The PROWLER Previews:Battlesphere
Battle Sphere
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1. DESCRIPTION
800 years in the future, the 7 dominant races of the galaxy are at
war. Stealing a plot idea from an ancient Star Trek episode, they have
agreed to confine their hostilities to Sector 51, a spherical sector
of space formerly used by the Earth government to secretly test new
weapons and starships. Each race has sent its best soldiers and
military hardware to participate in a tournament of space battles in
this Battle Sphere. The race that wins the tournament will be given
control of the galaxy.
2. THE RACES:
The Oppressors resemble the human race's concept of demons and it is
believed that Earth legends of demons were caused by the arrival of an
Oppressor strike force that was somehow destroyed soon after it
reached the planet. They once controlled 80% of the known galaxy but
have been slowly losing their hold as they encounter one disaster
after another. The Oppressors will do anything to regain their former
hold on the galaxy. The Se'Bab were an all-female slave race of the
Oppressors until the sudden arrival of the Telchines 50 years ago
weakened their hold leading to a brutal rebellion and double blow to
the Oppressors which destroyed half of their empire. The Se'Bab were
bred for beauty and obedience. This has translated into extreme
xenophobia towards all other races and extremely aggressive, almost
suicidal battle tactics. The Se'Bab bare one breast at all times in
defiance of male power. The Telchines appeared 50 years ago and are
presumed to originate from a neighboring galaxy. Their advanced craft
brutally vaporized a section of the Oppressor's empire which
indirectly triggered the rebellion that freed the Se'Bab from their
Oppressor masters. The Telchines do everything in threes and are
obsessed with the 5 Platonic solids. Their ships have threefold
symmetry. No one has ever seen a Telchine and lived. They appear to be
transforming space around their Empire. The Slith are lizard-like
beings whose ships seem to be alive. They also have the greatest
repair capacity of any race. Never leave one of their ships for dead,
it isn't. They are rumored to devour their prisoners after
interrogation. Their capitol ships resemble giant writhing snakes and
lizards, and can reproduce if sufficient resources are supplied. Their
weapons are tailored to achieving the paralysis and capture of other
ships for this purpose rather than simply destroying them. The
Smg'Heed are the last surviving descendants of the human race, mostly
wiped out by a scourge of retroviruses and accumulated debt from
placing their entire GPP into developing absurdly powerful weapons. As
a result, their ships are based on modified 20th century technology,
have lousy maneuverability, but do incredible damage if they manage to
hit anything. Watch out for their self-destruct systems! The other
races decided to include them in the tournament mostly on the fear
that they'd activate one of their many budget-busting Doomsday Devices
had they not done so. The Ocatanut are a feline race that follow the
Slith wherever they go. An uneasy alliance exists between them, but it
has been suspended for the sake of the tournament. There is the
general belief that there will be some form of power-sharing between
them if either race wins the tournament. The Ocatanut focus on stealth
and speed to overcome their enemies. Frequently, they will then share
their kills with the Slith. The Thunderbirds are the sworn enemies of
the Ocatanut and the Slith. They are hawklike predators who blend
speed and firepower in their ships. They are fixated on coup-like
behavior and they tend to make a great show of any kill, making sure
their victim knows who it was who has beaten them. It is believed that
the Se'Bab and the Thunderbirds have been sharing technology.
3. GAMEPLAY:
Battle Sphere is everything we (Doug Engel and Scott Le Grand) have
wished for in space battle games, but haven't seen since the industry
seems intent on continually cloning Wing Commander in one form or
another. We personally cut our teeth on Star Raiders and consider it
to be the best Space Battle game ever done (TIE Fighter is our
favorite Wing Commander clone that fixes the problems with Wing
Commander)... Accordingly, Battle Sphere has the play mechanics of
Star Raiders with 16 bit colors, and graphics along the lines of TIE
Fighter. There are 4 play modes:
3.1. Arena: 1-8 player Street Fighter II in Space. Players select any
ship they desire and head into a variety of arenas where the object is
to kill every other player (or every other player on the opposing
team) for points which can be utilized to improve the functionality of
their ships. The resulting ship can be saved for future use. This is
also similar to a space-based version of Sega's Wing Wars I suppose.
3.2. Gauntlet: Single player or multiplayer cooperative 3D Missile
Command. The players are given 6 starbases to defend against waves of
incoming enemy fighters, bombers, capitol ships and strange things
until all starbases are destroyed. Periodically, a destroyed starbase
will be replaced.
3.3. Alone Against the Empires: A single or multiplayer cooperative
game similar to Star Raiders. The Battle Sphere is broken up into 64
or so spherical sectors. Some of those sectors, close to the center,
contain starbases. The outer sectors contain armadas of enemy ships,
enemy starbases, and random strange things (all depending on the skill
level). Play proceeds as the enemy ships head for the center of the
Battle Sphere in order to destroy the starbases. Enemy reinforcements
will arrive at the edge of the Battle Sphere as long as there are
enemy starbases. Play continues until 1) All friendly starbases have
been destroyed (you lose) or 2) All enemy forces have been eliminated
(you win).
3.4. Network: 2-8 player Netrek meets TIE Fighter. Two alien races at
a time are placed in the Battle Sphere with a number of starbases and
capitol ships. The object of the game is to destroy all of enemy
capitol ships and starbases before an adjustable time limit runs out.
Failing this, the team that caused the most damage against its enemy
wins. This proceeds until all alien races have fought in the Battle
Sphere and the winning race is granted control of the galaxy.
4. MISCELLANEOUS:
Current framerate is 25-30 fps although we can get it down to 1 fps if
we stack 10 massive starbases on top of one another and get up close
and personal, gee we must suck, eh? Anyone who played our demo at the
WCES will testify that we're pretty smooth, even better than TIE
Fighter on a 486 at this point. It is important to note that our
polygon engine is not running at full capacity yet. We have
intentionally left certain optimizations (like reduced detail models)
out at this point so that and speed decreases caused by adding A.I.
and such can be gained back with these techniques. Besides, we're
probably just really too lazy to do it right, huh?
All of our ships are gouraud shaded, many don't even look like polygon
models. Texture mapping is being used sparingly to provide detail on
top of the gouraud shading, a technique we're calling
"Decal-Mapping(tm)". Look for more and more of it as the game
progresses. Anyone who complains because it's not fully texture-mapped
has incredibly bad taste.
See who can count the most homages to other computer games and SF
movies and series... The winner is a total nerd, worse than we are
probably...
The one thing we absolutely despise about Wing Commander is the huge
cockpits with the cute joystick which leaves an absolutely tiny
viewing area. Our cockpit designs are minimal and we are placing most
tactical information in HUDs. This way, if one turns off the cockpit
view, no important information is lost. At least they finally fixed
this in WC3!
5. COOL STUFF
Taking a cue from Space Lords, Star Wars Arcade, and the guys on
GENIE, we will handle two player piloting of all fighters. The first
player maneuvers the ship and can fire lasers while the second gets a
joypad maneuverable crosshair which he can use to aim and fire the
ship's weapons. All ship systems will also be accessible from the 2nd
keypad so player 1 can focus on maneuvering the ship and yell out
orders. We used to love doing this in Star Raiders with one guy on the
joystick and the other on the keyboard.
For the insane, we will have an optional flight model loosely based on
real physics: The engines vector the ship wherever its pointing, and
the joypad merely spins the ship rather than change the direction of
travel. Don't know how fun it will be as it's gonna be tough to get
used to, but we're putting it in. In 2 player mode, the second joypad
will be used to apply thrust in any of the 6 3D directions to allow
for spectacularly crazy looking maneuvers.
If this game succeeds, count on an expansion CD at some later date
with improved graphics, samples, and ships.
6. EASTER EGGS
Yes...
7. FATALITIES/SPECIAL MOVES
Uh, wrong game...
8. PROGRESS REPORTS
Progress Report 1/13/95: All background engines are finished, as is
the flight engine, we are currently working on explosions to top Iron
Soldier's. Projected release is 2Q '95. The long haul continues.
Progress Report 2/1/95: Lasers are finished, we think you'll like
them, still working on the explosions which consist of several
bitmapped explosions graphics plus lots of out of control flying
spinning ship pieces ala Babylon 5 and the Death Star battle in Star
Wars. Raging debate settled on how to handle ship systems repair.
Progress Report 4/6/95: Phew! Explosions are finally done. That took
way too long, but I used the time since the last update to make some
changes in my development platform to make it more portable. BTW they
look great, I saw a preview for Babylon 5 this week with a fighter
exploding and I think we obtained the desired effect :-). Network mode
pause debate settled: Captains of teams alone can activate pause. Now
debating background bitmaps and starfield modifications, nothing
settled yet. Final catboxes have arrived in their shiny metal cases.
Therefore, we are moving into writing the network code. Our target for
E3 is to complete Arena mode and have many dogfights with anyone who
passes by our booth. Expect some new cockpits, music, samples, and
graphics we couldn't incorporate by WCES as well, including the
never-before-seen 4Play intro...
9. 4PLAY: WHO ARE WE
Douglas Engel: Networking code, Sound and music engine, cool intro,
artwork, ship design, game design, sound effects
Tom Harker: All that cnnoying CEO business dude stuff, the CatBox,
game critic
Scott Le Grand: Graphics and game programming, polygon engine, game
design, sound effects,
Stephanie Wukovitz: Music, game critic, math wizard
10. ACKNOWLGDGMENTS:
THKS GAME WAS NOT DESIGNED IN A VACUUM. MANY PEOPLE HAVE PPOVIFED HINTS AND
IDEAS AS WELL AS DENOUNCED CERTAIN OF OUR IDEAS AS PLAIN STUPID.
HERE'S AN INCOMPLETE LIST, SURE TO GROW:
* Ralph Barbagiallo: For fixing an absolutely horrible-sounding MOD
* Ralph@Cybercube: For providing us with InShape, our object builder
* Jer Horwitz: For not being afraid to speak his mind about our
ideas
* Allen C. Huffman: The GOD of Cool Samples
* John Mathiesen: For answering 100 or more questions
* Bill Rehbock: GOD of Alpine Boards
* Tim Wilson: The man behind our configurable radar scheme
* All the guys on the Star Battle topic on Genie: This game's YOUR
fault! :-)
* Varkous competitive"system fanatics: Keep it up, your stuff's
" hilarious!
" * After all, we all know that the 16 BIT JAG SUX!
* Star Raiders, Doom, TIE Fighter, and Iron Soldier: Our 4 strongest
* inspirational computer games
* Babylon 5: The coolest"show on the air right now
PROWLER The Atari Console Disk Magazine February 27, 1996
Copyright (c) 1996 All Rights Reserved Issue No. 01