Dogfight Elite VR

Multiplayer airplane combat simulator

Comment 65

This game is based in an idea conceived years ago as a personal project, I named it Dogfight Elite. I wanted a MMO airplane simulator on a historical context. I began a company and I tried to get funding for the project launching a kickstarter campaign which you can see at www.dogfightelite.com . We were not able to get the target funding and members of the team moved on with their lives (food! Devs also need food!) And everything was cancelled. But as many developers will know, you won’t stop something for lack of funding when it is something you just love to do!

I recently found out about this challenge and I decided to give it a try all by myself. Dogfight Elite VR will be a new project just for this contest.

Controls - You need a game pad to play. Use the gaze to move and touch through the menus but the gamepad to fly the airplanes, drive the tank or walk around with the soldier. The Gear VR back button will also bring up the menus for the game. Don't mix gamepad/gaze controls because the system won't know if you are selecting the button with the gamepad or the one you are gazing at. In short: menus = gaze. airplane = gamepad.

Mechanics- You have practice missions to get yourself trained for multiplayer. The fun part is on multiplayer, there you have multiple missions that are picked randomly. You will be able to fly World War I airplanes (german and allied side), buy a parachute and a tank and then use them when they bring you down. Missions include: Capture the flag, destroy the zeppelin, bring down the aircraft carrier, destroy the enemy base and so on.

Innovation- Well, you feel like you are actually inside a World War I airplane! When you drop a bomb or when an enemy gets in your six, you just need to look at your back to see where he is going. You can just look around to get a quick feeling of what's going on! The menus popup in 3d in front of you. When you are brought down and you jump into the parachute, it's very cool. You pass from sitting inside your airplane to suddenly in mid-air attached to a chute! Praying the enemy airplane won't aim at you so you can land safely.

I'm getting into the contest so I can get funding to continue developing and improving the game. No matter what, I will always continue working on this project. If I were lucky enough to get funding I would definitely focus on bringing the team back together and keep evolving the game.

Thanks to everyone for your input and type away on the comments section!

Joaquin Grech – Alias Zuperman in the game. During betas, if you see me in the skies, try to bring me down!

Update: New version available at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4340696/dogfightelite.apk

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posted an update —

Hi everyone, Thanks everyone for your support but we didn't win the community choice prize either. Unfortunately I don't have the resources to continue development of Dogfight Elite VR at the moment so I have no choice but to cancel the development.

I'm really sorry and a bit disappointed at how things have been done in this VR Jam but it is their rules and not much I can do about it.

I will focus on developing the non-VR version of the game and maybe there is a chance in the future to incorporate the oculus glasses once I find some way of funding all the required changes.

Thanks again to everyone for sharing, voting and supporting this project. It means a lot to me.

Joaquin

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posted an update —

Some update and info about the future of Dogfight Elite VR:

The new update, usual you can get it at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4340696/dogfightelite.apk

Improvements:

  • Much better frame rate. I think it's close to 60fps now.
  • Redesigned from scratch the Fokker E.III. A whole new cockpit with much more details!

Now... Dogfight Elite VR did not classify as a finalist on this contest and I do need some funding to complete it. So what now?

Well, I will continue working on it, the problem is that instead of a 1 more month release I was aiming for... it may be 1 year or more to actually see the whole thing done. Just to give you an idea of all things I need to work through to have the complete version:

  • Remove all connection with Dogfight 1. I kept the network protocol compatible during this contest so that people could play multiplayer, but Dogfight Elite is a whole new version with more tanks, and over 20 more airplanes from World War II. It's not compatible with Dogfight so ones this contest is fully over, the network will be officially split.
  • Yes, you've read right. I have to model 20 more airplanes. Some from WWI like this one I'm already working on: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4340696/plane1.jpg but many many more from World War II
  • That means new mission types. That airplane for example is a two seats bomber. That means adding missions that allow players to sit on the same airplane and combine those with big bombing raid while others protect them. Then the tanks will have to attack from the ground while the airplanes on the sky will need to protect the tanks and the bombers and... you get the whole idea. Cooooo! :)
  • Way better, cooler sound fx all over the game.
  • Custom paint jobs! Yes, I want people to be able to paint their airplanes because there is a great unknown artist hidden in you!
  • Squadrons combat! This will take a while to develop. Right now you can join a squadron but that's just basically a group of friends. The idea is to also allow for a squadron ranking a squadrons vs squadrons fights. Adding to that custom personalized insignias, a dedicated forum section per squadron and massive airplane online combats!

I hope that gave you an idea on what I'm working on and why I'm trying to get some funding. I want to speed up the process because right now it's only me working on the game.

I'll keep you posted during the process.

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posted an update —

After a few complains about the framerate. I decided to remove the trees and in exchange add antialiasing. It seems to behave much nicer. The package is at the same location: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4340696/dogfightelite.apk

I'm also looking at some way to better distinguish the enemy airplanes when they fly over the land. Airplanes were exactly with those colors so it would be hard to spot them when above or below, but for the game it may be a bit too hard to be so realistic. I'm still debating with myself on what to do about it.

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posted an update —

Hi there!

Update is here with several fixes!

  • Recompiled with Unity 5.0.2 which includes many bug fixes in game.
  • By default now the water is pretty basic. The cooler water has been removed. The reason is that there is a random bug where lighting on the terrain and textures turned grey with the cooler water. Unity should fix this in a couple weeks but until then I decided to replace the water. If you don't mind the bug, you can turn the cool water back on on settings/graphics/detailed water.
  • The camera on the tank is now working correctly.
  • The bomb camera is better now. You won't see through.
  • Improved many of the cockpits.
  • Many other small bugs reported on your feedback. Thanks!

The updated apk can be downloaded at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4340696/dogfightelite.apk

For next update:

  • I will focus on improving all cockpits and adding all the World War II airplanes.

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