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[Aquin]

  I spent the last two weeks binging on video games.  To say that I fell back into a pit of addiction like a heroin addict is a sadly accurate statement.  Those of you that know me personally can attest to my self-destructive behaviour with my "hobby."

Well, I thought I was never going to actually go through with this project.  But here I am, working on it.  It's not a big deal, so hopefully we see some results pretty soon!

Graphics - I'm playing around with the same aesthetic ideas as Pacman CE and what Zara presented in Demi-Pong.  I'm hoping for a bit of flash in the pan here, but right now it's all place-holder graphics for testing.

Sound - I'm gonna be doing it with LMMS, finally trying to grow beyond Famitracker for once.  If it turns into suck, rest assured I will use better music from an actual professional artist.

Gameplay - Okay, here's where I'm really working it right now.  The idea of the game is thusly:

-The screen is split into two halves (top and bottom, where the current player is always on bottom.)  Your goal is to kill the other player.

-You will do so by gathering resources (bricks), using these resources to construct towers and walls (as well as personal defenses/weapons that attach to the paddle.)  

-I've already considered what will happen when you lose your ball and how it is used as an attack, so I'm already mindful of it.

Anyway, hopefully I can just throw up a prototype; it'd probably explain everything better than I can.  The current idea is sorta Warcraft II Meets Arkanoid...kinda.  This could well be a total disaster.

SO LET'S GET THIS TRAIN WRECK A ROLLIN'!

Current - I have the paddle moving *precisely* how I wish.  I didn't want the paddle to just instantaneously follow the mouse, as it seemed a bit jittery.  But slowing down the movement made it feel unresponsive and lame.  I've found a solution I'm quite fond of.  Simply put, I'm measuring the desired change towards a given co-ordinate and then forming a ratio of...

Look, it's math.  I might as well just formula you in the face:

var change:Number = (FlxG.mouse.x - x) / speed;
x += change;

The paddle can also move in the y-direction, although it's fairly limited.  Also, another bad-ass thing is that the paddle "leans" towards the intended direction.  The amount of lean depends on the speed.  Pretty easy, it's just:

angle = change * 2;
if (angle > 30) angle = 35;
if (angle < -30) angle = -35;

Simple.  I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with how things are going so far, even if it's simple and stupid ball+paddle logic.  Still, gameplay and controls are my primary concern considering the messy logic of the actual battles themselves.  Gotta find my way through this field of crazy with hotkeys and precise mouse movements.

Keep you apprised as things go on; expect some screenshots in a week.

[ChevyRay]

Make it lightspeed competitive pong. So the ball just picks up speed at incredible rates, until it is just a blur going back and forth. Instead of lots of vertical action, it's a very horizontal game of pong, so usually you are just mirroring each other as the ball zips back and forth intensely.

Then you get powerups and stuff, eg. deflect the ball in a random direction, or a "catch-all" field (a good defense reflex), etc.

haha could be intense to have like insanity laser pong. But you haven't said your twist yet, so the ideas are probably incompatible thought I'd wing some ideas out anyways hehe

[Aquin]

Hehe, well there might be things LIKE that sure.  I've been drafting it out for the last hour or so, just thinking of various things....

The truth is, I don't even know if the gameplay would even WORK much less be fun.  I kinda wanted to combine the RTS components of tower defense games with the insanity/controls of Arkanoid/Pong.  But... I mean, I'm not even sure how I'm gonna get this sorted out in my head. 

Time will tell. 

[ChevyRay]

Ahaha well good luck! Brainstorm out loud! Feedback is a great way to solidify ideas, unless you think it's a real gem and are worried about somebody stealing it. But I don't think that's been a huge issue in previous TIGSource competitions.

[Aquin]

Heh, I don't care if somebody steals it.  Then I don't have to do it myself!  YAY!

Nah, it's just... it's kind of a weird idea for a game and I'd rather get feedback/suggestions once people know where I'm headed with the idea.  I probably could have just *not* posted until I had a build, but..

I'm just not good at thinking ahead, it seems. 

[FK in the Coffee]

Pong: Championship Edition.

I'd do the same thing Pacman did.  Take the core game and add loads of unexpected flair to it.  Of course, I'm sure that's what you were thinking anyways, but if you could manage to translate Pong into multiplayer as well as Pacman translated into CE, it'd probably be pretty fantastic.

[mcc]

MMO Pong!

[Aquin]

You know what PortalGuruMan, you gotta point there.  I was thinking of a different aesthetic for the graphics, but I think the Pac-man CE disco LSD insanity might be a good fit.

Al I know is I'm gonna be doing as little work as possible, so don't expect a stellar title here. 

[shockedfrog]

The idea of a Pong RTS where players build paddles and other supporting units to get a ball to the other end of an arena has had some appeal to me for a while though I've never really been able to settle on a solid plan for it.

As for MMO Pong: World of Pong. :D

[Sos]

I love your lack of idea!
Be a rebel, make a Massive Singleplayer Offline game for lonely wombats!