Hi, I’m designing, well actually I’m writing the engine and just thinking up ideas for, a shooter I’m making and I’d like to get some feedback on my ideas, and hear other ideas people would like to see in a shooter. Extreme jumps. I always thought the jumps in the matrix were very impressive. So I was thinking about a jumping mechanism where you could do things like jump twice (the second jump taking place while you were in the air), jumping off walls, side step jumps, jumps where you roll afterwards, diving jumps etc. The problems I’ve had with these are that in some cases it would be hard to see what’s going, but I thought the camera could switch to a third person view while in awkward positions or the camera could just be in a semi first-third person state all the time. Another problem is that the control system would be fairly complex, but I’m pretty sure that with two (at the most, although I think one might be enough) jump buttons I can implement the system by using methods like tapping the direction twice. Dynamic scenery. I’d like to add a system where the scenery will react to events that take place, effects such as rockets destroying walls, people falling down from high places breaking floors, and so on. The problems with these effects are that certain data would need to be recalculated (BSP trees, PVSs, lightmaps etc.). My best (complete) idea is to pre-compute the data for all the possible scenarios, but this might not be effective in some situations. Weapon system. Another idea I thought would be cool would be to allow the player to have two weapons selected simultaneously and use two fire buttons to access each weapon, like in unreal tournament. Also if the player has two of the same weapon selected they could operate them both at the same time with one button, like in goldeneye. Another thought is for some guns to have those red lasers snipers use. Characters. Having models able to morph is an additional feature I’d like to employ. I liked the thought of enemies being able to change shape like in the terminator. Characters with different abilities would also be cool, not just having the same fighter like in the majority of shooters. There could be some characters that have exceptional speed, superior jumping ability etc.

As I read your post, you have lots of great ideas! But all the ideas are in use in some form or another already. I'll list the games/mods here so you can check them out for ideas.

For the dynamic terrain destruction system, check out the upcoming Red Faction engine for details about it.
For the dual-weapon usage, check out GoD Games' site about Heavy Metal:FAKK2, that had a hand-system.
You can find a version of the movement system in the Matrix Moves beta 3 mod for Unreal Tournament.
Finally, about the unique characters...almost sounds like you want to set up some sort of second-generation class-based system that is written for the base engine, not as a mod.
I think if you can combine these, and a decent looking graphics engine, you could have yourself a pretty good game.



This RtS-Babble© has been brought to you by:
-Run_The_Shadows
-Run_The_Shadows@excite.com

Edited by - Run_The_Shadows on November 18, 2000 1:33:09 AM

Hi, thanks for the information and encouragement. I''m checking out those games/mods now. About the character system, all those ideas I was going to hardcode all the ideas I presented, but thinking about it a bit more I see I might need to make some sort of scripting system in order to efficiently implement new characters. Thanks again.