Thu, Feb 11th 2010, 11:12

Tinkerlist  

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I was annoyed to discover that VERGE wouldn't support a twin stick setup (more on why that's important later), so I played with a variety of different engines to see what could do what I wanted. I still haven't settled on one (even for prototyping!), but at least I've got a sense of my options.

Now, on to the actual combat concepts. There are a few different approaches I'm considering, all of them pretty rough, but they are:

Twin Stick
Player moves and fires in realtime.
* Very action-oriented; the default winner for "most engaging".

Lock On
Player's burden is to pick targets and maneuver (realtime); AI does the shooting.
* Would accommodate 3D movement pretty well
* Makes gunnery crew a more interesting element

Turn Based
Closer to traditional RPG combat, Skies of Arcadia being an obvious influence.
* Simplest form of play; the player makes executive decisions is never rushed.
* Would facilitate dramatic animations that I will never have time to create.

Fleet
Turnless, "analog" SRPG combat (similar to Growlanser).
* This seems unfun with a single ship, so there would probably have a small fleet to control

More to come next week as I move into some actual prototyping.

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