or procedurally generated Gearbolt Rage
(or SHOCK TROOPERS and ROGUE's punk rock LOVEBABY)
Gearbolt Rage was my baby back when I made games out of spite to one-up other people. It was decent enough and I liked it. It had very strong elements that were covered in high-school-indie-game-maker frosting: an 8 direction single screen overhead shooter with randomly spawned enemies weapons and MOD music. It worked well enough then, but now that I'm older and wiser and more inclined to look at what does what where how when... I'm ready to create the real deal*.
*If you want the original version that I am kind of embarrassed about you can click
here.
General GoalProcedurally generate a series of stages. The procedural generation will have to create something interesting for the player without becoming bland or predictable.
Procedural Generation GoalsThe game will have a variety of stages to throw at the player. Each stage will be themed - some stages will spawn enemies quickly en masse, some will spawn specific types of enemies, some will have mines, and others will spawn only certain items.
The first goal is to create an overt dialog between the game and the player. At first the game will tell the player just what to expect via in-game text, but as the game goes on it will analyze past performance and may even taunt the player.
"The last time you faced these guys you almost died".
"You have the flamethrower again? These guys might be in trouble."The secondary goal here is to use this randomized narration to push the plot of the game forward. Dialog is generated from player performance and the goal of pushing the game forward.
The third goal is to introduce player augmentation that highlights the game systems affected by procedurally generated content. Augmentation will take the form of permanent power-ups (or downs). The dialog may reference various power-ups the player picks up, but for the most part player augmentations are meant to vary the interactions amongst the player, weapons, and enemies.
Aesthetic GoalsThe dialog aspect is something I want to bring into the game aesthetics. In the original I toyed around with the idea of using !s (Metal Gear inspired) to have the enemies show off where they were in their AI routines, but I want to expand on that. AI that reacts to the player in any way is common procedurally generated content, but I want to make the content more visible to the player so he can be part of the process.
