New game project going gold soon...
Community Forums/Showcase/New game project going gold soon...
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| Well, I got Blitz Basic down to a science now. It seems like we will be seeing a flight game project going gold after all. However, it is called "DodgeFlight." Why such a name as DodgeFlight? Well, I was trying to come up with a concept that took elements of a dogfight, as well as elements of Dodgeball as well, and you were in flight with fighter jets, so it all came together with that clever name. It is actually a tournament-based flight battle that pits you in a F-22 Raptor vs. a Mig-29 Fulcrum in a one-on-one battle. The goal is to avoid the enemy plane from crashing into you, or else he scores a point. If you knock him down with a missile or a machine gun bullet, you score a point. The first point to hit the frag limit of 20 wins, and the game is then over. This takes place in the Middle East, and it seems to be worth the effort of coming up with that theme (trying to stick with current events, you know). It should be gold, and on an FTP sometime around Valentine's Day or President's Day (somewhere in Mid-February in Lehman's terms). Here is a quick screenie from the game itself. Should be fun. The way I programmed it, I was hoping to port it to a console eventually, but I don't think that's gonna happen, not with Blitz 3D (I wish they'd make it easier to port to a PSP or an XBox, or something). Here's your screenshot:  It'll be released when it's done, but that should be within the next couple of weeks at most. It's one of the first flight games to be used as a tournament battle, but I sort of took that idea from Quake 3 Arena (give or take), as well as some flight games like Crimson Skies (I believe that's the flight game for XBox), and Captain Skyhawk (remember that from the NES from a long time ago?). It should be a great game to release for those who like top-down flight combat games. I won't disappoint this time, not like that project that I recently dumped. |
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| Not to sure what it will look like in motion but cloud replacement is a must and will help with the feeling of motion also the color scheme could do with toning down land tends to be pale tone while sea looks good with deep blue,greens at the moment that planes seem out of place Nice concept good look |
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| that screenshot looks odd... |
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| Well, I understand about the clouds, but with the help of PSP X, and that enhancement feature, I was able to make them look a little more realistic than MS Paint was able to make them (after using the spray paint tool in MS Paint, then turning them into more cotton ball consistency in PSP, guess that color balance must've made them more sepia, but that's the way Corel programmed it, I guess). Also, the ground below, I wanted to make it look a little desert-like, like you were really in the Middle East. To me, designing a desert fighter seemed to be a little easier than a WWII fighter. There's too many WWII games out there, I felt that having a flight game with a more current theme would probably change the trend of war gaming. |
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| too much contrast on the terrain... and the water and clouds need work... as do the plane graphics... abandon MSPaint and try and find an older version of PSPro (4.1 shareware free or version 8, got mine from Amazon for around $30)... yeah... nice concept... good luck... --Mike |
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| Serves me right for trying to make the graphics look real. Maybe if I made it more 3D using Maya (if I had $600 I could go for Maya 7, but that's asking too much). I did look around for realistic pictures over the internet, and tried to enhance them to make them look "desert-like" in the Afghanistan region. Are you asking me not to make this game go gold after a month's worth of effort? Well, maybe I may go 3D on this one, give it that "XBox" look to it. Off topic: I wonder if Crimson Skies is available for PC as well as XBox, that was an awesome game demo at EB Games that I played about a year ago. |
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| "I felt that having a flight game with a more current theme would probably change the trend of war gaming." Dude, I'm not trying to get down on your idea here, but your talking about this thing like it's the next Halo....going gold? Ports to Xbox? You have a top-down 2D shooter that was drawn in MS paint. Spend a couple years studying programming, color theory, marketing trends, and have a couple games that have been proven to be accepted by a wide audience in the gaming industry before you try to 'go gold' with stuff that looks like it was made pre-1982. Not trying to be an ass here, I just really think this thing may not go the way your expecting it to. Good luck either way though, the idea itself sounds cool. |
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| As said before, take down the contrast of the backround graphics a touch, they are overpowering and draw the eye more than the players. Maybe try and lower the brightness a touch :o) |
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| Ah, the brightness, I thought you meant something else. All in all, it does have that desert look. Well, some of it was done in MS Paint, but the majority was snapshots from the Internet, and enhanced in PSP. I sort of do some "tag team" graphics development with different programs coming together. Pretty soon, I'll be looking into doing Maya with another version, and using this code format on 3D-style gameplay. As I said, hope that some versions of Maya won't be that bad of price as it's made out to be. I'm not about to spend $600 on that, as some budgets don't allow for those high price tags for a graphics enhancement program. I don't even think Maya's really available to the general public, either, except for their demo programs, which are very limited in features as opposed to the "big game company" versions. |
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| yeah... these are just suggestions from people who are doing similar projects... no one is telling you to delay or do anything Bob... they are just suggesting things to help make your project be the best that it can be... when all is said and done, you're gonna do what you want anyways... right... now, you may find some of the critique a lil overbearing, but trust me... most of these guys do know what they are talking about... and most will give you an honest critique... a far better one than you'll get outside these doors... and if you really want to go 3D in the future... save some money and try out TrueSpce 3.1 it's free and quite capable... (although it's not quite Maya, but then what is)... again... good luck... --Mike |
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I guess you're probably right. I did, however, make it a little more natural looking. Let's see if the naysayers are getting more approval from this: This seems to be getting into a more graphical direction now, not that old Sepia look that it had before. |
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| Well, the planes do look to blend in, but I sort of want a military look to the fighter jets. The air force likes to have them, greenish-brown, or dark gray, etc... Or at least that's how they look in the movies, silver, camoflauge, etc... Well, at least the planes don't blend in as much as the original program, but the new ground and cloud contrast seem to be more vibrant with the "One Click Photo Fix" routine. I'm glad that PSP made a nice move there. Not too sure what color scheme would be best for the jets, tho, I was looking at the old military scheme, but that would make it TOO real. |
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| Bob, Bob, Bob. I'm sorry, but the graphics are utterly dreadful - they could hardly be worse. 'Programmer Art' is bad, m'kay?! If you're serious about developing this game for *any* amount of public consumption, you're going to have to employ the skills of a decent artist. I don't mean to sound harsh but I trust you'd rather have my honest oppinion, rather than have me blow smoke up your *ss. :) |
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| Understood, but keep in mind that these graphics were done before I got my Graphire 4 Tablet. That's one of the reasons why I invested in a separate tablet, so I can do hand-sketched art, which is far superior to the old keyboard and mouse. I notice that Wacom's a great tablet, no matter what they say. Guess I'll be using this tablet for future versions. I'm sold on doing hand art rather than mouse art, like I did with this game, guess it's time to give the mouse a rest next time. |
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Something more like this i'd say, to make the ships stand out more. I put a dodgy black outline round the craft :S so, er.. ignore that to a certain degree :o) Some more clouds, blending a little:  |
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| Ah yes, I guess my version was a little "Nintendo-ey." Thank you for that, and it shall be made exactly like that one on the bottom. I'll look around to see how that's done, now that I got my Graphire tablet, we shall be doing something rather interesting using that fog technique. |
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| Well, i think you may def need to use blitz3d for that, and use sprites, because that will probably be impossible to do in blitz, using 2d stuff only i think. Good luck :o) |
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| That's what I'm using is Blitz 3D, believe it or not. While I'm at it, once I find out how to use Maya, or another tool like that, then it'll really pop. I'm hoping to get into 3D-style flight sims soon. Maybe this may be going 3D after a while. |
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| Well, you could get away with using just 3d sprites :o) There's no real need to model much. You just trying to take advantage of the alpha and blending modes :o) But, goodluck if your going to model the landscape and such. |
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| Well, the following screenshots sort of break down the new components that I'm probably going to be using now (after using that Wacom Graphics Tablet, I was able to get this to be far more realistic). Here's the screenshots by the components that I am using:  These are the clouds now, and it seems to be fluffier, and richer than the others.  This is the player's airplane  This is the enemy's airplane  These are the bullets and the missiles that you will be shooting (separate key commands for the bullet and the missile, obviously).  This is an aerial view that I picked out from Afghanistan, and seems to be where this theme takes place (sticking with the current events). All in all, once I stick these components together, it should mask together perfectly, and make for a better game experience than the former screenshots. It's a little more 3D looking, and it seems to be more realistic looking than the old style. Seems to be getting closer to release, I should say. |
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| may want to note your player and enemy planes are set at an angle and also that aerial view is also at an angle which might look kinda weird in the game. |
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| I do admit, at least with that perspective, I tried to go for that "3-D" look, give or take. After all, since I was coding this in Blitz 3D, it should be natively natural 3D throughout. Seems like with the right code and feel, it should be just that. Just like playing it on an XBox. |
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| if you stick with 2d, if i were you, i would look for some free 3d models of jets and open them up in your fav program and render them from the angles you need and use those. unless you a pixel art master its far easyer to do than drawing each sprite. Pete 5 mins in cinema4d  id add a texture to the model if it was me but not a bad result Pete |
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| The terrain image could probably be created with terragen.At the minute, it's viewed from an angle and so the perspective is off. http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ |
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