This is a quick little freeware / shareware game that I've been wanting to make for awhile. Input / ideas appreciated... Alamo Station is basically a jazzed up Missile Command meets Space Invaders, with powerups and a dash of strategy thrown in (maybe). The player controls a station in the center of the screen, and uses shuttles, missiles, torpedos, shields and lasers to ward off an attacking battle fleet. Here's a quick mockup (pardon the programmer art, btw). As you can see, ships circle the station and fire missiles. The fleet mostly stays at range, but ships will occassionally break off and dive toward the station for close range beam combat. When ships die, they leave power ups in the form of missiles or metal, which the player can send ships out to retrieve. Metal heals the player's base and torps / missiles resupply their ammo. That's basically the gist of it. From here, there are a lot of different directions I could take. I'm trying to figure out whether or not I want to try to make this roughly a top-down 3D view, or have the player rotate the screen. I'm also trying to decide if the game should have strategy between waves. Also, I'm not sure how the game should end. Here's some more detail: WEAPONS / DEFENSES Lasers - Do the most damage, but have the shortest range Missiles - Medium damage, full screen range. Explosions have an area effect which can take out multiple targets. Torpedoes - Triple missile damage and area of effect. Extremely slow, and enemy ships try to avoid them by turning, speeding up, or slowing down. Player MIGHT be able to steer them, or they might be smart and try to avoid explosions? Shields - Not in the mockup, but players can erect a shield wall near their base. Or maybe hitting shields simply temporarily shields the base, not sure... Shuttles - Players start with only four shuttles. Shuttles pickup debris clouds that contain powerups. They also run the fleet blockade and resupply the station by racing toward the wormhole if the player creates a gap. (Also thinking about adding fighters... ) RESOURCES Power - Used for the short range laser, and for shields. Slowly regenerates. Missiles - Limited number. Player must scavenge powerups (missile packs) or run the blockade to get more. Torpedoes - Ditto. Wormhole - Upper right corner. If a shuttle gets there, the shuttle warps back to the base instantly with replenished missiles, energy, and repairs. Ship has to run circling blockade, though, which means player must make a hole. Station Hit Points - When zero, boom! WAVES / LEVELS Undecided. I may just make wave after wave after wave, with faster and faster gameplay. ENEMIES At least 4 planned (link here): Light Frigate (thin ship) - Lasers only. They shoot down nearby player missiles, and are more likely to dive in and make short range laser attacks. At higher levels, they group together into squadrons when they make close attacks. May also get one missile per level above Level / Wave 5 Advanced Frigate (thin ship with fat tail) - Same as Light Frigate, but faster. Also can take more punishment, and should be smarter about hanging out in groups. Missile Cruiser (largest ship, fat sides) - Fires missiles and torpedoes. Hangs back, rarely makes close attacks. At higher levels, fires MIRVs that split into different missiles. Battleship (large, long ship) - Granddaddy of the fleet. Fires missiles, torps and lasers. High hitpoints. Slow, last to make attacks. Every 2 levels adds +1 battleship(?) Launches fighters to reclaim powerups after level 10(?). CONTROLS Mouse to place targeting cursor. Keyboard to raise shields, launch shuttles, fire lasers, torps and missiles. DECISIONS, DECISIONS... I've sorta got an itch to put a strategy aspect to this arcade game. Yays or nays really appreciated here... #1 Buy Screen: Each time the shuttle reaches the wormhole, maybe the wave ends and the player can buy things for the base. Items might be: More missiles, better armor, repair metal (heal HP), more shuttles, etc. This could also happen automatically at the end of a wave, with the player getting more points to spend on their base depending on how many shuttles they sent through the blockaded wormhole. #2 Reconfigure Station: Either through buying or pre-game setup, maybe the player can configure the station. Examples might be: More laser damage, or more space for missiles, or generators that recharge power faster. #3 Upgrades: If there was a buy screen, maybe the player could upgrade damage on lasers, speed on missiles, armor on shuttles, etc. #4 Spin The View!: Here is a mockup of what I'm thinking about. The base is closer to the bottom of the screen, and the player has to spin the view around. PRO: More view space. CON: Player can get attacked from behind, has to constantly spin around. (?) #5 3rd Person View: I'm also thinking of making this a bit more closer to a 3rd person view, rather than a 3D iso view. Here is a sample view. This would have to spin, but I'm not sure control-wise how players would both spin the camera and move the cursor around the screen. #6 Strategic sections: Finally, I've been toying with the idea of making sections of the base break off when hit too much. Rather than just a neat gfx effect, this could represent loss of capability. If the base is hit too much on one side, the lasers will do less damage, or missiles will take longer to fire. Might be too much detail to worry about, though Comments? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership... Edited by - Wavinator on March 1, 2002 11:46:36 PM

I'm slightly worried about the strategy in the breaks. They can break the rythm of the game. I'd rather make the more complex strategic choices available from the battle screen and not stop the game for those but time the alien waves to give the player a chance to make them.

But RTS and Missile Command could really blend perfectly, because they often share the same kind of click-fest gameplay (I now mean that in a good way ). It's all a matter of getting the right tempo, of matching the speed of the RTS-like micromanaging decisions with the speed of the Missile Command like shoot-em fast decisions so that these two gameplay forms don't step on each-others shoes. But the result could be a very adrenalline inducing game.

I'd set the Missile Command gameplay as the essence of the game and try to dumb and speed up the RTS-like decisions. One way to do this is to limit the number of mouse clicks needed to control units. Grouping the units by force (say the base has a number of bays and each bay has a group - a fighter group or a shuttle group or a bomber group, etc.) Then move decisions from the player to the AI - let it react to the environment. For instance to get the shuttles to gather metal selecting the shuttle bay (by keyboard) and click on the screen close to the metal to get the ships moving there. After they reach the place, the AI makes sure they scrap the metal and get back home when they're full.

Another way to speed up the RTS-like decisions is to make them really obvious. A very clear scissors paper stone gameplay would fit best here (fighters beat bombers, bombers beat capital ships, capital ships beat fighters for instance).


Edited by - Diodor on March 2, 2002 12:43:48 PM

Good ideas! You seem to have it fairly well planned out ( just the finer detail left now)

I just have a idea about the buy system:
Maybe the shuttle is sent out in the first place to collect a power-up from beyond the wormhole, after its left the screen for a minute it would come back through and give you the powerup/thing you ordered the shuttle to collect (as long as it survives!).

Dont u hate those important gameplay descision you just can make you mind up on....

Anyway.. comments from me...

1) You could of course make the "Buy" screen active during the game, but as a simple menubar of some sort, and allow the player to "spend" some of his powerups on different advantages, (one of which would be repairs..) like better armoured shuttles, or a fighter patrol which will go out and engage some of the enemies circling the station. You get the idea...

2) Yup... maybe part of what I said above..

3) Ditto

4) & 5) Nope, cuz I could see this being really annoying.

6) You could (as part of 2) "layout" the base, so you would have various systems layed out along the sides of the base (armour, shield generators, laser cannons etc.) and when that side of the base gets hit one system or another takes damage and is eventually destroyed. You could layered the systems, e.g. have some armour componants along the side of the base behind which are the laser cannons, etc. before a laser cannon would take damage the armour componant directly in front of it would have to be destroyed first... You would need a base schematic to show this though.



NightWraith

For #4, you could include spinning but have a radar/map display so that the player doesn''t need to spin constantly to see what''s coming.

Possible alternative for the ''Buy'' screen, although it may be a little overcomplicated...

Perhaps have an orbital trading post which revolves around the player, and sells one particular good at a time. Every revolution, it offers something new, so you have to get the shuttle to it before it completes its cycle. The shuttle automatically buys whatever the trading post is currently selling when it arrives. Furthermore, every time the station gets hit by any attack (yours OR enemy) the price of its current good increases, so it behooves you to protect the station if it is selling something you want.

If you can''t afford whatever it is selling, it stops your shuttle from leaving until you can afford it.

quote:
#5 3rd Person View: I''m also thinking of making this a bit more closer to a 3rd person view, rather than a 3D iso view. Here is a sample view. This would have to spin, but I''m not sure control-wise how players would both spin the camera and move the cursor around the screen.

If you wanted to go this route, you could use controls similar to the conventional shooters. ie, mouse will rotate the view and curor keys or ''wasd'' grouping move the view. Since your space station is stationary(:-), you don''t need the movement controls which makes it even easier to implement what you want.

I assume that you want a cursor to appear to be able to lock onto an enemy for firing missiles etc... Here''s what I came up with:

Have a weapon selector, ie 1-laser, 2-missile, 3-torpedo, 4-shield, 6-shuttle, then when the station is rotated into a position that the player likes he can hold down the SHIFT key to simultaneously lock the view and make the cursor(crosshair) appear. Then the left mouse button will be the action button. you could also set the right mouse button to let you move to the next weapon. With this method, the player won''t feel helpless because all he has to do is release the shift key to be back in rotation mode. On top of this with the shields, the player could just press the button to put up a shield and it will stay there while he continues on to another area, or fires other weapons. The biggest problem will be that you need a very good 3D radar, kind of like the old game Elite.

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Make it work.
Make it fast.

"Commmmpuuuuterrrr.." --Scotty Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home

The radar idea sounds good for number 4...

but don''t move it too close to the bottom - say halfway between the center and the bottom.

I was playing Dynasty Warriors 2 for the PS2 and it struck me (with the 3rd person style camera with radar) that people coming up from behind was still a real problem.

There''s a little logic to that, in that the guy can''t see behind... so he might be taken for suprise.

but I''m sure if you can give the player a space station, you can also give them a radar and some spin

for the shields... just a little idea - but divide the base into 8 portions, and there''s one shield that can prevent all damage but only to one single portion. (kinda like the SDF-1 of Robotech) - the player switches shield locations by clicking on the respective location on the space station. - just a thought.

Zaptruder

Or indeed, the high-power shields are set on a projection unit that runs on a railcar around the base. So when you want the shields up, you select them as your device and then click in the direction you want them to deploy.

I suggest closer to 1/5 of the circumference.

George D. Filiotis
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