Two years of progress on my firefighting game and I’ve almost got the water right

Two years of progress on my firefighting game and I’ve almost got the water right (Embr)

Hi Imgur!
A bit over 2 years ago I started on a journey to make this co-op firefighting game, game jamming while stuck in 6 hr traffic. At the heart of the game are fire & water, two of the harder elements to tackle in game development.
While the game is still a work in progress to be more polished, varied, and zany, I thought it’d be interesting to share how water in the game has evolved so far - from graybox cubes to the splatters of today.

When I first started, all I needed to start testing was rotating some square particles to get the feeling of water across. Water and fire were really just different colored squares.

After learning about and creating particle systems for 1 week, I thought I was prepared to take on water. I was wrong. I spent the next two weeks, 14 hours a day, researching and testing solutions for water without making much headway. In the end, I just settled on a very similar solution to the first sample, using circles with a secondary particle fx. Sometimes, spending a lot of time doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of progress...

Circling back to water last month, I added extra particle feedback. The white foam at the end indicates whether the water is hitting or not, and where it is hitting. Hopefully this helps from the lack of depth perception that came with the blue cartoony shader.
I also added a bit of liquid smear to make the water more believable. The world now has a reflection tint to understand how moist the area is.
When I have more time, I definitely want to poke at improving the body of the water stream itself. So little time and so much to do!
If anyone has thoughts or feedback, please feel free to comment!
Thanks for checking out the post,
Matt

EDIT: Wow, thanks so much for all the feedback, ideas, and comments! Really humbled and thankful. It means a ton. Have quite a few things I want to experiment with now. Also got some comments asking for more info about the game. Here’s just the Steam link in case you want to see more or wishlist to get notified when it’s out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062830/Embr/
It means a lot.
Have a great weekend everyone!

#gaming #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #vfx #gameart #fire #water