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Pishtaco
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« on: March 23, 2014, 02:23:55 AM »

This is a project I tried to make for the 2014 7DRL challenge, and failed. I'm giving it another try, optimistically still hoping for a quick finish.

Mockup:
« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 10:21:26 AM by Pishtaco » Logged

Photon
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« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2014, 05:49:19 AM »

ROAR, ASCII! Waaagh!

No really, make the game using only ASCII. It actually looks kinda cool. Grin
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2014, 12:05:46 PM »

ROAR, ASCII! Waaagh!

No really, make the game using only ASCII. It actually looks kinda cool. Grin
That's the plan, ASCII and the libtcod roguelike library in python. I'm pretty sure I would never get it finished if I started messing with any more complicated graphics. It's good to embrace some limitations.

I've updated the screenshot above with a mockup of the status display. This should also give more of an idea of what I'm planning for the game.

It's a tactical game about air combat in the 1960s. You control one aircraft, and the focus is on managing your pilot's resources of time and attention. So if turns are, say, 5 seconds long, then on a turn you can scan the sky and look for enemy planes; or you can try to locate your mission target on the ground (and risk losing situational awareness of what's happening in the sky); or you can use the radar to try and get a lock on an aircraft outside visual range, or make a hard turn, or so on. Pilot exhaustion and stress build up over time, from SAM near-misses or pulling Gs, and this degrades how much time you can spend on things each turn.

In my 7drl attempt I got lost in the intricacies of flight models, jet engine efficiency and compression drag. I ended up with just the framework of a turn-based flight sim, which is playable here, in flash: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29654821/thunderrun_flash.swf

Still trying to get a name that's '60s enough. Kerosene Thunder?
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James Edward Smith
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« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2014, 12:26:43 PM »

Horizon Bandits?
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2014, 10:13:53 PM »

"Bandits" could be a good word to use. Certainly "Thunder" is a cliche in game titles, although it kind of feels justified here to me.

Progress so far:



Basic Perlin-noise islands and clouds, and some MiGs chasing around a Crusader.

My current plan is only to have two speeds of movement in the game, 1 tile for subsonic and 2 tiles for supersonic-ish. Different "physical" speeds will be in the game, but will be modelled more like a health bar - turning or climbing drain it, the engine and diving fill it, you can't shoot someone you're tailing if they're faster than you, etc. This may make dogfighting awkward, but dogfighting isn't meant to be the focus. We'll see how it works.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2014, 10:44:47 PM »

Too bad you didn't finish the core game for 7DRL. I've been playing a lot of those for reviewing lately and this looks like it would be great fun. Sounds like there are quite a few interesting concepts you've got in there. Too much for a completable "7-day" RL, but good for a short project!

I like the clouds. Not sure if they play a part in the gameplay yet, but what if you/enemies could hide in them?

On the mechanics of movement, though I doubt you'd want to change your base movement mechanics at this point, you should really check out a successful 7DRL from this year called "Knight". It has wonderful acceleration/momentum/deceleration mechanics that would be nicely applicable to a flying game as well.

As for a name: Thunder Bandits?
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James Edward Smith
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« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2014, 05:59:13 AM »

Hmmm, I really like the sound of your airspeed being represented like a healthbar, that's a great idea (well, SOUNDS like one anyway).

I wonder if it would be a good idea for something else to be represented like that to, something like "pilot attention" but with a better name that would make it easier to notice enemies and missles, etc. That might just be annoying though. I'm not sure, I think typically I would rather have full information as a player but then just have to deal with my avatar not always being up to the task rather than the reverse (I could have done something, but I didn't have the information I would have needed to act).

Woah, I didn't realize you made S.T.A.C.K.E.R. Heh. I love that game, best de-make ever in my book.
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2014, 09:23:05 AM »

I like the clouds. Not sure if they play a part in the gameplay yet, but what if you/enemies could hide in them?

On the mechanics of movement, though I doubt you'd want to change your base movement mechanics at this point, you should really check out a successful 7DRL from this year called "Knight". It has wonderful acceleration/momentum/deceleration mechanics that would be nicely applicable to a flying game as well.

Yes, the clouds are for hiding, but more for forcing you to fly low to do certain ground attacks.

Thanks very much for the link to Knight, the sense of momentum in it is really great.

I wonder if it would be a good idea for something else to be represented like that to, something like "pilot attention" but with a better name that would make it easier to notice enemies and missles, etc. That might just be annoying though. I'm not sure, I think typically I would rather have full information as a player but then just have to deal with my avatar not always being up to the task rather than the reverse (I could have done something, but I didn't have the information I would have needed to act).

I'm planning something like this - in the mockup "fresh, 50%" is supposed to mean that the pilot isn't tired yet, and is at 50% situational awareness, which will control the distance at which you spot planes (maybe). The thing is, I'm thinking of each tile as about a mile, and if we're being realistic then you're doing extremely well if you can spot panes at 10 miles. For information about things further away, you have to rely on your ground controller, or radar if you've got one. I'm not sure how this is going to work, but the basic idea is that doing anything, and especially pulling Gs, will reduce your situational awareness in the next turn. [/quote]

Quote
Woah, I didn't realize you made S.T.A.C.K.E.R. Heh. I love that game, best de-make ever in my book.

Thanks!

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Pishtaco
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« Reply #8 on: October 06, 2014, 12:57:42 PM »

I've been working on this some more, and trying out a new name. I've put some time into thinking what board-gamey flight should be like. For example, putting everything into smallish whole numbers, but still trying to capture some crunchy flight dynamics.


A Phantom about to go supersonic. Cloud shadows!
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #9 on: October 06, 2014, 02:57:34 PM »

About to go supersonic at that low an altitude? Living on the edge!

Looking good. Going to stick with square-ish FOV? And how big will the maps be? I guess you need to be able to cover quite a lot of ground, so are maps nearly infinite and procedurally generated? Of course range is still limited due to fuel, but what you have can still cover a lot of area. Unless there's also mission-based restrictions on air space.

Those dots on the map are indicators showing where you'll be on future turns based on current flight speed?
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #10 on: October 06, 2014, 11:57:26 PM »

About to go supersonic at that low an altitude? Living on the edge!

Looking good. Going to stick with square-ish FOV? And how big will the maps be? I guess you need to be able to cover quite a lot of ground, so are maps nearly infinite and procedurally generated? Of course range is still limited due to fuel, but what you have can still cover a lot of area. Unless there's also mission-based restrictions on air space.

Those dots on the map are indicators showing where you'll be on future turns based on current flight speed?

The afterburner gives 12 speed points at low altitude. The column of red numbers on the right is speed loss due to drag, and reaches 12 or 13 on the row above the top one we can see, at a speed of about mach 1.3. So that's as fast as the Phantom can go here. At higher altitude, drag is much lower. Dry engine thrust is also lower, in about the same proportion, and so is static afterburner thrust. But the afterburner produces more thrust as you go faster, so at about mach 2 it's reached the maximum of 12 speed points again, even at high altitude. So there you can go faster. At least, that's how it works in the game, and I think that's more or less how it really works - it was surprisingly difficult to find out about this stuff.

You can move equally in eight directions, so I'm keeping the square FOV as it's honest for short range movement (although I've rounded the corners a bit to soften the blow). However, you burn more fuel if you move diagonally, so the metrics should seem rounder at a larger scale. Currently I'm using realistic numbers, so a 1000kmx1000km map isn't out of the question - the tiles are about 500m. I'm thinking about doing it procedurally, maybe built out of map-tiles, each 5x5 screen tiles.

Yes, the dots are where your turns end. Look a bit ugly right now.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2014, 01:22:58 AM by Pishtaco » Logged

Pishtaco
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« Reply #11 on: October 11, 2014, 12:31:44 PM »


Phantoms cruising at high altitude

I'm still working on getting the basic flight model in, and setting up the UI so that this is comprehensible to the player. Drag from turning is now in, and I'm thinking about G effects.

I'm not sure what to do about stalls. If the plane drops below the stall speed, then you should lose some control, lose situational awareness, and have to dive for a bit to build up speed. But it would also be interesting to have a risk of stalling if you make aggressive turns, and I'm not sure what that should mean. One ingredient I'm thinking of is to make the amount of drag you get from a turn be based on a die rolls rather than a fixed number - perhaps this could give a flavour of roguelike combat to planes trying to outturn each other.
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2014, 10:28:38 AM »



First crack at a character selection screen. Eventually there should be lots of juicy performance tables there. Only the flight models for the Phantom and MiG-17 are done at the moment. I don't really know how the missions are going to work out, but likely settings are based on Vietnam, India/Pakistan, and Israel. So I'm looking at various American, Soviet, British and French planes.
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2014, 03:38:10 PM »



MiG-17 pulling Gs
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2014, 10:27:46 AM »

Playable build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29654821/thunder.zip

Right now you can just fly one plane around - there's nothing else there.

The way turning works needs some explanation: pressing left or right turns 45 degrees and moves forward; if you have enough lift to turn 135 degrees in one turn (Shrug) then you can press shift+left or right to turn 90 degrees ... well, maybe it needs even more explanation.

Next up - flight models for when your plane is heavy (this will be almost exactly the same as going up one altitude level), losing weight by burning fuel, and dropping bombs.



Hunters about to pretend to land
« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 10:34:26 AM by Pishtaco » Logged

Kyzrati
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« Reply #15 on: October 29, 2014, 01:37:12 PM »

Excellent job on the mechanics so far. Even just flying around is pretty fun. I guess you say "pretend to land" because that's not possible yet (tried to after flying around and even running out of fuel, but the game kept bouncing me off the ground Wink). This'll be a great game once there are weapons, missions, bogeys to worry about, etc.

Also nice to see some REXPaint in action in the wild (and that you're getting use out of the alternative output formats).
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2014, 12:27:52 AM »

Excellent job on the mechanics so far. Even just flying around is pretty fun. I guess you say "pretend to land" because that's not possible yet (tried to after flying around and even running out of fuel, but the game kept bouncing me off the ground Wink). This'll be a great game once there are weapons, missions, bogeys to worry about, etc.

Also nice to see some REXPaint in action in the wild (and that you're getting use out of the alternative output formats).

Thanks, that's really good to hear! And yeah, no landing yet. Thanks again for REXPaint, it's been a great help, both for mockups and for graphics for the game. (I'm using the csv format because it seems like the easiest to parse - someday I'll learn more about file i/o and switch to xp.)
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2014, 02:44:49 AM »

Wanted to add my congratulations on making something truly unique here Hand Clap Can't wait for more!

Thanks again for REXPaint, it's been a great help, both for mockups and for graphics for the game. (I'm using the csv format because it seems like the easiest to parse - someday I'll learn more about file i/o and switch to xp.)
No problem, just happy to see it getting plenty of use for various games and art. And if it were me five years ago, I'd go with csv, too =p
Don't you just love how mockups are exactly what it will look like in game? Wink
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