lot about the dev environment which I will be offering some good feedback later to make it better.

The game entails one large world map and and a lobby where players can choose the team they want to be on, select game modes and socialize a little. The gameplay mechanics are fun, and offer player progression along with unique challenges and critical thinking to be successful in winning the battle.

Later I plan to add more player progression such as King and Battlefield commander where they have unique abilities.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges I ran into was the LocalPlayer client vs the ServerPlayer. It took some time to understand the inner workings of that as it was quite confusing at first. Especially when you make the call for local player and it still gives you the server player. I think that framework can be improved along with the documentation. The memory limitations can be frustrating and limit your creativity, but I also like the challenge of being creative with the limitations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm very proud of the player management system I've implemented, the many different logic and algorithms that have been simplified to run clean and efficient while going through the code. Working with animations using math and different design techniques along with creating a game that's both fun and challenging where people can socialize.

What we learned

Cool things I've learned

Image packing to save memory

Best practices when working with VR

There can never be enough testing

The importance of game mechanics and gameplay.

Typescript has some awesome features like global variables and export methods

What's next for Castle Marauders

There will be some upgrades in the future for more weapons, game modes and a better reward system. I have plans also for gear outfit system, such as knights armor, Viking clothing and materials that you can earn. Of course I also plan to polish the game some more and make it one of the best games on the platform. Thank you for the opportunity and chance to participate in this competition.

Built With

• blender
• photoshop
• typescript