CASE

CASE is a bullet hell shoot-em-up where you fly (somewhat) realistic military planes and weapons in CAS (close air support) missions.

• Intense bullet hell shoot-em-up
• 11 different modern military airframes
• 37 different modern military hardpoints
• 12 special equipment items
• 10 campaign levels and an unfolding story
• Brutal boss fights
• Endless skirmish generator with countless possible combinations
• Now available to play in browser or download!

You will earn a bounty for hostiles destroyed which will allow you to buy new and better airframes, hardpoints (weapon systems) and special equipment. Then you can select your loadout from the airframes, hardpoints and specials you own to meet the requirements of your mission.

There is a 10 level campaign included in this version with an ongoing story and tailor-made mission balances. There are also countless skirmish missions with a huge variety of different units, weapon combinations and fighting strategies to overcome. The final level also has something very unusual which will hint at where I will be taking the rest of the campaign!

You'll face a broad variety of ground and air units and need to pick which weapons are most effective and suit your CAS strategy, ranging from early hardpoints like .50 calibre machineguns all the way to 30mm cannon mounts, rocket pods, guided missiles and bombs. Airframes range from old designs to modern designs, with specialist stealth jets and premium airframes - if you can earn the cash to get them.

There is also, of course, the legendary A-10 Warthog:

Controls:

• WASD/ARROWS - Movement
• LEFT/RIGHT + LEFT SHIFT - Evade
• SPACE BAR - Fire weapons
• LEFT CTRL - Switch hardpoint
• ESC - Pause menu

Instructions:

• LOADOUT Buy new airframes, hardpoints and equipment to improve your capabilities. An airframe can only mount hardpoints up to their hardpoint max size.
• FIRING When you fire, you use your main gun and your currently selected hardpoint. Choose a variety of hardpoints for different situations and threats.
• EVADING Attacks will miss you entirely for the middle of the evasive manoeuvre but not the very beginning or end. Timing is critical!
• SPEED The faster you fly (further forward on the screen) the less air units will be able to pursue you (attack from behind).
• STEALTH Stealth reduces enemy weapon tracking and also reduces the number of all types of air waves that will detect and intercept you.

Why this project

I picked this one just because it seemed like a fairly simple type of game to start getting familiar with Unity, and I like shoot-em-ups and military hardware.

Learning points

This is my first game created in Unity from scratch and has been a useful learning project, adapting my prior experience in C++ to C# and getting to grips with how Unity works.

Beside learning a lot about Unity, there were a few features that were interesting to create for this project.

• v0.3 - Ongoing development - I've worked through two major versions with this with and remade and improved a lot of the code with everything I learned developing SyRec and Stellar Miner. It's also helped me learn how to write code to be more accessible and understandable, after taking over a month's break from CASE I came back to it and had to do a lot of work getting familiar with how everything worked again.
• v0.3 - Enemy AI scripting - I've written a scripting system for the enemies in this version CASE which allows their behaviour to be defined quite easily in the Unity editor, rather than having to write code for every single variant a few variables can be modified instead.
• v0.3 - Object libraries - I implemented a version of this concept for the tilemap sections, which are selected from a set of pre-built sections which are enabled/disabled as required for the rolling background.
• v0.2 - Using 2d animation, physics and collision meshes for the planes
• v0.2 -First steps learning about quaternions - I'm thinking about starting a side project specifically for a deeper study of these as I want to understand them better.
• v0.2 - Dynamic level generation - the enemies are spawned dynamically on a timer. Ground-based enemies use a combination of spawn points (so they would only appear on the ground in positions that make senses) and a timer that triggers them when they are in place. The scrolling background is also semi-dynamic and there are three segments which appear in a random order.
• v0.2 - Turrets - basic 360 degree turrets were fairly straightforward to implement. Restricted traverse turrets were an interesting challenge though as it required putting my intuitive grasp of geometry which was learned with diagrams and converting it to an explicit code form.
• v0.2 - "Karmic balance" system - this is a system I've been thinking about for a while which could be used in a turn-based strategy game to "even out" luck so you couldn't ever have a streak of failures with only a 1% chance of failure. It's unusual for a shoot-em-up to have random elements (bullets have a % chance of hitting the target and of doing damage) and I don't know if I'll include it as I develop this game further but it was interesting to build and see it working.
• v0.2 - Dynamic screen knock - the screen is subject to being knocked when you fire your guns or get hit. Rather than just resetting to zero I wanted the knock to oscillate back and forth before settling to zero. One extra challenge here was smoothly returning the knock to zero, as only damping the oscillation resulted in a high-frequency, low-amplitude "vibration" that was unpleasant.
• v0.2 - Modularity - I've made many aspects of the game highly modular so I can "plug and play" with elements while developing it to try out combinations and features. As a result it's very easy to add extra planes, weapons or enemies to the game now without a lot of extra work.
• v0.2 - Math! I used quite a bit of trigonometry and geometry thinking about how to make the game work which was fun.

Features for further development

• More of the unusual discoveries revealed in mission 10.
• More, bigger and more varied weapon systems.
• More bosses, boss variants, and mid-level bosses.
• More terrain types (e.g. naval, grasslands) with different unit and weather types.
• More level structures and restrictions, e.g. canyon runs where the player needs to dodge the canyon walls.
• Plane "skins" so they can match the terrain better, and allow the player to change their own plane skin.
• Some polish around the screen resolutions in the desktop version. Currently there is some strange behaviour with some resolutions and screen sizes and it does not work quite right.
• Polish on the WebGL version. v0.3 is the first WebGL version, I fixed any immediate problems (e.g. the redundant quit button) but there are some menu improvements that I could make.

Version history

v0.31 Minor update, balance tweaks and equipment improvements. Overall difficulty reduced. Shop and armory clarity improved.

https://cosephgames.itch.io/case/devlog/476858/case-v031-difficulty-and-balance-...

V0.3 second release - a massive overhaul adding improved UI, a menu system, an inventory system, and structured missions.

• Added in v0.3 - Scripted levels - Levels are now procedurally built, using a combination of modular tilemap segments, select lists of enemies and a threat "flow" system that gives the player bursts of intense action.
• Added in v0.3 - Additional plane options - There are now 11 planes to choose from in the game upgrades from just the one in the previous version.
• Added in v0.3 -Additional weapon options - Hardpoints can now be bought and selected in each mission, giving the player great flexibility in how they prepare for a mission.
• Added in v0.3 - Additional enemies - there are now many different enemy types with different weapons and strategies.
• Partially added in v0.3 - A story - The story is starting to take form now in this version as it wasn't really there before.
• Overhauled in v0.3 - Graphics - A lot of changes have been made to the graphics. The terrain has been completely replaced and a lot of enemies have been modified to give a more consistent look overall.

V0.2 original release - a very basic version with one plane and hardpoint, no menu system and only one level with 3 enemies.

Credits

Design:

Joseph Norris

Artwork:

• https://m484games.ucoz.com/index/shoot_39_em_up_gfx/0-38
• https://www.deviantart.com/angel-gabe
• https://limofeus.itch.io/pixel-simulations
• https://turbo-developement-team.itch.io/
• https://gamesupply.itch.io/samson-battlecruiser-dragonfly
• https://opengameart.org/content/tower-defence-basic-towers
• https://unluckystudio.com/game-art-giveaway-5-dark-war-sprites-pack/
• https://game-icons.net/ (including contributors: lorc, delapouite, quoting, sbed, skoll)
• https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/9228294/war_missile_torpedo_explosive_weapon_ic...
• https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/9443224/bullet_ammo_pubg_shooter_weapon_militar...
• https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/9151117/bullet_bullets_ammunition_war_shoot_gun...
• https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/military-icons-set-25-filled-such-6531...
• https://pedroricciotti.itch.io/particle-smoke
• https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/blood-splatter-decal...
• https://wobblegut-studios.itch.io/sf01
• https://opengameart.org/content/clouds-1
• https://free-game-assets.itch.io/tds-tileset-sand-stones-plants-water
• https://free-game-assets.itch.io/top-down-tank-2d-kit
• https://free-game-assets.itch.io/tds-pixel-art-2d-kit

Sound:

• https://freesound.org/people/nicStage/
• https://freesound.org/people/cydon/
• https://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/
• https://freesound.org/people/SoundFX.studio/
• https://freesound.org/people/StoneyJ/
• https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/
• https://freesound.org/people/ikbenraar/
• https://freesound.org/people/minian89/
• https://freesound.org/people/Jarusca/
• https://freesound.org/people/mensageirocs/
• https://freesound.org/people/Timbre/
• https://freesound.org/people/ReadeOnly/
• https://freesound.org/people/RSilveira_88/

Fonts:

• https://www.fontspace.com/world-conflict-font-f28105
• https://www.1001fonts.com/black-ops-one-font.html
• https://www.1001fonts.com/quantico-font.html

Music:

• https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/music/rock/reckless-punk-metal-music...

Scripts:

• Screen resolution fitter script from:
• https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/144575/how-to-force-keep-the-aspect-...