Evac 3D

https://jhyde.itch.io/evac-3d?secret=sWJTBBeu1QGXIbQKUMnrCSBC1c secret URL

I have been working on another project for about a month. It's a low poly 3D helicopter sim I'm calling Evac3D. It's named after a 2d isometric game I tried to make before called Evac. Basically you pilot a helicopter over an ongoing battlefield. Pick up and drop off marines to capture points. 

If an ally captures a control point the flag turns green, and it will start spawning allied troops. Until it is taken back by the enemy. These spawning soldiers fight back and forth like the creeps in a MOBA, while you complete missions that pop up. The missions give you an x y coordinate that you can follow by using your compass. Use rockets and your door gunner to defend yourself against AA guns, tanks and enemy rocketeers. 

I have 2 maps that I have been working on at the same time. The first one I've been slowly adding to since the beginning, and the second is for experimenting with different terrains and things. The second map has a river running through the middle of it. The whole map is made out of primitive shapes in blender. I tried sculpting out a landscape in blender, but my blender skills are trash. I may have to keep the terrain super simple, but rolling hills, rivers, ect would be cool. 

I recently added the ability to exit the helicopter and walk around. I still need to come up with a proper first person controller, because using the mouse to look around is wonky right now. You press "P" to exit the helicopter, then I turn off all the controls to the helicopter and spawn a first person guy to the scene and switch cameras. I think you will need this ability for certain missions later on, but I felt like I needed it. 

The helicopter model and the soldier models and animation were done by offgridgecko on reddit. He had already made the helicopter model that happened to be a UH-1 which was exactly the model helicopter I was wanting. Then he made the low poly soldiers with ARs AKs and a rocket launcher. I think they fit the style I'm going for perfectly. 

It's been difficult to keep all the models in the game the same low poly style. I've been scouring the internet for free 3d models and taking what I need as placeholders. Everything I've got so far has been free to use. It's easy enough to swap out models for something different down the line if I want to drop some cash.

I made an itch page where I put up an alpha build of the game for Windows and Linux. It's more of a sandbox than a game. It's fun to fly around and shoot stuff. The first map has 5 missions you can complete along with capturing the control points. I want to add a menu option to switch between the two maps I have so far. Whenever I add something big to the game I update the alpha build on itch. If someone wants to download it and test it out and tell me what I'm doing wrong it would be appreciated! 

I have a feeling this project may take a while. So having a devlog as a record of what I was thinking could be helpful.