Ammunition > Heroics

I've decided 1999 will now be officially named "A.D. 1999" because it sounds more suspenseful and professional (although I'll still refer to it as just "1999" a lot because it's just shorter). It will probably have a subtitle too, but I don't know what that will be yet. Now that I think about it, 1999 A.C.E. would work really well with the general theme (it's a top-down aerial combat game), but I hate the term "A.C.E" and I really don't want to use it, even to make a better title (which would be pretty corny anyway). By the way, for those who haven't gotten the message yet, this will only be for Windows. It may be eventually cross-platform, but that's really up to the folks at YYG to decide.
So anyhow, the game has become my biggest project now, and I'm making some pretty good progress. I already finished the multiple backgrounds / fighting areas, although I'm going to further improve that system later. Right now it just goes to a random place, and one of them is way up in the clouds and has these birds you can shoot at; other ones will have fun little things like that, too at some point, and eventually you'll be able to unlock the ability to select areas (including two that I've already made backgrounds for that aren't normally in the game) rather than have them be randomly selected. Anyway, I figured a lot of you may want to know more details on the game, especially Adam, since he did the neat voice acting stuff ("Spectacles!" [pronounced like Androcles :D] "Egg-Salad!" "Spamtastic!") and would probably like to know more about what the game is going to be like. So today I'll do my best to describe it.

Basically, when you start up the game (It takes a really long time to load; when it's done it'll be over five minutes I imagine. My computer is quite slow though, so it may be faster for other people.), you've got a title screen (the one I have now is just a filler; the real one will probably be hand-drawn), and then you press any key to go to the menu. There will be an option for you to go see the instructions and the story of the game (which will be explained more later), as well as one for a two-player battle mode (a big focus of the game), and a one-player "arcade mode" (I have no definite details on this one yet).
When you select the two-player game, you go to a simple screen with two airplanes; each player can press their fire key to change planes. At the beginning, there are only three planes to choose from, but over time, as you fight more battles, more will become available (There will be at least 30 unique planes, and I already have 16, or if you count color variations, 32.). The planes are just small sprites, but I think they look quite nice, actually. I may post screenshots at some point.
Anyway, after you select your planes and push the enter key to start the battle, you're taken to one of five random areas: over an ocean, above a barren wasteland, high in the clouds, in space, or over this lava-encrusted field. The game screen (640 x 480) is divided vertically into two halves, one for each player.
You move your plane by holding down your acceleration or reverse key, and turn it by pressing your left or right key. Your your view is fixed, but if you hold down the "camera key" (I'm not referring to the actual keys for each player, for purposes of simplicity), the view will "snap" to the angle of your plane. So if your plane is facing towards the top of the screen, and you turn with the camera key pressed, your plane will still face the top and instead the view rotates (well, actually, the plane and view rotate, which really does have a slightly different visual effect, but it's hard to describe). You also have a brake key you can hold down to stop yourself, and then one key to fire. The object is to destroy your foe's plane three times before they do the same to you; when you destroy them, a fun message is displayed like "Egg-salad!" with accompanying voiceover (again, thanks to Adam, who also came up with the "words" in the first place :D). There will also be items contained in little bubble things to help add variety to the game. There are two different kinds; the first are Effect Capsules that just create a one-time effect. There are five different kinds I've come up with so far (I've done all the graphics needed for them, but they aren't actually in the game yet, though they will be very soon.): A Repair Capsule, which, as the name implies, repairs your plane (not always a plane but I don't want to spoil any of the unlockables yet); a Nova Capsule, which unleashes a small wave of fire/laser energy stuff that will damage nearby aircraft; an EMP Capsule, which removes any weapon upgrades (more on those in a bit) your opponent has (though with a chance of removing yours too); a Mosquito Capsule, which unleashes a missile that follows your opponent (it doesn't blow up on contact, but is timed instead); and a Shrink Capsule, which makes your plane very small and hard to hit (when your plane blows up, though, you will revert to your normal size). The second kind of item you can get is a Weapon Capsule, which, as you would guess, gives you an upgraded weapon. This lasts until your plane is shot down, which, if you get a good weapon, may not be for a while. There will be a pretty good number of weapon capsules, and I haven't done anything for them yet but right down ideas.

Anyway, that's a pretty good overview of what I have so far. Now, I'm sure you're wondering, "Why is it called A.D. 1999?" Well, It's funny because basically the story was the last thing I came up with; it was even after I had started doing the actual game. I just thought "Game first, story later" because I knew it would end up being really ridiculous that way. I even came up with the name before there was anything really solid for a story floating around in my mind. I just thought a game set in 1999 would be neat (I've thought that for a while), and then eventually I came up with some ideas, and now I've put them together into this:

A group of robots has just arrived on earth. They claim they are traveling through the galaxy in order to invite other people to fight against them in a contest for galactic supremacy, so that in the year 2000 the ultimate rulers of the universe would be undisputed.However, the only life they'd found so far was a small group of Space Llamas on Ngitaka IV, and they were instantly disqualified as they were... well, llamas. The robots suggested their own contest that was popular on their planet as the competition, as humans didn't seem to have many global contest sort of things, except for boring athletic events. The contest the robots had on their planet was an aerial battle that involved lots of guns and explosions and all sorts of fun things like that. When it was over, they would rebuild themselves and start all over again.
However, the robots discovered that humans are not indestructible (thankfully they were told rather than having to learn from experience), and they had to modify their contest slightly. They constructed a large virtual arena in which the battles could take place, so things would be much safer, and gave the human combatants nice protective stuff like parachutes and things so they survived the destruction of their aircraft.
Many humans thought this sounded like a lot of fun, and signed up. Others thought it was ridiculous, but signed up anyway because they were loyal to their planet. Still others thought it was the most idiotic thing they ever heard, but also joined because.... Well, nobody really knows.

...So that's it. I haven't completely decided how the fact that nobody knows about this will be explained, but it would kinda spoil the ending anyway (Hint: It's going to involve brains being erased. Although that was kind of a "no, really?" type of thing).

I'm guessing you're wondering what's up with my other projects now, but don't worry. Although they're all kind of on hold so I can make as much progress with 1999 as possible, they'll get their attention again as soon as I'm finished with this game.
Well, that's enough for this post; it was only one subject, but it was of decent length at least.

:::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
...That's right... fear the machines...