Ok, so I've been lurking here for a few months, listening, learning, and
developing a few game ideas. I'd like to present one of my ideas now to
get your feedback.
Like all great works of art ;-) the title came first: "Super Mosca"
(Spanish for Super Fly).
In this game, you control a small fly buzzing around the screen. You
must avoid several types of enemy as you fly over a picnic landscape
looking for food to eat and places to lay your eggs.
My original concept was for Super Mosca to be a horizontal scroller, but
I'm doubtful I can pull it off given the low resolution of the
playfield. A vertical scroller would (apparently) be easier to
implement, but it seems less satisfying for the game play I have in mind.
If the game does end up as a vert. scroller, I imagine using the sort of
2-D top-down view used in River Raid. Sort of.
Mosca's enemies will include frogs with projecting tongues, leaping and
dangling spiders, disembodied fly swatters, and maybe even stalking
cats. In other words, I'm sticking with the fly's "natural" enemies. I'd
love to include a spider web, but I doubt it can be convincingly
rendered on the 2600.
I've pretty much got the enemies concept down, but the game *goal* has
been elusive. What goal does a fly have? The food idea needs to be
expanded; does Mosca simply fly over the food to "eat" it or is there
more game play involved? On the other hand, I'm pleased with the egg
laying goal; I see Mosca landing on a target where it must remain for
some amount of time, all the while vulnerable to attack. Perhaps the
eggs then hatch and destroy nearby enemies (sort of a reverse power-up).
Now here's cherry on top, the element that makes Super Mosca different
from all other scrollers that I've seen: your control over the onscreen
player (with the joystick) is non-linear. The idea is to make Mosca's
movement appear as jittery as that of a real fly, and to force the human
player to make continuous adjustments to the player sprite's position.
For example, imagine that if you push up on the joystick, Mosca moves up
for a few lines and then drifts randomly left or right.
Honestly, I don't know if such a control mechanism would prove to be fun
or frustrating.
Comments? Suggestions? Criticism?
Thanks,
Len
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