Thats debatable and you know that. Please stop trying to start a fight.
Soundless as a theme so we can focus all our attention on the other facets of the game is a legitimate plan. I prefer a better silent game then a not quite as good annoying sound game.
A downward scrolling shooter (character towards bottom of screen, as everything scrolls down to meet him). You play the part of a dragon destroying waves of alien ships, with each wave consisting of a small number (no more than 8 each) of identical enemies with very similar movement patterns. Multiple waves can be on the screen at a time. Take damage from hitting enemies (which also destroys them) and being hit by enemy shots. Destroying enemies gives points and temporary boosts. Each level you finish lets you pick one of two upgrades that then persists until the end of the game - described as your dragon growing and developing. If feasible, player should have a choice of slightly different starting dragons varying by color and starting abilities, and each upgrade should make small modifications in the appearance of the dragon.
You also have a limited number of full-screen attacks, known as Rages, that harm all enemies on screen (killing the weaker ones) and remove all bullets - taking the form of a fiery wave that begins at the bottom of the screen and proceeds quickly upwards, preferably with "Dragon's Rage!" displayed on the screen in large letters as it does
We're going for sound, and we'll see what we can fit in (music? blips? boss noises?). If we could actually get a single (rough) voice clip of "Dragon's Rage!" to go off when you hit the bomb button, that would be a major draw all by itself.
You can hold up to five rages (start with 1 on continue), and 3 lives (start with 3 on continue). Continues zero your score, but you can continue as often as you want. During the level, temp boosts show up that give you things like temporary invincibility, a survive-one-hit shield, some sort(s?) of temporary attack boost (speed or damage or something), extra points, temp double points, and extra rages. Getting some large number of points gets you an extra life. If you would go above your life cap, you instead get a nifty temp buff and a points bonus. You get a further bonus for killstreak. Dying ends the streak, as does letting any enemy escape the screen, but once your killstreak gets going, you start getting bonus points per enemy, and the longer it goes, the more points you get. Firing off a rage also breaks your streak, though you do get the bonuses for any foes killed in the rage.
For scoring, everything is some multiple of 10 points. The first nine times you fire off a rage, though, you get 1 point each - so that if you make it through the entire game clean, those who know what to look for can see it. Also, adding a quarter gives you a continue, but if you add a quarter while someone is playing, it also gives them an extra rage use.
High score lists for total points and length of killstreak.
Of course, that's a wishlist. We may well not get it quite to that level.
[X] AI II (1,000 Money, 1 Employee)
[X] Graphics II (1,000 Money, 1 Employee)
[X] Controller Input II (1,000 Money, 1 Employee) + boss
[X] High Score (500 Money, 1 Employee)
[X] Basic Sounds (1,500 Money, 2 Employee) ( 2 Employee ) - team leader is here
edited my vote to fold in @Ukrainian Ranger's pitch (I was meaning to imply my previously posted thing, but Ukranian Ranger cleaned it up a bit, so why not take advantage of that?)
We may have to dial it back a bit if we roll *really* poorly, but it doesn't take as much as you might think.
- Enemy behavior works fine on bump-death, ranged attacks, and Pathway Movement. We get 6 points there, we're fine.
- Background is sidescroll level, for as many levels as we can manage - 6 points there gets us three levels total.
- hitbox we need enemy hitbox, ranged attack hitbox, and boundary hitbox. That's a total of 4, with everythign past that making things work that much better.
We pulled off a 6 on AI 1 with a moderately good roll last time. I think it's at least reasonable to expect that we might get that much again this time with AI 2, no? What are you seeing that I'm missing?
There's a big difference between "You don't have enough AI to pull off the pitch" and "It's possible that you might roll *really* *badly*, and get horked". If what you mean is the latter, don't say the former. If what you mean is "I don't like your plan for some reason, and am therefore trying to poke holes in it wherever I can" I suggest you do the research a bit better.
Also, we may well not have enough sound to get everything useful, but in the early 80s, you didn't have to cover everything. WE can go for high quality beeps and boops. We can go for decent quality music. WE can go for rare bursts of speech. If we get even *one* of those things, it'll pay off reasonably well. If we roll well enough to get more than one? So much the better.
okay... what do you think the bare minimum for "something useful" is, and how many sound points would you expect that to cost?
Also... it sounds like you're basically saying "Sound 1 is a trap choice, and never worth it." Is that what your'e saying? It seems awfully presumptuous to say that without having seen the sound-based purchase list.
Speaking of sound what do you think of making a driving game that has a in built radio that can tune into any station a normal radio can so we neatly bypass all liscescing issues if we wanted to insert actual songs inside the game?
Speaking of sound what do you think of making a driving game that has a in built radio that can tune into any station a normal radio can so we neatly bypass all liscescing issues if we wanted to insert actual songs inside the game?
Speaking of sound what do you think of making a driving game that has a in built radio that can tune into any station a normal radio can so we neatly bypass all liscescing issues if we wanted to insert actual songs inside the game?
In that era? There are all sorts of things that you can do with sound that aren't even close to the difficulty of Good Theme Music that can still blow people's minds. Also, 6 is achievable with luck that's a bit better than average.
With a force of will you align the workers and the boss onto the right track, focused on the next game built to sate your thirst for money and expansion.
In fact, your will is so strong that you uh, may have accidentally forced some tech support guys into working for the company when they came over to fix some broken machines...Oops.
Oh well, free Coders...Oh great, now they are demanding salaries. Sigh stupid mind powers.
Sliding into the Boss you poke the Inspiration part of his brain, and watch as images of dragons and alien fighters fill his mind.
Jumping from your seat you exclaim "I have it! Our new game, a sequel to our old one but different in every way! Playing a Dragon ridden by the Hero and slaying spaceships."
With a quickfire spitting out of orders your wageslaves begin their work...wait didnt we only have 3 gro...We have always had 6.
The first group gets settled in coding out the AI and the enemy programming.
2d100 = 167 +CRIT
You, the floating cloud of psychic energy, oversee their actions personally, poking them when they get distracted and flaring their inspiration to produce a vast swath of brilliant code
ALL AI costs reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1/2 their initial value (1 becomes 0.5, 0.5 becomes 0.25, 4 becomes 3)
16 points generated for Enemy Behaviour, Landscape and Hitbox each
The second group is set with the Graphics, constructing Sprites and backgrounds and attack forms
2d100 = 118
An average effort given the time put in, but more than enough for many games to do well
Enemy design, Background and Character design set at 11
The third group, the first of the stolen Tech Support guys, are assigned to work on Control Input, overseen by the Inspired Boss
2d100 = 66 +20
Unused to the borderline-villain's actions and means of 'inspiration' the team falters and cowers instead of surging ahead past average.
Input set at 8 points
The remaining two teams get to work on the Sounds and the High Score.
1d100 = 27 +5 Team Leader
Unused to programming instead of just bugfixing, this group spends most of the time updating their skills to normal levels than actual coding. Even with the Team leaders trying to get them focused and pushing them along to practice ON the code they are meant to be working on.
Theme set at 3
Hit sound set at 3
Boss Themes set at 3
1d100 = 75
The final team however speeds ahead, turns out a few were gamers themselves and knew just how to put together a good high Score system
[ ] Basic enemy hit (1 point)
[ ] Better enemy hit (2 points)
[ ] Basic Character hit (1 point)
[ ] Better Character hit (2 points)
[ ] Personal Boss hit (3 points /boss, requires Basic enemy hit)
[ ] Personal Boss hit II (6 points /boss)
[X] Enhance sound quality(remainder points)
EDIT: Oh sh** I stuffed up with giving you AI III, you were supposed to have Graphics III.
Because you researched Multiple Enemies. Eh it wasnt chosen anyway, so Ill fix it next game
Welp everything but the sound action turned out well. I wonder if that is going to be a consistent theme for us. Everything we work on is great but our sound keeps lagging behind.
Didn't expect our sound to be quite that bad though I did expect bad...
Really loving that crit though. The AI cost reduction is going to see us well off in the future. I'm expecting great things from our future AI... hope they don't gain sentience.
As for highscore: I don't see us having a legitimate way to speed up the gameso we should have enough points for everything else.
I'm not particularly fond of the control limits but then again this type of game is notorious for not needing all that much.
High Score:
[X] Top ten table (5 points)
[X] Enemy kill points (2 points)
