I know I'm double posting here, but this is a thing of its own. A description of NiGHTS for thems wot don't know
(taken from a chat log, so if some bits seem to be phrased a bit oddly that's why, though I will edit it to make as much sense as possible)
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Right, this one is a great example, and its this level id like to try remake.
You start off as one of the 2 kids in the game. You are basically in their dreamworld
At the start of each dream (level) the ideya are stolen by the Nightmaren (bad guys that fly in, make you go ouch and then appear as enemies in game - think badniks in sonic)
You can control the kid for a little while, but eventually a big egg timer/alarm clock appears, and if it catches you in a beam it shines on the floor then its night over (game over).
So, you enter the Ideya palace that holds NiGHTS and take control of him. Using NiGHTS you can fly around using an analogue stick. You have a time limit of 120 seconds to collect 20 of the blue 'ideya' that are placed around the level. Once you have these, you place them in the capture point (big floaty sphere thing)
If you dont have 20, then it clocks the ones you have and then you go get more. Every time you have flown around a level, i.e done a lap basically, all the items are replaced, so that you can either go get more for the capture point, or if youve already got 20, to just get loads of points. You just have to make sure that you are back at the start point (ideya palace) by the time the timer runs to 0, otherwise NiGHTS vanishes and you are the kid again, and have to walk back, avoiding the aforementioned alarm clock (game over).
Every item you collect gives points and adds to the number of Links you have (combo system basically) as does flying through the loops you'll see everywhere. There is only a very brief time limit to add another link before you are given points for the number you clock up, and the link counter resets to zero.
Pressing one of the controller buttons makes you do a spin dash to speed through the level and you can use this until your meter (bottom left corner) runs out. You refill it by accumulating Links.
Rather than moving NiGHTS onto every single item, you can use the stars he trails behind him to do paraloops and capture every item held within the loop. you can only loop to up to a certain size, otherwise the stars wont connect (stops you just encapsulating the entire level I guess).
(hoping this is all making sense, obviously I know the game well so it does to me)
The most important aspect to begin with, is getting the 2d movement right, within the 3d world. I'm sure the video shows what I mean about it being 2d movement, but the movement plane existing in 3 dimensions; and analogue control is a must. it was one of the reasons NiGHTS was such a pleasure to play.
Obviously NiGHTS needs to orientate towards whichever direction you are pushing in, which to me is a very confusing concept (my small efforts with blitz3d today proved less than impressive, lol)
The game would also benefit greatly from fogging being set at a certain distance from the camera, otherwise I feel it would get very confusing being able to see all the rest of the terrain in the level 'behind you' (and also end up feeling a bit empty as the new NiGHTS game is looking in places)
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So there we have it. Hopefully that explains some of the concepts to people who don't know this fabulous game.
Some things I've thought of whilst editing through that. The enemies can either be flown into, in which case NiGHTS will grab them, go into a loop around them, and they will disappear; or, NiGHTS can just paraloop them without touching them. A final option is to spin dash them and send them whizzing off into the distance.
In the original, they would eventually land, and if a pian (the little angel creatures) was near them, a new breed could appear. Equally there were these egg items dotted around that NiGHTS could lock onto. Upon releasing them, a pian would hatch. This was all part of the A-Life system, but there's no way I'm aiming to tackle that. For now Pians will just be scenery, and enemies will be enemies. To expand a bit further, for anyone interested, the pians would behave differently depending on how happy they were with NiGHTS (for example, they could sing, or, if NiGHTS had been paralooping all their friends into death, they would be silent). NiGHTS also had a complex music system that I believe utilised the Saturns multiple processors and it would dynamically alter based on the mood of the pians. Again, I have no desire to try and tackle this, cause let's face it, it'd be hard, and i'm an artist, not a sound programmer. Basic music will suffice.
Right, there's a lot to take in there, but I'm trying my best to be as informative as I possibly can be. I hope it's working
Finally:
Can a Mod please move this to the Indie Projects folder, as I believe this is now making enough progress to warrant it. If not, then ya know, tell me and we'll wait till there is more to show.....Even more finally:
Enjoy a laugh at the feeble-ness of a clueless artist (that would be me) vandalising sample code in Blitz3D...... thank god some real coders are interested now - I can stop this sillyness.