I am currently making a arena style shmup as my first ever Game Maker game. Currently I have two of the main character designs down perfect and I figured out the concept of the game to. Basicly you are a rabit who is defeading his or her island from the invading deamons who live in the island's neverworld as pictured below...
Yeah er... anyway your rabit will have an unlimited amount of explsovies on them which is a good thing but the bad thing is that you are seriously out numbered, no seriously...
Anyway not sure about the gun, might take it away and have the rabbit just throw the damn things. Much easier to animate which reminds me the devils are very well animated and most people think that they are "cute" but at least that is something eh?
Anyway anythoughts? I'll post more when I start making more to the game which might take awhile heh.
Bit of a crazy idea here, and I say this because there are a ton of indie arena shooters out there, but try to find something different to do.
Here's my take on it... rabbits dig holes, so why not make that a mechanic? Digging a hole and going "underground" is a bit like hyperspace. Maybe you go underground, and this allows you to move a limited distance unscathed by enemies. Escape to a safer (for a short while) area.
Yeah I know there are a lot of arena shmups out there but then again there a lot a lot of indie platforming and shmups in general and as this is my first GM games I wanted to start with something simple.
The hole digging idea is cool although I would not know what to do with it really. I mean the enemies chase after you constantly. What I might do though is make tunnels in the game, a bit like pac-man although I would need to make it so that the plaer could not abuse such a helpful play mechnic which will be hard.
One other thing I might like to try is having two playfields. You mentioned that rabbit's dig holes and that it should be added in to the game well I think perhaps you could pay a vist to the "neverworld" section and vice versa. Or perhaps not the never world perhaps I might make it a bomb/shop function that allows the player to pick up new weapons and so on.
Thanks for taking the time to read up on my project though!
the2bears wrote:Bit of a crazy idea here, and I say this because there are a ton of indie arena shooters out there, but try to find something different to do.
It's not like there aren't a ton of indie vert and hori games, too. There's nothing wrong with doing an arena shooter, as long as you bear in mind that it is a crowded genre and put a lot of thought in at the concept phase so that it stands out.
I'm interested by this idea of have explosives as the main weapon. You could make this quite tactical. For example, you set an explosive and then run around trying to get enemies to chase you so that there are several of them within the blast radius when the bomb goes off. With some carefully tuned herding mechanics for the enemies (eg. the more points for killing an enemy, the faster they chace you, or there might be bonus enemies who flee from you and need to be herded towards the explosion from behind). You could even have it so that some enemies explode when damaged, allowing for chaining.
Keep working on the concept and let us know how it progresses.
I`d like to second the digging idea, it would be like a short invincability which would allow some tactics, given there are no walls or obstacles you can hide behind.
the2bears wrote:Bit of a crazy idea here, and I say this because there are a ton of indie arena shooters out there, but try to find something different to do.
It's not like there aren't a ton of indie vert and hori games, too. There's nothing wrong with doing an arena shooter, as long as you bear in mind that it is a crowded genre and put a lot of thought in at the concept phase so that it stands out.
Not saying don't do an arena shooter, my whole point was try to add something unique, hence the idea of "digging". You quote me wiithout the next paragraph, where I have a suggestion of something a little different to do.
Danny wrote:The hole digging idea is cool although I would not know what to do with it really. I mean the enemies chase after you constantly. What I might do though is make tunnels in the game, a bit like pac-man although I would need to make it so that the plaer could not abuse such a helpful play mechnic which will be hard
Well, they might only chase after you when they "know" where you are. They could stop, wander a bit when you go underground, staring at the hole. Then, you pop out behind them (hopefully) and shoot.
Anyway, just an idea. I did not mean for my original comment to sound discouraging. Just the opposite, I hope you continue with this game and finish it. Then I hope you do more games
Ah thanks for all the encrouaging posts guys. Yeah at the moment I am thinking of 3 differnt gameplay modes. One is a simple shooter just like Robotron, another is an arena style Bomberman style game but with a digging element in it and another is going to be a Quix clone were you use digging to cut the very land away from your enemies and watch them get burned to death on the islands malten core. First I will do the Robotron style modec which is proberbly the easiest mode to do so far.
