Angry Tanks - Need suggestions
Community Forums/Showcase/Angry Tanks - Need suggestions
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| http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/angrytanks-05-13-05.zip I am considering working on my Angry Tanks game once again, as it is the nearest to completion of any of my game projects, and I am more rapidly running out of time to get something finished than I thought I was a month ago. My plan would be to tear out the internet multiplayer because getting that to work has been extremely problematic and greatly increases the complexity of the code. The game would instead contain a local two player mode, as well as computer controlled tanks. Another part of my plan would be to remove the whole tank-health thing, and go with how the classic game worked, where one shot equals one kill. This would increase the sense of danger, and increase the number of explosions. Players would respawn a set number of times per round, and then when all players run out of respawns except one, the round would end and that player would be the winner. Having your tank blown up would also cost you any weapon you had collected at the time, and you'd be back to the standard pea shooter. Another part of my plan would be to remove the ability of the tanks to turn their turrets. Not only does rotating the turret cause confusion about which direction you're going to move when you press up, but with two players on one keyboard, it would get a bit hectic trying to give each player six keys for movement plus one to fire. Also, in many ways, not being able to turn the turret of your tank is more fun, because you can't simply pop out behind a corner on occasion to shoot past it and then duck back quickly. Above and beyond this, I don't really know what I should do with the game to improve upon it. Obviously I need to get the AI working, as it does not yet. Does anyone have any gameplay suggestions, or art suggestions or level suggestions or anything? How do you think I should make the game play? Keep in mind that I plan to sell the game, and I need the game to have incentive for the user to purchase the full version. I need to have some kind of demo which shows off X number of weapons or something and offer more in a full version, or offer multiplayer in the full version but not in the demo, or limit the amount of time the user can play the demo. With the current weapons and such how interested might you be in buying a full version of the game? One powerup I plan to add that is not in yet is a shield that can take one hit, or one with three rotating panels, each of which can take a hit, like Mario Kart does with the shells. I haven't decided if I will have explosions cause nearby objects to explode. I was going to with the health system in place, but if I have it so each tank has only 1 health, the explosions might make it too easy to take other tanks out. Any ideas for additional weapons or powerups? Are you happy with the weapons the way they are now? I'm concerned people won't be satisfied with different colored spheres for weapons, but the whole point initially was to be kind of retro like that. It's not supposed to be a game with missiles and land mines. Let me know what you think! My other option is to try to do something with my Boing game (monkey ball/marble madness clone) as that too is pretty far along. That might be easier to make into a game that would sell. With that I'd have moving objects and things as obstacles to avoid with your sphere. I'm pretty sure it'd be a lot of fun, and there'd be pads that do different things like speed the ball up, and items to collect. Which would you rather see me complete? |
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| I think you could easily go 2 player split screen. No network is fine. I think you should keep health. I'd make some more impressive looking shots and more impressive 'my shot hit another tank' fx. Different weapons - double shot, 3 way shot, 5 way shot. Not moving the turret is fine. |
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| If you post a nice screenshot for us to see, I will definitely give you some ideas and comments - I can't run your zipped app as I'm on a Mac. |
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| Same like Rob and: I'm personally only looking forward to find a project i can make great AI on, and this immediatly struck me. If i was you, since i love making AI, i'd make it to have an option with teams and i'd make AI that works as a team, is able to learn what the players habbits are and adapt (for example). Also this being a game with 2d levels, making such ai would be very straight forward. I dont think that too many people would get the 'retro' feeling if you make the game with only a few orbs coming out of the turrets. The more visual the weaponsa re the better. And i'd definately keep health and introduce weapons with splash damage (explosions) and some sort of artilery-like weapons that also do area damage. This way tanks can take a variable amount of damage depending on how far from the explosion they are etc. The levels are ok to be made of square tiles, but of course make the textures as rich as possible. I'd like to see a jungle tile set to play on, but so far it seems youre going for the no-texture clean/cartoony look, in which case i dont know what to say. Make the map be able to rotate, make the camera be able to track the tank and allow for 3rd person view as well as 1st person (locked and free). Not maybe too useful, but games are prettier if you have a 1st person view, to me. Its that "get down" feeling. :) Minimap. Depending on how much work you want to invest, make the maps with multiple floors/levels? Anyhow, i keep thinking how i'm to this day looking for a game with AI that would impress me. If i found the simplest tank game with incredible AI, i'd play it throught my lifetime. I still havent found AI that can outwit me, if you know what i mean. The bots such as those in UT which can aim too well, thats no fun. Its my dream to either play or make myself a game with brilliant, thinking, morphing, AI! But thats just my idea... :) |
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| Maybe instead of one shot one kill... the power ups bolt on a weapon or special article to your tank, and if you get hit, one of them gets blown off. If you have no weapons attached, the tank gets blown up. Perhaps these power ups could actually come from either blown up tanks or the weapons being blown off them. Ideas for power ups: Longer shots Faster missiles Higher firing rate 3 missles Back firing missiles Homing missile Exploding missile (even if it doesn't hit anything, blows up after certain distance with blast radius) Mines Go Faster Turn Faster Invisibility (would be difficult in split screen I know) Shield Teleport Tractor beam (pulls special items to you) Minitanks (small AI controlled tank that you can let loose to hunt down opponents for you) I also think making the scenery destructible would be cool. |
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| Please post a screenshot. www.photobucket.com has free space. |
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| Uh, I'm gunna be the odd one out and say go with the marble madness thing ;] |
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