ANNOUNCEMENT: ATTACK CHOPPER 2

[Adam Schmelzle]

OK, here's the feature list so far fo AC2...

-> HUGE levels, like literally 10 times the size of "island warfare" or BIGGER
-> save anywhere : needed since the levels a FREAKING ENORMOUS!!
-> I will release AC2 - Secret Missions 1,2,3 etc... The levels are soo much bigger that In order to support the lower-end phones still, I'll have to break up the levels into just a few per mission pack. I will have a "compilation" version of AC2 with ALL the secret missions levels for the people that can use jars over 64KB
-> SHIELD upgrade to survive-and-destroy the evil giant red missile
-> powerups to NOT carry from one mission to the next. Each mission will be separate, sine they are gonna be half the size of the ENTIRE first game each. This also means that the powerups for weapons, and aiming will be few and far between, since they last the entire level. There will be enough health and artillery to keep you alive

->The unlimited missions version will come out later. I am delaying this, because right now I'd have to host the download server on my home machine, which isn't a good idea for a public game server. I'll release an unlimited missions version later, once I have a server that can be used.

-> This game won't come out for a few weeks. I will release AP first, then spend a little more time on AC2 before release. AP will come out to the general public probably early next week. I plan on being done this week, but it takes a while to get everything approved and tested before release.

-> Any more suggestions / comments for AC2?

[MrDee]

Shield - excellent - how about making the shield consume a health point and only last 5 seconds
this would limit shields to essential times only.

Missile - not homing but fire straight ahead (homing WOULD make things too easy), blows up/damages first thing It comes in contact with - if I am not pointing at anything interesting then missile would be wasted. (i.e. it hits a wall)
think of the level "well guarded" - go straight up from your starting position and hit missile (this would take out a laser

Save - this could solve a problem I have with PAUSE mode i.e. it does not work.

Need BETA testers?

[MrDee]

oh yeah, similar to shield how about a stealth mode (lasts 5 seconds) enemy unable to see you to shoot at you.

these are tactical weapons - like artillery strike they should only available in limited supply via power-up (on levels with some really tricky bits)

[Adam Schmelzle]

I can't believe I missed these posts, sorry about that.

About the sheild: If it's limited to only 5 seconds or so, than you'd need to pick it up immediately before using it? Unfortunately we don't have that many buttons to play with, so you wouldn't really be able to activate it on an 'as needed' basis. If the artillery strike could only be used on special 'artillery targets', and auto-dropped when you fly over, than we could replace the "art##" button with the shield button maybe. Maybe along with the 'stealth' idea, the powerups would last more like 20 seconds, and you'd have to fly to the place you need it as quick as you can.

Dumb-fire missiles: I do'nt know if this is technically feasible at the moment. It may sound stupid, but having missiles that fire until they hit something would actually take the same amount of processing as having a bullet that hits the ground on every single frame. It sounds ridiculous, but that's one of the reasons I only have the bullets hit at the target location. Maybe if the missiles are limited to only one at a time, it may not kill the performance.

Keep the ideas coming!I'll be working on AC:2 soon, since I'm done Attack Paddle today.

[Adam Schmelzle]

I'm taking a day or two to brainstorm about Attack Chopper 2 before I get back to banging it in on my keyboard. Any other ideas? It took me a while to get back to this, since I have been ...ummm ...doing everything I can to not work on anything that takes a lot of concentration. I have to force myself to be lazy. So yeah, any more ideas are always welcome. The shield won't take long to implement, and a month or so ago I did all the modifications needed for the huge maps, and most of the work for saving everything.

Does the idea of having colored force-fields that are invincible until you destroy the generator a bad idea? Kinda like having doors and keys? This could add a little direction to the large levels, and there could be some hidden generators that need to be destroyed to get to some powerups. Also, I may put in an online leaderboard with AC2, since it seems to be working out in the other game I'm working on.

[Adam Schmelzle]

Well, work has been underway for a day or two. I have the "save anywhere" feature working. It only takes a couple seconds to save / load even on my slow phone. Does anyone think we need a "fog-of-war" for the parts of the map that havn't been visited yet? The way things are now, you can see the map for as large as the screen is. Should I hide the parts you havn't seen on screen yet? Anybody?

[MrDee]

1) need beta testers?
2) Love the force fields idea
3) one missile at a time should be enough
4) if you replace map with in game options (of which map & save now are options) then there could there be a current powerup menu that way the the current art## button could be replaced
5) personally if find that Fog of War is pita.

[Adam Schmelzle]

Maybe I shouldn't have called it "fog of war", I mean more like, your chopper makes a map as it goes through the game. So you know which areas you've been to, and which you havn't explored yet. I don't mean that things you've already seen are greyed-out or not updating.

I've gone back and worked on Attack Paddle some more again. I decided to try selling it, and needed a more complete game. The one that I hope will go on sale has sound in it, and a few other tweaks. I hope I can get somebody to distribute AP in north america.

[Adam Schmelzle]

A little update on AC2:

I have implemented the shield / generators. Any hostile that has a shield around it is invincible/unpassable until all the shield generators of the same color are destroyed. I reduced the memory requirtements a little as well.

I am starting to doubt that I'll be able to cram anything cool under 64KB. Since I'm using the same engine(updated and modified) as AC1, I didn't have much room to play with already. With the advertising code, AC1 was pushing 64KB and that was when my ENTIRE level.dat file was only 1.5KB after compression. Now I want to have my level bigger than the entire first game, and also add new features. Even if the levels stayed the same size, the new features put the game over 64KB.

I guess anybody with a phone that won't install .jar files over 64KB will have to BUY the game to play a version under 64KB. The full game without ads will of course be under 64KB.

By the time I'm done, I think AC2 will be about 4 or 5 times the size of the first game. That's just ONE HUGE level that you can save whenever you want.

[MrDee]

one of the things I LIKE the the lack of sound.
surely this will just add file size...

[Adam Schmelzle]

Yeah, I don't like sound in my mobile games either. The ONLY reason I feel compelled to ad any sound at all, is that any time my games get reviewed, they are always docked for missing sound. Also, when I try to sell my games, the publishers that evaluate them, usually ask for sound. If sound support across different handhelds was CONSISTANT I'd have no trouble. As things are now, adding sound, means putting 4 or 5 different versions of EVERY sound effect into the game, so that hopefully one of them is supported. Also, you can only play 1 sound at a time on 95% of the phones out there, meaning the only practical sound is a simple music-track.

[josechavarria]

thanks Adam I finished AC2 and playing it again for the second time with the *. i know is my first star but d**n guys we all started somewhere didn't we? Also i read on this thread that you were coming out with secret missions have you released them yet and where may I be able to find them? Thanks for the great entertainment that you have provided us. Also have Water stealers as well, doing OK not great but doing OK with the game. Once again thanks

David

[Adam Schmelzle]

Glad you enjoy AC2. Secret missions was actually started before AC2, and eventually evolved into what ended up as AC2. Secret missions was like AC1 but with online level downloading. I had to scrap the online level downloading because it takes too much space on the phone to store the levels. So you'd only be able to store 5 or so, and then have to download other levels if you wanted to play others. The idea was cool, but phones just weren't capable enough for that type of game back in the fall of 2006.

[extremko]

hi!
soory if this is thread trolling, but it's kinda hard to find a right one when browsing from a mobile phone ;-)

anyway, i got through the hassle of registering here, reading email on gmail mobile, confirming and writing here just to tell you you did an awesome job!

i just completed Attack Chopper 2 and simply had to comment ;-)

ideas are so simple, yet so innovative and refreshing it was a truckload of fun :-)

[extremko]

/sorry for cut, textbox on mobile is limited to 450 chars, or so/

playing AC2 helped me a lot during frustration moments (serving in the army at the moment), and even though i got furious several times while playing i kept on moving and destroying even more enemies :-)
'star' level for the difficulty rating is a nice solution as well, and i generally liked the game overall.
i played several others as well, but about that... some other time ;-)

[extremko]

oh, and i think it's worth mentioning - i got all of the games in 'ad ware' package from Gamejump. Opera Mini had it bookmarked by default, and since the army is a lot of time wasting, i decided to give it a try :-)
just thought you wanted to know ;-)

see you around ;-)

[Adam Schmelzle]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you liked AC2. I did kinda go overboard at the end there didn't I?

You made my day