[WIP] - Space based first person shooter - Haxel

[dreamwagon]

Hey all,

Here is a game that we have been working on called Haxel. It is a futuristic FPS/voxel building game, with online collaborative map building.
 
Website
http://www.haxelgame.com


Screen shot



Demo of the editor
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/MkrCGYTOAGk?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/MkrCGYTOAGk?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[SonicPixelation]

Looks awesome cant wait to play.

[ReBirth]

Minecraft fps?!

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[StumpyStrust]

This looks so freaking cool. Its like minecraft but not lame.  not sure if I am joking ('-. -)

I think demoing a halo lvl remake is nice as it shows what the game can do. You need to get out like 1-3 sentences about what the game is about though. Right now just kinda seems like a YAOFPS even though it is far from it. Try really emphasizing the mobility as I think that is the coolest feature of the game. Show us more maps, guns, blocks, explosions, effects, and how we can edit them all.

[Tim Spekler]

There are some really interesting aspects! Sounds also fun, yet I wait to play it to be sure about it. Too bad we can not play the current version. 
I hope the building editor is not too complicated, because I did not understand everything quite well..
Really nice, keep going! 

[Giovanni]

Looks really promising. Keep it up!

[ClickerMonkey]

Thanks for all the input!

The best way I can some it up currently:

Haxel is a first-person-shooter with interactive environments and features collaborative map building. Haxel was built from the ground up to be highly extensible, enabling savvy users to create their own game modes, shapes, skins, entities, models, and block behaviors (to name a few). There will be a map library featuring newly released maps and user created maps.

The editor is not complicated at all, currently its nothing but shortcuts, but a UI is in the works.

We're also working on redoing our modeler/animator, we will do a video of that at some point I'm sure!

[ClickerMonkey]

I would agree, it can't be lame with how well its done. It is definitely a pioneer for indie game development and "voxel" games.

[Gjallar]

I would agree, it can't be lame with how well its done. It is definitely a pioneer for indie game development and "voxel" games.

and JAVA-gaming ! 

[SkyAphid]

Another voxel game!
With a slight twist! 
Take all of my money!

The graphics are good, and you're obviously a good coder, don't get me wrong, but maybe you should invest time in a more original idea.
Not being mean, I'm just giving constructive advice. Originality man. Originality.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[SwampChicken]

Originality man. Originality.

I disagree.

Fun > Original.

[ClickerMonkey]

Another voxel game!
With a slight twist! 
Take all of my money!

The graphics are good, and you're obviously a good coder, don't get me wrong, but maybe you should invest time in a more original idea.
Not being mean, I'm just giving constructive advice. Originality man. Originality.

Thanks for your honest concern

There will be far more than a slight twist to the game, there are many things that haven't been revealed yet.

But lets assume its still not a significant deviation from what your expecting... we have many reasons for making this game:
1. When I originally started the game it was more of an exploratory process with 3d, not to mention i'm not an amazing artist so a game that is voxely is ideal for me... my strengths are definitely graphics programming.
2. It will be WAY more fun than the other voxel games, I can promise that.
3. I have 2 other VERY original ideas... however I have a full time job that is not game development, I see this game as the most likely of my ideas to generate revenue so I can follow my dreams of creating these other games.

Thanks again for the replies!

[Jimmt]

Damn it, I just got here.

Look like Halo + Minecraft. Good work.

[masteryoom]

Originality man. Originality.

I agree. Originality will get you further than copying another idea.

[Braddas]

Truly original ideas are extraordinarily rare. Almost all games are iterations of existing ideas and mechanics. Minecraft-style games seem to get called out more than others (maybe because they're easy to spot) but it's not fair to criticize his originality.

Looks cool to me.

[masteryoom]

Truly original ideas are extraordinarily rare. Almost all games are iterations of existing ideas and mechanics. Minecraft-style games seem to get called out more than others (maybe because they're easy to spot) but it's not fair to criticize his originality.

Looks cool to me.

I know, but it isn't hard to be at least half different?

[Braddas]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying games shouldn't try to be original - but it seems to me that this game is a bit early in development to be judging how different it is to Minecraft. The sci-fi setting alone suggests it'll have it's own ideas.

[dreamwagon]

Thanks for all the comments! We are trying to get as much information on the game and modding out that as we can, but we don't want to post too much information regarding formatting before we have the file formats finalized. Below is a more recent screenshot with another one of the guns.






We will be posing formats on our wiki and also our sub-reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/haxel) very soon!

[HeroesGraveDev]

Thanks for all the comments! We are trying to get as much information on the game and modding out that as we can, but we don't want to post too much information regarding formatting before we have the file formats finalized. Below is a more recent screenshot with another one of the guns.






We will be posing formats on our wiki and also our sub-reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/haxel) very soon!

I'd like to know how you create and render the gun.
Is it a model loaded from a file, or is it just voxel data shrunk down to that size.
I was planning on doing a similar design for entities in my voxel engine, but I could never be bothered designing it all...
(Now that I think of it, I just need to use the same format as chunks, but rotate & shrink. Stupid brainwaves halfway through posting  )

Anyway, nice work, but don't let the fanboys on Minecraft Forums see it...

[masteryoom]

It's not very like minecraft now. 

[dreamwagon]

We created our own modelling tool that has basic skeletal animation and shapes. We write to a custom format, and then load it in the game. All models in Haxel will be created with this tool.

Here is a discussion thread where we discuss our implementation, and a couple other developers shared what they do as well.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/135uv3/here_is_a_voxel_or_animator_i_have_been_working_on/

[dreamwagon]

Here is a video I took last night while I was testing out a level I am working on.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/q4Az1yMaPvY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/q4Az1yMaPvY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[Jimmt]

Really cool aesthetics and all, but you need some recoil on those guns

[dreamwagon]

It's not very like minecraft now. 

I agree. Haxel is nothing like minecraft.

Now I think your statement may have been made with sarcasm, but I can tell you these two games have almost nothing in common, aside from the way we have decided to use geometry, and even that is dramatically different in Haxel.

I can go into a litany of things that are different in the engine, in how the editor is constructed, how game play and story vary, the things you can do in one, but not the other etc; but I think I will leave that to the intelligent individuals who will be trying out Haxel, and let them their draw their own conclusions. I have absolutely no worries about the merits of this game!

[dreamwagon]

Quite a bit has been updated in the past week!

We've added a functioning "Replicator", it copies blocks then spits them back out (infinitely) for in-game editing. Will be quite useful for 'defend the base' type levels.  



We've added several animations when you kill something, they fall (or explode) into pieces depending on the weapon.
We're still heavily working on the overall appearance of everything, and trying to get the lighting just right.

[dreamwagon]

Here is an alpha gameplay video! We are going to have a big announcement very soon! 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/CmeRHANgPSY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/CmeRHANgPSY?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[deepthought]

  cannot wait to try it.

[Jimmt]

Looks kinda like Halo with a blocky feel now!

[gouessej]

Hi

Do you use any partitioning? portals? BSP? quadtrees?

[erikd]

Looks fun
I love how the enemies disintegrate into small blocks