2D Mission Based Shooter

Hello Forum-goers,

I've been looking for a good project to work on lately
and I think I have finally come up with an idea that I would
like to work on, but I can't do it on my own.

I'm a big fan of old school vertical scrolling shooters and would like to
design my own but with some fresh and
exciting innovations. Basically this is my idea: a 2D vertical scrolling
shooter but instead of the same old tired fly through the stage until
you get to the boss, defeat the boss and then go to the next stage, I would
like to design a shooter that is mission based (i.e. destroy so many enemies,
defeat so many of a particular enemy, Save so many people, etc.) and perhaps
the game can go in different directions based on which missions you complete
and which one's you fail. I've also thought that this would make a good
multiplayer game with some missions having cooperative goals either with another
human or designing some sort of AI if you are playing alone. Of course all
the things you would expect from the genre would be there, multiple difficulty
levels, numerous weapons and types of weapons, boss characters (although these
would each be a mission of there own), etc.

As far as the technical end of things I would like to use DX7 and VB to tackle this project with as I think that would do the job plenty well.


Well thats my idea if anybody is interested please reply and release me from the boredom that is my life ;) and remember all this is up in the air this is just a generalization of my goals and any ideas you have would be great to here. Hope to work with you soon!

:D :)

anybody interested yet?

Sounds fun. I guess I'm in. I gotta first touch up on gaming :)

My email is: [email protected]

I've got prior enagements, but if you're stuck while making the game, don't hesitate to drop a message.

Cool Wacked, I forgot to mention in my original post that I really have no graphical ability (I do have some cheesy looking graphics I created in Pov-Ray but nothing pleasing to the eye really). Can you help in this area or are you just looking to get in on the programming area? If this gets going it will be a learning process for me as well so I don't mind if you have to freshen up on your skills. I do have some knowledge as well its just been a while since I put it to any use so we are in the same boat.

Oh- forgot to mention. I could do initial character graphics, but I can't do animation for them. Maybe 3 or 4 characters I could do in a Duke-Nukem 2 style, but that's it. ToW you know :)

Thanks Sastraxi, but I was thinking more along the lines of a top-down space shooter sort of like 1943, Xevious, etc. but also thought it might be cool to add some character shooter missions as well, I just wanted to see how the project progressed before I threw that on the table. I've got a million ideas and apparently I didn't do such a hot job of explaining myself.

I make graphics, so I can help ya there. I also know an awesome graphics artist who may help us. His web site, as you can see at citriz.net, is not that bad looking. He's good at all forms of graphics, 2d and 3d (3d studio max/rhino). Anyway, I program a lot, so I could help you in that as well. So, in the end, I can do graphics, programming, and I also make web sites :P.

Awesome! Sounds like we are off to a good start. Do you have any ideas you would like to add, or anything about my vision you don't like?

Are you still accepting people to join? If so, I would like
to join and help out, I could do stuff on the programming
parts of the project...

And, as like you, it will also be a learning experience for me.

-Andrew

P.S. If I don't respond in here, e-mail me it should be on my signature.

You are more than welcome to join Flame. After we compile a team I would like to start a thread in the Communication Forum and use that to come up with new ideas and get some feedback from our peers here on the boards.

Anyway I guess we should work out some time to get together and come up with a good starting point for this project, I am on Eastern Standard Time and am available from 7pm to midnight on weekends (most of time) and free pretty much all weekend (once again most of the time) and my contact information is as follows:

ICQ = 28641185
Yahoo = youngbuck_66

I have MSN Messenger too I'm just not at home right now and can't remember what my un is.

Well the ICQ would be useful if I knew how to use ICQ
(I do just not how to add people) :) lol :)

-Andrew

I sent you guys an email with some more detail. Let me know what you think.

Got your email, and I got 2 suggestions...

1. Maybe something along the lines of Mulitplayer 2 on 2 or
2 on 1 or even 1 on 1, whatever way they would like (up to 4 people total)

2. Maybe if we get good enough at making this we can design a thing where users can make their own missions (Just an Idea)

...Let me know what you think of my ideas...

-Andrew

Do you mean like a 2 on 2 or 1 on 1 dogfight? Sounds like a good idea for a mini-game, plus maybe it would keep people interested after the game is finished. A mission editor would be really awesome, but as you said if (or rather when ;)) we get good enough. Great ideas flame.

i am fairly new to vb and do not no a lot about game programming but i think this could be the prefect way to learn. I can do the beta testing, idea/documentation and even maybe assist. project manager.

Your ideas are always welcome just post them here or you can send me an email me at [email protected] . I'll put you down as beta tester but it will probably be a while before we get to that stage.

I'm glad you like my ideas. I guess dogfight would be
a good name for that...

-Andrew

YoungBuck... I have been reading the document you sent me
about DirectDraw...(By the way, it is some 625 pages long)
I dont know how long itll take me to finish, im on page...
well im on the table of contents type page... LOL

I should be able to get a good Idea about it during Christmas Break...
Starts Thursday...

-Andrew

If I can join, I will do any multiplayer coding. If you find me any FTP server , I can set up a thingy were you can search for users, connect with them and play. Please let me join([email protected])

Sry, but my code would be in .NET. If everyone finished the single player thought, and sent me the source, I could attach them so the .NET code worked with the VB6/5 code.