BlackShipsFillt
07-01-2011, 07:48 PM
http://www.blackshipsfillthesky.com/SliceFight/SliceFight!!(Windows).zip
It's up, it's short, it isn't in any way challenging, but Zombies explode.
Erstwhile, 48 hours ago....
Okay... I feel like I'm cheating a little bit, but I plan to prototype an idea I've been toying with for the last two weeks, because it fits in perfectly with the topic (from what I can understand).
Basically: House of the Dead with Fruit Ninja slicing for a touch interface.
I have a nasty suspicion that I am not the first to attempt this gameplay, but since I have not seen it anywhere before I am hoping that I can at least do it the best.
I played Rage by Id software for the iPad recently; it looked really good for a mobile device, but it didn't play very well. What it did do for me was make me realise is that there aren't actually very many good rail shooters for this platform, which I find kind of strange because it seems to me that touchscreen devices are perfect for rail-shooters (rail-shooters being a more casual form of a FPS and touchscreen devices having a positional interface). What I found even more bizarre was how bad the Rage gameplay was. One finger would move the camera around (of course being limited to only 60 degrees off of the rail), and another would touch a button to make the gun fire. This was kind of awkward and thusly I thought to myself: "Why did they make this so unfun when House of the Dead already exists and would be a far better representation of Rage on this platform? Especially considering HotD has dismemberment and iOs Rage does not?"
And then what I thought was (while ranting about this with Luke from Tasty Poison): The only thing that would be more violent and cathartic than House of the Dead for the iOS would be House of the Dead with a slicing/ninja interface!!
So I really hope this has not been done already and I somehow spaced on it. Someone please put me out of my misery if I have.
For those of you that don't remember House of the Dead, it was a rail shooter arcade game where the player points the gun at the screen and shoots monsters. If the monsters got up to the player and attacked him/her or the player killed too many innocents then the player would lose. The monsters for the most part were effortlessly dismemberable, except the bosses, a single bullet and heads and limbs would fly off or explode, and the monsters would come from many directions as the player wound down the tight corridors. What was beautiful about HotD was that it was fairly easy and excessively violent... especially if you played it on a PC with unlimited ammo and the ability to fire as fast as you could click.
What I want to do then is essentially the same, except instead of pointing at what I want dead I want the player to draw slices with their mouse/finger and I want those slices to separate bodyparts. Like Fruit Ninja, slicing through things will be easy, the trick will be not killing the things that the player is not meant to kill while still killing all the others.
I feel a bit dirty doing this. This kind of concept is really a mashup of already commercially successful products, it's less innovation and more refinement. Not really something I want to make my modus operandi, but shameless (or shameful) commercialism doesn't necessarily negate fun (well, that's what I'm here to test).
I can probably only spend one day on this, please let me know if this idea fails to meet the criteria. I will be updating this post with links once there is something to show.
[edit: It looks like this sort of thing does sort of exist on Wii and Kinnect, but so far that doesn't deter me]
It's up, it's short, it isn't in any way challenging, but Zombies explode.
Erstwhile, 48 hours ago....
Okay... I feel like I'm cheating a little bit, but I plan to prototype an idea I've been toying with for the last two weeks, because it fits in perfectly with the topic (from what I can understand).
Basically: House of the Dead with Fruit Ninja slicing for a touch interface.
I have a nasty suspicion that I am not the first to attempt this gameplay, but since I have not seen it anywhere before I am hoping that I can at least do it the best.
I played Rage by Id software for the iPad recently; it looked really good for a mobile device, but it didn't play very well. What it did do for me was make me realise is that there aren't actually very many good rail shooters for this platform, which I find kind of strange because it seems to me that touchscreen devices are perfect for rail-shooters (rail-shooters being a more casual form of a FPS and touchscreen devices having a positional interface). What I found even more bizarre was how bad the Rage gameplay was. One finger would move the camera around (of course being limited to only 60 degrees off of the rail), and another would touch a button to make the gun fire. This was kind of awkward and thusly I thought to myself: "Why did they make this so unfun when House of the Dead already exists and would be a far better representation of Rage on this platform? Especially considering HotD has dismemberment and iOs Rage does not?"
And then what I thought was (while ranting about this with Luke from Tasty Poison): The only thing that would be more violent and cathartic than House of the Dead for the iOS would be House of the Dead with a slicing/ninja interface!!
So I really hope this has not been done already and I somehow spaced on it. Someone please put me out of my misery if I have.
For those of you that don't remember House of the Dead, it was a rail shooter arcade game where the player points the gun at the screen and shoots monsters. If the monsters got up to the player and attacked him/her or the player killed too many innocents then the player would lose. The monsters for the most part were effortlessly dismemberable, except the bosses, a single bullet and heads and limbs would fly off or explode, and the monsters would come from many directions as the player wound down the tight corridors. What was beautiful about HotD was that it was fairly easy and excessively violent... especially if you played it on a PC with unlimited ammo and the ability to fire as fast as you could click.
What I want to do then is essentially the same, except instead of pointing at what I want dead I want the player to draw slices with their mouse/finger and I want those slices to separate bodyparts. Like Fruit Ninja, slicing through things will be easy, the trick will be not killing the things that the player is not meant to kill while still killing all the others.
I feel a bit dirty doing this. This kind of concept is really a mashup of already commercially successful products, it's less innovation and more refinement. Not really something I want to make my modus operandi, but shameless (or shameful) commercialism doesn't necessarily negate fun (well, that's what I'm here to test).
I can probably only spend one day on this, please let me know if this idea fails to meet the criteria. I will be updating this post with links once there is something to show.
[edit: It looks like this sort of thing does sort of exist on Wii and Kinnect, but so far that doesn't deter me]