Design Simplification

Boy...the more I thought about it the more it become obvious that my initial design of robot control is still too complex. It's not just the possible amount of code and animation it required but also the design of motion etc is just mind bugling.

The problem is regarding how the robot should look, which angle, how to rotate the upper and lower body, does the robot do side slide motion, or does the lower body just do it independent orientation? Would the motion look awkward.

Plus the amount of code, animation etc that is potentially required...and I am not even sure if the end result would be good gameplay or would it looks good.

I think with my limited resources, it's better to keep it simple. Creativity is essential but when it's costing a lot of my effort I should trim it down. The most important goal is to have a working game that's fun to play after all. Although it's nice to put new ideas in, but some of the ideas, require a lot of prototyping I think, because they weren't done before and there it's hard "visualize" the result. So perhaps for me right now I should keep to what I know would work, and finish those first.

So here is a new simplified design: Just do it the side scroll shooter way, and let the player aim from approximately 45 degree above and 45 degree below ahead. Later, if gameplay requires, a key can be added which will just turn the robot 180 degree, facing away from where the stage is scrolling, allowing the player to shoot behind.

I think doing it this way could potentially be more fun to play, because it limited the complexity of 360 degree aiming. 90 degree aiming might be more manageable in shooters without demolish the original idea behind it.

Of course...this new design was made possible due to my experimentation on the animation control...so it's not all a waste of time...