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[BlueSweatshirt]

Hello everyone!
This is [Z4R]Infinite Star Expanse.(ISE)

ISE plays off of many elements of the shmup genre to attempt to create something new and fresh. Something seasoned shmup players will enjoy, and something people new to the genre won't be afraid to try.

X! [Z4R] is a tag I use for all games made by me.(no collaboration, with the exception of sound)

You may also want to look at the original dev-topic posted for the game here at Shmup-Dev.

Any and all commentary is appreciated. 
I'll post updates as they happen.

I've cleaned up the topic, made it a bit shorter and more readable.

So what are you doing, exactly? 

The game is focused around Current Year(2009/10) + 500.

Before we go that far though, about 200 years into the future, planet Earth is deemed no longer inhabitable, then begins the Pioneering Age. Humans eventually found four other inhabitable planets over a harsh century, and live there to this day. What came of Earth is practically an urban legend now; twisted tales that more easily resemble folklore.

"300 years have passed... And the years are catching up to us." - Methuselah II

This game, I hope, will have a deep entertaining storyline. I'm not a brilliant writer, but I'm certainly not bad either. Comic relief is definitely something I'm good at, and something I'll be going for.
 
My goal with this game is to go off the typical tangent of shmups, but still provide a classic shmup experience at the same time. I'd like the story to be one of the main focus points in this game, whereas usually in shmups(and many other games) the story is either minimal or ignorable.(and usually not interesting whatsoever)

One thing about this game, not entirely unique, is the 'options'(nodes that provide extra firepower) system. Much like the options in shmups like Gradius or DoDonPachi. Although these options are mounted to your ship as a system of interchangeable weapons. The amount of options you may have depends entirely on the ship you're piloting.
It's also worthy to note that you'll be able to level up these options as the game progresses. Giving a much more RPG flow to the game.(but hopefully without the monotonous grinding)

So... What are you doing that's really different? 

All stages of the game will be based on procedural generation. Predefined elements like enemies and terrain will be created beforehand, but the actual levels will be entirely generated. The generation will be based on 3 keywords, provided by the player. Those familiar with the Chaos Gates from .Hack// should understand this system pretty well.

My hope is to bring something new and fun to the shmup genre, this generation system will hopefully knock one of the most painstaking elements of shmups: Brute memorization.

Finally, some pretty stuff!
WHFF has been taken down, and I've lost a lot of the data. I'll be trying to find and replace the missing pictures ASAP.

I'm going to be dumping all kinds of art and visual teasers for the game below. With a little commentary on each.

What am I doing right now?
26/11/09: Finishing the designing process

[deathtotheweird]

I really the sketch you got over the ones you modeled, but they're not too bad either.

This looks like a shmup I'd really want to play. procedurally generated stages?   

[BlueSweatshirt]

I really the sketch you got over the ones you modeled, but they're not too bad either.

This looks like a shmup I'd really want to play. procedurally generated stages?   

Yessir!
I've finished the pseudo-code for the stage generation. All the processes and steps are listed out, etc. Now I just need to make specifications for the different stage types/areas/enemies/etc. which will all come later.
[EDIT](to prevent confusion to my below post, this first method I created was basically fail, and created extremely cluttered and fragmented stages.)

[BlueSweatshirt]

A bump to let everyone know this project is still a go, and I'm still working on it.(although progress is slow.)

I really need some help, guys!
I have no idea how I'm going to specifically do the stage generation. If anyone could help me figure out a method that I can build off of, I would appreciate it!

[s0]

The system most games with generated levels (apart from some roguelikes) use is based on predefined "tiles"  that are are randomly stuck together (see Diablo, Spelunky etc.). You'll have to write an algorithm that makes sure all the tiles fit together properly, that the player's path isn't completely obstructed etc.

Since this is a shmup, I'm not sure how much you're going to do in terms of objects in your levels aside from enemies. Because if it's mostly just enemies, randomly generating groups of them is pretty easy. Just think of these "random event charts" in games like D&D.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Thanks for the advice.

Although, my problem here is that there is an abundance of both enemies and obstacles in the levels. Obstacles are mostly just walls. Now, I could go the easy way and have enemies and obstacles spawn in the same 'tile set's, but I don't know how well that will actually vary in the levels. I'd like to have obstacles and enemy sets split apart, but the enemy movements and obstacle movement could occasionally get in the way of each other.

Lots of planning and thoughtwork to do, still! 

[s0]

I'd like to have obstacles and enemy sets split apart

That sounds like a good idea.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I'm thinking the easiest approach to this is to have enemy units dynamically calculate a path, rather than use a predefined motion path.

It wouldn't hurt to check that if  there were no obstacles in it's corresponding segment, that I could assign a specific motion path anyway. Just in case I want a little flare.