Off the top of my head, the most memorable/enjoyable boss fights i've encountered are those in the Metal Gear Solid games, Shadow of the Colossus and maybe Demon's Souls.

In the MGS the bosses are strongly tied to the story and you get to see them/hear about them long before you face them, which allows time for you to become a bit scared of them. Then the actual fights are that cross between puzzle solving and skill.

Shadow of the Colossus, the bosses were the only enemy. Again it was a cross between figuring out the puzzle and using your skill to bring them down. They were also the centre of the entire gameplay experience and story and everytime you brought one down it was a huge achievement.

Demon's Souls has a similar combination of puzzle solving and skill. Though sometimes it was just a case of remembering patterns and attacking relentlessly, the bosses looked different enough to other enemies and each had a backstory that tied them to the decaying world they lived in.

I think that the blocks that get hit should be destroyed instantly, changing the shape of the piece. The result being a far more meaningful twist on both classic tetris and shmup gameplay.

For example, the player may want to avoid the bullets because they need a particular piece, or they might want to use the bullets to whittle down the piece to change its shape. This may need balancing to discourage players from breaking pieces into single blocks, which would make the game too easy. You could do this by adding score bonuses for landing bigger shapes, or by making some of the blocks that constitute a piece indestructable

Just a few thoughts. Very promising in its current state. You've really nailed the standard Tetris gameplay, so I think some tinkering with the shmup mechanic could result in a really playable game.

Love bite-sized games like this that are a bit different. Any plans to add AI opponent?

The music is cool.

I've always been fascinated by the Mongolians and Ghengis Khan. Biggest empire the world has ever seen. And they rode around on horses doing drive-by archery, popping arrows in some 13th century punks.

Also reading 'Quicksilver' by Neal Stephenson right now. Set in 17th century England. So much happening in such a short space of time; Cromwell, plague, fire (of London), religous war, birth of science, war against the Dutch (several times), tension with the French, pirates and naval warfare.

Thanks for all the feedback. Consensus seems to be; 'nice style, but gameplay looks a bit boring/crap'.

I'll look to improve it when I get back from China (leaving tomorrow for a month). In the mean time I'll dream up some ways to make it better.

Oh, and the style was inspired by the black on yellow of greek pottery, but has evolved a bit.

[A greek tragedy]

A greek tragedy (will not be the final title)

I'm making a little game set in ancient greece that is kind of an experiment with storytelling, and a bit of side scrolling brutal combat. Hopefully it'll end up as a touching little tale.

Right now I reckon it looks nice, and plays nice. So here's some screenies of various chapters of the game.







And a video on Youtube of some bloody warfare;





Constantly improving it, but off to China next week for a month...

There are plenty of games where you aren't the world saving hero or god-like being. But there's always a sense of importance. Regardless of the plot, you have a goal in the game and that gives you importance. Plot has nothing to do with the perceived importance of the player, its all about interaction and impact. Hence a sense of importance in the most abstract of games, e.g. pacman.

If you were to be aimless as a player with no way to impact meaningfully on the game world then you would be unimportant, but it would be a profoundly tedious experience, even if it did have some artistic merit for making you utterly worthless.

One of the reasons I'm looking into writing my own engine is because I enjoy playing round with procedural stuff, and figure that'd be easier to do if I have access and understanding of the lower level goings on of the engine. Wise?

Also, whats the issue with OpenGL vs DirectX? I though DirectX was becoming more of an industry standard, or am I misguided?

Having read the article 'write game nto engines' I can kind of see that it may be better to get on with making a game and allow the engine to evolve from that, not the other way round.

I am interested in understanding the nuts and bolts of 3D graphics, and have enjoyed the basic demos I've done thus far (spinning cubes, basic lighting and pixel shaders) so making a robust little engine should be fun. I'm following Frank D Luna's book 'Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach', which will hopefully lead to a well organised engine.

Right, I'm going to do it. Thanks.

So the title of this post is pretty much my question.

I want to do some 3d games with c++. I know there are free powerful 3d engines out there such as Ogre, but I want a simple, lean 3d engine that I understand completely.

Is it a waste of time to make my own? I was going to basically write a wrapper for DirectX. But I need to learn how first.

I feel most comfortable controllig the camera with the mouse (or right analogue stick). Whether it be 1st or 3rd person. Jumping is easier in 3rd person.

... it felt like ‘experimental’ was starting to mean something dangerously specific

Sums up my feeling. Alot of the games I play that introduce new twists on traditional game mechanics feel similar. As is there's some giant (or tiny) experimental game maker machine churning out different permutations and combinations of innovative ideas, then applying a genetic algorithms to the whole thing. Then putting pixel graphics on it. Its a conspiracy.

Hello TIGForums.

My name's Luke O'Connor, or 'hmm' on some forums here and there, but 'lukeoc' on this one...

Have been developing games for many a year, since I began with a probably illegal copy of RPG maker 95 way back when. Have since used Darkbasic and Processing and C++ to work on a myriad of ultimately doomed titles.

However, I have finished some games in Darkbasic, and also Processing, which can be found on my WEBSITE: http://lukeoc.co.uk/

Am currently developing a simple little side scrolling game about a spartan warrior returning home from war. Kind of an experiment with storytelling in games, and also an experiment in gratuitous gore. Theres a video of it here:

and some screenies here http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=167678&b=8.

Anyways, although I'm off to China soon (away from my beloved laptop), I hope to carry on game making and I'm sure I'll enjoy being a part of the TIGForums community!