I had hoped to have something to enter, and I knuckled down to get various features written, but it soon became clear the scope of the game I have in my head was too big to complete before the June deadline.
I'm still going to write that game (campaign based gameplay fought over a dynamic battlefield), but I've decided to concentrate for the moment on an 'arcade' mode. This I hope will achieve three things:
- Introduce a shorter-term, shmup style gameplay, which I believe may appeal to a greater number of gamers (XBox specifically) than a campaign style game
- Shorten the time it will take me to produce a playable demo - something I've wanted quite badly for a while now
- Still allow me to work towards the goal of a campaign style game - most elements will be used in both gameplay styles
Unfortunately I dont think I'm going to even have this ready for DBP11, due to a lot of time spent Optimizing the XBox code, and also a heavy home life schedule over the last couple of months. Still, there is always next year!
I am a big fan of bullet point notes, as you may have noticed. Here are a few features I've thought of for the arcade mode of my game:
- A more continuous style of game - no need to land your plane (a tricky prospect for a causual player)
- Aiming at a single level / map taking between 5 to 10 minutes to complete
- Enemy planes on missions (from the campaign gameplay style) manifest themselves as waves of enemies
- Bonuses appear on destroying targets
- Bonuses (such as extra fuel, weapons etc) appear as crates on parachutes (a tip of the hat to SkyStrike, the game that most heavily influences me - if you dont know it, check out this video)
- Still keep elements of friendly air / ground / naval forces - perhaps extra points depending on how many survived at the end of each game?