This is Clairvoyance!
CURRENT PHASE: CONCEPT
Clairvoyance: Age of Starflight is a topdown shooter sandbox adventure game. The theme is “part of a whole”. As in, the game won’t treat the player as a legendary hero, chosen one, or otherwise godly being. This is a concept that always irked me in openworld design, especially in MMOs (DISCLAIMER: No online play is planned!). In my opinion, why go through a beautiful, inhabited world if you’re not regarded as part of it, and instead as “someone better than it”? Sometimes, you just wanna be part of it. That’s what I’m trying to do with Galaxy.
The basic concept of the game is a big universe. There are multiple star systems, each with one or two landable planets. Each planet will have a city on it in some form, sometimes small, sometimes half-decently-large. But always different. The player will be able to touch down planetside and traverse the city, talk to people, grab a drink, get a mission, and go into their ship to fly to their next destination. (Yes, ships will be flyable! But only in space. There’s going to be a lot to do in space, from random anomalies to discover, to pirates and muggers to overcome, and even a war! But I’ll get to that.) Yes, I’m aware that this project will take a lot of time, dedication, and talent. I’m totally aware of that. But I’m hoping that a thread will help keep me on track with this one.
This may be a deal breaker for a lot of you, but this game will be a topdown shooter. Both in space and on the ground. WASD will move (changeable, of course!) and the mouse will look around. In your ship, WASD will move the ship, but mouse will serve more as a reticle for targeting. Turning will be done with A and D. (The reason for the separation between space and ground controls is to keep things different enough to feel fresh, but not different enough to look like two totally different games (lookin at you, Star Trek Online!).
The way I want to do the “story” is with a web. Think of an advanced Star Fox 64. Instead of one starting mission with hidden objectives to get to the hidden missions, there are multiple starting missions that give you different missions depending on your outcome (ie. win or lose, and sometimes choice). To get technical, I want to do this with tiers. I’m thinking seven tiers. In tier 1, you have the option of taking one of the missions of that tier. Once you complete that mission, you’ll unlock the missions that connect to it in tier 2. So on and so forth, to essentially create your own story.
As far as side stuff, I want to really make the world pop. I want to give the player the option of joining the GUM (Galactic Union Military) and fighting against the forces of evil. Literally, evil. Think “The Fifth Element”. Except it has physical minions. And if the player doesn’t want to join the war, they can be merchants. Or adventurers. Or bounty hunters. Or galactic racers. Or Jedi ripoffs that I’m calling “Seers”. Or their evil counterparts, the “Blinded”. I’ll go more into the lore as the game develops.
My overall plan is to post here once a week and talk about the changes I’ve made, including plans, concepts, and actual physical progress on the game itself.
Now, if anyone’s interested, here are all of my little demos!
https://www.mediafire.com/?bkup0uib39nbqx9
^^^Demo - November 30, 2014^^^ (This is a .exe, and only runs on Windows 64bit. Sorry!)
https://www.mediafire.com/?j88w6ei4yc7yp8k
^^^Demo - Deceber 12, 2014^^^ (This is a .exe, and only runs on Windows 64bit. Sorry!)
http://pasteall.org/blend/33418
^^^Demo - December 19, 2014**^^^ (This .blend only works for 2.66. Sorry!)
blend: http://pasteall.org/blend/33620
exe: https://www.mediafire.com/?z9cdvy9e0pph3d4
^^^Demo(s) - January 2, 2015^^^ (.exe only runs on Windows 64bit, and the .blend won’t work for anything beyond 2.67. Sorry!)
Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism welcome, but please refrain from “0MG 2 AMBITIOUS 4 U” commentary. I’m fully aware of how ambitious this project is. Let’s keep discussion to the project itself.