RetroBlazer

[RenegadeC]

Make the bullets look different per gun, maybe not just larger but shaped to 'look' more damaging on contact. The starting 'pistol' versus the 'shotgun' .. is shooting the same bullets (smaller ball versus slightly larger ball), it brings the gameplay experience down. Better guns need to not only feel more powerful but look and sound the role also.
Finally, the maps are too corridorish, have a few open rooms with interesting geometry and enemy placement, don't be afraid of being creative.

Retro itself is fun, but you can be retro while adding gameplay or elements to make RetroBlazer itself unique with it's gameplay alongside its great art style.

Also do not port this to PSP ever, or any older system. Cutting corners to please fans is not worth butchering hard work.

[RenegadeC]

PS. Baker and ceriux please stop shitting this thread up so we can actually discuss RetroBlazer instead of offtopic crap.
Thanks!

[Baker]

I played it some more trying to think of what could improve the game play ...

These are random thoughts discussing game play elements of other games and trying to draw some conclusions:

1. A 2D game almost by nature has to present simple navigation challenges. Wolf3d is about the only game to not do this (but also maybe the first even close to 3D game so it could get away with that?). Doom 2 on some of the levels had sneaky little areas requiring you to run and take a leap of faith and jump into an open area. Some bobbing platforms or such, some blind leaps of faith or cleverly place wind tunnels might be fun to do.

2. Paths. You might establish a multiple paths philosophy where the "high road" is always the most rewarding but the toughest to maintain physically and the low road is like the "sewers" and is easy to maintain but lots of monsters or rather unfun. And maybe you can fall from a higher "level" to the next lower tier if you blow it.

3. Pacing. Start a bit quiet maybe. With sparse monsters but a few trivial and unavoidable physical challenges. Like how the Quake start map makes you jump over lava if you want to do hard. Makes you go through water to go to E4. Makes you open a door to go to E2.

4. Stick with box map style if you can if you goal is easy map construction from all your little set pieces. If any of the above you feel is useful and if you do decide to do somewhat linear gameplay, you could have a ramp appear every once in a while in your forward progression. The player would be presented the choice and get to understand that concept quick.

5. Shield key? Everyone is familiar with strafing to the left and right to avoid monster fireballs. However ... consider the "let's not and say we did" idea of just having a shield button. Why? ---> On a simpler controls platform like an iPhone, you need 3 buttons for navigation (forward, left, right). You sure don't want to have to add more for strafing, which is only used to dodge monster fireballs. And no you don't have to have a backwards key on a simpler controls platform (and it could be same button as shield, where a double tap is shield).

6. Target lock. You *could* use QuakeC to make pressing the attack button establish a target lock on an opponent closest to middle of your view, draw a crosshair sprite in front of the enemy (animated?) and then the RELEASE of the key fires. This could simplify the playability. The awkwardness of aiming on an simpler controls platform.

7. Weapon levels. I haven't seen all the guns in Retroblazer. QuakeC can do seeking missiles (homers, heh). For maximum fun ... add denator bombs (press once to drop, the next press explodes) ... better than proximity mines because the player gets the satisfaction of triggering the explosion, has the opportunity to "screw it up" (maybe a small horde of 20 are coming, and the player activates the explosion too soon and only kills 6) and you can really make finding them important for encountering hordes!

[Since you seem to have interest in stuff like iPhones, consider creative ways to use as few keys as possible on a computer as a dry run of the minimal controls concept. QuakeC can control the action of double taps ... Jukki did this for his PSP mod ... like maybe holding +attack and not releasing changes weapons and cycles through them slowly. Maybe a double tap of the forward key jumps or fires! Or maybe a double tap of left changes weapon forward, double tap of right changes weapon backwards, double tap of back is shield, etc].

^^^ Thoughts and ideas. Good, bad, useless or in poor taste

[RenegadeC]

I played it some more trying to think of what could improve the game play ...

These are random thoughts discussing game play elements of other games and trying to draw some conclusions:

1. A 2D game almost by nature has to present simple navigation challenges. Wolf3d is about the only game to not do this (but also maybe the first even close to 3D game so it could get away with that?). Doom 2 on some of the levels had sneaky little areas requiring you to run and take a leap of faith[/color] and jump into an open area. Some bobbing platforms or such, some blind leaps of faith or cleverly place wind tunnels might be fun to do.

Leaps of faith in any game aren't fun unless they're specifically scripted to appeal to an audience. A leap of faith requires prior knowledge of knowing you 'will land there', that's not fun and using a scripted event will bring the player out of the action if overused. A scripted event very seldom used would work in my opinion, otherwise.. leaps of faith suck causing unavoidable damage.

2. Paths. You might establish a multiple paths philosophy where the "high road" is always the most rewarding but the toughest to maintain physically and the low road is like the "sewers" and is easy to maintain but lots of monsters or rather unfun. And maybe you can fall from a higher "level" to the next lower tier if you blow it.

Cool, but how many sewer levels do people enjoy? I've played a LOT of video games, and not once nor on the internet have I've heard anyone enjoy any sort of sewer level. It'd have to be a balanced trade off: A suckier path unlocks a newer gun earlier but in the end, you get a crappier ending. Compromises to casual players versus hardcore who want that extra UNF (meaning: challenge)

3. Pacing. Start a bit quiet maybe. With sparse monsters but a few trivial and unavoidable physical challenges. Like how the Quake start map makes you jump over lava if you want to do hard. Makes you go through water to go to E4. Makes you open a door to go to E2.

Agreed, but your definition of 'unavoidable' is quite broad. All those quake challenges show you have skill, but they don't punish you at the end of it. Damage should be avoided by user reflex and general logic and smarts, unavoidable damage is poor gameplay mechanics.

4. Stick with box map style if you can if you goal is easy map construction from all your little set pieces. If any of the above you feel is useful and if you do decide to do somewhat linear gameplay, you could have a ramp appear every once in a while in your forward progression. The player would be presented the choice and get to understand that concept quick.

Players already know what box mapping, ramps, and linear gameplay is about. Linear gameplay can be amazing when presented properly (good gameplay throughout), box mapping is okay if it has proper breaks with interesting gameplay to a certain degree. NEVER do box mapping because it's simply easy, it's the same reason Halo 1 got reamed out for 'copy and paste environments'. The author should be creative, perhaps talk to the mapper community but always press forward with different yet logical map designs.

5.Shield key? Everyone is familiar with strafing to the left and right to avoid monster fireballs. However ... consider the "let's not and say we did" idea of just having a shield button. Why? ---> On a simpler controls platform like an iPhone, you need 3 buttons for navigation (forward, left, right). You sure don't want to have to add more for strafing, which is only used to dodge monster fireballs. And no you don't have to have a backwards key on a simpler controls platform (and it could be same button as shield, where a double tap is shield).

Double tap + hold = strafing? but this isn't an Iphone game. An iphone game is usually a dumbed down version of a PC/Console game regardless. Let's talk about the REAL version of RetroBlazer please.

6. Target lock - You *could* use QuakeC to make pressing the attack button establish a target lock on an opponent closest to middle of your view, draw a crosshair sprite in front of the enemy (animated?) and then the RELEASE of the key fires. This could simplify the playability. The awkwardness of aiming on an simpler controls platform.

If the author wants to sure, but if he's going for the whole fast paced retro feel I can understand exactly why limiting a scope of view on a single target would be a bad idea.

7. Weapon levels. I haven't seen all the guns in Retroblazer. QuakeC can do seeking missiles missiles. For maximum fun ... add detonator bombs (press once to drop, the next press explodes) ... better than proximity mines because the player gets the satisfaction of triggering the explosion, has the opportunity to "screw it up" (maybe a small horde of 20 are coming, and the player activates the explosion too soon and only kills 6) and you can really make finding them important for encountering hordes!

These ideas are easy as hell to code and have been done in QuakeC since 96/97, but by 'Retro' I'm pretty sure it's about 'shooting shit until it dies fast and furiously' than planning an attack that you won't expect in the first place and die in this type of game.

[Since you seem to have interest in stuff like iPhones, consider creative ways to use as few keys as possible on a computer as a dry run of the minimal controls concept. QuakeC can control the action of double taps ... Jukki did this for his PSP mod ... like maybe holding +attack and not releasing changes weapons and cycles through them slowly. Maybe a double tap of the forward key jumps or fires! Or maybe a double tap of left changes weapon forward, double tap of right changes weapon backwards, double tap of back is shield, etc].

^^^ Thoughts and ideas. Good, bad, useless or in poor taste

Don't incorporate double taps into a port of a fast paced game, unless it's a dodge function only like Unreal Tournament.

Honestly Baker, you're okay but it seems you're just shitting ideas out there without any regard of the style of gameplay the author is looking to hit. Stop mentioning PSP and Iphone please, let him focus on the damn PC/Darkplaces version first.

[r00k]

..This is a lot of BS... I'm left handed and you will never see my trackball or mice on the right side, but on the left as all the other lefty's I know do.

If you want to see something weird, track down someone using a desktop who is left handed. Watch to see which hand they use the mouse with It is always the right hand.

I'm left handed, but use the mouse in my right hand. and I use ESDF not WASD.

Though I bowl with my right hand , throw a base ball with my left, use right hand to cut scissors, drink beer with my right hand, kick with my right foot, swing a bat with my left side facing the pitcher, shoot a bow with the arrow in my left hand, hold a gun in my right, while closing my right eye to squint, throw a Frisbee with my right hand... just depends how i was taught to do each task.

[Baker]

Honestly Baker, you're okay but it seems you're just shitting ideas out there without any regard of the style of gameplay the author is looking to hit. Stop mentioning PSP and Iphone please, let him focus on the damn PC/Darkplaces version first.

Simplified controls include notebooks. Desktops are somewhat rare these days, meaning a mouse is somewhat rare these days. In the general population. So some of my thoughts oriented around user-interface are based on a minimal control set.

[r00k]

We all played doom1 and RTCW using keyboard only with the arrow keys and ctrl to jump.

Sony is on to something. http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/3312 ... r-for-ps3/

[frag.machine]

We all played doom1 and RTCW using keyboard only with the arrow keys and ctrl to jump.

RTCW? I think you men Wolf3D, right ?
Also: AFAIK you cannot jump in Doom (using the original game, not the heavily modified engines people uses today).

[RenegadeC]

Honestly Baker, you're okay but it seems you're just shitting ideas out there without any regard of the style of gameplay the author is looking to hit. Stop mentioning PSP and Iphone please, let him focus on the damn PC/Darkplaces version first.

Simplified controls include notebooks. Desktops are somewhat rare these days, meaning a mouse is somewhat rare these days. In the general population. So some of my thoughts oriented around user-interface are based on a minimal control set.

Desktops are rare? So is the mouse? Are you shitting me? ... on what planet?

[toneddu2000]

Maybe what Baker probably meant to say is that in the last 4/6 years the new generation of tablets, smartphones and next-gen consoles has literally wiped out the attention by young and not-so-young users towards "normal" computers with "ancient tools" like mouse and keyboard, focusing more on the "touching side"

Analyzing the thing, infact, it seems to me the same period as in the 90's, where the "Personal Computer" (like IBM or Commodore 64) kicked in the scene.

[Baker]

PS. Baker and ceriux please stop shitting this thread

Honestly Baker, you're okay but it seems you're just shitting ideas

Desktops are rare? So is the mouse? Are you shitting me? ... on what planet?

Do you have one of those diseases or a social problem that prevents you from being able to interact normally with others in a civilized manner?

[Baker]

But yes, desktop sales have been tanking and getting to be somewhat rare. And the above chart does not show the split between consumer versus business, businesses are the predominant buyers of desktops. So for games ... this consumer versus business split of desktop sales is a major factor.

And with it the mouse, because laptop users don't necessarily bother getting one.

This has a rather disturbing implication for games. Especially 3D games and the user interface.

Maybe what Baker probably meant to say is that in the last 4/6 years the new generation of tablets, smartphones and next-gen consoles has literally wiped out the attention by young and not-so-young users towards "normal" computers with "ancient tools" like mouse and keyboard, focusing more on the "touching side"

Analyzing the thing, infact, it seems to me the same period as in the 90's, where the "Personal Computer" (like IBM or Commodore 64) kicked in the scene.

This too. I know 3-4 people personally who use their PS3 or XBox as their computer for Netflix and internet browsing.

Desktops are rare? So is the mouse? Are you shitting me? ... on what planet?

It is not my responsibility to educate you and you are capable of doing your own fact-checking, that being said: this planet is the one you live on.

Whether or not you are in tune with the times, isn't my responsibility

[RenegadeC]

PS. Baker and ceriux please stop shitting this thread

Honestly Baker, you're okay but it seems you're just shitting ideas

Desktops are rare? So is the mouse? Are you shitting me? ... on what planet?

Do you have one of those diseases or a social problem that prevents you from being able to interact normally with others in a civilized manner?

Do you have one of those diseases or social problems that causes you to highlight almost every word in a sentence? It comes off very pretentious, and oh no.. not the word 'shit' how offensive!
It's very annoying to me and others that every project thread I read has you and ceriux derailing the topic into useless banter, or pushing some agenda for a portable
version of a mod/tc/project/whatever

Desktops are not rare, I don't care if you brought out a pie graph or flowchart, you aren't even considering proper hardware sales.
Desktops are upgradable, people don't have to buy a new one every year unlike iphones/tablets and so forth. It's like you're seeing a ton of
people walking around with iphones and forgetting at home people own a PC too. My PC's been going for 3 years and I've only had to replace the
video card to keep it up-to-date for example, does that figure into your graph? I doubt it.

Anyways no more replies because then I'm going to be shitting this thread up replying to OPINION = FACT! nonsense.

[Baker]

I wasn't looking to help derail the thread. I do admit that it worked out that way, unfortunately.

That being said, this was Ceruix's thread and angle of discussion, not a thread started by the mod author. Ceriux started the thread with a RetroBlazer and PSP angle.

[RenegadeC]

I wasn't looking to help derail the thread. I do admit that it worked out that way, unfortunately.

That being said, this was Ceruix's thread and angle of discussion, not a thread started by the mod author. Ceriux started the thread with a RetroBlazer and PSP angle.

Alrighty, well let the discussion continue. I like to see RetroBlazer itself finished on PC/Darkplaces, and THEN get ported to a another platform as a modified version. Best of both worlds, personally if I kept TAoV developed on DC or PSP it wouldn't play nearly as well due to limits. Best of both worlds in many cases imo.