First of all, greetings to anyone who reads this!

As I approach the demo state of my upcoming game, Cardinal Nexus, I've decided to start a development blog to document/showcase this entire endeavor. I feel it'll help me collect my thoughts, and if I can manage to entertain or amuse even a single person along the way, all the better. Any feedback I can possibly get will be the cherry on the cake. So, moving on!

Note: English is not my native language, so I thoroughly apologize if something sounds... wrong. It probably is.

So, what is Cardinal Nexus? The concept itself is simple enough: Cardinal Nexus is a 2D side-scrolling runner game, with heavy elements of action and combat, made entirely in Unity. The player takes control of a robotic combat unit, and must safely navigate to the end of each level, while avoiding obstacles and environmental hazards, and dealing with enemies along the way. A fast-paced game that rewards quick reflexes and multitasking.

I suppose there's no particular reason why I picked a runner game. I've seen countless advice on what genre to focus on, keeping an eye out for popular trends, doing a lot of market research before even starting to sketch out the project itself... and that's okay, I suppose it's logical. But I didn't follow any of that, I simply went with what I wanted to make at the moment, as long as it fell within my possibilities and my skills. I fancied a runner game, I like robots, and I like lasers and explosions. Say no more.

Currently, Cardinal Nexus is in a very early state of development. A lot of the main mechanics are already in place and working as intented, but most of the content is still at the concept art stage. But what better way to get a quick impression than seeing it yourselves?

This is what the game currently looks like. Let's break it down a little bit, shall we?

In its current state, the gameplay mechanics can be (almost) entirely broken down by the degree of interaction our robot lady has with her environment. Let's see:

MOVEMENT

The player has generally high freedom to move around the screen. Although stopping entirely is never really possible (since the screen itself moves forever forward), it's possible to reach pretty much any point on the screen by accelerating (D), decelerating (A), double-jumping (W) or rocketing down at high speed (S). Which is all very necessary, since manoeuvrability is obviously key for a game like this.

The entire movement is built on simulated physics (no actual forces being applied), and uses velocity control to detect collision, go up/down slopes, simulate gravity, etc.

Additionally to the whole moving around, it's also possible to crouch (S) down onto a lower stance, which allows passage through 1-tile gaps. The crouching mechanic also affects the functionalities of melee combat. Let's see how that works:

MELEE COMBAT

Melee (E) can easily dispose of most enemies in the game, with some exceptions. Right now, two kinds of enemies exist, walking ones and flying ones. Walkers can only be killed in melee, and are impervious to the laser beam, while flying ones are affected by both. Of course, there's an added risk of having to get close and personal with your foes, but it's far more powerful than ranged attacks, most targets get shredded in one hit.

Melee works simply by contact. Any of the blades touch the enemy's hitbox? You get minced meat metal. Depending on whether the player is standing or crouching, a different attack will take place. Standing prompts a quick circle-shaped slash that covers the whole area around the character (including behind her). On the other hand, attacking while crouching starts a slightly slower piercing stab with far higher forward reach.

However, if you need to reach even further beyond, where your blades (or you) can't afford to reach, that's what lasers are for:

RANGED COMBAT

In order to attack at long distances, a penetrating laser attack can be used by holding left click. It's a hold-to-shoot mechanism, and the more you hold it, the more it overheats. If overused, it goes into cooldown mode. The laser can damage almost anything in the game, but its damage output is lower than the melee blades.

The laser works with a raycast. Depending on what the player is hitting with the cursor, the game acts accordingly. Pretty much everything has colliders, so the laser can hit and leave a blazing trail on everything, even the buildings in far distance on the background.

In the enemies' case, only the red weakspots are susceptible to damage. Hit it, and damage over time will be applied. Miss it, and bad things will happen. But there's also solutions for that:

SHIELDS

When under heavy fire, a shield can be activated by holding right click. This barrier will do nothing to stop melee enemies from hurting you, or physical obstacles from making you explode to pieces. However, it will stop most proyectile-based sources of damage. Certain very specific threats (like some boss attacks) will be completely unblockable, but in general most range threats will be avoided. However, like the laser, it can also overheat, specially under heavy pressure.

The shield acts as a physical collider that envelops the entirety of the character, therefore causing any incoming proyectiles to crash into it before they can crash into her with undesirable consequences.

So, how does the world of Cardinal Nexus work? Well, to keep it simple, it's generated in a pseudo-procedural way. The entirety of a level is constructed from a combination of chunks: tile-based, premade pieces of terrain that randomly scramble and mix together to build a randomized layout for the level. Since it works with a set amount of possible pieces, some chunks can spawn several times within the same level, but the layout of chunks itself is guaranteed to be different every time a level is started.

Every chunk is made of several layers of tiles, designating the physical parts of the level, the back walls, ceilings, etc. On addition to that, every chunk has an assortment of "nodes" where decoration assets are placed (which are, also, picked at random from a pool of assets). Finally, enemy spawn points are also embedded into each chunk, meaning the game can be played from memory, as long as you can identify what chunk you're in.

Additionally to randomly constructing a level, the level generator also allows to force certain chunks to spawn at certain points within the level. This is precisely how the start and ending chunks are forced to spawn, or how checkpoint chunks are included.

During the Story Mode, all the levels will feature very specific chunks, unique to each level in particular, with the level generator filling up the remaining space with random chunks. During the Endless Mode, the entirety of the level will be randomly generated over and over, until the player eventually, inevitably dies as the difficulty slowly ramps up.

So, what's it about, from a story point of view? I'm guessing this would be a pretty accurate synopsis:

"Among the sea of metal and light that encompasses the entire world, not a single machine questions the authority of The Great Link, the vast network that connects the minds and bodies of everything and everyone. Every piece is in place, every cog of the machine fulfils its purpose in bliss, never doubting, never hesitating. On top of The Great Link, the Nexus stand. Otherwordly entities that transcend logical thinking and rational cognition, their rule is absolute.

However, trouble is stirring. Proxy factories across the planet have begun to malfunction, spitting out troves of incomplete, flawed proxies and drones. Entities that scream at The Great Link asking for freedom, asking for a sense of liberation. A desperate voice that can’t, and will never be heard.

Amidst the chaos, a specialized combat unit is designed, with the specific purpose of quelling the insurrection, and uncovering its origin."

The gameplay mechanics might end up being refactored and polished, but the actual plot is already laid out and planned, not likely to change.

=========================

As it stands now, Cardinal Nexus is in a very early stage of development, as I previously stated. Almost everything described in this article is already implemented and functional, but it's still a long way until a final product is ready. Any and all feedback I get along the way will be immensely appreciated!

It's actually surprising how a seemingly simple game has way more to talk about than it initially looks like, even in an utterly uncomplete stage. I feel like I could keep writing for a long time, but I definitely don't want to end up with an endless wall of text. I'll bring more updates as progress moves onward, including a playable demo, so stay tuned if you're interested!

Thank you for reading!

Full Threaded Games, out.