Just a thought. I haven't started the game yet but I've put some thought into it and so far it sounds pretty cool to me, to the point where I'd even start it today.
IntroI like bullet hell elements where precision and dodging are key, and I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate multiplayer and do it well. You've got your typical bullet hell shooter where it's player versus enemies and bosses. And while co-op is popular as ever, versus modes are rare. The only exception I've seen besides a straight up dogfight is Phantasmagoria of Flower View, which had a dual-screen setup where players could indirectly fight each other by killing enemies and sending bullets to the other player's screen. When their special meter was high enough, they could unleash a devastating attack on the other player.But I didn't like that system. I wanted to fight directly, so this is what I came up with:Two of my own games have had my focus right now: Prism Soul (bullet hell shooter) and Terminys (topdown RPG). Both are highly oriented to singleplayer gameplay. But together, there could be a much more dynamic system.ConceptUsing a topdown view, players move around the screen shooting bullets by aiming with the mouse. This is called streaming, and does minimal damage, but is fairly reliable. They can use "special attacks" in the form of Seals, which are devastating bullet hell attacks that the enemy team must survive. Only one Seal can be active at any given moment, but if the enemy team uses a Seal, it will end prematurely. However, if the enemy team decides to fight the Seal, they can break it to end it early and fill up their gauge that allows them to use a Seal.Players might have a damage meter. Streaming deals some damage, but any bullets from a Seal will kill a player instantly (or at least deal high damage). To combat Seals, players can also shield themselves for a brief moment.So far, it's designed to use 2-4 players in teamplay. However, some modes might work well with 8 or as many as 16. Here are potential ideas:Game Modes- Arena: Players can stream or use Seals in the same way as described above- Boss Fight: All players cooperate against a lone player, who is the "boss." The boss gets access to Seals but not to streaming. However, he does get large AoE attacks to use while he's waiting for a Seal to activate. All other players can only stream to try and kill the boss. More players means the boss has higher health. One hit kills all other players.- Slavemaster: Both teams have a master and the rest of the players are composed of slaves. The slaves try to kill the opposing master by streaming, and the master uses Seals to ward off the enemy slaves. Slaves can kill each other, but can also block each others' line of fire in order to protect their masters.- Prism Thief: Essentially Capture the Flag. One or two players from each team act as defenders, and the rest attack. With the power of the Prism Soul in their possession, defenders can use Seals to ward off attackers, who use streaming to kill the defenders. If the defenders are killed, a Prism Soul is dropped, which the attackers must return to their own base in order to score.That's all I have for this brainstorming session, but I want to know if people think this is generally a good idea that might make for an interesting game, or if they could point out any potential flaws. If people think it sounds decent, I'll get started on it. If not, I'll keep the idea until I learn game design in C++/C# a little better and make it in a system that does multiplayer better than GM.Hell, if it'd do better, we could use 64Digits members as playable characters, and each would have their own firing patterns and Seals.
Sounds really cool, one thing you might want to consider if a seal will cancel a seal it might turn into seals not being used as often or at all because it would just be canceled by the other player.
In the formula of player a has a seal, and player b has a seal, and whoever uses it will have theirs canceled, so their want to use it might cause them not to use itsounds cool thoughI don't know much about bullet hell games apart from geometry wars, really.
So I'm assuming this would be online? If so I'd definitely give it a go, especially if it included some decent features, like server/game lists and leaderboards. I know that requires you to support the game with at least one server, but still. I find online where you must specify each others IP a bit too conditional, I can't play whenever I like.I'd be hesitant about including a damage meter, particularly in a bullet hell game, particularly in an online game. Players need to know when they've messed up and what they're doing wrong - death is an excellent way of telling them that, particularly if you have ways of dodging and deflecting and shielding bullets. Maybe some bullets can be deflected or destroyed more easily than others? Plus in an online game, deaths are always more frequent, because deaths become the "points", like it or not. I'm sure if you've played CTF on a shooter, you've noticed 90% of players couldn't give a shit about the flag, and are just shooting each other. Counter-Strike is a good example of how to deal with this - just accept it. The players can get the flag, or kill the other side, both are wins, and it's not (as) frustrating to lose, because everybody is playing the game. I'm not saying to do that specifically, though.What kind of movement system are you going for? WASD for North/West/South/East? I've yet to see a shoot em up where you can pivot AND strafe the ship/thing/whatever, so like 1943-style on a fully 2-dimensional map, that would be interesting. It's probably been done, I know.I think you'll limit yourself by making references to 64Digits, personally. If it's online, why not just have accounts instead of characters and have customizable firing pattern/Seal combinations and stats? I think characters work better in single play imo.Best to avoid "unlockable" customization options and "experience points" though, that would be silly for a bullet hell game, where the whole point is that all the gameplay is there from the get-go - the audience won't like it. They might like really creative and detailed customization options though, like in racing simulators where you can change every detail of the car. Maybe they can almost "program" firing patterns to their liking. I think stuff like that is where you could stand out as "the" online bullet hell game, if it works.In regards to Seal canceling, it's a system I'll have to work out, really only prevalent in the arena mode, but designed to prevent the screen from being flooded. It might be set up so all allies who use a Seal afterward will have it downgrade to be "supportive," a much less intense version. Enemies are still iffy, but there is incentive to try to survive and break it rather than just canceling as soon as you can (gathering the energy for Seals isn't quite easy).
Regarding features, I'm pretty confident in the idea so far, and have started with the more difficult, technical aspects so it's all easy from there on out. At first I was worried about the large number of bullets causing serious lag, but making some of the things clientside (server simply tells clients what to spawn rather than trying to spawn and control all bullets), I can eliminate lag while I search for another solution for game modes where you can manipulate bullets.The only issue I think I'll have is getting it set up to use a serverlist like Reflect or Steam. Steam will not accept Game Maker, and I'm not sure if Reflect is still going or if Fred's taking games at all. If nothing else I can pester Bryan and OL, but I doubt they'd be too happy. I won't even demo the game with a manual IP input, so if anyone has suggestions on making a serverlist, I'll be happy to hear.The damage meter exists to deal with streaming. I like the idea of having Seals being deadly, but there really should be some sort of healthbar to deal with the accuracy factor in streaming. Shields are meant as an "OH SHIT" button for those who end up in a bad position.I like the idea of making kills and flag captures both act as contributions, so players would be more careful. Though due to the difficulty, flag captures would obviously have priority (give 10 points while kills give 1-3 depending).The movement will be WASD and mouse. I don't like the dogfight setup as movement is severely limited, and in bullet hell it probably won't work well.Regarding player customization, it could work if I could think of a way for people to design their own firing patterns and Seals. Worst case, they can just mix and match.If I could work out the serverlist issue most of all, I think progress would be very fast and playtesting would be frequent.It sounds like an interestingidea actually. I also agreewiththe death idea. maybe have lives and they can choose where to respawn or somethibg.
In terms of an online system and server list, Im actually developing an api to make it easy to use for everything that the site can show. JID, CPS, and me are working on multiplayer games that may work with the website. Adrenaline may even be made capable with the site as well soon.But yeah i like the idea here :)"Sent from my iPod lol"It'd be great if you got that working, AG. I know the whole thing has a lot to do with an online system and such but I don't know a whole lot of PHP/MySQL.
The game's in progress, by the way. I spent many hours on it and although GM likes to throw weird random errors, it's coming along. I've also got an XNA port in case I decide to switch to that instead and use something a little more powerful. But I don't know if that would break support with your site, AG, or if Steam accepts XNA (I know they accept C++).I use PHP and mysql, so as long as you send the information the same, and interpret what i send back it will work. Im just coding it in GM though because I know gml the best and nothing about multiplayer in other languages ;)
And yeah the PHP gets pretty complicated once you start combining things and supporting multiple games lol.I think for now I'll stick with GM since as you said, I'm more familiar with multiplayer (and GM in general–I'm just learning XNA again). I just wanted to know if at any point I decided to make a more efficient port, it would still be supported.
I hope it's easy to implement and is a little more friendly than Reflect's (but still picky for security's sake).I dont know what reflect's system is like, but I am working on making it as easy as possible, so i think it will work out well. Plus ill have instructions.
I also have a feeling it may be more secure than their system as well… CPSgames helped with that a bit.The idea is that Reflect is whorish about who uses the API. You don't just have to be trustworthy; you have to be a well-known and pronounced game designer as well. I never asked for it though so I don't know how easy it is to use, but I have seen the scripts. The whole process can't be as complicated as 39DLL.
Yeah thats another reason why I want to do it. To have more games that are fun, but dont always look as nice. But all the extras you get with this system would give everyone many more things to do through it :)
It wont be complicated because im going to write some scripts that handle the requests, document how to do everything, and otherwise you create an object that handles all the server requests.