It's been a while. I've been hard at work at upgrading Vecter to URP like I said. It's not by any means finished but I think it's in a good enough state to release an Alpha for it. Details on how to get the Alpha in this post bellow.
However, I'm also making this post because a game I've been really hype for the last few years is releasing NOW: Unbound: Worlds Apart (I do mean right now! It should be released at the time this article is live)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/814680/Unbound_Worlds_Apart/
DISCLAIMER: Alien Pixel Studios (APS) (the developers of Unbound: Worlds Apart) have not sponsored this post in any way, shape or form. APS and I are friends so my views may be a bit biased, but I genuinely believe Unbound is an excellent title that you should check out
Unbound's release is very important, and you may be wondering why: It's because of my friend Serj, one of the creators of Unbound, that Vecter even exists. Two months before I started work on Vecter I swore up down and sideways I would never do GameDev again, due to some bad experiences in the past.
But Sergiu's encouragement, as well as the passion he displayed for working on Unbound inspired me to try again. By that point he was already working on unbound for a year or two, so imagine that I built and released an armature game while these guys have continued working and perfecting Unbound, and it shows in the game itself.
I've played the Alpha, and the Beta, and the pre-Alphas and it's an excellent platformer which I've seen grown and perfect in front of my eyes. Amazing artwork, engaging puzzles and really satisfying and precise controls. Goes to show what 5 years of dev do for a project.
As for Vecter, the rebuild is coming along nicely and it works on low end hardware a LOT better than the version that's currently available to the general audience, however there's still loads to do.
What's been done so far:
- Swapped the render pipeline from Legacy to Universal Render Pipeline, that runs much better on phones and low end hardware
- Bloom (Glow) implemented back in, but still needs some tweaks
- Black and white death screen implemented back in but it is a little different. This is because I'm trying to save on resources
- Color picker has been completely re-written to be more efficient, and it seems to work well
- Dissolve animation (that makes the world appear in front of our eyes) has been re-written to be more efficient, but still needs a lot of work as it's quite buggy
What still needs to be added back in:
- CRT Screen effect (maybe, maybe I won't add it at all, dunno)
- Glow animation when ship with shields smacks into thing
- Glow animation when bullets hit object
- Bullets same color as ship
- Redo the city landscape as it's ugly and can do with a prettier one
So here are your options:
- If you want to try a new but potentially buggy Vecter with what I've been working on, all you need to do is switch to the Alpha branch in steam. Sadly there's no new content there yet as I'm working on giving it parity with the old Vecter, it should however run better on older hardware
- If I've however tempted you into trying out Unbound (you should, you really really should) then follow the link and I hope you enjoy as much as I do (P.S. They also have a Switch version, which is what I'm playing on since I like laying on the couch like a potato)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/814680/Unbound_Worlds_Apart/