First step towards making a new sci-fi game - need critique from yall

[Galacticat42]

Alright, so I trust the C2C group over many other groups that I know on the internet to keep my property safe from stealing patent pending ideas. As such, I'm making a teaser poster for an indie game that I'm making just to get my feet wet. The game universe is called Fabled Celestium and the game itself is The Road to Xenorgas.

If you all could comment and critique the teaser poster I made and give me feedback of any sort, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm REALLY self conscious about my work and need some sort of feedback from friends. The poster itself is going to be put up on 8bitfunding.com so I can gather enough money to buy the proper software. Since I have no money to buy professional software right now, the entire image was made in GIMP2.

 

[JosEPh_II]

The poster reminds me of some of the 1st Sci-fi games for computers. Reunion comes to mind as well as the Original Master of Orion.

Is the project going to be a 4X, Simulation, RTS, or another type?

JosEPh

 

[GiuseppeIII]

looks good to me. Can i play it now

 

[Galacticat42]

It's going to be a puzzle RTS game in the form of deciding which enemy and which armor piece to destroy first in order to unlock and destroy the other enemies on the field.

 

[GiuseppeIII]

sounds interesting. Like the idea

 

[Azurian]

I would add a border behind the title text..
Make the Fabled text bigger..

kinda like this title..but thats just me..

Spoiler :

 

[Galacticat42]

I would add a border behind the title text..
Make the Fabled text bigger..

kinda like this title..but thats just me..

Spoiler :

Hmm, I'll try it...

How does this look?

 

[Galacticat42]

Well, I took your silence as a 'looks good' and submitted everything to 8bitfunding for evaluation - hopefully it passes for donations!

 

[ls612]

I am not so much interested in the pic, which is nice by the way, but with the concept for the game. Puzzle RTS is something I haven't heard before, but your short description seems very intriguing. Could you please elaborate on how the game would work?

 

[Thunderbrd]

In my case, it was more about having limited time to comment and wanting to think about it a bit first. The background is great. The ship looks pretty good, but I might've suggested a more parametric angle to help the 'posing'. The full profile look makes the ship not appear so dynamic, perhaps more like a 'shipping' craft doing its everyday business. I also felt there could've been a bit of a border around the whole pic that could match a main game switchboard border likely to be planted in the middle of the page (giving more cause to create a parametric angled ship so that it could be more easily re-positioned to work best for any switchboard they want to plant on the opening page).

 

[Galacticat42]

@Thunderbrd
The angle of the ship was something that wasn't really interchangeable. Since it was made in GIMP I had to hand-draw all the shaders and the objects, etc and having to make two separate images look like the same ship is not really an expertise of mine. Besides, this is pre-alpha teaser poster for funding so I can actually start. The photoshop and flash programs in the adobe bundle that I plan to buy with the money are 3D capable and can then have different angles.

@Is612
Well, it's not RTS in the strictest sense, but more of an RTT (Real-time tactical) - just a sub-genre of RTS. Nevertheless, the player has to look at the enemy forces, pick out a weak spot of a real-time moving enemy fleet and pick at them until they fall apart while taking care of his own defenses. It's considered a puzzle in that each weapon the player has has specific uses against enemy targets and even specific targets that are only temporarily available or available when another target is hit or destroyed.

 

[rightfuture]

RTT (real -time tactical) is a great idea! I like it!

 

[GiuseppeIII]

Good idea for a game. Can i play it now youve kept me waiting to long

 

[Galacticat42]

Alright, so with absolutely no luck in getting any thumbs-up from 8bitfunding with what little I have to show, I'm gunna go ahead and make a small demo using the flashpunk plugin for FlashDevelop and try to get something working. Meanwhile I've finally decided on the basic, armorless, weaponless hull of the enemy ship - which I can argue looks really 'stupid' right now. It's meant to be a high-tech spherical ship with nothing but heavy glass for a hull that doubles as windows, solar panels, and magnetic sails. Tell me what you think.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Civ Fuehrer

You should just come back to Civ4 modding and help work on C2C.

We always need the help.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Alright, so with absolutely no luck in getting any thumbs-up from 8bitfunding with what little I have to show, I'm gunna go ahead and make a small demo using the flashpunk plugin for FlashDevelop and try to get something working. Meanwhile I've finally decided on the basic, armorless, weaponless hull of the enemy ship - which I can argue looks really 'stupid' right now. It's meant to be a high-tech spherical ship with nothing but heavy glass for a hull that doubles as windows, solar panels, and magnetic sails. Tell me what you think.

I always wondered why space ships should look like naval ships. It seems like a lack of imagination. If you have gravity control then any shape is possible but a sphere is best.

 

[Koshling]

I always wondered why space ships should look like naval ships. It seems like a lack of imagination. If you have gravity control then any shape is possible but a sphere is best.

The any shape bit yes. The sphere bit not so much. Form should follow function, so for example things that make a sphere sub optimal might include:

• Design to withstand large accelerations along one access preferentially
• design needs to move through the NEAR vacuum at relativistic speeds where near just doesn't cut it (ablation shields for example might be needed)
• Need to provide separation between specific components (e.g. Habitable areas and high radiation generators)
• design needs to maximize surface area (or directional cross section) -e.g. Efficient radiation of heat, buzzard scoops for hydrogen collection, ...
• design needs to operate sometimes in non-total vacuum (e.g. For aero-braking trhougn upper gas giant outer atmosphere)

 

[Fanatic Noob]

Well, I am not into RTS'es, but keep into good work : ) And good luck.

 

[ls612]

The any shape bit yes. The sphere bit not so much. Form should follow function, so for example things that make a sphere sub optimal might include:

• Design to withstand large accelerations along one access preferentially
• design needs to move through the NEAR vacuum at relativistic speeds where near just doesn't cut it (ablation shields for example might be needed)
• Need to provide separation between specific components (e.g. Habitable areas and high radiation generators)
• design needs to maximize surface area (or directional cross section) -e.g. Efficient radiation of heat, buzzard scoops for hydrogen collection, ...
• design needs to operate sometimes in non-total vacuum (e.g. For aero-braking trhougn upper gas giant outer atmosphere)

So, it would then make sense for spaceships to look more like aircraft, IE be very aerodynamic, thin, and definitely NOT speherical. They would also need some method of keeping everyone from hitting the nearest bulkhead at subluminal speeds whenever the ship accelerated, which would require knowledge of gravatics. This is all useful for my Galactic Era unit planning.

 

[Koshling]

So, it would then make sense for spaceships to look more like aircraft, IE be very aerodynamic, thin, and definitely NOT speherical. They would also need some method of keeping everyone from hitting the nearest bulkhead at subluminal speeds whenever the ship accelerated, which would require knowledge of gravatics. This is all useful for my Galactic Era unit planning.

I wouldn't say like aircraft at all (unless maybe they have atmostpheric manouvering capability - i.e. - they can land more or less), just that spherical has its downsides. The higher your tech level the less function would be likely to affect shape I'd say. So if you're still using nuclear reactors (even fusion) then radiation issues make long and thin likely to be good to provide maximum separation of engines and living quarters (for given total materials), but if you have some sort of non-radiation generating quantum powersource that constraint vanishes. If you look at probe design today you often see instruments on teh ends of arms for example, to remove them from proximiy with heat sources - that's VERY unaircraft-like becaue its hopeless aerdynamically, but that doesn't matter (at least unless you travel at relativistic velocities or are subject to large accelerations) in space.