Overview

Windstille is planed to be an 2D action-adventure game along the lines of games like Flashback or Metroid, but it isn't intended as a direct clone from either of those. The gameplay will be divided into bascically two modes. In one the player walks around without his powersuit, thus he is limited to realistic human abilites. This mode is used to travel around in the city, talk to people and get jobs. In the other mode the player has equiped his powersuit and is out in the wild exploring new terrain, foreign planets and such which wouldn't be explorable without the suit. In both modes the player will be able to use weapons, in the former however much less often then in the later.

Story

The game takes place in the distant future when mankind has developed faster than light travel and began colonizing the galaxy, building up industries and city on other planets. While some of those colonize live in wealth others have quickly run out of resources and are now struggling for survival. The game starts of in the later kind. Where the player takes the role of a yet nameless mercenary which is trying to make a living on one of those planets. See Plot.

Engine and Graphics

The engine is coded in C++ and uses ClanLib. It currently works in 800x600 by using OpenGL. Tiles come currently in 64x64 and there is a particle engine, however not yet integrated into the game. Lightmapping is supported by the engine. Sprites should be in 3D, but are currently 2D. There is a level editor, in the form of Flexlay, that however would need quite a bit additional work. There are 3D models for the powersuit and the hero without the suit.

Missing Pieces

Basically most parts of the gameplay are missing, there is no real collision detection in place, there has been zero work on the human movement and the animations of the powersuit are also better to be redone from scratch. There is some scripting support in place, however that is based on Ruby and should be replaced with Squirrel

Milestone 1 Goals

The goals for the first Milestone would be:

• create a virtual reality look alike mission that teaches the player the use of the powersuit: ** Virtual Reality Artwork
• create a small part of the city including a bar where the player finds is first job: ** Gimp XCF sketch of a level ** Some close up sketched of possible scenarios
• have the first real mission play in a forest like setting: ** screenshot of forest setting
• write proper dialog and story
• some more info is available at: ** Official Webpage (information on the official webpage however might be outdated and inaccurate)

Game Mechanics

When without the powersuit you can:

• walk
• run
• duck
• jump, 3 tiles wide when staying, 4 tiles when running
• jump-up to grab on a ledge or the like
• roll
• crawl
• draw your weapon ** shoot ** sneak ** put weapon back
• use your inventory
• flashlight

Powersuit:

• walk
• run
• jump
• duck
• shoot
• IR-vision

Weapons

• without the powersuit you carry a normal projectile based handgun
• when with the powersuit you carry a multi-functional blaster, possible modes: plasma balls, laser, shild
• satchel carges
• mines
• granates