I've had a game concept flying around in my head for some time now. I once wrote a concept document but then put it away agein. I didn't know much about how to program a game but then later started modeling the main "character" just out of curiousity.
It's what is normaly known as a 'flying car' or kind of a hoovercraft, except that it can fly at any hight. It's shape is taken from a Belgium Comic that is also the basis for the gameconcept. It's called "die Minimenschen", maybe some of you know it. It's about a group of people that got shrunken to a fraction of their size and how they have to deal with their surrounding and stay hidden.
This is one of the vehicles they have:
When I came across 3DGS some time ago I started concepting the idea with some very basic physics and I have been constantly improving it over the past few weeks. With the help of various user constributed scripts from the forum I was able to get it almost exactly how I imagened it.
It is now possible to control the "Glider" very intuitively but on the other hand very presice if necessary.
I'm using the native ODE physics engine for the hoover effect, the boosters are one force that is always directed downwards from the vehicle, just as a helicopter.
The pan, tilt and roll is controlled by the mouse and various key's and the downward thrust is controlled by the mouse wheel.
I've added an autopilot that keeps the glider horizontal and at the present hight once activated. Then there's a few different cameras, one that always stays behind the vehicle and is always directed at it. It's used for flying very fast with the back boosters aktivated and helps to control it very presicely at hight speeds. The second camera is similar, but doesn't turn up and down with the vehicle, it's good for narrow areas and to manouvre close to an object.
It can also be controled by fixed cameras much like a remote plane.
On the bottom of the vehicle are 4 claws that can be manualy opened and used to pick things up, so far it works with coke cans.
I've put togehter a simple map with a few objects that I found in the forum or on other related sites, so most objects are borrowed and only there to show at what scale the game is going to take place.
The idea is to let the player control this vehicle in a normal everyday envirement like a house or a flat. Everything is very big and you will have to deal with everyday objects very differently in order to complete your missions.
I hope you like my idea.
I'm looking forward to some feedback.
Greetz
Some screens with DOF activaded:
Concept Video:
(there's also a highres wmv version that can be changed to on the bottom of the video)
