This is the type of game I want to make. I've been looking everywhere and it's never been done before as far as I know. Here's the concept: At the very core of the game it's a basic multiplayer top-down shooter, such as Zap, Babo Violent 2, etc. You have all your common deathmatch and CTF gametypes, but the 'dressing' of the game is that of a fighter. You choose from many different characters to play as, instead of running around the map searching for weapons/powerups/items, or picking them at the beginning of each round (a la Counterstrike, Babo), the character you choose defines what weapons/powerups/items/abilities/attributes you'll have. So for example maybe one character would be your standard shooter, or one would be a swordsmen, or maybe one has magic powers and can teleport, or heal, or maybe there's a super fast character, or an ice character, or one who has all these gadgets, etc. I could go on and on. It would basically be a mix of Zap/Babo Violent 2, Gauntlet, and Smash Bros. To me, this sounds like a really good idea. Why hasn't this been done before? Or has it? But also, what's with the lack of multiplayer top-down shooters? It seems this is just an indie genre. The only good ones I could find are Babo, Zap, and Bloodmasters (though that's an isometric). There were some other crappy ones I found though. But it looks like the first "real" console multiplayer top-down shooter is going to be Geometry Wars Galaxies, which will supposedly have deathmatch modes. Do I have a point here or am I horribly mistaken?

Yes, 2D top-down shooters do seem like an indie genre. except for those tank games.

But a 2D top-down fighter? I've seen a few, and they didn't really work for me.

Top down shooters are my favorite genre (been working on a TD mmo one for 4 years).

In your situation is this go to be free for all or tactical? Might want to go with the 'ol Assault Unit, Medic Unit, Heavy Weapon Unit, and Engineer kind of thing. Then just give everyone a melee weapon. This will make it more of a fighting game since everyone has a sword or something. Just make sure that each class has the same incentive for players. Don't make only one of the units have a sword if the idea of the game is geared around melee combat.

For instance, if you made a team mode then you'd want medics along with other players since that's normally how tactics work in a shooter game. One of the funnest things is to add in shields and deployables. Also cloakers are just fun. :) I mean everyone likes to get ganked by the teleporting cloaker.

[Edited by - Sirisian on June 20, 2007 5:11:05 PM]

There's a reason most fighters are side on 2D or 3D. Both of these views the allow vertical differences in character position.

This means you can have gravity, which leads to precise and satisfying jumps, kicks, throws, uppercuts, etc.
It lets players duck.
Players can target meaningful parts of their opponent (head, torso, groin, legs).
This gives a player a lot of variables to look at when fighting one on one.

If you make a top down fighter, there is no longer any vertical placement. It's all horizontal, so:
No gravity, no jumping (or if there is, it will be GTA 1 or 2 style jumping).
No ducking, no relevance of character size.
Targeting options become front, side, rear (good when lots of people are in a brawl, bad when two players are squaring off).
However, it's a better view for aranging lots of units, flanking, area effect weapons...things to do with groups.

So if you want fun melee combat, the view of choice will be side on. With all the extra info available from a side on view taken out, a top down fighter would have pretty limited interactions available, and boring melee combat.
This is probably why most fighters are side on.
If you zoom out the view for a side on game (eg, Soldat), then you keep gravity, but lose the detail of two high resolution characters. It stops being a good view for a fighter, and becomes more suited to a shooter. The melee options available in Soldat (stand next to your opponent, face the correct direction, press a button) are a good contrast to the myriad of moves available to a zoomed in side on view.

The top down game would have to look somewhere else for it's entertainment. (Eg, projectile weapons are good, as cover is more relevant from a top down view. Same for line of sight and being able to hide. Positional stuff, getting behind opponents. Group tactics).

Well yea it's not geared around melee combat or fighting. It's a team-based shooter at it's core. It's only like a fighter because there's different characters with vastly different abilities, but the majority of them will focus on projectile attacks, while maybe one or two might be limited to only melee, but they'll make up for it in other areas such as speed, health, etc.

The game Subspace might be what you are talking about but in a much more primitive form.
I suggest you take a look - not sure if this is what you mean exactly but it is generally up to 40 spaceships at a time battling each other alone or in teams, with capture the flag mode and many more. They have changed its name to Continuum but it should be easy to find.
Cheers,
Ori

Yea I played that actually. I didn't like the counter-intuitive controls.

What part of SubSpace's controls is counter-intuitive? Up/down for the forward/backward thrust and left/right for rotation. It's just like Asteroids.

Quote:

Original post by RayNbow What part of SubSpace's controls is counter-intuitive? Up/down for the forward/backward thrust and left/right for rotation. It's just like Asteroids.

Is Infantry still going? I know that there you could use (and I believe most players did use) the mouse for rotation and some keyboard mapping for forward/back. It's based on the same engine as SubSpace (if I'm thinking of the right game), so I'd expect you could mess with the controls enough to get something to your liking in SubSpace.

Quote:

Original post by RayNbow What part of SubSpace's controls is counter-intuitive? Up/down for the forward/backward thrust and left/right for rotation. It's just like Asteroids.

I don't like Asteroids controls either. But I just think it's unnecessary in Subspace to make it more difficult then it needs to be to simply move around. Why not just have the standard WASD movement? Why make it harder? To be like Asteroids? Or to be more "realistic"? Or for balance issues?