The type of game that inspired me most, and my favorite literature genre.
I've decided to take the plunge, something that's close to my heart, and my first solo game development in easily 15 years, since high school. So, my first serious effort, really.
Very early engine footage:
3 million years into the future, humanity has colonized much of the Milky Way and divided/evolved into various types of post-humans. Heavy genetic and cybornetic modification has long become the standard, and lifespans of hundreds of thousands of years are common, a requirement of a civilization still anchored by slower-than-light travel. No sentient life has been found, other than extinct post-earth species, yet. some post-human colonies have modified themselves to look like the farthest thing imaginable, from what they once were, and have essentially become a totally different species.
An enormous black sphere is discovered near the edge of the galaxy. Enormous, as in 0.1au in diameter, the size of the whole orbits of some planets! Gravity wave detectors and observation of nearby light and gas clouds indicate that it is extremely lightweight for an object its size, yet its surface appears to be as dense as rock. The most plausible solution is that it's hollow, and natural planet formation dictates an object of its size, density and structure is impossible. It's decided a scientific expidition of 1 should be sent, taking hundreds of thousands of years to get there in "fixed" time, but only a couple thousand years aboard the ship thanks to time dilation.
It is not in orbit around any star, yet it is emitting in the infrared. Mystery!
The ship lands on the nearly featureless "planet", and structures are found which point to what's beneath the surface. I haven't worked out a whole lot, yet, but as you "metroid" your way down, "layers" of worlds are revealed. Systems of ancient defence (read: video game traps), creatures, ruins, and etc, you get the picture. Seeing how absolutelly massive this sphere is, transitioning between the layers will probably be in the form of cutscenes, where you're put into stasis for "months" while you fall to the next layer, or slide, or are transported, etc. Your suit, and cyborg body can basically keep you alive for centuries, if need be.
Spoiler: after many worlds worth of layers deep, the sphere is hollow. there is a red dwarf at the center of it, supplying gravity and energy. there's an obviously engineered system of sun-sized "shutters" in orbit of the dwarf to simulate day-night shadows along the inside of the sphere. And more....The gameClassic Metroid-style sci-fi adventure, weapon/suit upgrades, probably no backtracking, though, since the story uses the theme of "going down" through the layers. Maybe a little, within a single layer world. Creatures, traps, monsters, bosses, sub-bosses, and the most exotic weapons I can think of. A gun that shoots miniature black holes, another that builds a literal collumn of matter in a flash in front of you, one that sprays pixel-sized micro missles that behave like a flock of birds, and so on!
InspirationBesides the obvious Metroidvania platformers, a lot of hard sci-fi literature and movies, Revalation Space series, House of Suns (which blew my mind), Void trilogy, Commonwealth saga,
Lovecraftian horror, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Perdido Street Station as inspiration for some of the creatures, and so on.
I want a heavy narrative element to this. The discovery of the unexpected, otherworldy, and mind boggling. Themes I want to explore are time dilation/relativity, gravity, geology and astrogeology, evolution (both stellar, planetary and biological), sentient planets, etc. I'm not making this an RPG or anything, so I'll often provide clues and theme/story elements as settings and worlds, and as they happen, rather than walls of text.
Art/musicI've made a mockup of the main character and one of the world layers. A sort of mossy fungii world. I won't give myself huge limitations, though I won't go overboard with the resolution (currently at 256x256, then doubled/trippled), and I quite like the dithered look. I've never seriously done pixel art, and especially not animated, so that'll be the big challenge. I'm confident for my environment skills, though.
First and only mockup
I've been an electronic/ambient/experimental musician for almost as long as I've wanted to make games, so I'll do that too. Might use some of my old songs, as well as make many new ones.
TechI'm alright as a "general" programmer but absolutely suck at any advanced math or api stuff. I'll get GameMaker to do that for me, and I can concentrate on simple (classic) AI, movement/simple physics, cutscenes, shooting shit, etc. Right now I'm just trying to get some smooth/responsive player movement going, good collision, and basic shooting. I'll make a test level where I can start testing creature AI. Meanwhile off to the other side, I gotta write up a proper design document, world order/desciption, creatures, types of creatures, weapons, upgrades, storyboard, etc.
Having other hobbies and a life/job, I fully expect this project to take more than a year. Updates to thread might come in bursts every couple months, and then to a steady stream, then back to bursts again. I don't want to rush it.
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