[airstrike] Airstrike direction

[Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

> I felt the game was becoming too complicated with scrolling levels and
> all; in a sense we moved away from the original Biplanes ideals.

Me too, IMHO the game was pretty playable in February with single screen
+ bonuses.  (the "wide screen" version was nice too though)


> We go back to only single screen levels, with higher resolution or
> slightly smaller planes so that we can fit a bit more stuff on the
> screen. On each screen the player meets an enemy for a dogfight, and
> cannot leave the screen until the enemy is defeated. Between levels
> the player moves with the plane on a map, Nintendo style. By winning
> some levels the player can get better weapons or faster planes or
> whatever. We of course keep all the objects we have made so far. 
>
>This way we can allow multiplayer games on the same screen, as well as
> network play. It will also make the level format much easier to
> maintain, basically we just have a few png-images for each level.

Do you think the levels should still be tile based?  E.g. Luola:
	http://www.saunalahti.fi/~laakkon1/linux/luola/index.php

has AFAIK just one huge image as it's background.  With this approach
it's not too much trouble to code e.g. ground into which one can explode
holes, a bit like in Worms <wicked grin>.  Maybe only when one would blow
hole to both screen edges in same place, one could wrap from one screen
edge to another i.e. normally all levels would have "ground" on all screen
edges.


Computer plane doesn't deal very well with objects that are in not at the
level edges & into which it can get stuck. Moving objects are much better in
this respect, computer will eventually get round them. :-) Also trees and
such that are attached to something (ground) are hard to deal with unless
player can blow them away if s/he/it gets stuck.


> I imagine the main map showing a landscape reminding us of southern
> Germany or Switzerland. On each hill or mountain top there lives a
> baron, a marquise or some other biplane-piloting maniac (The Red Baron
> being the final boss of course). The player(s) fly around conquering
> different levels. The might also be a village where new parts for the
> planes can be bought.

Do you think this map / movement is necessary?  Why not just do a fancy
looking teleport effect with blindingly large / epilepsy inducing flashing
text announcing where one teleports?

(to see examples of POV generated "teleporting effect" see my home page:
	http://koti.welho.com/kmattil4/src/solarwolf-gfx.tar.gz
)


> I tried to make a Povray scene of this, but it sucks at the moment.

Exactly the reason why I feel some hesitency towards this map thing...
A lot of gfx that's hard to render :-).


> Whaddayathink?

Some way to indicate user his/her/its progress is needed, but maybe it could
be done in a way that would affect more gameplay than demand lots of new
graphics, such as:
- tougher enemies (need more hits, bullets go further, go/turn faster)
- bonuses (more bombs, special weapons, strange effects, extra lives)
- background color(/gfx) changes on each level (from morning to night color)

[1] There could be two styles for the games:
+ cutesy:
  - cheery music
  - addon: bouncing hippo & heart/love bonuses I made earlier
  - addon: a marshmallow "mine", from which opponent bounces back
  - addon: weapon that engulf opponent to gum bubble & makes
    him float upwards
+ arcade shootout:
  - speedy music
  - addon: heat-seak missile you did earlier
  - addon: spikeball weapon on a chain
  - addon: floating mines


	- Eero