OverThrust "Launch"

OverThrust: the story so far:

I loved playing games like this in the 90's. V-Wing, Wings, KOPS, AUTS etc. cavern flyers were awesome back then. When I learned how to make games and how to code, I made few prototypes of similar games, but the progress always stopped at some point, be it time, motivation or something else. I couldn't get more than simple tech demo out. Then the genAI rose and that solved few problems. Yeah, it all boils down to me being lazy...

Anyway. I developed this game for some time, it was called "skyhunters" back then, based on Dethkloks song "Sky hunter". Game used Photon PUN2 as networking layer and when I in my infinite wisdom decided to change PUN2 to then relatively new Photon Fusion, I got stuck again. At same time "Life" happened, and I simply didn't have time, or motivatio to develop further at that point.

Now I finally got time to develop this further and here it is in all it's "glory"

Game loop: Fly, Shoot, Die, Repeat. Fast(ish) respawn

4 player local game. Online, 10 per room

As for game mechanics: This is fast paced death match 2d cavern flyer game with inertia / physics based movement. Deathmatch is only game mode and doesn't have any rules.

Ships can be abandoned and abandoned ships can be captured. You can run and jump around as a little pilot, shoot your pea shooter and swing, climb and hang around with grappling hook to traverse the terrain.

Critical damage system for ships, Take 3 critical hits (massive damage) and your ship will get system damage based on the last critical hit direction. There's 3 kinds of system damage: Thrusters don't work properly. Weapons don't work properly or turning doesn't work properly, there are also more stages to these.

Level has fixed healing pads, where you can land, wait a while and get healed. You can heal system damage, refill ammo and of course accumulated damage. On healing pads you can also change special weapons, but beware, you are a sitting duck while in them.

Game has 5 playable ships with different stats each (Speed, Acceleration, Weight, Agility, Health, Ammo, Weapon type, Damage, Firerate and Accuracy).

• Speed: top flight speed of the ship.
• Acceleration: how quickly the ship gains speed under thrust.
• Weight: how strongly external forces (like explosions or recoil) push the ship.
• Agility: turning speed and responsiveness.
• Health: total durability before destruction. (accumulate damage from collisions to environment and other players) (Separate health for ships and pilot. if pilot dies, you respawn. if pilot is in ship during it's destruction, pilot dies)
• Ammo: capacity of the special weapon, shared between all special weapons (main gun is separate unlimited).
• Weapon Type: the ship’s main gun style (e.g., machine gun, shotgun, sniper, pistol).
• Damage: per-shot damage potential.
• Fire Rate: how often the weapon can fire.
• Accuracy: shot spread; higher accuracy means tighter grouping.

Ships:

Stellar Nomad: Relatively balanced all arounder equipped with two machine guns
Vespid Stinger: Fast moving ship with rapid fire rate machine gun
Ironclad Behemoth: Heavily armoured tank with slow movement, Equipped with shotgun
Nova Raider: Slightly faster than Stellar Nomad, This ship is designed for hitting hard and from afar, equipped with Sniper. Slow firerate that can cause massive damage
Eclipse Falcon: Slightly slower than Stellar Nomad, This ship has high firerate, equipped with 4 machine guns with poor accuracy, Just spray and pray.

Special weapons:

Cannon: Simple, yet effective. Shoots ball that explodes on impact. will also give a little recoil when shooting.

ArcShield: Forward facing shield that shields from most damage, mitigates direct explosions hit on the shield. Currently only weapon with "Alt action", during shielding you can use Alt Action button to get short speed boost. Also does damage on enemy ships on contact

Floating Mine: Mine that floats around waiting for unlucky players to get too close. Starts following players it they get too close.

Heat Seeker: Name says it all. Heat seeking missile, that follows targets.

More weapons will come later.

Destructive terrain: Almost everything can be destroyed from the terrain using weapons reshaping the level during gameplay.

Game is still in heavy development. Current version uses way too much genAI content, which are intended only as temporary assets (tho dunno about the music, they are kinda bangers!)

So. Test the game, Play it with your friends, local or over internet. Game supports local split screen, just like in the 90's complete with keyboard inputs for all 4 players. Oh what fun we had in the 90's with those. All friends gathering on one small keyboard that couldn't handle multiple simultaneous inputs, packed tight together. But for conviniences sake, it does support gamepads too, so whatever floats your boat.

I hope you like the game and I'd very much would love feedback on game mechanics etc.