GDExercise Concept #7: Splinal Tap
Short: Spinal Tap is a vertical space shooter based around enemy power-stealing and abstract 3D graphics.
Background: Combining elements from the Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow along with the graphic style and consistent quality of anything from A.B.A. Games.
Description: Basic top-down space shooter rules apply – a huge menagerie of enemies, bosses with too much HP, high scores and more bullets on the screen than you can keep track of. However, in addition to a basic moveset, powerups are only available through the enemy power stealing system, which works as follows:
- A progress bar fills up per enemy type as you destroy them. As soon as you reach a certain number of kills, you’re able to choose that enemy power at any time.
- You may also obtain a tractor beam, which automatically steals a power of one enemy that you use it on, once you reach a certain number of points.
- Points are based on strength of enemies, and also the combo system. The combo counter increases if enemies are killed within three frames of each other, without taking damage.
Hook: Twitch gameplay, power collecting, high score beating, explosions and particle effects a plenty. It’s a space shooter, what else can you expect?
Reflection: A very simple concept which has most likely been attempted in the past. But what will matter most in the end is the quality of implementation.
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 12:30 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.