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Steam Walking Heavy (Steam / Windows) - Out Now

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Greg5000

Guest
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Description

Made by myself over the last 2 years using GMS, Walking Heavy is a 2D isometric stealth shooter / RPG where players take on the role of a nameless hitman who takes to the streets to curb the sales of a mysterious new drug known only as HYPE. Navigating the UK via the night train you are paid to hunt down and kill suppliers to drive up the street price.

Now on Steam, try the demo and play the first five levels completely free.


Open-World Isometric action. Bleak, moody isometric graphics set the scene as you ride between endless procedurally generated, open world levels. Explore the streets to find arms dealers, drug dealers, customers and most importantly – the target.

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How far can you get? With no limit to the number of HYPE suppliers on the streets, you will take on an infinite number of procedurally generated levels and an ever-increasing police presence to reach your targets.

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Choose the right tools. With up to 6 different weapons to purchase and upgrade, and a vast array of gadgets / equipment, from tracking devices to drones, you will have to decide how best to spend your earnings to suit your style of play.

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Develop your skills. 5 years of lying on the beaches of Thailand (or was it Cambodia?) have left you feeling a bit rusty – with multiple skills to upgrade keep taking out those targets and you will find your feet in no time.

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Welcome to the HYPE Trade. With such a hot insider tip on the rising price of HYPE, why sit on it? Buy and sell the drug at perpetually increasing prices and make some extra pocket money on the side.​
 
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mysticjim

Guest
Mate, this game looks amazing :) I will probably get the demo and try it out later tonight. And PM me if you're up for being interviewed about it on The Gamemaker Podcast - see my signature for details.

Nice work :)

Jim
 
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Greg5000

Guest
Thanks for the comments guys, if you're thinking of trying out the demo - hold off for an hour! I've just got round to doing a bug fixing session tonight and some small niggly little things will be fixed when I upload the build in about half an hour. Jim, your podcast sounds great - I'll give it a listen and PM you to discuss.
 
Sabnock

Sabnock

Member
this looks like a really great game. the animation is amazing.

I would say only two things.

the text seems a bit quick to change. not the slowest reader in the world but definitely not the quickest but the text changes were to quick for me.
the shadow of the buildings affect looks over used. it's like you just learned to do something and so used it to the max but I find it distracting. you're guy'd have to be generating the power of the sun to cast shadows like that :D
 
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Greg5000

Guest
Hi Sabnock glad you like the look of it! Text speed isnt an issue when you play, you can read everything at your own pace and just click to proceed - perhaps the trailer is quite snappy but I guess it has to be to grab viewers attention fast! I see your point about the shadows, I'm sure there isn't an indie dev on here who hasn't got overly excited the first time they learnt to cast shadows with primitives! But they're actually an essential gameplay mechanism here as they're not shadows cast by light but actually represent the players field of vision - so you can't see what's lurking behind the buildings (unless you strafe and peek around the corners).
 
LucasSchachtMusic

LucasSchachtMusic

Member
I only watched the trailer, but I have to say: it's looking really really great. Actually I couldn't believe this was made with gm.
It's one of the best game maker game trailers I've seen so far.
 
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Greg5000

Guest
Honoured to be mentioned in the same sentence as syndicate - brilliant game. Yeah definitely give the demo a go and I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts!
 
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Misty

Guest
Okay I played it, it was funny.

However when I got to the second level, Thames, it just seemed to not do anything.
 
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Greg5000

Guest
Misty said:
Didn't crash, just my player never seemed to spawn or anything.
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So at the start of each level the train should pull in, the player get s off and then you can play the level.. does the train not appear?
 
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Misty

Guest
Greg5000 said:
So at the start of each level the train should pull in, the player get s off and then you can play the level.. does the train not appear?
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Nope the train did not appear, only the train tracks.
 
JackTurbo

JackTurbo

Member
Played 5-6 levels. Really enjoyed the atmosphere. Found the script pretty funny and as a fellow brit amusingly authentic. Really liked the direction of the game on the whole.

My only feedback would be that the movement speed and stamina duration make traversing the levels a real pain. I leveled up like 5 times and put every point into speed and stamina but it was still frustratingly slow for my tastes.

I did also run out of ammo on one level and couldnt for the life of me find an ammo seller, ended up quiting because looking for one with the slow movement became pretty tedious very fast.

I didnt however encounter any noticeable bugs what so ever though (windows7, i5 4670k, gtx780).
 
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Greg5000

Guest
Thanks for playing guys, and thank you for the kind comments / constructive feedback! I think Misty's issue with the train is an unusual one as it happens for some, but not others. @Misty do you mind sharing your PC specs? I think the issue could be something to do with delta time - I've used it to manipulate all movement and alarms to give the same perception of speed across all computer specs.. and I suspect it could be something to do with why the train doesn't appear?

@lolslayer I didn't have wall lighting for a while - with the game being 2D I didn't know how I could mimmick 3D lighting, but it looked drab and like a total cop out without it, so I added a system which uses primitives drawn at varying heights up the walls (based on the distance of the vertices to the nearest lamp post) to do this. I don't think it looks amazing, but it's the best way I could think of doing it in 2D.

@JackTurbo Useful feedback, I guess personally I've always preferred games which are slow burners and reward players for their patience - by the time you reach the higher levels of speed and stamina you can run very fast and without having to stop (once you max out stamina and recovery). I also tend to plow a couple of points into 'Connections' early on, stops me ever winding up in a situation where I'm stuck for ammo. So I guess the player is pretty awful early on, but work at it and you can turn him into Jason Bourne.

Anyway, I'm currently working on a new feature in the form of faster paced bonus levels at regular intervals to break up the gameplay.. these will be in the form of "no-go-zone levels", occupied by people who have become zombified on HYPE and will try to swarm you. There will be unlimited ammo drops around the city and you will have to fight off increasingly larger hordes to survive the night until the train arrives - you will get a score based on how many you take down which will translate to extra cash to spend in the game.. hoping to have this out by the end of the week - as well as addressing these train related bugs which seem to break the game for some!
 
JackTurbo

JackTurbo

Member
Greg5000 said:
@JackTurbo Useful feedback, I guess personally I've always preferred games which are slow burners and reward players for their patience - by the time you reach the higher levels of speed and stamina you can run very fast and without having to stop (once you max out stamina and recovery). I also tend to plow a couple of points into 'Connections' early on, stops me ever winding up in a situation where I'm stuck for ammo. So I guess the player is pretty awful early on, but work at it and you can turn him into Jason Bourne.
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I thought that it would probably be the case that the progression would counter my concerns, however I think it might be worth you experimenting with increasing the base values for speed, stamina and recovery... even if that means making the gains from upgrades slightly smaller to balance out the changes.

It doesnt matter how good the character gets end game if the journey to the end game isn't enjoyable, because many players simply wont reach it.

Obviously this is all only based on my opinion, but thought it might be a helpful thing to voice.

Overall your project looks great and what you've built is a huge achievement, so massive kudos from me! :)
 
lolslayer

lolslayer

Member
Greg5000 said:
@lolslayer I didn't have wall lighting for a while - with the game being 2D I didn't know how I could mimmick 3D lighting, but it looked drab and like a total cop out without it, so I added a system which uses primitives drawn at varying heights up the walls (based on the distance of the vertices to the nearest lamp post) to do this. I don't think it looks amazing, but it's the best way I could think of doing it in 2D.
Click to expand...
Smart system, I know another one that is maybe even better tho :p
 
lolslayer

lolslayer

Member
Greg5000 said:
I'm intrigued, what is It?
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This will only work if your lighting is stored in a surface

But what you do, is for every wall, you check what's the data at the bottom of the wall on the surface, and then stretch that information over the whole walls. This can easily be achieved with 2D primitives taking the lighting surface as a texture.

I can send you a demo source code if you don't really understand what I mean. :p
 
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Greg5000

Guest
lolslayer said:
This will only work if your lighting is stored in a surface

But what you do, is for every wall, you check what's the data at the bottom of the wall on the surface, and then stretch that information over the whole walls. This can easily be achieved with 2D primitives taking the lighting surface as a texture.

I can send you a demo source code if you don't really understand what I mean. :p
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Yeah I'd be really interested in seeing that, is it the same thing illustrated in your "25 MB gif of my real-time light and shadow shader" in your signature?
 
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Greg5000

Guest
JackTurbo said:
I thought that it would probably be the case that the progression would counter my concerns, however I think it might be worth you experimenting with increasing the base values for speed, stamina and recovery... even if that means making the gains from upgrades slightly smaller to balance out the changes.

It doesnt matter how good the character gets end game if the journey to the end game isn't enjoyable, because many players simply wont reach it.

Obviously this is all only based on my opinion, but thought it might be a helpful thing to voice.

Overall your project looks great and what you've built is a huge achievement, so massive kudos from me! :)
Click to expand...
Thanks mate, I feel like it's been a huge achievmeent to just finish it! But I am taking everyone's feedback on board and continuing to update the game still.. I've been playing around with the base speed and stamina settings tonight, trying to make the character less sluggish at the start, without making him run stupidly fast after speed is maxed out. One thing I am adding which should help is 5 free skill points to spend after the first level, so rather than start with 0 on everything you can choose where to get a head start early on, be it charisma and drug dealing or speed and stamina.
 
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Felipe Rybakovas

Guest
Hey man! You game looks great!!!

But I got one question.... How you design the isometric levels for your game ?? Still trying to find a way to handcraft my levels too!
 
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