Hey Guys, I've lurked the forums for a few months now and got inspired to contribute something. I've been working on the game on and off for a few weeks and I'm quite happy with the result so far as my background is neither programming nor art however I was familiar with illustrator and photoshop. For the game I'm using Game Maker 8 Pro, initially I was using all D&D but I've learned enough GML while working on it to convert most of the D&D to code.
So about the game:
Name: Untitled
Genre: Space Shooter
Influences: Futurama, Mag Blast Card Game, Asteroids
IN terms of mechanics its similar to asteroids in how the ship handles, however the goal is to capture and protect space stations from enemy ships. Its all quite simple at present as I've stripped back most of my features and mechanics to just the core concepts in the hopes of being better able to adapt the game based off player feedback.
I started with a software prototype in Game Maker, the purpose of the prototype wasn't so much to test game features but rather to test myself. I set a number of criteria I wanted for the game and tried to implement these in Game Maker. Luckily for me the combination Drag and Drop and Game Maker Language meant that it was quite easy to make my prototype, Game Maker takes a lot of the back-end steps out of programming to allow a designer focus on actual front end features and content.
Having proven that I could make a game with the aid of Game Maker and having a good idea of how I wanted the game to play out I set about building a paper prototype. Soon after starting the paper prototype I realised the my idea of a space exploration game with stealth, trading, mining and dynamic story elements was a bit ambitious. The prototype in particular showed that the game had no goals or objectives, essentially I had hoped the player would spend time exploring and expanding the map just for fun. I decided that for now the game needed goals. Each level will now present the player with a number of space stations which they must capture and defend, once the player controls all the stations in a level they win that level and can move on. Once I have this up an running I think it might be interesting to try stealth missions, a nebula or two and some escort missions if the game as it stands is fun and engaging.
My paper prototype that allowed me to get to the core of the game.
This is how it looks in game maker so far, I need to add some more uncertainty to the AI, improve the feel of the ship and add a UI before releasing an alpha build to the community!
All comments and criticism are encouraged and welcome!