Ghost Police [engine test]

[StevenM]

Engine test for a monochromatic shooter. Basic theme of the 'game' so far is flipping between black and white - black ships travel on white space and treat black space as background, vice-versa white ships. The engine itself works well and even comes in two flavours - One Ship (right-click flips between colours) and Two Ship (right-click switches control between them), though there's no real penalty for same-colour collision yet - black ships just can't move on black space, and white ships can't move on white. One Ship mode allows the player to decimate the level as he sees fit while switching colours; Two Ship 'encourages' co-operation as each ship creates a path forward for the other.

I'd like some feedback as to which [One or Two] you feel more comfortable with, and which would be the better option for the final game - there's no enemy AI or real level design in the engine test yet, because I'd like to reach a consensus on what style of gameplay I should be working towards first. After that I'll work on enemy waves, bosses, scoring systems, etc.

Also you can use the mouse wheel to change the size of the bullets so you can shoot all over the level. It's not quite instant feedback (ship to cursor) so 'drawing' is rather stunted, but instant 'drawing' creates a certain disconnect between the gameplay and the ships. It's hard to describe. You can decrease the delay by moving the cursor and the ship closer together.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27392295/ghostpolicec.exe

[Ixmucane2]

I'd like to reach a consensus on what style of gameplay I should be working towards first.

Any style that doesn't involve the mouse, obviously. "Cursor" is a curse word.
You might think you need the wheel to control shot size, but you could use a key to cycle between a few preset shot sizes; it wouldn't disturb the two main buttons (fire and mode switch).
I'll comment further after trying the game; the screenshot looks promising.

[BPzeBanshee]

I'd like to reach a consensus on what style of gameplay I should be working towards first.

Any style that doesn't involve the mouse, obviously. "Cursor" is a curse word.
You might think you need the wheel to control shot size, but you could use a key to cycle between a few preset shot sizes; it wouldn't disturb the two main buttons (fire and mode switch).
I'll comment further after trying the game; the screenshot looks promising.

That's an ideal that mouse controls don't work right there.

That said, using the mouse scrolling wheel by itself IS a bad idea. If you're going to do mouse-control don't be using buttons on the mouse that are either unconventional or prone to breaking (like the Mac mouse wheels).