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General => SFML projects => Topic started by: AFS on November 14, 2014, 04:27:55 am

Title: A video of a little shooter I made
Post by: AFS on November 14, 2014, 04:27:55 am
Hello.

I tried to make a little shooter four months ago, and made some things here and there like randomly generated pilots with different stats, and a level with some scripted events. Most of this was done reusing code from previous projects and making very simple placeholder graphics.

Anyway, I got busy with other stuff and forgot about the project. Only yesterday, three months later, I remembered the thing and decided to make a video of it because I never showed it to anyone and I would really appreciate some honest opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q1gu28dmVo

(Watch at 60 FPS if you can ;) )

The idea was to have a list of pilots with different stats and send them on missions, and if they die they die for good, and they gain experience and salvage parts to make their planes better and, well, you get the idea. Hopefully someday I'll finish it, but right now the project is on hold.

Anyway, I would really appreciate some opinions if you have the time, thanks  ;D
Title: Re: A video of a little shooter I made
Post by: Cirrus Minor on November 14, 2014, 08:52:11 am
Hi AFS,
I've watched the video, it looks like a well done top-down shooter with movement freedom.
How do you play exactly ? Turn right and left, accelerate and brake, and fire ? (Every player enjoys launching bombs on enemy structures  :P)
I think you could make a fun game with it. Of course, you will need more content (weapons, planes, missions, ...) but the engine and some of the GUI are already done.
What do you want to do ?

(Tip: use http instead of https on your youtube address to have it embedded)
Title: Re: A video of a little shooter I made
Post by: Hapax on November 14, 2014, 07:13:53 pm
This looks pretty nice and well done :)

I must suggest that you reconsider the player sprite, though. Due to the way it can move, it should not be an aeroplane. They can't fly sidewards or backwards! Maybe a helicopter would work better, although the controls look they are closer to spaceship and thruster based.
Title: Re: A video of a little shooter I made
Post by: AFS on November 14, 2014, 08:38:14 pm
Hi AFS,
I've watched the video, it looks like a well done top-down shooter with movement freedom.
How do you play exactly ? Turn right and left, accelerate and brake, and fire ? (Every player enjoys launching bombs on enemy structures  :P)

Hey Cirrus, thanks for checking this out  :P

The controls by default are W,A,S,D plus the left and right click of the mouse, but you can rebind them. You use W and S to change your speed, A and D to rotate left or right, and left click to shoot, pretty straightforward. The "special" part is the right click; when you hold it, you can rotate on your own axis without changing your direction, so you can shoot while going backwards and stuff like that, as seen on the video. If you release the right click you go back to "normal" movement.

Oh, and also you use Q and E to view and switch your current objective. A little yellow arrow will indicate the direction of the objective selected. The actual list of objectives will dissappear after a few seconds, but will appear again if the objectives are updated or if you press Q or E.

I think you could make a fun game with it. Of course, you will need more content (weapons, planes, missions, ...) but the engine and some of the GUI are already done.

Thanks. Yeah, it lacks stuff, this was just a prototype. I wanted to get the gameplay right before starting making content :P

What do you want to do ?

Well, the idea was to make a game were you have your team of pilots that you use to "liberate" (ha!) a country. The thing was meant to be satirical.

You have a list of pilots that are randomly generated, with different stats and stuff, and you send them on missions that are also randomly generated. In the video, the black screen in the beginning (on which you can see your pilots on the left side) was meant to be a map of the country, and random missions pop up on it. However, you can't choose all the missions: choosing one means not being able to pick the other, and each mission offers different rewards and has a consequence on the country, so you need to choose wisely. Heck, you may succesfully complete all the missions you picked and still lose the game, so there was meant to be some "meta" game involved instead of just shooting stuff.

On missions your pilots can scavenge parts to improve the planes once your pilot comes back, but if a pilot dies on a mission, not only you will lose your pilot for good, but also lose the parts that you installed on his/her plane, so you also need to be careful regarding equipment before each mission; you need to think twice before sending a pilot using your best, hard earned equipment on a Very Hard mission.

Oh, and you can abort missions by going to the bottom of the map at any time, as seen on the video :P, although you will fail the mission of course, but your pilot will survive.

The missions were supposed to be randomly generated, but in the video the mission was made "by hand" because I didn't finish the generator (they are hard to make!). In consequence, the mission is very scripted, but I did that on purpose the test "events" (that is, if you finish objective A you unlock objective B, or if you finish objective B you unlock a new area of the map or trigger a cutscene, and so on, as seen on the video). The events work OK, but they have some bugs (for instance, there's a little cutscene halfway through the video that triggers when the song is at a specific time, but one time while testing the song kinda skipped that part for some reason and the cutscene never triggered, thus breaking the mission, and I couldn't replicate the error  :-\ )

So yeah, when it comes to code I think I have almost everything done (poorly, but done regardless), so now I actually need to improve the gameplay and create content, but unfortunely I don't have the time or energy to continue. Maybe in a few years I get motivated again  :P

Thanks for the interest, and sorry for the long answer.

(Tip: use http instead of https on your youtube address to have it embedded)

Thanks, I didn't know ;)




This looks pretty nice and well done :)

I must suggest that you reconsider the player sprite, though. Due to the way it can move, it should not be an aeroplane. They can't fly sidewards or backwards! Maybe a helicopter would work better, although the controls look they are closer to spaceship and thruster based.

Thanks!

Yeah, a normal plane rotating like that doesn't make any sort of sense, but hey, videogames, right?

Indeed, when I got the idea of this kind of "rotating on your own axis while keeping your direction" controls the game was meant to be set in space, using thrusters on the sides, but now I decided to set in on Earth but still test the controls just for fun. Still, this was just a test, because as of now I think the gameplay is not very original. I really want to have some unique feature that makes the combat interesting, but I can't think of anything so I'll just leave the controls like that, at least for now.  ;)