Battle Combat Fighters - silly nano game by Jacob, Mathias and me (with source)

Thats pretty cool!
And above all, a very interesting idea.

Thanks for sharing

That's really fun! Well done!

I really like the game, the music and sound effects really complete it. Nice job!

It got me laughing for a minute. Great job.

it's an interesting concept, but the forced pausing made the gameplay feel very interrupted to me.

Using pause as a built in feature though is a great idea. Dragon Age and Mass Effect use it to great effect... you never feel pressured to make a split-second tactical decision. But if you want to play it like an action game you can too, and just disregard the 'pause' & 'issuing commands while paused' feature. I like this kind of freedom.

Yes it is my inherent dislike of turn-based games that makes this seem unnatural for me. It's a subjective problem, but one that will be a problem for many people. I know it's an experiment and you're not going for mass appeal, I'm raising the point just as cautionary advice for going forward with an idea like this.

But your concept and other games that utilise pausing is essentially the same. They 'throw way more stuff at the player than what could possibly be playable in realtime' especially in the harder difficulties... but at the same time players can speed through unchallenging areas without necessity to use the pause feature. It simply puts the choice in the players hand without harshly enforcing it.

For example, through playing Mass Effect & Dragon Age, I was forced to use pause to get through the difficult areas, but it doesn't mean my character would stop running every 3 seconds when there was nothing that required a tactical decision. It made for the best of both worlds, in my opinion.

I guess it's arguing about apples and oranges... for turn-based fans this method of control would probably seem perfectly logical. For me it feels unresponsive and difficult to control... I guess at its core there's less room for error.

I can't say I agree with you Ryan, I loved the game. Actually, it's one of those designs I wish I had thought of. "A twin-stick shooter... except turn-based." It's really good fun.

Nifflas, Jacob, you guys should do something with this prototype.

People have different oppinions, but i think its a great consept and i love it!
Just some ideas i would like to share.

CUSTUMIZABILITY
Make it so the Player can customize his Craft/ Wehicle by distrebuting a set number of points among a number of Stats, like this:

Points Left: X

Health: 0 ( increases Hit Points )
Stabelizer: 0 ( Decreases Kickback when shooting )
Boost: 0 ( Increases/ Decreases Boost Kickback )
Firepower: 0 ( Increse damage output for Bullets )
Fire range: 0 ( Increasthe range of Bulltes )
Speed: 0 ( decreases the time between Actions )

POWERUPS
Add powerups like:

- Health bonus ( restores an amount of Health )
- Weapon uppgrade ( increases Number Of, and Spread, of Bulltes )
- Instant explosions ( Instant circular explosion area wich destroys all Enemies and Bullets within )
- Invinsebility ( Player can destroy Enemies and Bullets by crashing into them without loosing Health )

Sounds interesting

DYNAMIC PLAYFIELD
How bout a Poweup wich increases/ Decreases the Playfield Size ( can also crush Enemies ), maybe even Powerups which seperatly alter the X and Y size of the playfield

ADDITIONAL UNITS
- How about a Powerup ( or a system/ purchase sytem ) wich grants additional Vehicles/ Ships
- Player can assign different Actions to each individual Unit each turn ( or when Unit is ready to take action )

UNITS
Units can have two functions, like the original Player Ship

FIGHTER ( ORIGINAL PLAYER SHIP )
- Left click: Straight shot
- Right click: Boost backward

SENTRY GUN ( stationary )
- Left click: Straigh shot
- Right click: Detonate

KAMIKAZE SHIP
- Left click: Short straigh shot
- Right click: Strong Boost forward ( Destroys Enemies uppon collision )

ASSULT SHIP
- Left click: Short spread shot ( low kickback )
- Right click: Teleport within radius of current position

SNIPER SHIP
- Left click: Powerfull and fast straight shot
- Right click: Teleport within radius of current position

DEFENDER
- Left click: Slow but powerfull Rocket ( low kickback )
- Right click: Weak Boost backward

CARRIER
- Left click: 4 Straight shots ( low kickback, with delay )
- Right click: Spawn a KAMIKAZE SHIP within radius

BATTLESHIP
- Left click: Medium range spread shot ( low kickback )
- Right click: Spawn FIGHTER within radius

REPAIR SHIP
- Left click: Short straigh shot
- Right click: Restore some Health of Ships within radius

...
Wow, this would make it a tactical turn based space shooter XD, awesome!
Anyway im sure you will come up with something cool, nice job all of you and good luck!

I really like the concept of this. It was entertaining. I wonder how a turn-based platformer would work out? lol

Have you seen glob wars? It's kinda a turn-based platformer. If that isn't enough for you, I'll make one.

Pretty interesting concept. It's fun but definitely needs more if you ever plan to sell it or anything... I found that the recoil of the ship from shooting was a bit much for me... I think it was throwing me off a lot because it's hard to just know how far the ship will travel after each turn. I think for me there is a disconnect because you only see the velocity for a split second and then it's frozen again, so I'm not expecting the ship to move as much as it does... Plus you can affect the velocity on every turn so it really leads to a lot of guesswork or just remembering exactly how fast the ship was moving...

I guess if I played it a lot I'd get better at it but I'm not sure it's at that point yet.

I think if you were to turn it into a full fledged game, it would be nice to have a learning curve... like a few simpler levels that you can actually "complete" and move on to the next waves where there are more enemies coming at you. Also some sort of method for being able to see "the future" and know where your ship will end up on the next turn would be awesome... At least it would make it easier for noobs like me who don't realize my ship is going to hurdle directly into an enemy while I'm busy shooting something else.