I am making a multiplayer (via network) top down 2d space shooter game. It is a deathmatch type game where it is basically seek and destroy the other players and computer players. Obviously I cant allow the player to go off in any one direction infinitely. I need a way to keep them within the bounds of the playable area (henceforth called arena). The only thing I can think of at the moment is like an asteriod field/wall completely surrounding and enclosing the arena but that seems way past suspension of disbelief and seems kind of cheesy and hacked to me. I dont like the idea of warping the player to the other side of the arena one it goes past one of the borders. Can you guys and gals give me some ideas on how to keep the player in the arena?

Silly idea but... Have a sun in the centre of the level and make the ships solar powered :-)



Richard.

Couple of ideas, just make the area wrap around. So when you hit an edge you just come out the other side. Another idea is to have "force fields" that keep the players in an area. Seems pretty straightforward to me, especially if your going with an arena feel.

I've been thinking about making a similar game (inspired by Star Control series and Escape Velocity series)... and I thought about this as well.

- The Battlefield series of FPS games puts a visible, fake border around the playing area and says "You are leaving the combat area! Deserters will be shot!" and gives you a 10-second countdown.

- You could put a big dust/asteroid cloud out at a certain distance from the star and say "micrometeorite warning!" and then start to periodically damage them. (World of Warcraft doesn't let you swim out indefinately into the ocean by saying "you're getting tired" and then starts damaging you like this)

- Like bangz suggested, you could make all of your ships solar-powered. Hard to explain to the player, but could provide for some cool King-of-the-hill gameplay: people closer to the sun get faster energy recharging.

- You could put a big wall around the playing area and tell the player "You're actually fighting inside a Dyson Sphere"

Hehe nice!

Another idea I had was to have some crazy additional dimension, so that space is not on a flat plane, but wrapped around the outside of a sphere... So in essence it will teleport to player to the other side, but won't appear this way.

Am I sounding crazy? Probably :| ;)


Richard.

Assuming that the map scrolls and "tiles" properly, there's no reason why you'd have any visible teleportation effect... e.g. when you're approaching the west edge of the map, you render the far-east parts of the map on the west side of this edge and so on.

my idea is a kind of modification of solar recharging:

have randomly located refuling stations (they should also move slowly in random directions). flying would drain fuel very fast and once player runs out of fuel he cannot move (just rotate for exaple) and can only defend his position (apparently he wont last long), or press that 'self-destruct' switch.

under those conditions everyone would keep close to the refuling station

sure, the stations themselves cannot move only in some limmited range (a circle or quadrant)

just a though