Airship Dragoon - walls now 0.2 world units lower!


Airship Dragoon has had a few fixes and tweaks since going up on Steam. I must say that Steam's updating system is great, literally pulling the changes from files and compressing them. I fixed an issue with the game not working on Windows XP, fixed a couple of strange bugs which had never happened before - and could not see what had caused them to happen now (fuuuuu-), and made a few general changes such as decreasing low walls by 0.2 units to make it easier to shoot over them.


Idea Fairy by www.themeatly.com


Whilst I have been updating and tweaking Airship Dragoon now that it's up on Steam, I have also been slowly doing the mental arithmetic of drawing up new game concepts for my next project. Frankly there have been a few ... a few thousand, because creative ideas and how to implement those concepts has never been an issue. Most get stored somewhere in the back of the memory banks whilst ones which are currently more interesting to my own whims and fancies, or seem to have greater viability are left to simmer in the subconscious at gas mark 3 (that's 160 Celsius / 325 Fahrenheit for those of you using electric brains). In the end, after much stewing, I narrowed it down to three ideas spread across three separate genres: Action, RPG, Adventure. And so, without any real screenshots, video or any actual visual reference for demonstration, I will attempt to explain my thoughts into some sort of coherent description which may or may not give a good understanding of what is bubbling away inside my head. CAUTION: TEXT AHEAD!

The Action Based Idea:

Concept:
Top-down steampunk/dieselpunk flight-sim/shmup with open-ended/branching narrative campaign.

Inspiration:
Descent Freespace (Volition 1998), Wings (Cinemaware 1990), Total Air War (DID/Infogrames 1998), World War 2 Pacific Naval/Carrier Battles

Outline:
Freespace bridged the link between arcade-action and simulation very well with it's simplified space flight model, and originally the idea was conceived as a steampunk/dieselpunk Freespace, set high above the clouds. However it didn't take long for me to decide that I really did not want to make a flight simulation, no matter how Freespace-like. So I thought about removing the Z axis completely and having a top down camera. Gravitating more to an action-simulation than a shoot 'em up as I've never been much of a shmup player due rubbish reflexes, a disdain of lots of flashing lights, low blood pressure and whatever the opposite of ADHD is.

Core Gameplay:
Sticking with many of Freespace's features, such as individually damageable locations, slowly recharging afterburners for sudden turns of speed (nitro fuel injection for the sake of naming in this case), and multiple aircraft types split into 3 main categories of interceptor/dogfighter/bomber with different engines (speed), aerilons (manoeuvrability), airframe/hull damage and armour (total hitpoints), and hardpoints for guns and rockets/bombs/torpedoes. All of which can be individually damaged to reduce their capacity, so hit an engine and overall speed drops, blast apart an aerilon and turning is reduced.
I would envision the ability to pull various evasive manoeuvres to avoid incoming fire on the 2D axis (xy top down) such as displacement roll/rolling scissors, high yo-yo/barrel roll and Immelman Turn. Each evasion would move the aircraft out of the line of fire (be invulnerable for a short time) and lose momentum depending on aircraft manoeuvrability and size of airframe (possibly allowing for the enemy to overshoot). Thus a small, high aeroloned (pretty sure that ain't a real word but considering what gets into the Oxford English Dictionary these days it hardly bears worrying about) dogfighter would be able to pull many more evasions than a large, poorly moving bomber. Drop speed below minimum and the aircraft stalls instead, spinning off with loss of control for a few seconds which should be enough for pursuing fighters to make Swiss cheese out of it. Bombs, rockets and torpedoes would have finite ammunition (only what you can carry) whilst MGs, 50 cals and 20mm cannons would have infinite rounds but with cool-downs.
I was thinking of having an aerial navy, hence the World War 2 Pacific Naval/Carrier Battles influence, but obviously replacing boats with airships and zeppelins, so once again somewhat like how Freespace saw it's own capital ships and cruisers. Each water navy type would have an aerial equivalent such as Carriers, Dreadnoughts, Cruisers, Destroyers, DD AA Escorts, Frigates, Corvettes and Freighters. All the big capital ships would be designed to fight each other with big guns, and thus find it difficult to defend themselves from smaller, faster fighters and bombers ("We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader, but they're so small they're evading our turbolasers."). Throw in some sort of orbital/hovering installation to work as a sky bound airport.

Aircraft capability would be loosely based on a mixture of World War 2 equivalents and also Freespace's similar archetypes (light bomber, heavy bomber, etc). I am considering using a physics based formula for aircraft construction, each part having a certain weight and aerodynamic quality, more guns (heavy) increase firepower but reduce speed, more than aerilons (light) increase manoeuvrability with smaller speed loss but make the aircraft a larger target due to their additional size, armour is heavy which means a larger airframe and more drag, an extra engine adds x1.5 thrust not 2 because of it's own drag and the need for a larger airframe to accommodate it.


This is a quick concept I knocked up of a fast bomber based on a de Havilland Mosquito equivalent (air intakes probably need to go away). I was going to use it for a quick and dirty technical demo but then never had the opportunity/spare time.


Expanded Gameplay:
Campaign-wise I was thinking of something of a mixture between Wings and Total Air War, driven by player combat performance and off-duty player decisions.

Wings went through the whole of the First World War with one mission a week, inter spaced with news bulletins about the war, rumours around the airfield and of the historical aces of the time. New pilots would arrive to replace ones killed in action, for both Ai and the player, with survivors becoming familiar names in the squadron for the player.

Total Air War on the other hand had more player agency. Two African sides would square-up to each other, both backed by NATO/Soviet airforces. Missions would be randomly generated using an algorithm and the player could accept or decline them. Wiping our 3A made the skies safer for your own planes, as blasting airfields reduced enemy hostile potential. Players also had some command over airbourne jets and using an AWACs could divert assets to intercept.

I would envision multiple missions to select from, each with varying difficulties, the more challenging, the more likely the damage to enemy war effort in that sector. Do well get wider mission selection, do less well selection decreases. As the war rages new equipment and aircraft would become available. Many losses of these upgrades would cause a shortage in availability and mean falling back on inferior choices whilst the airforce restocked. The player's personal performance during missions would directly contribute to the direction of the war.

Like in Wings, there would be a between combat section, possibly displayed like a Visual Novel for interaction, where the CO or Ai pilots would have a chat, exchange rumours, post news, and the player might be able to request transfer to another unit which specialises in interceptors, fighters or bombers, thus giving more selectable missions to personal taste.

With interceptors, dogfighters, bombers, a wide range of variously capable zeppelins and floating airfields there should be a wide choice of missions. Straight forward reduce enemy numbers by dogfighting, intercept the bombers, attack the airships whilst fighters protect bombers and target, escort freighters and protect the supply lines, raid the supply dump, hunt the carrier, etc, etc. Also old fighter planes look really cool if you turn them into pushers with the propellers at the back.

After Thought:
This should be the quickest of my game ideas to complete ... allegedly ... and a faster turnover would be much appreciated after Airship Dragoon took nearly 3 years (mostly due to 3 rewrites ... which we won't be doing again).

Links to other peoples' artwork which might help give a better visual idea:
www.flickr.com/photos/25163007@N07/sets/ Lego!
linseed.deviantart.com/art/Further-Fictional-Airships-95199829
csp499.deviantart.com/art/Warhawks-Lusivakian-Airships-277978465
csp499.deviantart.com/art/Warhawks-Almenian-Airships-268368040

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Due to GG site's max word and character count ... part 2 can be found here!
www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/22830 <<<---CLICK ME!