The Fantom Zone (Newbie Help Wanted)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
161

Alright, so I’m trying to set it up so that I’m discreetly asking the player what career the player is likely to choose later in the game. So far one way I’ve done this is the player steps into a lift and chooses a their department to go to. Here’s what I’ve got for them to choose from, but I’m not fully satisfied with the selection for some. Any suggestions?

Command - bridge
Support - engineering
Carrier - shuttle bay
Stealth - security
Explorer - astronomy

And any suggestions for later defining the players preference would be appreciated.

Edit: What the heck, while I’m at it here’s the link for what’s I’ve got so far. It’s very little, but any feedback would be helpful. I do plan on expanding on choices and improving the way I describe things.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2587272/My%20games/space%20game/web/mygame/index.html

162

Sounds epic I would be honored if you would send me the link when you get the draft done and need testers just email me the link at lokuawilhelmreese420@gmail.com

163

@Dominacewilhelmreese Will do. Any thoughts or criticisms? Other than being too short :slight_smile:

164

@fantom like always i give feedback i will be sincere trying to help you.

The demo is engaging and thrilling and is the most similar game, sci fi fan creation to the sensation of Star trek original series. And that is the greatness for me, the best serie ever.

But now my critics

SIR…SIR SIR IM A WOMAN if you dont wanna let me choose gender yet, call me captain or whatever no gender rank.

-The start is rushed as hell ,i don’t know in what time period i am if i human a skelleton or a troll, lol. Maybe put a dream about my childhood something or do a epic entrance like Star wars or star trek these are voayages of … Something like that , to enter better in atmosphere… Job choices i was no idea what your mean , so i choose deck trying figure that’s charisma choose or not more choices in the elevator could be welcome, like what do you thing are problems? or are you happy in the ship? the choices could give you some background because are any in the demo so far.

But dont get me wrong i love it ! i give you a hug if i could . Making me remember old Star Trek when the lore had sense .

165

@MaraJade You will be able to choose your gender later in the game, but at this point you are basically “genderless” and the render they call you sir is I was going for a kinda military thing, where they call their superiors sir regardless of gender. Might have to change that though.

I agree the beginning is definitely rushed, It’s difficult for me to get a sense on how long something will during gameplay as I’m typing it out. I do plan on expanding on basically all of it.

As for careers, I plan to let the player choose a career “path”, which will greatly effect how the game plays out. Each career will have numerous missions and quests that are unique to that career, and the ship itself (a living ship that you get later in the game) will grow differently. Here’s the list I have to the careers:

Command: would result in the ship having generally more powerful armaments but fewer fighters.
Support: would have longer range weapons but fairly weak short range weapons and would rely on other ships for protection, but would have the ability repair other vessels.
Carrier: has decent weapons coverage for short range combat, mainly for self defense, but has extra mass to accommodate the thousands of fighters within it.
Stealth: will be much smaller than the other ones, especially later in the game, has the ability to shield itself from sensors, although to start with the stealth will be relatively weak and can be disrupted, and you have to unstealth to fire, but later you can fire while stealthed and even deploy weapons satellites so the enemy can’t pinpoint your location. Will have few but powerful short range weapons for disabling hit and run attacks.
Explorer:

166

Ahh, well with the choice dec. engineer astronomy I never guessed that is the meaning lol. I´m confused so what is charming focused choice? spy ?.
I recommend you put the choice when you received your real ship or contact with authority. Due no one would choose thinking is choosing what they actually choosing.

For instance i choose Deck because being a deck official looks a charming choice i mean lt. deck flirt as hell in movies. :wink: But nope, that meaning im a warrior focused ship think i never wanted due i pick no fighting choices diplomatic once so advanced warrior ship not for me.
If i were you i make the Mc past a test to choose their definitive place in army. Like she he was a newbie from academy and was in practice until accident happened.

167

Choosing career path is fine the way you do it – it’s done in the middle of action. I would suggest a summary of the path on the next screen and an opportunity to change the choice if a player misunderstands that path.

168

@JimD I should clarify, the elevator choice isn’t meant to be final. I’m trying to define the players preference over a series of choices not just one.

169

So @MaraJade made the suggestion a couple of posts up about using flashbacks, so I was wondering if it would be better to use a flashback back to the characters training days for the whole character set up, like gender, what you look like, etc., and also their intended career path. The current scene I’ll still be keeping, but pushed back later.

170

Just played the demo and honestly its pretty good, especially when you start off into the action. But if you want to slow it down and work in gender, name, or race…I’d say you should make the computer malfunction and ask for identification from the Lt.

171

Hello folks, been awhile since I posted anything here, and I thought I would let you know where I’m at. Basically this project is stalled, possibly indefinitely, largely because lack of inspiration. I seem to have hit a wall.

But, like a sidekick stepping into the action and saving the day when the hero is injured, this gives me an opportunity to bring another idea to the forefront that I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while, and get your opinions on what stats should be good to use.

For starters, this idea was influenced by the game “Solar” which I would recommend to anyone. You start out as a consciousness in the void in the moments before the Big Bang, and then everything explodes around you, flinging you into the distance. When things become clear you find yourself floating in a nebula without form. After what seems to be forever, the cloud begins to contract, and a body slowly shapes around you, giving you form. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you are not a person, but a planet!

At first your surface is hot and molten, and you find yourself constantly bombarded with asteroids, but eventually your surface cools and hardens, and things around you calm down. Then you start to notice some activity going on you surface. Why, something is living down there! It seems life has begun! I haven’t yet decided how life on your surface happens, whether it just kind of happens, or to go with the current prevailing theory of how life began on Earth, that life was “seeded” by comets and asteroids, as well as the water and such. I also haven’t decided if I want to go the more arcade-y route and just begin life with civilization, albeit extremely primitive, or go a more realistic approach and go through a sped up version of evolution, starting with primitive life and eventually moving on to more advanced life down the line. It seems to me the later to allow more customization, but may possibly not be as much fun.

Anyway, that’s all I’m willing to reveal so far. I’m going to be starting a new thread with a better synopsis later today, but meanwhile I wanted to get your guy’s opinions and thoughts.

Also, the working title is “Celestial”.

172

Quick question guys. I’m trying to remember a less common CS command that when inserted in the middle of a line of text shoves the text after it onto the next line. Or basically if you had this

Hello (command) Goodbye

It would appear as

Hello
Goodbye

I can’t for the life of me remember what the command is, and I’ve tried looking it up but haven’t had any luck. Anybody remember such a command?

173 
Hello
*line_break
Goodbye

Is this what you are looking for?

Edit: Nevermind, I’m going to do some research on the wiki and old posts on this forum, but I don’t remember seeing a command like that :sweat_smile:

174

Actually no. The command I’m looking for has the original text on the same line, whereas *line_break still requires the text to be on separate lines.

175

Okay, I think I might have found it!

Link

Take a look at what dfabulich said.

1 Like
176

Awesome! I thought n/ was involved, but I forgot the brackets :slight_smile:

Also, in case you’re wondering why I was trying to find that command, I had an idea. I’ve noticed in some games you’ll come up to a point where you’re given some choices, for example let’s say you’re picking what powers you have. What they sometimes do is let you choose the power, click next, and on the next page they give a description of the power, and if you don’t like it you can go back to the choice screen. What I’d like to do is have the description within the choice itself, but on a different line. Of course, the description would have to be fairly short to be practical. Here’s an example:

*choice
    #Power 1[n/][i]Description[/i]
        *goto happyfuntime
    #Power 2[n/][i]Description[/i]
            *goto happyfuntime
    #Power 3[n/][i]Description[/i]
            *goto happyfuntime
1 Like
177

Can you ad the option to customise the ships look and be a alien race, and I have lots of ideas for alien races!

178

I don’t currently plan on doing different races for the MC, though I may add it if I can think of a good way to implement it that’s not just cosmetic. As for customizing the ship, you can to a certain extent. The ship itself is a living ship, and early in it’s development you’ll be able to choose what class of ship it will be. There will be five class’s, each of which vary a great deal in size, shape, and abilities, but you won’t be able to customize the appearance of the ship for the most part. You’ll also have drones that crew the ship itself, which are basically clones grown by the ship as needed, and to start with you’ll only have a handful of drones available to you, and only one type, but as the ship grows in size and capabilities, you’ll have a greater variety of specialized drones ranging from small infiltrator units to huge hulking units that are basically walking tanks. I’m also going to have an upgrade system, giving the player “bio-mass” to use however they want to upgrade the ships systems.

179

You could add faction rep, so if you choose a race you get more rep with that faction, and all I want to do is add a scorpion tail to my ship.

180

You’ll be able to add various weapons, but something like a scorpion tail wouldn’t be very practical in space. The closest thing would be with the support class, which will have arm like appendages that can grab onto things.