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Project Proposals
May. 19th, 2006 09:00 amNow that classes are over forever and my life is obviously totally devoid of purpose, I suppose it's time to be thinking about my next MMF project. Actually, I'll probably put off actually starting anything until MMF2 is released (which will hopefully be soon - one of the other TDC admins seems to know more than he's letting on but won't tell me anything) but I can at least put forward some ideas and build up a couple of proof-of-concept engines, or something like that. Obviously, at the moment the only names I can come up with are my uniquely-style working titles (like the inspired Custom Platform Movement Advanced Project (Crystal Towers) and Random Platform Game Experiment (Treasure Tower), but let me know if you see something you're interested in.
Proposal 1. Secret Agent Game
This is the shortest of these proposals, and is therefore the most likely to actually get done. After playing Apogee's Secret Agent for ages recently, I couldn't help thinking how strangely addictive it was despite being an incredibly simple platformer - get keys, open doors, shoot some things, get to the exit. This project would be a semi-remake of the game, but with the concept of "missions" added on to give each level a unique feeling. I'm quite enthusiastic about doing this, but the only downside is that it's yet another platformer and I've been doing those for half my St Andrews career.
Advantage: The most well-formed idea out of this lot.
Disadvantage: Platformer.
Proposal 2. AAG 2
The original AAG (which rather sensibly stands for Another Adventure Game) was created during my fifth year in high school, and was the first significant game project of mine. It was a top-down adventure - a Gameboy Zelda sort of thing - split over twelve chapters, and took most of a year to make. I still haven't actually released it, because looking back on it, not a whole lot of the game makes much sense and the game feels rather tatty. Perhaps I'll occupy myself by cleaning it up and releasing it before MMF2 arrives.
I've had the storyline for a sequel together in my head for absolutely ages now, and even though it will be a significant undertaking, I'd rather like to get it made. It'll be an opportunity to put some of my writing and humour into a game again, which is rather difficult in the platformers that I've released over the last two years.
Actually, here's an ancient start to the game that was written about four years ago. The controls aren't totally obvious - Arrows to move, WASD for the inventory cursor, Shift to examine/pick up, Ctrl to look at the highlighted item in your inventory, Space to use the highlighted item. You'll get the hang of it.
Advantage: It's something that I've been wanting to do for ages.
Disadvantage: If it's taken me five years to get around to doing it, it'll probably take that amount of time to finish it.
Proposal 3. Dizzy-Type Adventure
Do you remember the Dizzy games? You won't if you're in America because he never reached there, but over here his adventure games were a phenomenon back in the day. And they were very simple - a side-scrolling platform world, with a string of items that had to be used on each other in some way, mostly via running back and forward over vast distances to hide a lack of gameplay.
After playing Tombi!, which reminded me a lot of Dizzy, I was rather inspired to make one of my own. I have already commissioned Jamie to draw the characters (in a unique twist, the protagonist is to be a jam jar with legs, and I'll probably name it after him if this ever gets going). Then I just need to build up a large game world - the gimmick of which might be that the whole thing is completely continuous, with no visible swapping between screens/locations at all. Well, you've got to do something impressive these days.
Advantage: Something a bit different.
Disadvantage: Platformer. In essence.
Proposal 4. Iron Savior
The IS storyline deserves to be made into a game. It has all the necessary ingredients - a war-torn futuristic setting, battles between planet-sized robots, and a plot that spans a little over four hundred millenia - and as you can tell from the link, it's become rather complex over the band's lifetime.
The only trouble is that I'm not entirely sure what genre the whole thing should be transformed into. The best I can think of is an Albion-type RPG (because I've been playing that a lot recently - I'll tell you about it later), but that's quite a step forward in terms of the complexity of making it. And while I have ideas of how to tell the storyline within the game, thinking up the actual gameplay elements is proving to be more problematic.
Advantage: It would be fantastic if it worked.
Disadvantage: I don't actually have a clue how to do it.
Proposal 5. Top Down Driving Game
I have yet to see a decent racing game made in MMF, and that's presumably because the physics involved are surprisingly complex. I tried to get a convincing top-down engine working before hitting on the idea of Treasure Tower, but the whole thing ultimately broke flagrantly. And that's just interaction with the playfield - I hadn't even begun to consider the effects of cars hitting each other. Maybe with a bit of planning this can be done, because I rather miss split-screen racing games. Remember Micro Machines?
Advantage: Dead easy once I get the engine out of the way.
Disadvantage: Catastrophically difficult until I get the engine out of the way.
Proposal 1. Secret Agent Game
This is the shortest of these proposals, and is therefore the most likely to actually get done. After playing Apogee's Secret Agent for ages recently, I couldn't help thinking how strangely addictive it was despite being an incredibly simple platformer - get keys, open doors, shoot some things, get to the exit. This project would be a semi-remake of the game, but with the concept of "missions" added on to give each level a unique feeling. I'm quite enthusiastic about doing this, but the only downside is that it's yet another platformer and I've been doing those for half my St Andrews career.
Advantage: The most well-formed idea out of this lot.
Disadvantage: Platformer.
Proposal 2. AAG 2
The original AAG (which rather sensibly stands for Another Adventure Game) was created during my fifth year in high school, and was the first significant game project of mine. It was a top-down adventure - a Gameboy Zelda sort of thing - split over twelve chapters, and took most of a year to make. I still haven't actually released it, because looking back on it, not a whole lot of the game makes much sense and the game feels rather tatty. Perhaps I'll occupy myself by cleaning it up and releasing it before MMF2 arrives.
I've had the storyline for a sequel together in my head for absolutely ages now, and even though it will be a significant undertaking, I'd rather like to get it made. It'll be an opportunity to put some of my writing and humour into a game again, which is rather difficult in the platformers that I've released over the last two years.
Actually, here's an ancient start to the game that was written about four years ago. The controls aren't totally obvious - Arrows to move, WASD for the inventory cursor, Shift to examine/pick up, Ctrl to look at the highlighted item in your inventory, Space to use the highlighted item. You'll get the hang of it.
Advantage: It's something that I've been wanting to do for ages.
Disadvantage: If it's taken me five years to get around to doing it, it'll probably take that amount of time to finish it.
Proposal 3. Dizzy-Type Adventure
Do you remember the Dizzy games? You won't if you're in America because he never reached there, but over here his adventure games were a phenomenon back in the day. And they were very simple - a side-scrolling platform world, with a string of items that had to be used on each other in some way, mostly via running back and forward over vast distances to hide a lack of gameplay.
After playing Tombi!, which reminded me a lot of Dizzy, I was rather inspired to make one of my own. I have already commissioned Jamie to draw the characters (in a unique twist, the protagonist is to be a jam jar with legs, and I'll probably name it after him if this ever gets going). Then I just need to build up a large game world - the gimmick of which might be that the whole thing is completely continuous, with no visible swapping between screens/locations at all. Well, you've got to do something impressive these days.
Advantage: Something a bit different.
Disadvantage: Platformer. In essence.
Proposal 4. Iron Savior
The IS storyline deserves to be made into a game. It has all the necessary ingredients - a war-torn futuristic setting, battles between planet-sized robots, and a plot that spans a little over four hundred millenia - and as you can tell from the link, it's become rather complex over the band's lifetime.
The only trouble is that I'm not entirely sure what genre the whole thing should be transformed into. The best I can think of is an Albion-type RPG (because I've been playing that a lot recently - I'll tell you about it later), but that's quite a step forward in terms of the complexity of making it. And while I have ideas of how to tell the storyline within the game, thinking up the actual gameplay elements is proving to be more problematic.
Advantage: It would be fantastic if it worked.
Disadvantage: I don't actually have a clue how to do it.
Proposal 5. Top Down Driving Game
I have yet to see a decent racing game made in MMF, and that's presumably because the physics involved are surprisingly complex. I tried to get a convincing top-down engine working before hitting on the idea of Treasure Tower, but the whole thing ultimately broke flagrantly. And that's just interaction with the playfield - I hadn't even begun to consider the effects of cars hitting each other. Maybe with a bit of planning this can be done, because I rather miss split-screen racing games. Remember Micro Machines?
Advantage: Dead easy once I get the engine out of the way.
Disadvantage: Catastrophically difficult until I get the engine out of the way.
