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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSpace Scavenger (Working title, need something better)
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Author Topic: Space Scavenger (Working title, need something better)  (Read 3200 times)
valkrin
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« on: April 19, 2009, 11:35:58 AM »

Hello! I've been working on a game for about a month now, and now that I have the game and ideas fleshed out I thought I'd post it here to get peoples opinions.

Concept:

You pilot a space scavenger ship. Your goal is to collect the massive amount of junk that floats in space. Your ship must do so while avoiding the hazards of space which include asteriods, pirate ships fully equipped with weapons and even other scavengers out to get you so they can have all the space junk for themselves.

Your ship does not have any weapons. Instead your ship can pull in junk which falls within a certain radius of your ship. Also for defense your ship can emit a force field which repels anything within a certain radius of your ship. Finally for extremely dangerous conditions you can take control of a nearby asteriod and use it defend against incoming enemy fire and if you feel violent you can swing it around to smash enemy ships.

The game is currently playable but I need to implement the grabbing an asteriod and using it for defense and offense. I hope to have a playable demo available very soon.

So what do you guys think of the idea?

Updates:
Very basic playable version of the game with the basic concepts implemented is available.

Play/Download
Java webstart http://mamin.exofire.net/spaceScavenger.jnlp
Direct download http://mamin.exofire.net/scavenger.zip

CONTROLS:

Arrow keys to move ship

a - attract nearby junk
s - push back nearby objects (can only use when blue bar is full)
d - Commandeer nearest asteroid (the asteroid will be destroyed if it collides with a ship or gets shot enough)

Java 1.6+ is required to run the game.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2009, 05:34:03 AM by valkrin » Logged
Lynx
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« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2009, 01:32:40 PM »

Seems like a good idea!  Maybe the objective is to pick up the junk and move it to a waiting cargo carrier, and you're trying to avoid having the valuable junk be shot up to bits by the enemies.  So you pick up the worthless (but large and shield-like) junk and move them to form a blocky path, then you dash in for the valuable treasure and go from cover to cover to get away.
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Bood_war
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« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2009, 04:54:51 PM »

Reminds me of SOLAR JETMAN for the NES.  Tongue
Sounds good though.
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valkrin
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« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2009, 09:19:38 PM »

Seems like a good idea!  Maybe the objective is to pick up the junk and move it to a waiting cargo carrier, and you're trying to avoid having the valuable junk be shot up to bits by the enemies.  So you pick up the worthless (but large and shield-like) junk and move them to form a blocky path, then you dash in for the valuable treasure and go from cover to cover to get away.

I hadn't thought about making the junk destructible, but thats a very good idea. I don't think junk should be destroyed if it intersects an asteroids though. I currently have all junk and asteroids just start at one end of the screen and fly by as the game auto-scrolls, the player then maneuvers to get close enough to the junk to grab it with the tractor beam and then try pulling it in. Here is a screenshot (don't laugh, I'm no artist):



The blue triangle is the player ship. The other triangles are junk, the larger the junk the more mass it has and the harder it will be to pull. Junk is color coded by its value. The gray stuff is just asteroids. The lines between the ship and the junk indicate that the junk is within the range of the tractor beam. Junk that has alot of mass and is moving away from the player ship will be very difficult to pull in, cause the player has to contend with the junks opposite velocity. This forces the player to try and capture as much junk as they can when it is coming toward them.

Since everything is moving quickly it makes it difficult to create blocky paths. I like that idea though. I might have to make another prototype of the game where it acts more like a platformer and the camera follows the ship... Smiley
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Lynx
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« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2009, 11:10:36 PM »

Well, you could have several different gameplay modes to keep the play varied!
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Griff
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« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2009, 08:22:15 AM »

Sounds like a really cool idea to me!  I like the idea of being able to grab asteroids and use them as shields.  Maybe as you hold onto them they degrade as they hit things to a point that they no longer protect you.
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ChevyRay
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« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2009, 08:29:28 AM »

The concept sounds cool. Are we gonna run into space pirates who want to raid your goodies? If so, I'm on this. Cool
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valkrin
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« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2009, 09:28:12 PM »

Sounds like a really cool idea to me!  I like the idea of being able to grab asteroids and use them as shields.  Maybe as you hold onto them they degrade as they hit things to a point that they no longer protect you.

Bingo. The asteroids will eventually fall apart from the damage they take.

The concept sounds cool. Are we gonna run into space pirates who want to raid your goodies? If so, I'm on this. Cool

That is the plan. Instead of trying to blow your ship up, the pirates will just try to immobilize your ship and take your loot. I'm working on how to best implement that in the game....


Dev log for today:

Added the ability to commandeer asteroids.
Working on simplifying the controls.
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Xion
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« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2009, 04:18:35 PM »

titles?:
Scraps
Scrappers
Starjunk (+Scavenger?)
SpaceTrash
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valkrin
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« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2009, 09:52:23 PM »

Okay, been working on this whenever I could find the time. I have a few ideas on what to do next but I'm afraid that I might be changing the game too much or for the worse. So before I spend a bunch of time adding questionable features to the game I thought it would be helpful to get some critical feedback.

I am considering making bullets reverse direction when they are repelled, this would allow the player to indirectly attack enemies. Also if I do this I would consider adding bosses. However I am wondering if this would change the gameplay too much.

Secondly, I am considering removing the ability to commandeer asteroids because I think in practice its not very useful/fun. I may be wrong.

Finally, I wanted pirate ships to rob the player ship of junk. I thought of making pirate ships stun the player ship and then take some loot, but that proved difficult to implement because the game is auto-scrolling forward, and if the player ship is stunned they will probably get killed by asteroids, or I would have to make a massive programming effort to sort of pause everything in the game other than the pirate ships on screen so they can loot the player ship...

Anyway, I couldn't think of a good way to implement it, so for now the enemy ships are just like enemies in any other shmup.

CONTROLS:

Arrow keys to move ship

a - attract nearby junk
s - push back nearby objects (can only use when blue bar is full)
d - Commandeer nearest asteroid (the asteroid will be destroyed if it collides with a ship or gets shot enough)

PLAY THE GAME --> http://mamin.exofire.net/spaceScavenger.jnlp

Requires Java 1.6+

The web host I have sort of sucks, so if you can't get to it you may need to try again.
Downloadable versions coming soon.

titles?:
Scraps
Scrappers
Starjunk (+Scavenger?)
SpaceTrash

I like StarJunk Scavengers and Scrappers the best. Thanks!
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Loren Schmidt
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« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2009, 11:21:18 PM »

This is a good idea, and it's already pretty fun.

I really like the little lines radiating out to the collectibles within range.

There are a couple mechanics that don't quite feel nice yet, though. The asteroid capture and the repulsion moves both seem pretty lacklustre.

Collecting debris is already fun, and it almost feels really good. I might suggest making the debris inertial with a low velocity cap. That way it wouldn't stop abruptly when the tractor beam is switched off. Instead of stopping it abruptly, it could be stopped by friction over a half second or so.

This is a neat game, I look forward to seeing where it goes.
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valkrin
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« Reply #11 on: May 06, 2009, 09:43:45 PM »

This is a good idea, and it's already pretty fun.

I really like the little lines radiating out to the collectibles within range.

There are a couple mechanics that don't quite feel nice yet, though. The asteroid capture and the repulsion moves both seem pretty lacklustre.

Collecting debris is already fun, and it almost feels really good. I might suggest making the debris inertial with a low velocity cap. That way it wouldn't stop abruptly when the tractor beam is switched off. Instead of stopping it abruptly, it could be stopped by friction over a half second or so.

This is a neat game, I look forward to seeing where it goes.

I'm glad you find it fun, I was actually very worried about that since the game concept is so simple, I was afraid it wouldn't be enough to be entertaining.

I agree with you, the capture and repulsion need some work; I'm just not sure what though. The inertia is a great idea, I'll add it to the next update. Thanks for your input!
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