is a series of games I'm planning and creating. Currently I've been working on the first one, a shmup titled Operation Shadow Strike. There's an old thread for it in the now-hidden programming subforum, but since it's hidden now (and because more people will see this here), I'll be posting all updates and news in this thread now. =)Current Version: Test Version 7
Old versions: Test Version 6
Thank you Oni for the hosting. =)
Note: From this point on I start rambling about the game. I added pictures to break up the monotony of my typing, so if you don't think you're likely to read it all, just DL the game and ignore from here on. If you wanna know more about the game, read on:
Synopsis of the game:
Operation Shadow Strike is a horizontal scrolling spaceship shoot-em-up, or shmup. In the game you control Echo One Niner (E-19), pilot of one of the advanced Shadow Stealthfighters. At first, you can choose one of 3 distinct variants which all start with just a simple machinegun. As the game goes, your ship will acquire 2 more primary weapons and a secondary based on the ship variant you chose (though for now, in the test version, all weapons are available from the start). Also, as you beat each difficulty you will be rewarded with new ships, each with distinct characteristics and special abilities (as I create these ships, the test version will likely have them available immediately, for testing).
Pictures of the current weapons:
Rail Gun:
Laser:
Plasma Weapon:
The various missiles:
Shield Burst:
Rail Gun with Hyperdrive active:
Unlock in other shmups, in Operation Shadow Strike you're not alone. The Operator and your Commander, along with various other allies, will send you transmissions to inform you of your objectives, warn you of danger, or otherwise communicate. On Easy mode, they will issue tips and hints that should help new players. On Hard, there may even be taunting transmissions from enemies. In addition to radio chatter, your allies will be flying, driving, even running along with you, engaging enemies independently and doing their best to assist you. Keeping these allies safe, in addition to dodging enemy fire yourself, will be extremely helpful in achieving victory.
Old image of transmissions in action:
I'm a programmer, not an artist. =(
Operation Shadow Strike also will avoid the frustration of one-hit-deaths that are the standard in normal shmups. When hit, your ship will become unstable, shaking more and more violently as you take more damage. Although a single shot normally won't kill you, the resulting loss of control will usually spell doom for pilots. In order to allow novice players to beat the game while still challenging experts, the game will feature a range of difficulties that properly handicap the player or enemies to make the game easier or harder. This should allow people who generally hate the instant deaths and extreme difficulty of the shmup genre to fully enjoy this game.
It's hard to show in images, but here's a bit that I caught from in-game:
As you can (sorta) see in the image, your ship shakes and lil bits break off (more than just fireballs will come later).
Operation Shadow Strike will feature a well-balanced variety of ships and variety. The 3 primary weapons will all have situations where they excel, and knowing when to use each weapon will be essential to success, especially on harder difficulties. The various ship variants will all have unique weapons that are balanced against each other. The unlockable ships will generally be stronger than the standard ships, but will require much more skill to use to their full potential. The gameplay will drastically shift depending on which ship you use, especially due to the secondary abilities of the ships.
Finally, the graphics. Right now, they are admittedly bad. I'm a programmer, not an artist. My friend Matt, however, IS an artist. He's also a very important team member and will be working on taking my mangled mess of graphics and churning out beautiful sprites. Be patient, the triangles and squares WILL give way to detailed ships and amazing explosions. =)
For example (as posted below), here's Matt's version of the player ship:
And some concept art:
As you can see, he's a lot better at images than I am. We're working on it, I promise.
Overview of the story:
(this is covered in the intro of the game, which at this point is voiced by a very monotone computer-generated voice, so if he makes your ears bleed, read this)
October 4th, 1957: The Soviets launch Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Little did we know, an astronomer on a planet named Plox happened to be looking in our direction and saw the satellite enter the space around Earth. Ploxian culture put a great deal of emphasis on exploration and knowledge, and the discovery of life on another planet caused much excitement. The Ploxians sent a group of ambassadors to Earth to set up a warpgate that would allow for instantaneous travel between our planets. When they arrived after their long journey, the people of Earth greeted the alien visitors and helped in construction of the warpgate.
The opening of the warpgate saw vast improvements on both Earth and Plox. A surplus of food from Plox helped wipe out world hunger on Earth, while human laborers gave Plox a way to cheaply perform tasks that previously had to be done by expensive machines, since the Ploxians were smart but very weak and frail. The influx of easy and well-paying jobs greatly increased the standard of living on Earth, wiping out poverty almost entirely. With nobody wanting or needing anything they couldn't get, world peace ensued and a period of peace and prosperity began. As the world's nations combined into a single planetary government, militaries were phased out and soldiers converted to police officers. Things were great.
After many years without problems or conflict, stories began to surface of unsettling behavior from the Ploxians. Humans wandering out of the Ploxian solar system, known as Gamma Sector, told stories of huge Ploxian warships that greeted them and told them to they were entering restricted space and had to leave. These stories were printed in Earth's tabloids and generally weren't believed (the tabloids weren't right about UFOs and aliens that showed up on Earth, after all). The government, with no wars or other major problems to deal with, took interest and sent high-ranking undercover police officers to investigate. They did, in fact, get greeted by large Ploxian cruisers whenever they crossed the border between Gamma Sector and its neighboring solar system, Delta Sector. Government leaders grew nervous and talks began of a mission to investigate Delta Sector further.
Using private funding from top business leaders, who were convinced that the Ploxians must be hiding something of value, the Earth government organized a top-secret mission to quietly and quickly invade Delta Sector and find out what the Ploxians were hiding. Top-ranking officers were offered a chance at the top-secret mission. They were not told what the mission entailed, only that it was important and secret. Those who accepted were assembled at a warpgate on Earth. The gate led to a temporary base set up on the outskirts of Gamma Sector. The human forces were poised to fly into Delta Sector and begin Operation Shadow Strike.
You play as a pilot, call-sign Echo One Niner, who is one of the human troops charged with flying the Earth's prototype Shadow Stealthfighters into Delta Sector. As will be explained in the cutscene before level 1, you are assigned scout duty right before the Ploxians attack the human's forward base.
Plans for the game:
The following are things I plan on adding to the game. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS OR IDEAS, whether original or simply adding onto things I've listed here, PLEASE TELL ME! I'm a big fan of feedback, and I believe your feedback and suggestions will help me make this game great. =)
- I plan to add a 4th, unlockable, difficulty for elite players. It'll likely be called danmaku (thanks Moogy)
- 5 unlockable ships. 3 for the standard difficulties, 1 for danmaku, and 1 super secret one.
- Lots of missions. Right now there are 2 half levels. By the end, I'd like there to be upwards of 20 full-length levels. The code now supports multi-path levels, which I definitely plan to implement. For example, if you let bombers blow up your team's tank factory in one mission you will be charged with taking out the bomber fleet's base, whereas if you protect the factory you'll lead a ground attack against a base.
- Full balance of the weapons. This is where feedback is very important. The game is bad about balance right now, I know. If you find that you can take out EVERY boss I release using some weapon/ship combination, bring it to my attention. An unbalanced game is not fun, especially if the most interesting ships are the most underpowered.
- Lots of real voices. Right now, the intro is voiced by a crappy digitized voice. I intend to find people to lend their voices to the game, both for cutscenes and for the in-game transmissions.
- Music! Right now the game can just loop one sound forever, but once I write stuff that will allow for switching of tracks (and support for appropriate triggers/events), I will really look into some good music. If you're interested in helping me with this, I'm looking for orchestral stuff. Military orchestra, like in Battlefield 1942. I'd prefer that far more than I would techno or 8bit sounding stuff.
- Better sound effects. I mean both in the quality of each sound, but also in the quantity. Right now every enemy uses the same crappy shooting noise and every weapon the player has makes the same crappy shooting noise. I'd really like if lasers sounded different from missiles, but I don't have excellent SFX creation tools. Again, if you want to help, tell me. =)
- Graphics. -__- Matt is working on this, and I may post some of his work to give you an idea of what to expect. The main hold-up is that we're planning on future games. We don't want to make cool-looking 2d sprites only to have them look completely retarded in future 3d games. We're trying to design everything from a 3d perspective and then dumb it down to 2d, so it's taking longer to make concrete ideas. Plus, we're both students and have other commitments, so it's hard to find time to sit down together and really decide on stuff. It IS coming, though!
- Various options. If nothing else, the music/SFX/voices should be mutable, and the level of graphical detail should be selectable. This will be mainly for performance, but also because you may get annoyed by the noises. I'm looking into having selectable volume, but I'm not sure how much Java natively allows, and this is using a really simple system for sound. =\
- Online version of the game. Since the game is written in Java, it could be turned into an applet and posted online. However, due to some of my design choices the game is not currently able to be played in a browser. Once I fix these (and once I get a webpage to put the game on) I will get an online version up. The online version will not have all the features of the downloadable game (mainly it'll be forced to use low graphical settings and cutscenes/transmissions won't have sound). This is mainly to help performance in the browser and to reduce bandwidth usage.
- Big infantry additions. Right now infantry is just a class of Ally and Enemy, but I plan to expand this greatly. Namely, I'll have most units contain infantry and spit them out upon death (or start evacuating when near-death). Also, I want infantry to have different appearances, especially when dying. Probably in version 6 I will implement this, allowing you to toss infantry with explosives, light them on fire with the laser, or crush them with tanks and falling ships. =)
- Enhanced program-based graphics. The actual sprites...well, I can't do anything about that. I can only draw boxes and simple shapes, end of story. I CAN however create mathematical beauty. For example, the visual effect of infantry parachuting out of downed planes, the fact that downed planes fall to the ground, or how buildings rattle and crash when killed. I plan to work on other neat math-based graphical updates, such as causing weapons to do more than just move up/down when selected, or causing hyperdrive to have a motion blur effect.
- Plenty more that I can't think of.
- Even more that YOU haven't suggested yet!
I've got a lot on my plate, especially given that this is my first video game. I fully plan to get it all working as I envision. When I started out, it all seemed so overwhelming, but I've gotten much farther much faster than I ever expected. I hope you all enjoy
PS: I plan to add some images so this wall-of-text first post isn't AS unappealing. I'm a bit wary, though, since my images are, well, not so good. It all looks so much better in motion, which is why I put the DL link up top. If you made it all the way down here, congrats! Sorry for typing so much. XD
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