Preliminary research
My First idea is to create a game similar to the popular "copter" game, something with a single level that is very simple, but addictive.
something side scrolling seems to be the most obvious choice, as that means i can stick to a single level game, and not have to worry about making any sort of level progression.
as for outside influence, i would love to do something either with a sound player, or with a webcam input, perhaps the player can take a picture of their face to become the character they play as, or have some sort of equaliser based on the music the player is listening to and then make a level based on the type of music they are listening to.
these seem to be very unrealistic goals however, i would much prefer to have a simple game that works well, and keeps the user entertained, long enough to play it for a while, and i feel that trying to do these things will be too complicated for what is only a laid back casual game.
a Side scrolling shooter however would be a bit more simple to make, and if made well, could be quite fun, especially if it is in a similar style to old school side scrollers like R-Type, or old mobile phone game Space Impact.
R-Type, the coolest of cool.
however, one problem with this is that its been done before, and i would prefer to have a slightly less obvious choice for my game, something that is imaginative but still easy to play and simple.
Update-Jan 12th
New Ideas-
Some sort of blockbreaker / arkanoid style game, only without the blocks and more balls, if that makes sense, so the challenge is to keep all the balls in the air.
my first thought was to base it on final fantasy, purely because it would add an amount of novelty to the game, and also would give it a bit of an overall motif, and means that the designing aspect is easier.
the general idea for the game is that you use a paddle (or whatever) to bounce a ball back up to the top of the screen, and once you have hit it so many times (for example ten) another slightly faster ball is added, and so on until there are six balls on the screen at one time, making for some manic and quick paced gaming, with the player losing a life whenever a ball hits the bottom of the stage.
another possibility is to have a timer, which counts up, and every 30 seconds another ball is added, and the challenge is to last as long as possible.
to make it less frustrating, i will add lives for the player to use up, instead of just getting a game over whenever they make one mistake, as this would be rather frustrating, so perhaps 3 lives for the player to use up before they lose the game.
Update-Jan 18th
the graphics are all finished, but it seems that having 6 balls may make for rather complicated gaming, so perhaps it is best to stick to 3 or 4 balls tops.
i have made the "paddle" into a sword, in keeping with the final fantasy style, however, this does make it look a bit lopsided, as it is not symetrical, it also only hints at it being related to final fantasy. but as it is it looks good overall.
And i have decided that the game will have scoring system, not a timer, as a scoring system will be easier to follow than a timer.
Update-Jan 22nd
The final fantasy idea has been scrapped, but some of the graphics have been kept, as they are fairly nice to look at and are not explicitly related to final fantasy, so unless the player knew that that had been the original idea for the game, it would not be obvious to them.
The ball number has been reduced to 4, to make for an easier game, and they now all release at the same time, as it doesnt seem to be very easy to make another release once a certain score is reached, and the first attempt at doing this lead to the second ball either only moving a few pixels then stopping, or going at an over the top speed, making the entire game useless, however, now that all the balls release at the same time, it is a lot easier to make them work.
in problem is the outside input for the game, as mine is fairly simple, and i dont think there is anything that can be done via outside influence, so i think the best way to include this is to simply add the time and date (when they started playing) at the top of the screen, which will allow them to see how long they lasted , and also provide a little extra distraction to make the game a bit more difficult.
Update-Jan 29th
The game is finished, and plays fairly well, however, the main problem which i have yet to overcome is how to create some sort of play button so that the player can start the game in their own time, as on my website it will be difficult to scroll down and start the game without losing a life, so i shall have to come up with some way of making it work.
but as of now, these are the screenshots of the game
Hopefully by the deadline i will be able to add a play button so that the game does not start instantly, but when the player is ready, this will make it a lot more user friendly and overall a better game.
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