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[hijong park]

Hornet Virus is a sequel of my previous game 'Steel Alcimus', and my first 3D game project.

It's an arcade game about flying an attack helicopter to blow up the enemies in 3D atmosphere.

The gameplay is inspired by The niche 3D shooter called Zarch from acorn archimedes,(or Virus in other platforms) as well as many other arcade helicopter games including infamous strike series, seek and destroy, and zeewolf which is also a Zarch-inspired game.

Having no experiences about 3D at all, it was a big challenge to make the 3D space from scratch. But fortunately I have managed to make the basic prototype of it.

This project is now completed, try it here :
https://gamejolt.com/games/hornetvirus/486302

Now on steam as well :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1234700/Hornet_Virus_Steel_Alcimus_II/

[AgentAvis]

This looks wicked fun!! keep going, i'd love to play this! Excellent work. 

[hijong park]

Today's progression of Hornet Virus:

- Added UI

- Added some soundeffects.

- Some graphic improvements.

- Added various weapons including machine gun, rocket, missile, bomb, torpedo, and some special ones like Doomsday bomb, Fuel pod, and radar jammer.

- Added camera rotation.

- Added Two playable helicopters.



Blue Hornet

Blue hornet is an armed scout helicopter. By extracting landing gear, The maneuverability increases a lot and it can automically hover which is useful for comfortable flight.

with its great rotor power It can easily reach the highest height and perform dive attack, which is especially useful for using rockets at ground enemies.

However it has weaker armor with worse fuel efficiency.



Steel Alcimus

Steel Alcimus is an attack helicopter has great armor with great fuel efficiency. not only that, it can carry one extra weapon for not having the extracting landing gear.
However, it is a lot slower than Blue Hornet and you must keep pressing throttle button to fly - or It will go down and crash. also It can only carry 2 hostages at once.

[nova++]

I love the style so much, I'm very fond of "authentic" ultra low-poly graphics like this

[hijong park]

I love the style so much, I'm very fond of "authentic" ultra low-poly graphics like this

Me too, I also like flat-plane low poly 3D graphics that 80-90s computer games had. I still play games like Guardian, LHX attack chopper, Mechwarrior.

[hijong park]

- Added Platinum Sabulosa. Platinum Sabulosa is a transport helicopter that has 2 door gunners and can carry 10 hostages at once.

- Added various enemies including infantries, mobile SAM, Sub marine, and Jets.

- Added Enemy helipads and airfields which spawn enemy aircrafts.

- I'm Currently Working on instant action mode before the campaign. Instant action is a quick arcade mode, where you complete your randomly generated missions.

- Some more optimization works.

[rav10li]

Love the audio, that "hi-def retro" sound is awesome. Looks great!

[hijong park]

The developlemt of this game wasn't so smooth for several weeks.

I tried to make a dynamic 3D terrain for many days but failed and eventually decided to go with flat square grounds, and the project got corrupted once that I had redone all the works again.


- Added title screen.



- Tweaked the controls and autoaim angle. It feels much better now.



- Added 2 more helicopters : Sawfly warrior (based on Oh-58D Kiowa Warrior) and Bronze Vespula.(based on UH-60 Black Hawk)



Bronze Vespula is a transport helicoter with slowest maneuverability and largest boarding size.

Compared to Platinum Sabulosa, It can equip only 1 weapon and door gunners has smaller effective range but slightly faster and has more durable armor.



Sawfly Warrior is a light observation helicopter with weakest armor and fastest maneuverability.

It doesn't have any fixed turrets, but instead it has IR jammer which deactivates enemy missiles and Mortar observer to call the mortar support.

Mortars deal great amount of damage, but it's only efffective for inmoving ground targets.



- Added more missions in Instant action including Escort and capturing enemy base.



- Various bug fixes and optimizations

[hijong park]

- Got rid of ugly square islands and replaced them with procedurally generated islands.

- Added Enemy C&C vehicle who spots you and calls air support to their aircrafts.

- Added Radar range adjustment.

- Added Training and Free flight in Main game mode.

[ChunkiEgg]

This looks awesome!

I spent so much of my school breaks on the Archimedes playing Zarch (This when they replaced the bbc micro in schools in the UK, showing my age now :D) , and Zeewolf was one of my favourite Amiga games. I am so glad someone is making a game in that vein.

Are the controls the same as the source games or are you going with a Desert Strike style control method?

I have been lurking on these forums for a few years but this has made me sign up

[hijong park]

This looks awesome!

I spent so much of my school breaks on the Archimedes playing Zarch (This when they replaced the bbc micro in schools in the UK, showing my age now :D) , and Zeewolf was one of my favourite Amiga games. I am so glad someone is making a game in that vein.

Are the controls the same as the source games or are you going with a Desert Strike style control method?

I have been lurking on these forums for a few years but this has made me sign up

The control is similar to zeewolf with some additional commands.

The helicopter steers to the direction of the D pad you pressed like zeewolf, and you can control the flying height by pressing collective key, and pressing hold key fixes the helicopters' face like strafing in desert strike.

Some helicopters with retractable landing gear have auto hovering feature when the gear is up, (like zeewolf) and other helicopters with traditional skids requires keep pressing collective key to keep flying.

There are mouse control mode as well which is identical to zeewolf's. Mouse control mode allows you to steer the helicopter at 90 degree instead of 45.

I tried desert strike style controls as well as third person chase view camera, But I scrapped them as it was too hard to control.

Since attacking enemies in 3D with helicopter's flight characteristic is more complicated than in 2D, I had to make the controls as simple as possible.

[OctoMini]

Looks great! Immediately reminded me of Desert Strike which I played a lot with Mega Drive. I love the sounds as well!. They alone evoke so much nostalgia! Would be happy to test this! Why are you limiting the field of view?

[hijong park]

Looks great! Immediately reminded me of Desert Strike which I played a lot with Mega Drive. I love the sounds as well!. They alone evoke so much nostalgia! Would be happy to test this! Why are you limiting the field of view?

There are two reasons. Not only it helps increasing FPS in my crappy laptop, it's easier to see the distance where the enemy starts attacking and the player's auto targeting works. And since the level is wrapped-around, the view distance must be limited at some point or it will cause some weird visual problems. But I'll add different field of view settings in option.

[hijong park]

- Added Air Patrol mode.
In this mode, You have to protect 4 bases frome eneimes and destroy all enemies that invaded your archipelago. You can also get some health bonus by saving civilians.

- Improved flight controls with much faster and smoother flying.

- Added Crosshair for ground attack.



- Added Flare. Flares are automically launched when the guided missile is approaching. You must perform Avoidance maneuver when the flare is launched to avoid the missile.



The development was stopped for a moment because my laptop was suddenly screwed up. Fortunately, I could buy a better new laptop and continue the development.

[JobLeonard]

I love the style so much, I'm very fond of "authentic" ultra low-poly graphics like this

^^^^^^

[hijong park]

https://gamejolt.com/games/hornetvirus/486302

The first version of Hornet Virus is now released ! try it now.

[JobLeonard]

Looks amazing! (can't try it because Linux)

[DrDerekDoctors]

Ha! Love the look of it! As well as the obvious Virus/Zarch comparison, it reminded me of a game I haven't thought about in 20 years: Return Fire on the PS1 (and 3DO).

[Ted]

This looks really cool! Will try it later

@DrDerekDoctors - ohhh I like the camera movement in that game. It's maybe too wobbley left/right, but overall it makes it surprisingly exciting.

[hijong park]

This looks really cool! Will try it later

@DrDerekDoctors - ohhh I like the camera movement in that game. It's maybe too wobbley left/right, but overall it makes it surprisingly exciting.

I'd like to add similar camera movement in the next patch!