SkyMyst

[Souly]

A sidescrolling shmup RPG inspired by an idea spawned by me and Lollige.
Sorry the island is pretty rough, not very rocky.
I'm aslo undecided if I want to added detail or keep it black and white.
I've been getting  reviews on the B&W

Just a mockup:


In game:


Idea demo:
http://punky.ensellitis.com/games/SkyMyst.exe
Up to change height, when you have the height you want you can just hold left or right to keep going at that altitude.
Arrow keys to move, Z to shoot, X to change the time of day by 1 hour, 1 and 2 changes your ships size
The collision is a little glitchy in how you turn around atm.

The reason it's in Low Spec is because it will be using a lot of particle effects.
I'll probably start making my own as soon as I know how it all works, atm I'm just using game makers defaults.

General idea in short
As a player, you will begin your expedition by renting a ship.
You set out on missions to; search for resources, defeat monsters, fish, discover
When you come back on land again, you can buy new items from the money you have made on the trips, or even buy your own better boat.
The ships fly due to the rudder bellow the deck, it is made of the same minerals as the islands themselves.
Rudder controls the height of your ship, the engine propels it forward.

World
Everything takes place in an extremely white place.
There are large floating islands, which all have one port. Every island produces a few goods/resourses, and ask for a lot of them in return.
All ships use cogs, and cogs break quite often so this has become the global currency of the world.
There are only 2 found countries in this world (large mass islands) each has it's own orbit.
The air consists of 3 layers, Thick, Stable, and Thin
Certain ships could only travel in certain air, underneath everything would be a giant body of water.

Aim of the game
Players set their own aims, but they can collect items, money, try to dominate as much land as they can.

Different times of the day, night and daytime.


Ship concepts, nothing too solid about the designs just random ATM to get the idea out.

I'm undecided on if I want to detail them up, I know it'd probably look better but I'm semi-partial to the pure black.

[Gil]

I definately like the pure black better.

Looks awesome really.

[Souly]

We decided to go with tile sets.



This is something I made with the coder's tiles he made.
This wasn't made with the tile set I made, though I'll upload one when I have it.


Basically you get off your ship and walk around on the islands.
With it being tiled now we can have caves, that will go transparent when you walk in them.

[Souly]

Alright, updating the boats now since before they were just concepts.

[Squiggly_P]

Are you going to color them or leave them black and white?

I'd say, if you do decide to color them, go with something a lot more subtle than your previous color versions.  Mostly black and white, but with some color trim here and there to pop them out a bit or something.

Love the idea.

[Souly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b00xVbqqnv8
A youtube video of both my crap attempt at an engine.
And my buddies new attempt at some cool plane-like physics.

[Rydin]

The tail fins of the ships look wacky and do not make sense physically.

Take an example of an average airplane tail fin:


Such fins are the result of many dedicated years of studying and applying aerodynamics.  Notice the backwards lean versus the forward cutting lean on your ships.

It would make more sense to have fins situated more like the following:


 

[Souly]

more aerodynamic now?

[NaCl]

I say don't let science impede your art... it isn't like you are making blueprints to an actual ship. I think the old rudders look way cooler.

[Rydin]

Yeah, I was just about to say similar NaCl.  If you're going for a fantasy thing Souly, and I'm pretty sure you are, take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.  They don't have to be exactly like an airplane.  I just felt with the way the majority of the fins were jutting forward, it didn't seem like they would be able to realistically steer their ship.

[Souly]

The thing is I haven't figured out how to do the rutter at all.
And the old ones were random and confusing, now by having this restriction I can make the boats look more like they'd actually fly.
I like the point that Rydin brought to the table and I decided to use it.

[Feron]

why not try something like this:

http://www.meetpollux.com/grafika/boat.jpg

[Ben2theEdge]

Feron beat me to it... currently your ships are operating under the anime physics of, "anything which looks cool can fly". You've got both propellers and sails which provide two forms of thrust, but you have no form of lift. You don't need to get super picky about the physics, but just enough to suspend disbelief.

[Souly]

The form of lift is that the rudder in the back is supposed to be carved minerals from the islands.
Thus the planes can control their height, the sails and propeller is what pushes them forward.
That's why originally the rudder was all fucked up so it looked like it was something carved.

I don't want the player to control any blimp plane, though I planned to make them in the game.
It just wouldn't be a playable airships, a blimp would pop in combat too easily so it's just going to be a technology used by enemies.

Also the way a blimp moves would be more straight, where as now the boat flies like a real plane kind of in game.

[Claredeth]

Hey that name sounds firmiliar haha.
I don't feel like the atmosphere is working to your advantage.

[Souly]

Well the clouds were coded by me.
So they are in no way decent for atmosphere.
The clouds shown in the video were made just to give the engine example a feel of movement.
The clouds will most likely be pastel colored and I'll make a nice attempt at a CG background or something.

I have a buddy who's helping me out.
We've been working over Skype so we can talk about ideas and work at the same time.
It seems to be working good, he knows what he's doing more then I do.