Hey all, I'm just attempting to compile a few ideas of what people would like to see in a game based loosly on Scorched Earth. My game is probably going to be roughly based upon it, but instead of players shooting at one another, the level will be composed of blocks/spheres and the aim will be for the player to destroy certain blocks in order to meet the objective (collecting words from the blocks to fill in a mad-lib style story). So what would you like to see in an ideal Schorched Earth clone.... more weapons, less weapons, special modes of play, more physics? Just a few things to get the conversation started, and I'm not implying any particular one is good or bad.... I'd just like to know what parts of the game you find interesting or dull and how you'd modify the idea to make it more fun. For example, I have played a few 3D Scorched Earth clones and quite enjoyed them, but found that it lost something in translation from 2D to 3D, as aiming a projectile in 3 dimensions is somewhat tricky on a 2 dimensional screen... but with some modification I think a 3d perspective could work, I think Worms 4 pulled off 3 dimensional weapon aiming pretty well, but it still doesn't quite feel as slick as any 2d clone. Would you perhaps prefer a real-time version, or would this remove a strategic element of gameplay? Do you like the random element of wind/other external factors? I personally think a system involving wind works well when the variance of the wind is in large steps. For instance, if we rate wind as a percentage, I think it detracts from the game because who really cares if there is a 1% difference in windspeed... I'm not a computer and don't care to think on that scale, I'd rather just know if the wind was strong, medium or light as this is something I can really work with when planning my next shot. So anyhoo.... that's just a little of my opinions to get the thread started... if anyone would care to comment on my thoughts or add any of their own... please do so! Thanks, Steve

I think some things are better in 2D.

You can always implement something in 3D but fix the camera in actual play, and restrict opponents on a single z plane... switching to a 3D camera following the action when a shot has actually been fired. That way you've got the simplicity of a 2D game with the potential beauty of a 3D one.

Yeah, to be honest that is my intention... I think a 3d version could work... but why put in the effort to fix something that isn't really broken! I'd like to keep the 3d aspect in a way though as I want to use this project partly to demonstrate my 3d math skills.

I figure that deformable terrain in 3d though is quite difficult, with a heightmap, the only feasible way to represent deformation is to lower vertices that have been hit, but this doesn't allow you to take chunks out of a terrain, and I figure this is because with a pixel based scorched earth game, we can arbitrarily destroy pixels. So I decided to replace pixels with larger 3d models (thinking along the lines of boulders, bubbles, gemstones, etc) that can be destroyed in a manner similar to pixels, thereby still allowing the player to blow chunks out of the terrain, but keeping the pretty 3d graphics :)

Anyhoo, thanks for the suggestion, it helps confirm my thoughs about the perspective setting.... any more thoughts are still welcome...

Cheers,

Steve

I hate 3D scorched earth games. It's almost impossible to gauge ballistic trajectories from a 1st person perspective view; one finds oneself carefully arranging the camera to be perpendicular to the shot direction, and even that makes it difficult to account for a cross-wind. Also, one of the great parts of Scorched Earth was the malleability of the terrain; it wasn't uncommon for an entire mountain to be leveled during a round. In 3D, it is almost impossible to do this, since there's so much more ground. Overall, I'd say 2D is unquestionably the way to go.