Fine folks of TEST Squadron, good [morning/afternoon/evening]! My name is Vox_R / Serious Table, the creator of the current work-in-progress game Citizen Maverick!
After all of the fantastic feedback I received from you guys on the first public iteration of Citizen Maverick and some good discussion with a number of people, I’m doing a complete code and asset cleanup of the project and starting on the second revision to make sure I’ve created something worthy of the TEST Logo!
I’ve it on good authority that we have a lot of people in TEST Squadron looking to assist with another TEST game, so I’m seeking your help! I can do a lot of this on my own, but a lot of the asset creation is not my field of expertise!
Below, you’ll find a smaller design document in order to give you guys an idea of what I want Citizen Maverick to be. If there are any artists, composers, testers, anyone who would like to contribute, even just to throw ideas at, please let me know! I would really love for this to be a TEST Squadron game through and through!
Don’t want or need to read through all of it? Don’t worry, there’s section headers that should be clear to see, and a TL;DR at the end!
You can see and play the current iteration of Citizen Maverick here: https://testsquadron.com/citizenmaverick Any and all feedback from your plays here is always appreciated!
Formerly a Citizen of the UEE, you’ve been chased to the fringes of known space for reasons you still don’t understand. All you know is there’s a price on your head and the only place you’re not likely to get hunted down is out here. While flying about in your trusty Aurora, you catch a distant distress signal. You’re skeptical, but you could really use allies out here, so you buckle in and Q-Drive out to see who is on the other side.
The backstory itself is mainly used to provide context for the game’s fantasy. It will play into the campaign and give an objective to Endless Mode without being so in-depth as to make it convoluted.
Following the distress signal, you arrive at a besieged Starfarer in black and yellow colors. Your first mission is to clear out the hostiles and save the Starfarer before it reaches and unfortunate end.
When you do, you discover that the Starfarer is carrying a cargo more precious than gold to its pilot: beer. And it’s set to be delivered to one location: TEST Squadron Headquarters. You agree to escort the Beerfarer to its final destination, culminating in an intense and hilarious final ending sequence.
The campaign itself will feature 5-10 missions (still undecided on total number) that will be randomized from a number of different goals: these can range from a simple defense mission (kill x number of waves), to recovering salvage for parts or gathering fuel (she’s carrying a ton of *beer* after all).
MOVEMENT: This is being refined during the second iteration. We ran into an issue where the WASD controls made sense from a “realistic” point of view, but were not intuitive to the player from the get go! As such, I’m modifying the flying style. Like other Top-down space games before it, I’m going to adopt a WASD control scheme where W/S handles forward/reverse thrust, and A/D handles rotating your ship. The drift and sliding of ships will be tuned as well, so the ships feel responsive but allows for some coasting.
WEAPONS: Because of difficulties with hitting targets with fixed weaponry in Iteration 1, the guns are going to be gimbaled and fire towards the mouse position on screen. The gimbals themselves will have a maximum rotation angle so you still have to aim your ship in the general direction. I want to make it as tight as possible so that you hit what you point at!
TURRETS: In order to better support these gimbaled weapons, turrets will become automated and attack any enemy target within range.
SHIELDS: I don’t feel like the shield orb really looked great with the sprites, so I’ll be removing that entirely. Shields will still be part of the gameplay, but they won’t have a visible sphere any longer.
AI: No more ramming AI! Well, maybe. I might still have a “kamikaze” sort of pilot that is randomly generated and have collisions actually deal damage. But otherwise, the AI will move towards a specific point *near* the player, while still firing at them.
FUEL: Gone! It wasn’t a compelling mechanic and didn’t impact gameplay in any way, shape, or form. So it’s been removed!
There will be a few changes to the Endless game mode to make it more compelling and more exciting for the player.
First things first is game objective. Rather than purely being about surviving, I’d like it to be focused on defending an objective (the Beerfarer as an example). There will be mechanics built around the idea of keeping that objective alive, including capabilities to repair the objective.
Leveling up your ship is now going to be done manually by the player. Instead of picking up upgrades lying in space, you’ll receive a large, easy-to-see prompt saying you’ve earned enough points to upgrade. Press a button, and voila! New ship! Missiles by contrast will be dropped occasionally by destroyed targets.
And finally, things will progress in waves rather than just continually spawning ships. This will give the player downtime, lets me tweak for tuning, and can build up to large ship bosses every few waves!
This deserves its own section: I’m abandoning the 800x800 idea. I want the game to fill your screen.
Herein is where I have the greatest issue. I want the sound to be impactful, so that each weapon and each explosion sounds and feels satisfying. And I want the art style itself to be consistent throughout the game. However, I’m limited by what free sound effects I can find on the internet, and the only art I have is from Hyper Vanguard Force!
I would love to have custom made sprites that we could make use of. The biggest limiter is ships from the top down. There were six featured in Hyper Vanguard Force (not counting the caterpillar) and I was able to implement them without much issue, but adding anything beyond that, INCLUDING THE ICONIC AURORA, is not something I have the skills for now. If you do have these skills and would be willing to contribute, please contact me! Your help would be immensely appreciated!
There are other features I want to implement: customization of your ship, different kinds of Endless, easter eggs, minimap, a second campaign, etc. But these are being limited right now to keep the scope focused. These can be added in a future update once I have a solid Second Iteration.
I have big ambitions for Citizen Maverick, even as my first game. And I want to make it not only bigger, but better and more polished than the First Iteration was. And to do it as well as I’d like, I need TEST Squadron’s help! Again, artists, composers, testers, idea guys, anyone who would like to lend a hand, my ears are open! I want to make a game for TEST Squadron that will be truly something special!
Any and all questions or comments are welcome and encouraged! I'll keep posting in this thread updates as they come, so everyone who is interested can follow along! These will include gifs, videos, images, etc.
After all of the fantastic feedback I received from you guys on the first public iteration of Citizen Maverick and some good discussion with a number of people, I’m doing a complete code and asset cleanup of the project and starting on the second revision to make sure I’ve created something worthy of the TEST Logo!
I’ve it on good authority that we have a lot of people in TEST Squadron looking to assist with another TEST game, so I’m seeking your help! I can do a lot of this on my own, but a lot of the asset creation is not my field of expertise!
Below, you’ll find a smaller design document in order to give you guys an idea of what I want Citizen Maverick to be. If there are any artists, composers, testers, anyone who would like to contribute, even just to throw ideas at, please let me know! I would really love for this to be a TEST Squadron game through and through!
Don’t want or need to read through all of it? Don’t worry, there’s section headers that should be clear to see, and a TL;DR at the end!
*** THE CURRENT ITERATION ***
You can see and play the current iteration of Citizen Maverick here: https://testsquadron.com/citizenmaverick Any and all feedback from your plays here is always appreciated!
*** BACKSTORY ***
Formerly a Citizen of the UEE, you’ve been chased to the fringes of known space for reasons you still don’t understand. All you know is there’s a price on your head and the only place you’re not likely to get hunted down is out here. While flying about in your trusty Aurora, you catch a distant distress signal. You’re skeptical, but you could really use allies out here, so you buckle in and Q-Drive out to see who is on the other side.
The backstory itself is mainly used to provide context for the game’s fantasy. It will play into the campaign and give an objective to Endless Mode without being so in-depth as to make it convoluted.
*** CAMPAIGN ***
Following the distress signal, you arrive at a besieged Starfarer in black and yellow colors. Your first mission is to clear out the hostiles and save the Starfarer before it reaches and unfortunate end.
When you do, you discover that the Starfarer is carrying a cargo more precious than gold to its pilot: beer. And it’s set to be delivered to one location: TEST Squadron Headquarters. You agree to escort the Beerfarer to its final destination, culminating in an intense and hilarious final ending sequence.
The campaign itself will feature 5-10 missions (still undecided on total number) that will be randomized from a number of different goals: these can range from a simple defense mission (kill x number of waves), to recovering salvage for parts or gathering fuel (she’s carrying a ton of *beer* after all).
*** MOVEMENT AND COMBAT MECHANICS ***
MOVEMENT: This is being refined during the second iteration. We ran into an issue where the WASD controls made sense from a “realistic” point of view, but were not intuitive to the player from the get go! As such, I’m modifying the flying style. Like other Top-down space games before it, I’m going to adopt a WASD control scheme where W/S handles forward/reverse thrust, and A/D handles rotating your ship. The drift and sliding of ships will be tuned as well, so the ships feel responsive but allows for some coasting.
WEAPONS: Because of difficulties with hitting targets with fixed weaponry in Iteration 1, the guns are going to be gimbaled and fire towards the mouse position on screen. The gimbals themselves will have a maximum rotation angle so you still have to aim your ship in the general direction. I want to make it as tight as possible so that you hit what you point at!
TURRETS: In order to better support these gimbaled weapons, turrets will become automated and attack any enemy target within range.
SHIELDS: I don’t feel like the shield orb really looked great with the sprites, so I’ll be removing that entirely. Shields will still be part of the gameplay, but they won’t have a visible sphere any longer.
AI: No more ramming AI! Well, maybe. I might still have a “kamikaze” sort of pilot that is randomly generated and have collisions actually deal damage. But otherwise, the AI will move towards a specific point *near* the player, while still firing at them.
FUEL: Gone! It wasn’t a compelling mechanic and didn’t impact gameplay in any way, shape, or form. So it’s been removed!
*** ENDLESS ***
There will be a few changes to the Endless game mode to make it more compelling and more exciting for the player.
First things first is game objective. Rather than purely being about surviving, I’d like it to be focused on defending an objective (the Beerfarer as an example). There will be mechanics built around the idea of keeping that objective alive, including capabilities to repair the objective.
Leveling up your ship is now going to be done manually by the player. Instead of picking up upgrades lying in space, you’ll receive a large, easy-to-see prompt saying you’ve earned enough points to upgrade. Press a button, and voila! New ship! Missiles by contrast will be dropped occasionally by destroyed targets.
And finally, things will progress in waves rather than just continually spawning ships. This will give the player downtime, lets me tweak for tuning, and can build up to large ship bosses every few waves!
*** SCREENSPACE ***
This deserves its own section: I’m abandoning the 800x800 idea. I want the game to fill your screen.
*** ART AND SOUND ***
Herein is where I have the greatest issue. I want the sound to be impactful, so that each weapon and each explosion sounds and feels satisfying. And I want the art style itself to be consistent throughout the game. However, I’m limited by what free sound effects I can find on the internet, and the only art I have is from Hyper Vanguard Force!
I would love to have custom made sprites that we could make use of. The biggest limiter is ships from the top down. There were six featured in Hyper Vanguard Force (not counting the caterpillar) and I was able to implement them without much issue, but adding anything beyond that, INCLUDING THE ICONIC AURORA, is not something I have the skills for now. If you do have these skills and would be willing to contribute, please contact me! Your help would be immensely appreciated!
*** AND MORE ***
There are other features I want to implement: customization of your ship, different kinds of Endless, easter eggs, minimap, a second campaign, etc. But these are being limited right now to keep the scope focused. These can be added in a future update once I have a solid Second Iteration.
*** TL;DR ***
I have big ambitions for Citizen Maverick, even as my first game. And I want to make it not only bigger, but better and more polished than the First Iteration was. And to do it as well as I’d like, I need TEST Squadron’s help! Again, artists, composers, testers, idea guys, anyone who would like to lend a hand, my ears are open! I want to make a game for TEST Squadron that will be truly something special!
Any and all questions or comments are welcome and encouraged! I'll keep posting in this thread updates as they come, so everyone who is interested can follow along! These will include gifs, videos, images, etc.
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