My first (almost) finished game
Looking at the slow progress with all my games about space, I decided to do some finished game. About space combat. Idea is simple: fly and shoot.
To begin playing, click on stars below and read text underneath. Or, play in separate tab.
So you're inside a spaceship. It's completely transparent from inside, and you can look in all directions. From the beginning you're facing in the direction of the "nose" of the ship. Look around with mouse, turn ship with WASD and QE (turning is always relative to the camera, so there are no fixed "up" and "down" in the ship). Ship is actually constantly moving forward (in the direction of the "nose"), but you don't notice it since there is nothing else around. When you're ready, press 1.
After you pressed 1, another ship appeared - it's same as yours, just opaque (from outside). Fly around it and look at it from different angles. Try to become familiar with controls. Note that when you turn the ship with WASD or QE buttons, direction of your look doesn't change. This is done to ease aiming. When you're ready, press 2.
Now the other ship started moving. Also, aiming computer appeared on your screen - enemy ship is highlighted with square. If enemy ship is not on your screen - an arrow next to the side of the screen will show you where it is. If enemy ship is behind you - you will see a green rectangle around your screen - meaning that you can turn in any direction to face it :-) Position where you should shoot is highlighted with circle - since it takes some time for rockets to fly from your ship to enemy, you should shoot not where the ship is now, but a bit forward - where the ship will be in some time. This is calculated for you by the aiming computer. In center of your screen is a cross - point it to the circle and press 3.
Now you're shooting! One shot is automatically done every second. Your rockets are blue, and blue number at the top of the screen shows number of hits. But shooting is not as fun when enemy doesn't shoot back. Press 4!
Now the real fun begins: your enemy is shooting red rockets back at you, and numbers at the top of the screen show you score. Who will win? To make it even more fun, press 5.
Now both you and your enemy have two teammates, so it's 3 versus 3! Big numbers at the top of the screen show team scores, and smaller numbers underneath - your personal part in it. Try not to hit your friends - they have a slight blue-ish tint. In this mode, some extra controls might be useful:
X to aim enemy which you see nearest to center of screen
C to aim enemy which is closest to you
F to aim enemy that just hit you
Conclusions
It looks good and game experience is fun, but some instant gratifications are required - shooting one enemy ship endlessly gets boring soon. To become a real game, enemies should die after some number of hits, and missions should complete, and new missions should follow. Speaking about missions, I think about something like:
One mothership vs another (attack/defense convoy) (like now, but with reinforcements - also, AI should be a bit smarter to plot some course forward)
Mothership vs a base (attack/defense - you should wipe all fighters, for some reason)
Fly into and inside enemy base/mothership and destroy it by shooting some weak point in it (like in Star Wars / Descent)
Board enemy base/mothership and do some on-board hostile actions (like shooting everyone)