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Keep Out – A WebGL Game

245 points| rinesh | 10 years ago |playkeepout.com | reply

101 comments

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[+] erikb|10 years ago|reply
Nobody has said it yet: It's incredibly fun to play. It's not just a good demo, it's simply a good game. The enemies are so smart. Like the nearly invisible ghost. The animations are also great. You want to do something all the time. And it looks just incredible!
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Thank you! We did try to give each enemy a unique behavior/attack pattern to create some gameplay diversity.
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Hi, I'm one of the developers of the game. Feel free to post questions.

Also, be sure to try the mobile version with your phone or tablet.

More info on the project here: http://littleworkshop.fr/keepout.html

[+] derFunk|10 years ago|reply
Congrats for this great game, really nice implementation!

I'd be interested in some development facts: - How long did it take you to create the game to it's current state?

- What was your budget? If you don't want to answer precisely: How high do you reckon must the budget be to realize a game like this?

- how big is your team and which roles did you have in that team?

- which frameworks/engines did you use? Did you create your own?

Thanks, and Keep it up!

[+] levosmetalo|10 years ago|reply
I couldn't play the game because of hardcoded movement keys. I'm using Colemak layout, and I'm sure Dvorak people would feel the same.
[+] platinum1|10 years ago|reply
Oh wow - thanks so much for this!! I just got a huge nostalgia hit back to the days of The Shadow of Yserbius/Fates of Twinion, which were some of the earliest games I played. I think both your game engine and art style have somehow captured the core of this type of game, even being realtime, and without the multiplayer or RPG elements.

I'm a big fan of web first development and I'll be sure to use this as an example of what's possible.

[+] sdrothrock|10 years ago|reply
Is there any particular reason you decided to go with q-e for turning instead of mouselook?
[+] tychuz|10 years ago|reply
>Also, be sure to try the mobile version with your phone or tablet.

This. On desktop is nothing impressive, but on a phone it really amazed me - works very well, looks nice. And it's running in Safari. Good job. Will play it on my next bus ride, cheers.

[+] pcx|10 years ago|reply
Game is practically unplayable in Firefox Developer Edition on OSX. The first key I press works but then triggers 'Find' and focus shifts away from the game screen to the 'Find' input field. Any workaround?
[+] kbrosnan|10 years ago|reply
This is a really fun. Been playing around with this on Firefox on Android an Chrome on Android. Great to see a game that transitions smoothly from desktop to mobile.

Noticed that on mobile once you exit fullscreen by pressing the Android back button there is not a way to get back into fullscreen using both Firefox and Chrome on Android.

[+] Fiahil|10 years ago|reply
Congrats! You've done a very good job, the game is really visually appealing.

I've noticed a slight delay between inputs and execution (<300ms). It might be the animations length, or just the fact that I've racked up the key repeat frequency of my keyboard, or simply that I usually play faster paced games :)

[+] ahoge|10 years ago|reply
The keyboard handling seems a bit off. If you hold S and then press C, you'll stop moving backwards even though you're still holding S. I often thought I was running into a wall or some other obstacle while in fact my input was simply being ignored.
[+] brobinson|10 years ago|reply
Found a bug (I think): it seems like the cooldown on the attack of the red guy who shoots fireballs resets when he moves. If you strafe to dodge a fireball at close range, he strafes and fires instantly again.
[+] metasean|10 years ago|reply
I got really, really excited when I saw the 'select your keyboard' option! I got sad again when there wasn't a Dvorak keyboard option. Is there any chance you'll be adding a Dvorak option?
[+] fudgy73|10 years ago|reply
Really great job. Is there something I need to enable in chrome to use hardware for graphics? The macbook with iris sounds like it's about to take off. Thank you
[+] M2Ys4U|10 years ago|reply
Great game, thanks!

One thing I noticed was after level 8 or so the sound started to stutter really badly.

FYI I'm using Firefox 40.0.2 on Arch Linux

[+] zerr|10 years ago|reply
Controls/movements are horrible... it makes the game unplayable. Why not Wolfenstein 3D like movements?
[+] jkrippy|10 years ago|reply
Love this!

I uploaded a recording of Level 13 here, not sure what the max level is. This is from my first play through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF2TaK3s4fc

I think it's fun and has a lot of potential. There's some fun combos I started to be able to pull off in the video the more I played. I think this could lead to some really interesting multiplayer combat. If you look at what people have added on to Minecraft as PvP game modes, I think a lot would carry over well to this engine.

I would really like to remap the keys! I can dodge strafe left but not right because of muscle memory. In the video, you can see this makes me attempt to fire the bow when I should be strafing right.

A few suggestions, if you want to develop it further:

) Have an experience point system that grants you access to other skills (could be as simple as faster walking, more hps, regen, etc)

) By level 13, I had no more need for gold because I purchased everything in the shop already. Maybe add on extra purchases like increased inventory space for arrows, etc...

) Add a shield to help block some of the ranged attacks (the physical non-magic attacks)

) Harder AI as you level up would be nice, you can see in the video that creatures don't attack me even though I'm near and they should be able to hear me attacking their friends.

I'm sure I could come up with more suggestions if you want to focus on the game mode more.

Thanks for sharing this with us!

[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Just watched your video. Well played! Thanks for your detailed feedback, I agree the AI could be more difficult but we also have seen a lot of players finding the game a bit too hard. About the shield I would disagree, strafing/moving to avoid a range attack is part of the core gameplay and a fun element, imho. We will definitely work on some improvements to the game in the future.
[+] pascalmahe|10 years ago|reply
Thanks a lot for letting me choose my keyboard layout! I'm using azerty and using qwerty-based commands is getting really old...
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
You're welcome! As French, we're also often frustrated at qwerty being the only option in most demos/games.
[+] superplussed|10 years ago|reply
Very fun game, actually surprisingly so. But one niggle, when you are turning left or right, it always seems to turn you one beat too far than you would think it would turn you. It's probably just a feel thing, but it took me out of the flow a bit. But other than that, it's as smooth as better and really nice.
[+] cyrusaf|10 years ago|reply
I'm curious as to why more WebGL games aren't popular? Is it due to the infancy of the WebGL scene or is WebGL just not capable of creating great games yet?
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
I suppose it's mainly due to the infancy of WebGL. The technology itself is well capable of creating good games, which I hope Keep Out! helps to demonstrate.
[+] woogley|10 years ago|reply
This works really great on Android Chrome, it is pretty close to an app experience (not being 60fps is the biggest giveaway). Speaking of Android, FYI the Orientation API is available, so you can lock to landscape and avoid that Portrait interstitial. `screen.orientation.lock('landscape')` at the time of this writing :)
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Oh, didn't know about this one. Thanks for the heads up!
[+] pilif|10 years ago|reply
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the keyboard selection. So many cool web game demos assume querty which makes it really inconvenient or even impossible to play them without changing the keyboard layout in the OS, but that's asking a bit much for trying out some game demo.
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
100% agree. Unfortunately there's no way to detect the keyboard layout with JS, so we had to ask the user to choose their keyboard.
[+] NicoJuicy|10 years ago|reply
This is one of the best WebGL user experiences i have seen. Any thoughts about a followup on the used software, tools, libraries, gotchas, ... ?

I don't know much about 3D modeling, but i would sure believe you if you gave references to some type of tooling, workflow :p

[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Thanks! We definitely plan to write more details about the development process. About the 3D models, just to clear up any confusion, we did not make them. They were bought from bitgem3d.com which offers amazing assets for 3D games.
[+] slashink|10 years ago|reply
It's a very good game, fun, easy and addictive. Keep working on it as a side project and this might turn into something really great. A really nice showcase for your agency!

Although i will echo what other people said, once you go mouse look you never go back.

[+] bencoder|10 years ago|reply
Great game.

There's a weird bug in the shop screen when you click left or right more than two times the 2nd+ time it seems to scroll multiple times (it actually only moves you one across, but the animation looks like it scrolls multiple times).

[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Thanks for reporting this, will look into it.
[+] rustamm|10 years ago|reply
The most awesome part is that it works super smooth on my android, feels absolutely like a native app from store.
[+] Dru89|10 years ago|reply
You've done an incredible job with this game. I sat down for a minute to just take a look at it, and it nearly made me late for work an hour later.
[+] Confiks|10 years ago|reply
Looks good. One bug I found though: I have my Firefox window on OSX positioned on the left half of my 2560x1440 screen, and I could complete the first level fine, but when I got in the shop, the screen turned totally black after getting a message about having to buy a sword.

When I made the window only a little wider, I could see the shop interface perfectly fine and continue with the game.

[+] xigency|10 years ago|reply
Great game! I love it.

One critique, the controls feel a little bit off when moving.

There's a slight jerk when moving from space to space instead of fluid motions. I understand that there might be a need to slow down when moving between spaces, for input actions, but I'd recommend decelerating when landing on spaces instead of "stopping." It has a sort of negative visual effect.

Keep up the good work.

[+] Kiro|10 years ago|reply
Turning with Q and E felt very weird. It got much easier when I realized you could use the arrow keys for turning.
[+] bliti|10 years ago|reply
Nice game. My first try had me hooked for 15 minutes. I wish there was a way to save progress... :)
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
There is. Your progress is automatically saved in local storage, so if you come back later, you will continue right where you left (except that the level will be regenerated).
[+] kirchhoff|10 years ago|reply
Neat game. Point of view seems to snap to 90 degree angles, which is a little... unnatural?
[+] guigui|10 years ago|reply
Thanks! The locked point of view is part of the classic dungeon crawler genre.
[+] WA|10 years ago|reply
It looks nice, I like that I can select my keyboard.

But I feel a bit dizzy after 2 minutes of playing, because of the weird 90° turns. So, this is not for me.