Ideas Ideas Ideas
Fri, 2009-07-31 11:14 — Uriah
So in 0.9.12 we've included an announcer, this feature is pretty much done. The announcer basically displays messages at the top of the screen based on events in the game. Making witty comments when hogs drown, explode, and so on.
Well that's all well and good, but it's a bit.. old fashioned? I was wondering how we could make this feature more interesting and more fun.. and came up with this idea..
Basically, rather than text annoucements at the top of the screen, we have this guy! He floats around near the clouds, being pushed around in the wind, and he makes comments using the speech bubble system on events in the game...
Not only that, but if you really dislike a comment he makes.. well.. you can blow him up :)
Here's a full mockup here:
Click me!!!
Graphic isn't finished, but what do you think of the idea?
Well that's all well and good, but it's a bit.. old fashioned? I was wondering how we could make this feature more interesting and more fun.. and came up with this idea..
Basically, rather than text annoucements at the top of the screen, we have this guy! He floats around near the clouds, being pushed around in the wind, and he makes comments using the speech bubble system on events in the game...
Not only that, but if you really dislike a comment he makes.. well.. you can blow him up :)
Here's a full mockup here:
Click me!!!
Graphic isn't finished, but what do you think of the idea?
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xindon
that's cool:D
it should be possible to rope on the balloon
Born2Crawl
Wow, really COOL!
Andrey
I'm for it. The baloon commentator, that is.
rbaleksandar
This thing would look rather good as a weapon not as an announcer. A super weapon...Maybe a bombarding balloon.
I really like the addition that xindon proposed - make it at least possible to rope on that thing if not removing it completely as announcer.
fabianjul
sounds great! I really love your work, keep it coming.
Ryan
I can't think of anything I don't like about this concept. Looking forward to it!
Atedos
It puts an obstacles in projectile's way, not to mention the need to scroll for it to read the comment.
So I'm against such thing.
A simple Worms-style comment field would be great.
Or at least allow to turn it off.
Uriah
Worth while concerns, but I haven't gone into full detail about the feature. So to reassure you, the balloon won't affect the rocket, if the rocket comes into contact with the balloon the balloon will pop whilst leaving the rocket unaffected.
As for scrolling to read the comments, we plan for the speech bubbles to always be at the top of the screen, where the previous comments were, the "tail" of the speech bubble will stretch the further away from the balloon you get, to keep the speech bubble forever in sight. The only time the speech bubble escapes from the top of the screen/camera view, is when the balloon itself is on screen, then it moves into the expected position, as in the mockup screenshot.
rbaleksandar
Ah, ok then. But it's still better to use this concept for a weapon. Oh, well, that's ok. Although I don't see any reason for making something like that, when you can see it only then, when you're lookin' at the clouds.
Atedos
Oh, this one looks more reasonable. =))
Well, I still find it a bit too complicated.
verb3k
I don't want him to accidentally block my attacks.
verb3k
I have a better idea. When this hog happens to be in the screen, it will use the bubble to speak, and when he's got out of the screen the typical worms message will appear instead.
It's like some FPS games, when your teammates are near you, you will hear their voices directly, and when they are far away, you will hear their voices from a radio.
nemo
@verb3k - well. more likely, simply supplement the speech bubble with current if screen is elsewhere - that's a lot easier than swapping the two back and forth based on camera position
And, yeah. I like that better than Tiy's approach because it is much less complex to add
dfisek
It'a a great idea!
The balloon in the mockup is a little big though, maybe a smaller balloon (e.g: proportional to the size of a worm), a little higher in the sky may put aside the interference of gameplay worries.
(though I liked the idea of throwing a rope at the announcer but that would really affect gameplay)
rbaleksandar
btw It'll be nice to do some animations on the hedgehog in the basket. Like moving its lips. After all he announces things...So its mouth should be moving while announcing something.
One more things - make the balloon reappear after being taken down in order to give the opportunity to someoneelse to shoot at it.
daimadoshi85
Please make the announcer with a secret special attack
Cheeto
I think this is a really creative way of putting the hw spin on an old concept. I do think it would be neat to be able to rope off the announcer, especially if the location of the balloon is affected by the wind -- on flatter maps, this could add a nice dimension to gameplay.
I'm glad that it won't affect the path of projectiles. You guys are always thinking ahead! I'm really looking forward to seeing this in 0.9.12!
Cheeto
Quick idea, if the announcer will really be moving frequently with the wind, perhaps crate drops could fall from the balloon? It might be a pain to animate him pushing them overboard, but I think it would be really cool.
Uriah
Cool idea, but it needs refining, what if he happens to be over some water? :P
unC0Rr
And what if it is cavern map :P
rbaleksandar
Uriah
Then he sits on the map border? :P
Atedos
I like the idea of crate drops from the balloon, and there is no actual need to animate it all, crates could just appear beneath the basket.
But who will do the job (I mean crates dropping), if it is blown up?
Uriah
Maybe we shouldnt blow it up and just have it on the background layer. hmmm
Skell
Maybe you could have a weapon that makes the balloon drop a bunch of crates randomly over the map. Crates could maybe come out of a trap door underneath it.
Also you could have the announcer say or do something when he gets shot down.
rbaleksandar
Even then on a cavern map you won't be able to see it unless it's flying on a lower level, but in that case it'll be flying where our hedgehogs are and this'll be a little bit distract while you make some moves with your dude and behind it some message appears.
I actually don't know exactly how many layers you have guys in the game...Ok, a background with the new hi-res images and a foreground where the actual game takes part? Do you have a third layer which is a foreground to the actual play field? If yes, you can put the balloon there. Even on cavern maps it'll be in front of the border. Yes, it'll look kind of weird but you'll be able to see it + it won't bother you all the time.
Hmm, I'd better post a suggestion on the suggestions-section of the forum.
nemo
This would probably not be a problem since the sensible position for the balloon would be just above the highest land on the map (in a similar fashion to how air strike works). So on the cavern map, the balloon would simply fly above the cavern, wherever that was.
verb3k
OK Then how about a "speaking" announcer? Real voice I mean
Would be really nice!
Mkk-Bote
Yes, you should be able to create your own "speaking" announcer.
FireFox
Each statement uses the name of the hog involved...
urandom
the audio feedback can only mention the color(s) of the hog(s) involved.
ATARI
This idea is fucking dumb. Its just going to be an annoyance in the middle of the game and half the time you're going to miss the comments because you are looking at the action rather than this announcer dude off in the corner somewhere. Worms perfected the announcing system well enough, so don't throw out the book just to make a hedge hog in a balloon graphic.
FireFox
Do me a favor and read a little bit before you decide to spew out some more arrogant BS like that again. You don't pay any money for this game. You don't contribute anything to this game. Frankly when you make idiotic statements like that it's a bit hard for me to understand just why you think anyone is going to listen to a word you say.
Diabolico
Frankly, I agree with FireFox.
At first I thought that the announcer is going to spoil the game-play when Tiyuri said "You can blow him up".
But If the announcer remains in the background and keeps cracking funny comments without effecting game-play, it would be a great addition to the game.
I mainly agree with the announcer because Turn-based games tend to suffer from lack of action / movement, and having an announcer moving around the map would increase the action in the background making the game more enjoyable.
Uriah
First of all the announcer will be far enough away from the action as not to be an annoyance, second of all the speech bubbles will appear at the top of the screen if the announcer isn't on screen himself, essentially mirroring the traditional announcer.
Also, this isn't a big games company you're talking to who needs to worry about things like PR, on this website you're
just talking to me and it's best not to be a fucking idiot when you do so as I also administrate the game server and if you want to continue playing you might find that troublesome. I have no problem banning someone simply because I don't like them. The upside of this is that we don't base our bans on a set of strict idiotic rules ( like temporary bans for swearing ), the downside (for you anyway) is that you can't go around acting like a twat as long as you follow the rules and expect to stick around.
harmless911
I really like this idea, maybe make a weapon out of this. Like maybe Crate/Utility/Medical drop. Works like air strike, only it drops the good stuff (hopefully). It can also be used to drop certain air strikes like
1. Bee strike- Drops a single bee hive, out of which fly out 5 bees, which fly towards the nearest hog.
2. Atomic Bomb- OWNAGE.
3. Something Strike- no idea what it should be called, but whatever it is, it works like an air strike only rather than dropping them horizontally, it drops them straight down (something like this)
|
|
U
|
|
U
|
|
U
etc.
Also a name for another air strike: teacher strike... What should it do?
Greetings from Bulgaria.
rbaleksandar
harmless911
Vacation
Visiting my grandpa.
Soon I'll be in Ukraine... Visiting my grandpa.
Born2Crawl
Well, welcome to Ukraine then
I live there
Seradest
Whem came this big Update ?
harmless911
New post please
hedgwarscool123
cool
Howdy
Well, I loved the simplicity of the old announcer in worms, and I know this isn't worms, but I think the balloon is a little too much.
I won't rage if the announcer just floats in the background though, having him being able to be shot down is a little ridiculous and highly distracting.
qwerty800
I like this Idea of an announcer in a baloon/ on the sides of a Cavern.
My suggestions:
*You can pop the announcer baloon. The announcer then falls and blow another one (What? It's a video-game!).
*If the announcer falls in the water, you stop seeing/hearing comments.
*In a cavern stage, he'ss standing on the left/right sige of the stage.
rbaleksandar
qwerty:
1)Cool.
2)Bad. The comments are part of the game and they make you laugh. No point in destroying this entartaiment source, because if for example if it fells at the very beginning of the game in the water, you'll have a whole game without cool comments, which are also very useful in order to determine if someone died etc. without the need to look at the "crime" scene.
3)Bad again because it'll work with a tiny map but imagine if you have a large Cavern map - in order to see the comment, you'll have to go all the way to the balloon...This is a great waste of time.
sheepluva
Commentary chat ballons would be displayed at the respective edge of the screen in case the commentor is not on screen, afaik.
rbaleksandar
Аh, ok.
Ramza
I really like it, as long as we can toggle it between these 3 options:
1. make it disappear for competitions so it doesn't become a distraction on serious situations\games and make the messages appear the "classic\worms" way
2. don't let it intercept our rockets but still appear so we can have fun seeing he floating around
3. make it part of the landscape so we can shot him down! *evil laugh*
I also think that the messages should appear the classic way if the speech balloon doesn't fit the current screen selection completely.
Cheeto
I may be speaking out of turn, but I suspect it would be rather difficult to code three different announcer styles. Tiyuri said that they are including the announcer in 0.9.12, so reworking the concept too much would likely delay the release.
Personally, I'd be happy to see the announcer appear as Tiyuri described in this upcoming release, with the potential to tweak it / add different announce schemes in future releases. None of us has actually played with the proposed announcer, it might be awesome the way it is.
Lord Teapot
I thnk its a great idea! I think that in order to take this project above a simple 'worm clone' we should not just copy worms but ADD TO IT! Something like this basicly tells a new player that this isnt just the free alternative to worms, also if we can get enough original ideas we may even surpass worms! I have several ideas:
1. The balloon will to a different place in the map each turn, certain additional weapons can take advantage of the balloons position, such as a more effective air strike directly beneath the ballons current position.
2. Rather thanthe balloon "popping" when hit why not move the ballon in the opposite direction of where the projectile hit it.