Ok this will be my first Game Design post, but most curtainly not my last. I chose this one because its a fun and simple idea to start with, and I would like to get some input on it. The concept is this... On the surface of an Alien world there is a small military base located not far from an Alien Hive. Frequantly insectoid aliens begin to swarm the base and it is your job to Defend it. However you are not some soldier or vehicle, you are a captain aboard a massive attack shick high above the serface of the planet in orbit. At you comand is a Tactical Laser that you must use to destroy the seiging creatures. Now the game is set at a Bird's Eye view above the base, with the base directly in the center. The aliens will swarm in from all angles (Up, Down, Left and Right). You must blast them before they reach the base, for every second they are at one of the four walls they are slowly destroying it, and if they breach the walls your men die and you lose. So you must use your Orbital Laser Cannon to destroy them, but here is the catch; each laser shot takes one charge of energy and takes 1 second to fire so you must aim well and time correctly, once you click on the spot however it will fire on its own. Fortunetly for you, you have 5 total charges and can fire as quick as you can click (mouse), but once again be warned, each charge takes 2 seconds to recharge. Each level is called a Wave, representing the waves of aliens that attack. For each creature you destroy and soldier you save (later on that) you will gain points to use after. At the end of each wave you have a series of options for your points... LASER COMPONANTS 1: Energy Cell - Increases Energy Charges by One Permanantly. 2: Scatter Shot - Fires 5 Rounds Randomly in the Targeted Area (5 charges). 3: Heavy Shot - Hits all Enemies in Target Area (3 charges). 4 Deep Shot - Does Massive Damage to Single Target (1 charge). BASE EHNFORCMENTS 1: Soldier - Place 1 Soldier at any one wall to defend it, does rapid light fire. 2: Heavy Soldier - Place one Heavy Soldier at any one wall to defend it, does slow single heavy fire. 3: Morters - Place a single Morter at any one wall to defend that wall, fires randomly anywhere in front of its wall (can only have one per wall). 4: Mines - Place a Mine field anywhere beyond the Base to inflict damage on enemies who pass over them (9 mines per field). BASE REPAIRS 1: Repair Wall - Repairs 1 wall X amout for X points (repair amount and cost is deturmined by points spent by player). ...once you have made these decisions you continue onto the next wave. Another thing that occurs during the battle is; some lone Soldiers will start running toward the base, if you can keep them alive till they reach the base they will give you a series of things. They might give you extra points to varying degrees, or they will allow for you to call in an air strike or napalm drop, devistating a large portion of the alien assault. If you have any comments about the idea please reply, be critical but constructive. I have much more information about this and would love to divulge more if anyone wants to hear it. Thanks

I wanted to state that this concept was inspiored by the Flash Game "Defend the Castle" from AddictingGames.com

It might add a lot if you made it a tactical kind of game - instead of trying to destroy a base, the aliens are tying to take over and instead of many different waves where they just get strong and stronger, each time you're in a different building with a different floor plan and you have to make sure you have all the doors and windows covered. Put the commander in the building instead of the ship and have the LAZORS come from a military satellite or something like that. As long as you keep the commander alive and kill all of the aliens, you win.

This way it would be kind of like an RTS game, but with the gui and game mechanics specialized for this specific scenario.

Wow, i love this site already, this is more reponses than i expected and all very contructive.

So where shal i start...

Well in an interactive sense it would be 2D, you use the mouse to click on various areas to fire the Orbital Laser. The graphics visualy could be 3D however, such as when a Heavy Shot hits it could toss the aliens in the air, or like the Warcraft RTS games you play on a 2D field but in a 3D enviornment.

Yes, im actuly excited about the idea of saving the lone soldier for bonus points, i think it would add to the game play.

Iftah, to respond to your PPS, originaly i did not plan on allowing the person to move the Soldiers to the various walls but i like the idea very much. I did ponder the idea of alowing this between waves, but the reason i dropped the idea was becasue i was shooting for somthing as simple as i could. During each wave however the area of the base is not of any use just a structure, so what could occur is when the mouse is over the base it changes from the Laser to a command icon that alows for a variety of commands and option.

This is more of a project game for a somple Flash game, if i had the time and resources i would love to make it more diverse as i originaly planned.

I also did NOT want this to become a RTS, for simplicity reasons, so the idea of making it differant floor plans and differant basese is not out of the question, i would still like to get the basics first.