JohnDeHope3
Sep 15 2009, 00:14
Over at shacknews (http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=60431#) I posted as JWD3 and you can see how excited I am about this game.
Carrier Command is one of the seminal games in my childhood experience. It was the first game that I understood as a "sandbox". Meaning the gameplay is extremely open ended, allowing you to experiment and try out things just for fun, even if you weren't hell bent on "winning". Basically you were in command of a carrier that had lots of really interesting and fun components. You had amphibious tanks, UAV style airplanes, a big laser cannon, cruise missiles, and this cool probe launcher that let you get a bird's eye view of what you were up to. Then add to that the environment, or the sandbox if you will, which was a big chain of islands. Each island could have trees and buildings built on it. The point of the game was that there was an enemy carrier just like yours, on the other end of the chain of islands, and the two of you were in a race to take over islands, build the right combination of military and industrial buildings on them, and eventually find and defeat the enemy carrier. That first moment when you finally come into sight range of the enemy carrier was totally exhilarating! Also your tanks and aircraft could have all sorts of cool add-ons put into them, like range extenders, laser cannons, missiles, tv-controlled drivable missiles, etc. So basically you had all of these components I've mentioned, plus others I've probably forgotten, and you had to figure out how to work them such that you could defeat that enemy carrier. And I haven't even talked about the graphics! They were amazing for the time because they were so *functional*. Flat single color shaded polygons never looked so good. Everything was super smooth no matter what sorts of crazy antics you were up to. The radio static when you flew your UAV too far from your carrier was always so much fun, you'd keep flying it just to loose telemetry and imagine it crashing into the ocean. Of course if you had carefully placed another UAV or tank nearby, you could switch over to it, and watch as the first one came crashing down. It was a lot of fun. I guess I should haven mentioned that the tank and UAV were remoted controlled and could only go so far from your carrier before they lost telemetry and crashed.
If the developer just updated the graphics and interfaces, and didn't change the gameplay a single bit, it would be a blockbuster, in my opinion. The simplicity and simple fun of it would be a big hit.
Basically I want to encourage you guys to not deviate so much from the original. I know you think you can "do better". And maybe you can. But honestly, that game was pretty close to perfect as it was. So here is my plea: classic mode. Simply make a mode of the game that is a pure 100% recreation of the original. I am here, I am ready to pre-order as soon as you'll take my money. But I beg you please don't change it so much so that it's not what it was.
Carrier Command is one of the seminal games in my childhood experience. It was the first game that I understood as a "sandbox". Meaning the gameplay is extremely open ended, allowing you to experiment and try out things just for fun, even if you weren't hell bent on "winning". Basically you were in command of a carrier that had lots of really interesting and fun components. You had amphibious tanks, UAV style airplanes, a big laser cannon, cruise missiles, and this cool probe launcher that let you get a bird's eye view of what you were up to. Then add to that the environment, or the sandbox if you will, which was a big chain of islands. Each island could have trees and buildings built on it. The point of the game was that there was an enemy carrier just like yours, on the other end of the chain of islands, and the two of you were in a race to take over islands, build the right combination of military and industrial buildings on them, and eventually find and defeat the enemy carrier. That first moment when you finally come into sight range of the enemy carrier was totally exhilarating! Also your tanks and aircraft could have all sorts of cool add-ons put into them, like range extenders, laser cannons, missiles, tv-controlled drivable missiles, etc. So basically you had all of these components I've mentioned, plus others I've probably forgotten, and you had to figure out how to work them such that you could defeat that enemy carrier. And I haven't even talked about the graphics! They were amazing for the time because they were so *functional*. Flat single color shaded polygons never looked so good. Everything was super smooth no matter what sorts of crazy antics you were up to. The radio static when you flew your UAV too far from your carrier was always so much fun, you'd keep flying it just to loose telemetry and imagine it crashing into the ocean. Of course if you had carefully placed another UAV or tank nearby, you could switch over to it, and watch as the first one came crashing down. It was a lot of fun. I guess I should haven mentioned that the tank and UAV were remoted controlled and could only go so far from your carrier before they lost telemetry and crashed.
If the developer just updated the graphics and interfaces, and didn't change the gameplay a single bit, it would be a blockbuster, in my opinion. The simplicity and simple fun of it would be a big hit.
Basically I want to encourage you guys to not deviate so much from the original. I know you think you can "do better". And maybe you can. But honestly, that game was pretty close to perfect as it was. So here is my plea: classic mode. Simply make a mode of the game that is a pure 100% recreation of the original. I am here, I am ready to pre-order as soon as you'll take my money. But I beg you please don't change it so much so that it's not what it was.