I considered that before. I guess it would be helpful. I'll look into gathering all the images tomorrow, and see if I can set something up.

I think I have some images in the project folder I could use, too. The only problem is that there have been so many changes along the way that I'm not sure if any of my media would really reflect the most recent build.

Just a minor suggestion: Could you consider editing screenshots into the original post so they're easier to find? I had to dig through several pages. It looks great, but not that many people are going to see it if they have to search through the thread.

Very nice. Reminds me of the classic Ultima games, but with a pleasant twist. I was trying my hand at something similar, but never really got off the ground with it. (aside from planning and designing assets) I have too much of a visual way of thinking. Beyond planning something, I can't buckle-down and embrace the abstraction of actually coding it. Oh, well.

I think I posted a good portion of my resources there, so they're open to you if you want to work any of the ideas into your own projects. Anything I post is open to the public for re-use or modification.

I just realised this topic was posted in the wrong board section. I moved it to calc-related projects and ideas instead of non-calc projects and ideas.

Thanks. I was going to edit a comment about that into the original post.

There are so many boards that it's easy to get them mixed-up now.

There wouldn't really be any A.I. Enemy patterns would be pre-defined. I think the patterns would be relatively simple; such as the enemy group moving left to right, gradually descending toward the player, and then back up. It wouldn't be as complex as, say, Galaga, because enemies wouldn't have those convoluted appearance patterns where they fly in from every corner of the screen and twirl around. Enemy movements would probably be directly tied to the enemies themselves, or types of formations that are registered in the system. i.e., a level's data would just consist of a few pointers to call up each formation pattern that is already registered, and can be called in any level.

Now that I think about it, it could be possible to impose some kind of sprite limit that will prevent the execution of enemy missiles if the sprite boundary is already reached. If there's a clear idea of how many sprites can simultaneously be on the screen without slow-down, that could be used as a rough approximation of the sprite limit that would be imposed.

Here's how fast I could keep a Shoot-em-up in pure basic in 2002, attached to this post. Note that since it was 8 years ago, my coding skills has improved since then, but I think that might give an idea of all that's feasible in BASIC.

That's pretty cool. I figured the movement would be similar in Zanken. Not sure about the speed, though. There are so many graphical assets -- including a custom font.

I've updated the mock-ups. I revisioned some ideas in regards to how the gameplay and objective would work. Each level would be a series of enemy formations, ocassionally followed by a final objective before the player could proceed to the next level. This objective could be safely navigating through a mine-field, (several mines "falling" from the top of the screen) or safely escaping an enemy base. (a series of gun turrets)

Every weapon would be equal in strength, as it would only require a single shot to destroy an enemy target. Weapon upgrades would only affect the range and area-of-effect of weapons. (and cool-down period)

The ultimate objective of the game would be to clear 8 levels before the player is presented with the ending sequence. If all eight levels can be cleared without losing any players, then the player can face 6 bonus levels with a substantially higher difficulty. (levels A-F)

There would also be a short set of configuration options to define initial lives and difficulty. (which might affect how often enemies shoot missiles) Given there is so little text in the game, I could also provide a Japanese language option just for kicks. It might help simulate the whole classic console feel.