Side-Scroll of Legend (April 24, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Here's a great surprise: Mark Smids, author of the Prophecy DVD Viewer, has a cool new project to show off: Wing Commander Arcade, a Wing Commander themed fan arcade game! Here's the word:
For a couple of months now, We’ve been working on a new Wing Commander related project: Wing Commander Arcade. Even before the Wing Commander Arena announcements we had the idea to create a 2D Tyrian alike sidescroller situated in the Wing Commander universe. We decided to start from scratch in C using just the OpenGL and FMOD (for sound/music) libraries. Most textures used in the game are derived from resources found in the CIC archives. We are thrilled to announce that a playable demo is already available for download. From the Wing Commander Arcade section of our homepage, screenshots can be viewed, two recorded in-game videos can be downloaded and, of course, the playable demo for the Windows platform can be grabbed. The first stage of the game can be played where the player can start flying the Arrow, Hellcat V or Longbow and navigate through an asteroid field. In the second part of the stage you will encounter some Kilrathi resistance. Any comments, questions or bugreports are welcome. We hope the Wing Commander community will enjoy this playable demo. We keep you informed about the progress of the development of this game.
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You can download the playable demo here (1.8 mb), and the sample movies are available here (5.7 mb) and here (8 mb). It looks like a lot of fun!







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Original update published on April 24, 2007
 
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Great work, it looks and plays nicely. I do have a request could the final version feature upgrade system similar to Raptor - Call from Shadows. With the additon of earning better ships, that would increase the replay value
 
Wow, good call. Raptor was pretty much the ultimate for these games.

Of course, that might be a good move for a Privateer version ;)
 
Having now played for longer than I care to admit...

My non-fanboy feedback:

-The star density/animation is starting to make me dizzy. I like the depth, but the starfield seems a bit too dense. Any plans for a static underlay, like a nebula? If you made the color of the player ship something neutral, you could even tint it toward the color of your background.

-Will enemy movement develop? "Follow the leader" type formations are common in games like this, and seem especially appropriate for Darket. I don't think AI is necessarily needed, but some patterns would be cool.

-In all the times through, I never encountered a solid, impassible wall of asteroids, which was nicely done.

-Any plans for wingmen? I'm not quite sure they've ever worked especially well in games like this, as they're usually just attached to the player ship's wing firing in tandem.

-Branch play might be cool, too: if an enemy gets by on a "Don't let them know we're here" mission, you go to a fail track!

-Can't wait to see capships, as they're no doubt coming ;)

This is fantastic- keep it coming!
 
rtheriaque said:
-The star density/animation is starting to make me dizzy. I like the depth, but the starfield seems a bit too dense. Any plans for a static underlay, like a nebula? If you made the color of the player ship something neutral, you could even tint it toward the color of your background.
Click to expand...

Those are little bits of space debris.
 
Sir,

Just had a play of the demo, really good fun! If you could keep developing it up to something Raptor-esque, it would be absolutely brilliant!

KvK
 
While it was fun for a few minutes, there are a few things I would like to point out as it seems no one has addressed these issues yet.

First, to me it seemed like there wasn't enough difference between the different ships to make using anything other than an arrow worth it. Yes the heavier ships move slower, but that is not made up enough in how much more firepower you have... on top of the fact that the longbows more powerful gun doesn't recharge very fast. This might not have been an issue though if the guns shot straight instead of being splayed... because of the slow manoevering those last few shots are often essential to get dead on. And given as the basis for this is WC, I can't see any reason to mimic other side scrollers in this regard. As well, it feels like th ship takes about the same amount of damage whether in the heavier or lighter fighters. I certainly couldn't bounce off of more than one small rock no matter which fighter I was in.... (speaking of which, is there a reason why - to start with - there are so many asteroids and that they fly so fast?)

One minor thing: I think the text would look better centered on the screen instead of off to the left centered on the playing area.

I realize it's just a demo and I imagine you'll need to balance out various features in the final product, yet all the same it shows promise and is a fun diversion.
 
It is a fun little game and if you can make into more like a Raptor-like game, it has potential to become my favourite filler game! I love those Arcade (at first I kind of hoped that Arena would be something like that) scrollers!
My biggest gripe at the moment are the colours, they're not too pretty.
Still, it's very cool you made something like that. :cool:
 
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