Project: Metagame - Join and contribute!

[Geti]

What if only part of the planet appeared at any given time? In terms of being 2D, you could have the character move forward on the planet to do whatever it needs to do.

this automatically happens with the "flippy camera"
edit: as the assembla servers are down, have some robots :) i like them, they blend rayman with anime. with pixels. yeaaahh.
@ the irc log: i might have time to concept a level.

[Ignate]

After reading all the pages and realising how much I've missed, I face-palmed myslef. Thirty times. No joke.
I absolutely love this idea, and would love to contribute. Geti and Condog are really good with the concepts, not excluding the others who have shared, of course. I've already registered on Assembla and have a few ideas to share:

You are a crew on a ship that has just crashlanded on a moon. You walk around for a bit, mining materials on the moon to rebuild the ship (this is where we can use the 3 multi-purpose characters mentioned earlier, to accomplish different tasks) Once the ship has been rebuilt, you can take off into space. In the ship, you can choose to go to any planet, but most likely the planet the moon was orbiting. Once there, you can mine some more and upgrade the ship (using the idea earlier in this topic) with various add-ons.

I also suggest using more than just planets, like various numbers of moons orbiting some planets, and maybe an asteroid belt. Even though I'm thinking there may be a few problems with an asteroid belt, because of coding so many chunks of floating rocks, I have this sort of idea. It was mentioned earlier that you can probably destroy some planets with various things. Why not use your ship? You can upgrade it and add a GIANT FREAKIN' RAILGUN that takes stray asteroids and blasts them into enemy planets.

Some planets may also have an advanced security system. One idea is that it has a bunch of towers spaced apart from eachother evenly on the planet's surface. These towers are really lasers that shoot at anything that comes near. While the planet rotates, the towers also move along, sweeping the laser instead of just shooting in one direction.

Ha, sorry for the long read. Opinions?
EDIT: We would also need some graphic designers like Chase or Mosh, to make some funky backgrounds, and design a main menu, should there be one.

[mattk210]

geti: weren't you a proponent of vector imagery? All the detail in those sprites will be lost when rotated. i absolutely love the style though.

I thought I'd think about some of the basics after reading the last IRC log, I added a level objectives bit to the wiki.

[Condog]

Personally, I think vector is the way to go. If we are going to do the rotating thing, pixel images are going to loose quality really fast.

[Ignate]

Here are a few concepts. Scribbly and not very detailed, but I guess it gets the point across. The reason for the folded/rocket form is that possibly the robots have crashlanded onto a planet or something. Among the enemy concepts, the railgun satellite is probably the only serious idea.

[Animator]

Personally, I think vector is the way to go. If we are going to do the rotating thing, pixel images are going to loose quality really fast.

We could create Pixel sprites and covert them into vectors. That should work (if possible).

[capt_weasle]

Personally, I think we should move away from the robot idea. More like a dsigruntled traveler who finds no reason he should be forced to walk around all of these planets.

[squibbles]

Personally, I think vector is the way to go. If we are going to do the rotating thing, pixel images are going to loose quality really fast.

We could create Pixel sprites and covert them into vectors. That should work (if possible).

I'll talk to trezoid about helping out with some vectors...we both know he'd be a useful addition to the team :D

[Geti]

@matt re:vectors: i know vectors are the way to go for this game, no contest, but for concepts, blah, i like working with pixels. someone can convert them easily enough. glad you like the style, i can do more easily. ill look at the wiki too, zoom.

@Ignate: I LOVE THAT CANNON!! that would be awesome.

Personally, I think we should move away from the robot idea.

pfff. robots are cooler, and survive in space better than organics.
id love some organic enemies though, monstrous crushinators etc.

[Atilla]

Personally, I think we should move away from the robot idea.

pfff. robots are cooler, and survive in space better than organics.

Statement: I agree. I am amazed that meatbags can reach space at all with their fragile organic frames.

[Geti]

also, i both like and dont like the "your ship" thing.
though, it is awesome. so it has that going for it.
i can kind of see this going back to the "switch between characters" idea, which would be cool as long as when you swapped the people you swapped away from didnt just stand there, they defended themselves but didnt move around much.
if your characters could go in and out of your ship in-level that would be cool too, especially if your ship was necessary to go between some planets (ie not all planets were jumpable), so i like that idea for that. if there was going to be this though, up to three different characters in one level, plus a ship, we would need some wickedawesome AI commands, like "get back to the ship" "follow me if you can" etc. and just those simple ones will be a pain to code, unless we have some goooooood pathfinding, in gravity. allowing for orbits. XD
so, although that would be very good, it sounds like an assload of coding.

what would happen to your ship enhancements at the end of each level, too? would they all get sucked off as you zoomed through a wormhole or what?
it would bring in a cool new level of customisation though, if we make everything moddable.
people making their own levels can make not only new enemies (the enemies in the game have to be made some way, why not make that scriptable?) but also new planet/oids, weapons, tools, structures, and now, ship parts. if everything for the ship was made in a cirtain palette, flavours could be applied by replacing the different shades from the palette with different shades from the flavour. N inspired unlockable. all the other stuff would just be fun to script, provided the foundations were there.

im getting carried away again arent i?

in any case, i like the idea of moddable everything, cortex command did it (datarealms.com), why not us? it makes the content designers jobs easier.

[mattk210]

Ignate's folding up robots is pretty cool. For the where-do-the-robots-go-when-you-switch-out problem, why not fold the robot up and strap it to the back of the next one? Having them actually follow you around with AI would be very frustrating when they don't do exactly what you want, without professional AI coders. Plus it'd be hard.

Both ignate and condog have a similar drawing style which is great

[Condog]

Both ignate and condog have a similar drawing style which is great

Heh, my style has been influenced be his. Ever since his first hand drawn comics.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

*groan*
Have we started coding yet?

[Condog]

*groan*
Have we started coding yet?

Well, you could use your initiative and code some of the basic mechanics we have in mind, like matt has been doing. That would probably help the process a lot more than you complaining that you have nothing to do.

[Geti]

what are we working in? kinda glad if its not flash but i suppose we can work with it if it is.
@tsuki: i agree with condog, if people start coding a platformer engine then we can work stuff in.

[Ignate]

Personally, I think we should move away from the robot idea. More like a dsigruntled traveler who finds no reason he should be forced to walk around all of these planets.

Actually, that's a pretty neat idea. Sure, there'll be a few organic beings like sufficiently advanced aliens or a lava planet scorpion or whatever, but why not make the protagonist a human? So I have a few more concepts here, in colour.

And yes, I've read the book.

[jackass]

Umm ... Well I Can someone please post me a link to download IRC ... .. (the reason im posting here is because i didnt feel it needed a new topic for a simple question like this and you guys seem to talk about irc alot)

And Also ... I might Help Out Abit With the Artwork and Stuff ... But imm no good with programing and stuff like that..

[mattk210]

Tsuki, you were the one who told me it was too early for programming earlier.

If you know what language you want to use, by all means, start. We haven't fleshed out the details but an engine with gravity and movement sounds like a good place to start. Are you the coding leader? Start telling me and the other coders what to do if so.

I like robots better than people (particularly for animating), but I can see how the 'puffy' human stands out, so maybe that is a good idea.

[Condog]

Personally, I think we should move away from the robot idea. More like a dsigruntled traveler who finds no reason he should be forced to walk around all of these planets.

Actually, that's a pretty neat idea. Sure, there'll be a few organic beings like sufficiently advanced aliens or a lava planet scorpion or whatever, but why not make the protagonist a human? So I have a few more concepts here, in colour.

And yes, I've read the book.

I like the human protagonist idea. We can call him Astro (get it? astro? astrona- ah forget it...)

And that boss planet is almost exactly the same as the sketches I made for it. Awesome.

[Ad]

I have stolen all of your ideas, and come up with a silly little intro scene in about half an hour. Hope it's readable.
The man is Ignate's design, and the robot is Condog's.

[capt_weasle]

WAIT! Going off of maestro's idea of having three playable characters, why not one astronaut, one robot, and one... alien... thing.

[Condog]

I have stolen all of your ideas, and come up with a silly little intro scene in about half an hour. Hope it's readable.
The man is Ignate's design, and the robot is Condog's.

Ahahaha, awesome. I love the last panel.

[Ignate]

I have stolen all of your ideas, and come up with a silly little intro scene in about half an hour. Hope it's readable.
The man is Ignate's design, and the robot is Condog's.

Ha, pretty awesome. I also think capt_weasle's idea to have an alien is really good. Maybe one they found on the planet the crashed into. So I have more concepts, this is a character lineup I had in mind.

I have some ideas with the robot. He can use his funky antennae to contact satellites, or intercept enemy ones, like making a KillSat fire at an enemy or something. Also, the robot would probably latch on the astronaut's back (shameless copy of Ratchet & Clank, I know) and when the astronaut needs to, the robot can jump, getting them both somewhere. Also, should we put pop-culture references into the game, like how M&R put references into N level titles? Not that we should put them in titles, but at least have the Death Star make a harmless cameo in the background, or something.

[Commander]

Ignate's robot vectored up.
Its really just a test of style. You cant use it so much in the game, because of the extremely weird way I did the paths.'

EDIT: Also, is this a gradient thing, or like a 2 color shading? Gradient is more real looking, and 2 color shading is more cartooney.Now that I look at it, 2 color shading seems better.

EDITEDIT: included the three main characters. they actually can be in-game if you like.