The game I am currently working on is going to be called Spectrum. It is an experimental game in some respects but really it has kind of been done before. It was inspired greatly by Ikaruga. In the game Ikaruga you have to decide to choose between white or black bullets and which enemies you need to shoot with them. So it has a matching aspect to it. So I decided to steal this brilliant idea while I learn Actionscript 3.0 by making a game.
However, there are a few slight twists so it is not as if I am just remaking Ikaruga. Spectrum is best described as a Interstellar Color Theory Shooter. So instead of black/white you’ll be presented with a spectrum of colors. So I suppose you can claim Spectrum will be an educational game because as the player begins to progress through the game they will hopefully learn the primary and secondary colors as well as complementary colors.
In case you do not know the very basic fundamentals of color theory I’ll explain them briefly.
Primary Colors = Red, Yellow, Blue [Note - Mixing any two Primary Colors will produce a Secondary Color]
Secondary Colors = Green, Orange, Violet(Purple)
Complementary Colors = Colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel. [Note – Mixing Complementary Colors will produce a brown)
Yellow <-> Violet(Purple)
Red <-> Green
Blue <-> Orange
So you may be asking yourself what my target audience is. Well guess what, I don’t have one. I suppose some art teachers that are desperate for new ways of teaching the basics of color theory could use this game as a hopefully efficient and more exciting way to teach students. That would be cool but maybe it could also appeal to anyone that wants to play a scrolling shooter. I really just want to experiment with this project which is why I am kind of against the target audience idea. For the class requirements I suppose that I will use the target audience I described above.
Speaking of scrolling I don’t want this to be purely a vertical or horizontal scrolling shooter. I still want to keep it top down but I think that it gets boring going in one direction or even just going in one pattern for that matter. I’d like to mix up the way the levels are designed to keep things more interesting. I am unsure if this will work but I’m willing to experiment with it and give it a shot.
The graphics will be made using Maya and Photoshop. I know, I know I said it was flash and flash doesn’t exactly have 3-D capabilities but you can always render in Maya and then bring those renders to Photoshop to produce the sprite sheets. It probably would be faster to just make everything in Illustrator and Flash but I really don’t want that look. I enjoy using Maya and I’m actually more efficient in it anyway so I think this could actually be fun.
Speaking of flash and its lack of strong 3-D capabilities I THINK I have a simple way of faking 3-D. I’d like to throw in a pseudo 3-D level inspired by Star Fox for the N64. I am thinking about just rendering a fly through of a scene in Maya and then trying to make a level of the game by setting up invisible collision shapes and adding enemies that kind of look like they are in perspective(as close as possible). Don’t think it will work? You may be right but again I want to experiment and if it doesn’t work then it will not make it into the final version of the game.
I’m probably biting off more than I can chew by myself as I want to get this game in a testable state in a few weeks time. Perhaps if I can motivate a few other game designers here to jump on the project with me I would increase my chances of getting something semi-playable. With everyone having their own projects to work on I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish this. We shall see
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