A reasonable idea?
by M Ryan Haag · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 10/05/2005 (10:48 pm) · 7 replies
Wow. Where to begin. The idea I have for a game right now is fairly simple but has the potential to develop into, I believe, a complex, fun and very addictive game. But, before I describe my prototype concept I need you to keep in mind two questions:
1. Has anyone done or are they currently developing anything exactly like or very similar to this and if so can you direct me to info about it?
2. If this is a viable concept, is Torque capable of doing the project with little or no engine changes?
A little background on myself is, I have very little programming experience but I have been (slowly but surely) teaching myself C++. I am a dedicated gamer but I'm sick of seeing the same games released over and over with a different title and some glossy new graphics. I am of the opinion that my idea isn't unreasonable or too grand to consider.
So here we go...
The basic idea is an fps space combat game. Tada! Ok let me flesh it out a bit. The maps will consist of open space with a star-map backdrop. A skybox both above and below would be great however I'm not sure how much engine changing would be involved in that. The center of the battle maps will be some kind of celestial body, such as an asteroid, moon, planet, star etc. The players (yes, multiplayer is the goal) would have a choice of a one-man fighter, three-man, or five-man gunship or command of a cruiser or flagship type ship on which the smaller fighters and gunships can land for repairs, refueling, rearming etc. In the prototype I'll of course keep it to one extremely simple model for each ship type so the physics and balance can be somewhat established. Weapons as well. In the prototype I think it would be best to use a point scoring system based on damage done but later I'd like it to be the last-team-flying to determine the winner of the battle. The large cruisers would have automated turrents that can be manned (maybe after the prototype) and eventually I'd really like to have an interactive 3d tactical map for the "commander" to use to issue orders to squads (yes real players) and take scope of the battlespace. But that will come much later, long after the prototype has been proven.
There are tons more details to it but I thought I might save some time by getting the communities take on the basic idea. Please reply with any suggestions, links to tools that may be just what I'm looking for, or the dreaded "it's been done" or "we're working on its". Thanks for taking to time to read this. :D
1. Has anyone done or are they currently developing anything exactly like or very similar to this and if so can you direct me to info about it?
2. If this is a viable concept, is Torque capable of doing the project with little or no engine changes?
A little background on myself is, I have very little programming experience but I have been (slowly but surely) teaching myself C++. I am a dedicated gamer but I'm sick of seeing the same games released over and over with a different title and some glossy new graphics. I am of the opinion that my idea isn't unreasonable or too grand to consider.
So here we go...
The basic idea is an fps space combat game. Tada! Ok let me flesh it out a bit. The maps will consist of open space with a star-map backdrop. A skybox both above and below would be great however I'm not sure how much engine changing would be involved in that. The center of the battle maps will be some kind of celestial body, such as an asteroid, moon, planet, star etc. The players (yes, multiplayer is the goal) would have a choice of a one-man fighter, three-man, or five-man gunship or command of a cruiser or flagship type ship on which the smaller fighters and gunships can land for repairs, refueling, rearming etc. In the prototype I'll of course keep it to one extremely simple model for each ship type so the physics and balance can be somewhat established. Weapons as well. In the prototype I think it would be best to use a point scoring system based on damage done but later I'd like it to be the last-team-flying to determine the winner of the battle. The large cruisers would have automated turrents that can be manned (maybe after the prototype) and eventually I'd really like to have an interactive 3d tactical map for the "commander" to use to issue orders to squads (yes real players) and take scope of the battlespace. But that will come much later, long after the prototype has been proven.
There are tons more details to it but I thought I might save some time by getting the communities take on the basic idea. Please reply with any suggestions, links to tools that may be just what I'm looking for, or the dreaded "it's been done" or "we're working on its". Thanks for taking to time to read this. :D
#2
10/06/2005 (5:41 am)
Sounds like an idea with a lot of potential, good luck with it
#3
"A little background on myself is, I have very little programming experience but I have been (slowly but surely) teaching myself C++. I am a dedicated gamer but I'm sick of seeing the same games released over and over with a different title and some glossy new graphics." Ditto. Especially with the technical experiance.
10/06/2005 (5:53 am)
Sounds pretty cool. That could be very fun. However, I don't know about the idea of ships being piloted by multiple players. It would be more realistic, but in order to use the big guys you would need more people in the craft, and I'm sure convincing them all to do so would be kind of hard. "I don't want to be a turret!" Other than that, make sure to keep the pace up. IMO a semi-fast pace is needed to make a space shooter really feel like a dogfight. I really like the strategic elements in it though, nice work! :)"A little background on myself is, I have very little programming experience but I have been (slowly but surely) teaching myself C++. I am a dedicated gamer but I'm sick of seeing the same games released over and over with a different title and some glossy new graphics." Ditto. Especially with the technical experiance.
#4
I know exactly where your coming from. The idea of the multi-person gunships that I'm thinking of is, yes gunners but also secondary duties like deflector control (deflectors will be like shields but instead of using alot of energy to block a shot, they attempt to "deflect" non-direct hits but are mostly usless against direct hits), tactical waypointing (so the pilot knows where to go), command interface (so the pilot can focus on flying while one of his gunners tells him what the commander wants them to do), and more to be developed later. Not just because but, anything the gunners can control so the pilot doesn't have to is fair game.
If you would like I can go into the great detail that I have brainstormed in my own little game-building world. Let me know, although I'm thinking that just getting a playable prototype should be my agenda for now.
10/06/2005 (12:13 pm)
"I don't know about the idea of ships being piloted by multiple players. It would be more realistic, but in order to use the big guys you would need more people in the craft, and I'm sure convincing them all to do so would be kind of hard. "I don't want to be a turret!"I know exactly where your coming from. The idea of the multi-person gunships that I'm thinking of is, yes gunners but also secondary duties like deflector control (deflectors will be like shields but instead of using alot of energy to block a shot, they attempt to "deflect" non-direct hits but are mostly usless against direct hits), tactical waypointing (so the pilot knows where to go), command interface (so the pilot can focus on flying while one of his gunners tells him what the commander wants them to do), and more to be developed later. Not just because but, anything the gunners can control so the pilot doesn't have to is fair game.
If you would like I can go into the great detail that I have brainstormed in my own little game-building world. Let me know, although I'm thinking that just getting a playable prototype should be my agenda for now.
#5
We are currently working on building a short and simple single player game to get the core architecture in place and expanding upon it incrementally as we reach each technical milestone.
Our first goal is to create a pilot able battleship that has multiple weapons stations. The ship will be pilot able as in normal games as well ass by setting a number of way points and letting the AI take control while you jump into another weapon station to join in the fray.
The main ships will also have a complete infrastructure including power systems, AI processing and computer systems, Materials manufacture and processing (for repairs, new units and ammo).
Targeting, Navigation, Electronic counter measures and Electronic counter-counter measures elements are all included in the ship management schemes.
There are a lot of elements going into the game and we are not trying to shoot the moon. We are working in small incremental steps. Our roadmap is to release 2 or 3 intermediate stages before we get to the final version with everything wee envision.
But we like to keep it realistic. We are approaching our first technical milestone now. This first step is a ground based single player design to work out all the kinks in the massive units with multiple control points. Once we have that done our next step is to implement the infrastructure and management components for the super ships.
We have a good team, a great roadmap and project plan along with a couple outstanding artists. Things are moving slowly, but we want to keep things realistic and actually achievable. We are determined to do that with small baby steps, one step at a time.
Edited for spelling...
10/06/2005 (1:06 pm)
Actually a lot of what you are describing is the same game play that we at Working Name Games have in our game development road map. We are currently working on building a short and simple single player game to get the core architecture in place and expanding upon it incrementally as we reach each technical milestone.
Our first goal is to create a pilot able battleship that has multiple weapons stations. The ship will be pilot able as in normal games as well ass by setting a number of way points and letting the AI take control while you jump into another weapon station to join in the fray.
The main ships will also have a complete infrastructure including power systems, AI processing and computer systems, Materials manufacture and processing (for repairs, new units and ammo).
Targeting, Navigation, Electronic counter measures and Electronic counter-counter measures elements are all included in the ship management schemes.
There are a lot of elements going into the game and we are not trying to shoot the moon. We are working in small incremental steps. Our roadmap is to release 2 or 3 intermediate stages before we get to the final version with everything wee envision.
But we like to keep it realistic. We are approaching our first technical milestone now. This first step is a ground based single player design to work out all the kinks in the massive units with multiple control points. Once we have that done our next step is to implement the infrastructure and management components for the super ships.
We have a good team, a great roadmap and project plan along with a couple outstanding artists. Things are moving slowly, but we want to keep things realistic and actually achievable. We are determined to do that with small baby steps, one step at a time.
Edited for spelling...
#6
10/07/2005 (7:08 am)
Wow. Seems like there's a lot of people out there with this idea. I'm currently in the design phase for a similar game. I'm planning to start with the starfighter combat, and then work up to including capital ships, and ship-board combat. Of course, I'm also planning to grab T2D, and make a relatively simple 2D game to get used to the Torque way of doing things before I actually start on such an ambitions project.
#7
What if someone made an online game centered around just that. No pilot. 2 ships running parralel side by side, 20(?) players total on each team, 10 turrents and 10 deflectors for each team. 3 rounds where players alternate between turrents and deflector shields each round. You can make the deflector game deeper by allowing the player to direct his diflecting shot by how he angles his shield. Also he has to use the mouse to move along the ship to block the next shot like pong. Deflectors could also do special moves by pressing a button at the right moment risking a chance to hold a shot and redirect it anywhere they want or missing their timing and taking double damage for themselves and the ship. Gunners either have a limited number of shots or the guns have a limited speed so that the action can still be trackable. They could even charge shots but it should take a while. Anywhere on the ship could be damaged but it could have hot spots that do something horrible when damaged. This doesn't just have to be space ship stuff. This could be for a pirate setting with cannon balls, air baloons or zeplins with harpoons, WWII gunship planes with side mounted turrent machine guns. Well those are my stupid ideas :)
-Ajari-
10/11/2005 (1:01 am)
Quote:The idea of the multi-person gunships that I'm thinking of is, yes gunners but also secondary duties like deflector control (deflectors will be like shields but instead of using alot of energy to block a shot, they attempt to "deflect"
What if someone made an online game centered around just that. No pilot. 2 ships running parralel side by side, 20(?) players total on each team, 10 turrents and 10 deflectors for each team. 3 rounds where players alternate between turrents and deflector shields each round. You can make the deflector game deeper by allowing the player to direct his diflecting shot by how he angles his shield. Also he has to use the mouse to move along the ship to block the next shot like pong. Deflectors could also do special moves by pressing a button at the right moment risking a chance to hold a shot and redirect it anywhere they want or missing their timing and taking double damage for themselves and the ship. Gunners either have a limited number of shots or the guns have a limited speed so that the action can still be trackable. They could even charge shots but it should take a while. Anywhere on the ship could be damaged but it could have hot spots that do something horrible when damaged. This doesn't just have to be space ship stuff. This could be for a pirate setting with cannon balls, air baloons or zeplins with harpoons, WWII gunship planes with side mounted turrent machine guns. Well those are my stupid ideas :)
-Ajari-
Goddamn I used to be horrible
If I were you, I'd put a brand on this one it's a keeper, Good Luck making it, and I hope it comes out as good as it sounds :)