Sharing some art, sprites, and discussing about game concepts

[BullboyAT05]

I was wondering what would be the games you would like to see/make for the commander x16, and also wanted to share some of my ideas I had in mind.

In my case, it would be ideally at least one of the following:
- A beat-em-up/as much of a stylish action game that may be possible on an 8 bit computer. At least something who has a lot of emphasis on combos.
- A sport game, like volley ball for exemple.
- An Ultima/Xanadu style action rpg framed as a roguelike/roguelite.
- An arcady stealth game (inspired by Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2's VR missions).

That last one was the concept I made that lady in yellow for; the child of a Prince of Persian middle-eastern aesthetic mixed with the arcady fun of the VR missions of MGS 1 and 2 (+ the Story of Thor games for sega consoles). The pallette I partially used for her sprite was made by Pixel shade (from the following post to be exact; viewtopic.php?p=30827&hilit=final+fight+amiga#p30827).

Maybe I'll be able to realise my concept myself, or with the help of somebody (found in the "Help Wanted" section of the forums for exemple)... But for now, I'm glad to share what I've done with you all.

If you ever have a dream game you want to make/see, or know of an exemple of that type of game on the X16, feel free to answer.

[BullboyAT05]

First, an addendum to the initial post: another game idea I forgot to add to said first post was a mix between Actraiser and a fighting game:
- Both players have to get randomized ressources to summon up a champion (The champion summoned will depends of the ressource type and quantity). They have under a minute or so to gather said ressources.
- The built champions will then fight in a duel. Best out of 3 wins the duel. Then it's back to the ressource gathering to make another set of champions.
- The first player to have won 3 duels is the winner overall.
- There's also a simple versus mode where you fight with the champions themselves without the gathering phase.


Now, the main reason for the post; for the stealth game, I had the idea of making it in isometric 3D. So here's a mockup of a blockout to give you an idea of what those sections could look like.

[Xiphod]

I just re-watched the 1987 movie Barbarians - it's not a great movie, but it has its charms (via cast of characters, a few interesting scenes like the underground dragon thing, and a weird characteristic "groan-noise" of one of the main characters whenever they get excited). And during the whole movie, I got to thinking that it would make an interesting game - like a variation of Altered Beast, but a two-player theme using the twin brothers depicted in the movie. Then as a bonus, having Kara/Ismene also included (maybe playable) ( she looks like a young version of Jessica Alba ).

Remakes of our existing favorite games are nice - and they help "calibrate" our talent (i.e. verifying that yes, we can use this X16 equipment to at least match prior work). But they are difficult to include in wide distribution (SD-card). New original content and play-challenges would be appreciated too. In particular, 2 (or 4) gamepad style games.

That's a game style I've struggled with - where additional players can drop-in and drop-out casually. And it's nice we have the 4-gamepad option, but as a technical challenge I'm not sure if there is actually enough horsepower here to incorporate simultaneous 4-player action (that's 2x the amount of input polling, etc.).

So for me, game concept challenges on this 6502 system:

- Something that captures elements/theme of a story like Barbarians movie, with the main mechanic being able to play co-op of two characters each with unique stylistic sprites (and use the mid-1980s strongman vibe that was in fashion in that decade). But not something like Street Fighter, something with a bit more story telling (if just cut scenes, or maybe "mini-games" between major stages, like the arm-wrestling part of the movie w/ the snake).

- Something that facilitates drop-in/drop-out 2-4 player (possibly some kind of puzzle game like Chu-Chu Rocket, but I've also considered maybe a kind of space-shooter game where one player controls motion and other players control turrets) [ the drop in-out is important to modern time limited players - or tradeshows, where a participant maybe just has a few minutes to play ]

- And unrelated to all of the above: a remake of 1979 Apple FS1 flight simulator, just to prove a 6502 could actually do a more enjoyable variation of a flight simulator (which would be a marvel of assembly skill, but I'm not sure if it could really take technical advantage of VERA? it's not quite the right platform for a serious simulation, so alternatively maybe just something like Space Harrier which would probably just be more fun to play, and check the "we're flying in 3D" box {sort-of})


I've kicked around the idea of a kind of X16 programming-challenge contest, with 1st prize being a fully loaded X16 hardware, then some 2nd, 3rd prize (I may be the only person confirmed to have more X16's than David haha)

As I recall, the early days of the Atari 2600 had a kind of "win a console" contest in a year or two after its release (maybe I'm remembering it wrong). With an emphasis on encouraging new-to-the-platform developers to participate (i.e. sage veterans who can pump out 6502 in their sleep and have mass stockpiles of sprite content would have to be weighted differently, or exempt). Maybe it's time to revisit this idea, if there is enough interest - now that there are over 1100 DEV and PR systems out there (add another 100 for Otter's and homebrew builds). Just I don't have enough for too many prizes (like "best BASIC vs ASM game", "US vs Outside-of-US" -- an online contest these days implicitly has to be international?). The other problem with contest is - like for example, "Back to the PET" I spoke with the Russian developer of that, it's 100's of very focused hours to which no prize could really capture; or as another example, the 1000+ hours going into the development of VERA FX, both were purely a work of passion.

[BullboyAT05]

Really neat, Xiphod