We knew when we first experienced Galaxy Wars that developer Oysi had something going, but that turned out to only be the tip of the iceberg that is his backlog of projects. Oysi is an interesting developer because he’s created several sort of “platforms” for games that focus on pushing the boundaries of what you can do with ROBLOX. Instead of focusing on one particular game, we decided to take a look at some of the creations (that’s plural) this intrepid developer has managed to build, and how he’s leveraged our platform to realize his grand visions.
Oysi has an impatient mind. He is constantly moving between projects–picking up and dropping new experiments at the drop of the hat. That’s because his experience with ROBLOX is constantly evolving–he is constantly learning new things and then finding ways to apply them to projects he’s already started. It’s an interesting give and take. The first game of his that caught our attention was Galaxy Wars, a space simulator with a very interesting control scheme and simulation of gravity.
The goal of the game (thus far–it’s unfinished) is to navigate between different planets and mine them for resources. The more resources you collect, the more upgraded ships you can create in the “Forge”, the central hub of each world. Each world is represented by a small globe that you can freely traverse–though the way you walk across them feels different.
“I made this game so that there is no sense of ‘up,’” Oysi explains. “Everything is relative, right? If you’re walking on a planet, any direction is technically ‘up.’ So I wanted to make sure that walking doesn’t feel anything like you’re walking on a baseplate.”
Though this concept alone is exciting in and of itself, it’s when you take flight that the game comes full circle. Once in a ship, the mouse becomes a directional tool, and the ship heads wherever you move your mouse. By default, the ship always moves forward, and the standard movement controls (w, a, s, d) are used to define the pitch, yaw, and rotation of the ship. Each ship also comes equipped with canons that be fired using the left mouse button.
Traveling between planets in open space is visually stimulating–you even pass through a small atmosphere around each planet before reaching the surface! In space you can dog fight with other players in an effort to stop them from collecting precious resources. Or, you can park your ship on the surface of any of the planets and start exploring. It’s an interesting and unseen concept for a ROBLOX game, and it’s a fantastic starting point to what could be a triple-A title.
I told him during our interview that I had never played a game on ROBLOX that featured this sort of control system, to which he replied:
“I couldn’t find a way to get it to move the way I wanted while utilizing the scriptable camera type, so what you’re seeing in this game is a compromise. That’s also why I included that moving line–so players know where to point the in ship in relation to the middle of the screen. It was a funky test, and then ‘poof,’ fanciness manifested.”
At the moment, Galaxy Wars’ development is on hold so Oysi can work on a first person shooter camera system that is fluid and realistic. Though it’s not a full-fledged game, the camera system he’s developed is noticeably precise. He tells me was able to develop a “two-part limb-with-point system” that uses several complex hacks and a ton of interpolation.
“Basically, the left arm identifies points on the gun that it’s holding,” he explains to me. “This includes the slide, the mag, the grip. Each of these parts has a brick that communicates where the left arm should move to. The left arm doesn’t interpolate when it moves between points, and the right arm always does.”
“The aiming mechanism is also pretty interesting,” he continues. “I put a part on the scope, and that part has a script that automatically tells the arms to move the handle of each gun to center the camera down the sights. I had to rewrite this animation system three times to get it right–I wanted a first-person camera system that allows for extreme customizability. That is something you will find in all of my projects.”
Oysi’s gun demo is playable, and he’s working on the custom camera system he developed to eventually develop a killer FPS. It’s not like he’s started from scratch, either. In fact, he worked with prolific builder daxter33 on the early development of Paintball! which is now one of ROBLOX’s most popular titles.
“Daxter and I have been sharing things for a long time–we used to talk really frequently through PMs. We hatched the original idea of actually creating paintballs on ROBLOX. We were both fascinated by the basic idea of holding a gun that shoots a trajectory pellet, based on raycasting.”
Both Daxter33 and Oysi made competing Paintball games years ago–Daxter moved on to updating and adding to Paintball! as frequently as possible (making it the game it is today), while Oysi abandoned his Paintball game to begin developing Galaxy Wars. Since then, he’s been in and out of each of these projects, stopping development intermittently to pick up new projects, or update current ones.
“My priorities shift quite easily,” he tells me.
Spotlight articles were designed to pinpoint and showcase users who are doing new and innovative things with our platform. Oysi has created templates for games that feature camera tricks and hacks that we’ve never seen before, and we look forward to seeing where he goes with these exciting projects. For now, we encourage you to check out his profile page and take a look at some of things he’s been working on. Per usual, here is his advice for new builders:
Do crazy things. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true, and it’s kept me going all this time. Nothing is too crazy, and if you think something is too crazy, than it’s worth doing! Choose your craziest idea, and find a crazy way to execute it. I guarantee it’ll turn out good. I love it when people play a game and say, ‘how did he do this?’ That’s the ultimate inspiration.