You might want to try out something like ASWing - eases the UI creation a good bit.

Chat/registration works well, at least to whatever degree I can tell that with me being the only person inside

@J.G. Martins:

Machine Saint pretty much already answered the zooming question: There will be some, but the room will be restricted anyway.
The players getting out and trying to get on the other plane to cause mischief might be hard enough to pull off anyway. I'm not sure if it would make sense anymore if the other player could simply fly further away to prevent that.

"Aerial Skirmish in the Manner of Canines" is definitly more evocative, though it might have finally cracked the game title length limit

I'm wondering whether it should have another title, and "A skirmish in the manner of canines" as subtitle? I like it, though some people who'd play the game otherwise won't open the thread because they don't understand the pun.

And out of curiosity, how hard is Unity to get into? I'm currently trying to work on something similar to this/triplane turmoil in C++/SFML/Box2D and integrating everything is a bit of a pain

Depends! Getting into it is pretty easy and I like it so far. I've started learning Unity for this project, and you see how far I've gotten in the few hours I could put into it. There were some tricky moments, though, regarding collision and physics. The plus side is that everything is already integrated!

If you want to try it out, this list is pretty rad: How can I start learning Unity fast? (List Of tutorials)

Thanks again, ever helpful!



@Fluff:

I feel like I'd want a little finer control over my movement. (Maybe a little higher turning acceleration?)

Noted! But wouldn't higher turning acceleration actually be less finer control, because you would move faster?

Also, if you are flying in one direction and hit alt: you seem to lose all your momentum.

Oh, yes. Noted too. Let's see what I can do there...

Thanks for the help!



@Will Vale:

I like the flying quite a bit with normal mode, the motion looks really good on dives and climbs, and I like the speed of the level out. It feels a bit odd in ALT-mode - less real.

Thanks! And the ALT-mode... still acceptable?

I think flying and character control could be a fair bit faster/tighter than they are.

So you mean that a it moves more in a shorter amount of time? And... what's "tighter" in this context?

I don't know if you have a plan for what happens when you jump out and fall off the screen, but I wondered about having pilots tethered (like spacewalking astronauts) so if they miss their target, they can at least climb back up the rope into the plane.

Ah, for that (and for any other purposes) we have the grappling hooks, as Machine Saint mentioned! They're not inside the prototype yet, only described in the first post though

Thanks for trying it out and for your suggestions!



@Machine Saint:

Should destroying the enemy plane automatically deploy his parachute?

Don't think so - I guess it should be deployed after the pilot cannot save itself anymore by falling beyond an arbitary magic line. Then: Zoom out, parachute. That's how I'm imagining it at the moment.

What if the pilot is able to take over YOUR plane? Should this be allowed? If it is, would that take too much emphasis away from the real dogfighting, to a point where the planes are hardly used at all? I'd like there to be a good balance of action in and out of the planes.

Sure! But he'll have to pummel me out of it first, and hope that I don't choose this moment for a looping. Oh, and actually get on my airplane.

I'm more wondering if the getting-out-of-the-plane is feasible enough. What can the player do when he's outside, apart from trying to take over the other plane or shooting at it?

And another point regarding flying: Why should I fly anywhere else but at the back of the screen? If I fly at the middle or front, my opponent (who's obviously more clever than me) at the back can fire at me freely. Do you have any idea regarding this yet?

I'm not sure how you'll feel about this, but since it has kind of an arcade-ish feel right now, how about adding some sort of power-ups? If you're at the front you're more likely to them, because there they'll be first when they fly into the screen.



On other note, Machine Saint already gave me the assets, but I haven't had time to get them into the game yet. Mea culpa! (Look forward to see the prototype with proper graphics!)

pfft you call that a sword?  Silly straight-edges subdivision.  I have a deadly Banach-Tarski blade.  Let me demonstrate it on this panda:

No, don't do it! Swords are dangerous, they'll fucking cut you wide open!

Speaking of which, I'll have some more details in the next couple of days.

Looking forward to it, looks cool so far!

Will it be anything like this?

I really, really like the feel of the flying!

Great!
How about the Alt-key-flying? It feels pretty different from the normal flying I think, but so far most of my testers have been content with it...

I am slightly disappointed that it doesn't feature a map, and being able to turn around (kind of like the awesome oldie, Triplane Turmoil - play it if you haven't! ) and have more freedom of movement.

I haven't played it yet, thanks for the tip! The problem with turning around is that the planes would have too much freedom then to split - which would make the getting-out-of-the-plane-to-use-your-grappling-hook pretty pointless, wouldn't it?

The player movement seems slightly strange, but that might just be the programmer art - hehe. Of course, you shouldn't be able to jump as many times as you want through the air by just pressing space again.

Might be, yeah - I'm looking forward to insert real art in it, my programmer art is horrifying. But you cannot put a finger on what feels strange, or can you? The jumping will be fixed later, yep.

And also, perhaps the plane could start going down slowly once that happens, so you can't stay off your plane for that long?

Yes, this is planned

I really didn't get the reference to canines until I thought of "dogfight"...

Haha, yes, me too. Maybe we either should make a subtitle, or - do you have another idea for the name?

And: Thank you for trying the prototype!

If you've ever played Level Up, the areas and platforming style would be kind of like that, except more speedy.

"Ever played"? I love Level up truly, madly and deeply. Now you HAVE to make this game! (Do you know any other games like that?)

Another question: Will it be online?
And will both players will play on the same map? When will maps change?

Hum... I tend to the non-freeze. It's not uncommon, an RTS game wouldn't wait either while you choose what to build/develop, would it?
But all in all, I guess it wouldn't be hard to try the non-freeze and the break out and go with the one that feels better. (Definitly not the freeze, this would be way to disrupting.)

[Does the flying "feel right"?]

Aaaaand next one!

• Flying: Arrows
• Special maneuver key: Alt (keep pressed)
• Get in/out: Ctrl
• Walking: Left/Right/Space

Prototype

Try if you can make a loop with Alt! (Spoiler: Press Alt with Left+Up, Up or Right+Up)


Still my questions:

Does the flying "feel right"? How about the running/jumping?
If you have a controller, does it work?

And finally, are the special maneuvers okay that way? Loops would be REALLY big at that speed, so we had to equip the airplane with some special shutters and dampers to achieve small loopings. Do they work out for you?

I like the core concept - nice idea! I look forward to see the final version.

You might want to think about replacing the dragging mechanics with maybe left/right clicks to set the target positions - or at least set an active player by clicking on it and then set a target position for him. Multiple waypoints might be nice to, though I'm not sure how this would feel with mouse-only control.

And you'd probably have done this either way, but marking the gravestones with their corresponding letters would be nice even for testing.

Luckily, my ploy has worked! My game concept is so boring that nobody replies to my thread, which means no one is excited about it [...]

...so I switched back to the thread and I'm like "Whaaaaat".

I think the concept is great, and it puts me to shame that I was to lazy to answer earlier on! And if you find the strength, sir, I would be very delighted if you get at least a rudimentery version of this working.

So what would it be, a plattformer? (The double jump sort of gave it away?)

Next prototype. Now you can actually get out of the airplane by pressing Ctrl, and Jump by pressing Space. Featuring a second airplane you can get on, and a mysterious flying plattform!

prototype link

Does the flying "feel right"? How about the running/jumping?
If you have a controller, does it work inside the prototype?

Sorry to be on topic, but are we allowed to post demos?
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[/sarcasm]

Your signature fits

A towerdefense multiplayer online game is everything but simple, if that's your first online game...

Will it be online?

Sounds like a plan!

Will try out the prototype when I'm on a suitable machine.

Don't be disappointed, there isn't much to see there yet. But it would be great to hear if you have ideas how the feeling could be made better

And a little more tweaking. It feels so much more like flying now - though the independent pilot movement is still pretty messed up:
Prototype link

I also know jack shit of XNA so if that port were to ever come there'd need to be some huge incentive. Like Microsoft giving me an opportunity to publish an improved version of the game on XBLA. Then I'm all for learning, though I imagine I'd learn C++ for that (oh, how I miss messing with pointers and very specific syntax [/sarcasm]).

No no, luckily not! XNA is a C# library. I don't know what you like, but I found C# to be very resonable. (Actually it's one of my favourite languages.)

Here's a picture for you all to see:
[...awesome picture...]

Whoooou! This looks terrific! I cannot wait to get them as assets so I can include them in the prototype!

Regarding the three options: Looks fine to me, so, option one.

"A Skirmish in the Manner of Canines" is a mighty fine title, I think we should keep it.



...apropos prototype, here's one *cough*
It features:
- Programmer Art!
- A horrible way to steer the airplane!
- A player who can get out of it via Space, and then move like he never did this before!
- Getting on the airplane by pressing Space again, whereever you are!
- Bugs!
- Lots of potential for improvement!

And here's the prototype link *drum roll*


And now I'll go to sleep. Tomorrow is improvement day!

probably not going to be particularly easy to learn, but I don't care. people want to enjoy the game, they best put in the effort >___>

If the game was hard to make, it should be hard to play?

Also, we are kinda looking for an artist, if anyone is interested.

Maybe add it to the first post and the collaboration thread.

Good luck with your game!