Rail Shooter Engine Concept & Research
The third idea for this year’s honours project is to create a rail shooter, salvaging only the magical glyph screen-drawing element of the previous idea. Rail shooter games are a pretty odd genre, however, with very view games obeying the same set of rules.
I think it’s important at this stage, before even making a new project plan, to tackle exactly what systems are always present through necessity, and which features would really make a concept like this shine; Both in terms of playability and art style.
For those disinclined, a rail shooter is a game like Star Fox, in which the player controls a ship or character flying through a set ‘path’ or ‘tunnel’, combating various opponents along the way, generally with firearms.
-A critical view of the genre-
They are less precise than 2D shoot-em-ups, as the perspective can make it difficult to discern exactly how close enemy projectiles are to one’s hitbox; And even worse, aiming at an enemy can place the player’s character directly in the line of fire whilst also blocking their point of view, especially annoying in otherwise interesting pseudo-2D titles like Space Harrier and Iridion 3D.
Later games using polygonal graphics at least had the foresight to give the player a separate aiming crosshairs and often a lock-on function, as in Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon. Even late examples can be very mercurial with this mold, however, as it seems even much newer games like Sin & Punishment and certain sections of Nier Automata focus a lot more on spectacle than really developing new mechanics…
The larger screen presence of characters on the screen does mean things are more personable than 2D shoot-em-ups, but perhaps there is a better way to use these sort of mechanics for more modern controls and playstyles?
-Potential Control Styles, Strengths and Weaknesses-
The type seen in older shooters.
Strengths: Very easy to learn, almost no controls, suits 2D sprite graphics well.
Weaknesses: The player character blocks the line of sight with the object they are firing at.
2) WASD + Aiming Reticule
Represented here with mouse controls, but a good facsimile of how Panzer Dragoon plays for the most part.
Strengths; Solves the ‘blocking problem’, makes better use of 3D graphics. Controls not too dissimilar to an FPS, which most people are familiar with.
Weaknesses; Actually HAS to be in 3D, since the craft rotating independently would look very strange in sprite form. Doesn’t entirely solve the depth perception troubles.
3) WASD + Mouse Screen Position Freeroaming
Similar to the freeroaming sections of Starfox 64, this is a bit of a radical departure, allowing the player to move around FPS style, but also giving them the freedom to maneuver character around the screen for more immediate dodging actions.
Strengths; Freeroaming! Would work with either sprites or polygons. Solves the depth perception troubles by simply allowing the player to turn away and go in a different direction.
Weaknesses; Levels would either be a lot more work, or smaller and less focused. It could also be difficult to tell if an enemy is shooting at you from a direction other than the front.
Given more time I think the third example would make for some fun boss battle gameplay, but in terms both ease of use and an ability to cast the magic spells with ease, the second is probably more realistic to accomplish.
-Engine Preliminary Test-
With all this in mind, I threw something together to test the viability of a separate aiming object. Turns out the most straightforward way to do this is simply to get the screen position results from the mouse, and have it transform the location of a component object. Making a separate object adds too much complexity in terms of having two objects trade values with each other, whilst this automatically offsets the cone’s location by the player’s relative location too.
In this case, it simply moves the cone around, like a piece of chalk on an invisible chalkboard. This would be the aiming crosshairs in the final version, with the player object constantly facing it, and the entire camera+player+aiming apparatus attached directly onto a spline that guides it through the level.
