Storyline

[+karri]

Hi,

 

I am a bit stuck in my Stardreamer. The game itself will have Elite-like parts while you fly in space. The flying part should be traditional and I try to focus on the playability.

 

The game will have also have trading, new engines, new weapons and small special missions.

 

Chad got me interested in the idea to do some in-between cartoon-like pieces to add another dimension to the game.

 

The point is that I would like the game to bring up a laugh.

The trading could be made like a joke about ebay or NASDAQ. Or the trading screen could look like Windows 3.1 on low-tech planets and Windows XP on high tech planets. The higher the technology the more likely you are to get a blue-screen or "The module rundll32 has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down..."

 

In addition it would be easy to include small easter-egg

subgames that you could play at the arcades at some planets.

 

I am hoping to make a play session last about 5 minutes. And make it interesting and fun enough to keep up the curiosity for hundreds of play sessions.

 

If someone has any good ideas about what would be cool for an Atarian, please give me some ideas. You can also email me privately if you don't want to spoil the surprises by giving it away on this forum.

 

I cannot offer more than eternal glory in the credits-section of the game

 

Space is not a problem as there is a neat technique available that could extend the cart size to 1MB.

 

--

Regards,

 

Karri

[Daniel Thomas]

I think your Elite project is terrific, and I would love to help you out. I happen to be something of a writer, and I'd be good for coming up with some good material.

 

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Stardreamer do hand out any ideas right now. How are the interactions with other characters handled? What happens when the player visits planets or space stations? Will there be cut-scenes with a graphic of the person you're talking to? The arcade idea sounds great. How would that be handled?

 

Finally, I'm curious: is this a straight copy of Elite, or what are the differences? How large is the game world? Again, more questions.

 

Again, I'd love to help you out, so feel free to contact me when you have the time. Thanks!

[+karri]

At the space station I had thought of small newspapers with short

society-stories like:

 

A live, moving picture of Miss Piggy with the text

It is understandably that you have to

kiss a lot of frogs before you find the

prince.

 

In addition to useless news there would

also be real news that would prepare the

pilot for the coming adventures.

 

I hope to have real multiplayer interaction using ComLynx but as the world is so huge you have to team up and fly together to be able to see each other.

 

The flight engine is very much like Elite. The rest of the game could be anything.

 

The basic structure is like:

 

Intro

 

Cutscene:

 

Flying or Docking

 

Jump back to Cutscene

 

In the Flying section you just fly, shoot, loot.

 

In the docking section you have small games, trading, navigating.

 

I may include interaction between characters if it helps the story.

 

--

Karri

[Gregory DG]

I was one who missed the opportunity to play Elite when it was first released, but I did play the heck out of Elite II on the ST and the PC. The great thing about Elite II (and Elite I?) was the ability to do anything you wanted. Be a smuggler (my choice becuase it paid the best), a hit man/bounty hunter, a trader, a miner (tried it, didn't get much from it), a scavanger, a courier, a transporter, military personel, etc. Geez, there was so much you could never do it all.

 

How vast will Stardreamer be? How much like Elite will the space battles be (one of the most interesting aspects of the game)? Are there lots of ships and upgrades? Does it have a 3D engine? Are their space stations to land on? Is there an auto pilot and/or a time displacement button (for speeding up long trips)? How accurate is the universe in relation to the real one? Will there be aliens?

 

One thing you could do to make it "funny" would be to have cameos of notable Atari people. Maybe officer Tramiel gives you a fine for smuggling. Or perhaps Bushnell is the name of a city somewhere. Of course, you could use AtariAge people as well. (Or perhaps the 2600 game E.T. is illegal on some planet! )

 

Stardreamer sounds like a great project and I hope the Atari community will continue to encourage you to finish it. Of course, any publicity you'd like from The Atari Times during the production process (or even when it is done) would be free to you. :wink:

[+karri]

I played Elite when it came out and I loved it.

 

But just to have Elite would not make me sit for hours in front of my Lynx anymore.

 

I like the idea to use a pseudo-random series to make up the universe.

 

But I want to have some neat extras:

- like a planet that cannot be reached until later in the game.

- some black hole physics that affects the way the craft flies.

- rescue missions.

- protection missions.

- sabotage missions.

 

So far I have experimented with PID controllers together with Thomas 3D-engine. The results are very nice. I can create very heavy, sluggish ships and very responsive ships. It is even possible to equip the enemy ships with PID controllers to give them some

 

The basic "intelligence" in Elite was very straight forward. The enemy heads directly towards you shooting all the time.

 

I want to keep the space fights at the Elite style. Some of the missions and powerups can also be like in Elite. Also the docking will be like in Elite,

 

I was also thinking about giving weird power-ups like "clam up", where your craft puts all its powers on the shields and you become a stationary defence point. Just shooting enemies trying to attack you. It could be done like a sniper at some military games. A black screen with a crosshair that moves.

 

I would also like to have a death-star style run at some point in the game if Lucien is kind enough to lend his code for that section of the game.

 

Well, enough dreaming...

 

I have just learned to combine modules together to form a complete cart. The current version has my Password application as the Intro-stage. After that it loads the Cutscreen-stage that will only say:

 

"That was last weeks password. But you are granted access anyway." in case you solved the code. Or

 

"Is it impossible to remember even a simple code like XXXXXX? You are hopeless commander."

 

Then it will load the flying-stage where you have a single craft flying in a big circle. You can accelerate, decelerate and shoot with some lasers. And tilt the craft in all directions. Sound effects are implemented through my ABC-music engine.

 

In the docking stage you can see all starcharts, buy, sell and read about the planets.. That code works already also.

 

There will also be some shared components like the ABC-music engine, IRQ-driven screen update mechanism and code loader that all work OK already.

 

I may also need a ComLynx engine that could be shared by all components.

 

Thomas 3D space is very realistic because it is a real 3D environment. I hope to be able to make my rockets out of neat sprites like spheres and cylinders. In this way you could see the 3D effect of even small movements as the spheres move in relation to each others. Currently I use just dots and wires.

 

The planets and stars are real bitmaps.

 

I hope to make a freeze of the game every now and then so that you can play parts of it in Handy or on a developers cart.

 

Once the parts are good enough it would be so cool to make a commercial real release (and sell many carts, perhaps even 10 or 12 if we get good reviews) with a storyline, objectives, jokes, good music, great graphics etc.

 

--

Karri

(This really is the smallest and least profitable project I have ever been involved in. But it is fun.)