Here is a draft proposal for a simple space combat game I'm doing in OpenGL. I was wondering if I could get some feedback on it. I'm rather new at this. [see my next post] Edited by - JeroMiya on July 23, 2001 12:28:04 AM

Paragraphs, man! Paragraphs!

or at least sentence structure... please

Edited by - T-man on July 23, 2001 11:58:30 PM

Well, it is a draft. Maybe this will help:

Control:
The player will control a ship and fire at enemies. Control will be similar to space invaders. The player will be able to move in six directions. Left, right, forward, backward, up, and down. This is similar to Star Fox's control, except that it allows for forward and backward movement.

Gameplay:
The game will be a sequal to Larry Jensens's Blast6, a remarkably BAD(yet oddly addicting) text character based game written in QBasic. This sequal will be an attempt to bring the game into a 3D environment as well as to polish and extend the gameplay past the original.

The player will progress through various levels. The levels will consist of mostly one on one battles with strong, "boss" characters. There may also be smaller wing men which assist the boss characters, and waves of smaller enemies which must be defeated before the player will reach the boss character.

The levels will be mostly in space, but may include surface battles and simple levels, much like Star Fox for the SNES. There will be levels consisting of simple blocks of construction or debree in space. On surface battles, there is also the possibility of doing terrain maps.

There will be a cooperative mode where two players work together, and a deathmatch tournament mode where two players will face each other from opposite sides. In single player mode, the player will have the option of two viewpoints. The first viewpoint, which will also be used for cooperative and tournament modes, will be an overhead view with a slight angle to help with depth perception. The second angle, which will be used only in single player mode and copilot mode is the first person view angle. This angle is exactly like the first person view in Star Fox SNES, but the control will be like the original blast6 (see control). In cooperative mode, both players' ships will be on the screen at the same time. In cooperative copilot mode, one player will control the movement of the ship and the other will control the weapons.

There will be a variety of weapons, and some of them will be upgradeable. For example, the standard lazer can be upgraded to higher power lazers. The upgrade system will work on a point based system. The player will get points or money for destroying enemies and gathering certain items which appear from the wreckage. At the end of each level, the player will go into a "garage" and purchase upgrades for their ship, or a new ship if their ship was destroyed, or a better ship than what they have. Some weapons will behave strangely, like the repulser/retractor beam, which pulls things in and pushes other things away from the ship (could push bombs away a little to help get out of the blast area). Most of the weapons will fire straightforward, but some fire off to the side, like turrets. Some lock on to an enemy and attempt to track or at least get a little closer. For the most part, these weapons will automatically track the nearest enemy, but in copilot mode, they can be manually aimed by the copilot player.

The player will be able to sell their ship and all its upgrades for more points or money, or have the backup ship(s) automatically pick up their escape pod and let them resume play in the middle of a game level.


Edited by - JeroMiya on July 23, 2001 12:32:01 AM

Shorten down your view prospects by just saying isometric instead of outside with a slight angle.. ''Lazer'' is spelled wrong (purposely?) What terrain rendering system are you using? About this co-pilot mode, is it going to be split screen or networked play? That''s all I can think of.

Heh, I was writing this for the friend of mine who's also working on this project. It's an inside joke.

The copilot mode will be one screen. For the first version, The pilot will use the keyboard and the copilot will use the ouse to aim. In later versions, (read: after I learn game networking) there will be networked multiplayer up to 8 players (4 teams, 2 pairs of opposing teams in a four way cross. Also allows teams to attack adjacent teams as well as the team they are facing. As for terrain, I'm still researching. I've only just started learning OpenGL, so I'm not very experienced. I have to finish the first version before October.

Edited by - JeroMiya on July 24, 2001 1:02:22 AM