gbadev.org forum archive

This is a read-only mirror of the content originally found on forum.gbadev.org (now offline), salvaged from Wayback machine copies. A new forum can be found here.

Game Design > squad based game, maybe RTS who knows

#93782 - christosterone - Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:33 am

i did a lot of pixel art for a simple squad based rts i was going to write for the GBA. i stopped the idea because i could never agree as to the control scheme or what exactly the game would run like... ex do you control one unit or one squad? can you pause and do commander-esque decisions?

right now i have 1 infantry, 1 bazooka guy, 1 flamethrower, 1 jeep, 1 tank, 1 artillery, 1 health truck, and 1 battle copter drawn. and each has an icon at the bottom of the screen (like in battalion wars). pressing SELECT changes which unit to control, and the dpad strafes while the R and L buttons rotate the unit's cannon.

maybe lockon, maybe freeaim; yet again im still not sure.

potential screenshot:
http://moop.gotdns.com/~christosterone/potentialscreenshot.bmp

im also having doubts whether i should just have many units per squad, or maybe you just set paths for each squad and the engine will do the rest, who knows at this point.

all i know for sure is that it will NOT LOOK LIKE IT IS ON A GRID, and it will be REAL TIME (maybe pausing to do additional stuff)

any input as to what you want?
any input would be GREATLY appreciated i feel like this has a lot of potential.

the Dpad with the R and L feels GREAT on real hardware....would anybody be interested in helping me?

-chris

#93817 - tepples - Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:45 pm

Please use .png format for such screen shots. It's much smaller.

The only RTS that I've seen on a 16-bit-style console is Herzog Zwei. In general, such games are limited by the control scheme, and developers make them turn-based (Famicom Wars/Advance Wars, Ogre Battle, FF Tactics) to compensate. If you want to make an RTS for a Nintendo handheld, then make a turn-based GBA game (to gain experience on the GBA 2D system) and then make your RTS for the Nintendo DS.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#94227 - christosterone - Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:46 pm

thanks for the advice. i think ill try to make a gba demo before i move onto the DS. My demo will be runtime, though i hope it isnt too difficult with the control schemes... but there's only one way to find out; write the code.

thankyou,
chris