So, I had a brainwave last night while I was watching TV, something a little unique I hope and i've come here for ideas really on how to use it. Most of the time when you play windowed games on a computer, the game runs inside the window, creating an enclosure if you will, sure you can put the window anywhere you want, but the game is still in that small window And you can make the game full screen, but thats standard now. A thought passed my mind about actually using the windows as a control mechanism, or as literal windows into the game world The idea is that the game exists in an invisible world, which you cant see, occupying the whole of the desktop space, the only parts of the world that are rendered are those lying within the confines of a window...when the window is moved, the image within it changes accordingly to show a different part of the game world I have already thought a little about the types of games you can create with this, maybe some "hide and seek" type games, where something is within the invisible game world, possibly moving also, and its your job to move the window around to find it Any ideas for things to do with this idea, and comments on the idea itself are appreciated, also, check out the video of a prototype I created to see if this would work

Yeah, i guess it is essentially the same, but i think having it so you scroll around the internal map and moving the window also gives it a somewhat different feel, hiding the standard map scrolling, gives the feel of the game being played all over the desktop with you looking through the window, rather than it just scrolling inside the window and being a standard game :-)

The key would be to somehow leverage multiple windows. Perhaps each window lets you view the world in a different way?

Yeah, I did think about this, it wouldn't be too hard to do since each window stores a renderable instance and delegates the rendering to this instance...so if I have a central game instance that is shared by both but rendered in different ways, this would achieve that effect (reminds me of the visor system from metroid prime)

Hard part is figuring out a game that would suit it :p

EDIT: altered program showing this type of effect


[Edited by - ForgottenMaster on May 2, 2010 3:13:04 PM]

Quote:The idea is that the game exists in an invisible world, which you cant see, occupying the whole of the desktop space, the only parts of the world that are rendered are those lying within the confines of a window...when the window is moved, the image within it changes accordingly to show a different part of the game world

Actually there's a Japanese strategy game SORT OF like this, for Windows 95-type OSes. Can't remember the name, but basically, you have a window representing your side, another representing the bad guys, and like, if you launch missiles from your base at the enemy, you see them flying between the two windows. Not exactly what you were getting at but the same underlying idea--windows as viewpoints external to the game world proper--is still there.