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Captain Murphy's Sopwith Game

Captain Murphy

Actually a Captain
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So I was inspired by coming across a game that I had not seen in the better part of 15 years called Sopwith and figured it would be a good challenge to try and recreate something similar using Unity. My goal is to keep my development time under 40 hours, so it will not become a full fledged product, but I am aiming to make it playable and fun nonetheless. It is currently playable on the web at the link below.

Play the game

How to Play
Quite simply go to the link above. It will open a web player for the latest version. If the game updates then that will always get the latest version to download for you. Use the machine guns and bombs to destroy enemy tanks and craft, land at hangars and fuel points to get more resources to use.

Controls
W / S: Pitch of airplane (how you make it do loops)
A / D: Throttle
Space: Machine gun
F: Bombs
R: Reset orientation back to neutral. Also costs 25 points to do this, so earn some points first.
G: Reset game

Planned Design
Player starts as a biplane (sort of a Sopwith) that has two available weapons and needs to destroy as many enemies as possible before getting shot down. The player can use their points earned from destroying the enemy to purchase repairs, ammo, bombs, fuel, and upgrades. Players can also land at mission centers and be assigned a mission to increase their points substantially.

The level is designed to be nearly infinite. The design is done so that there is a possibility of the terrain changing drastically throughout the game and creating many interesting challenges without having to force those on the system. The basic design allows a level to have an 'airport' area around every 1000-1500 meters so that there MIGHT be a refuel, repair, or mission building to utilize. If there isn't then the player will have to fly until the next one and hope it is there. Land nearby (right side up preferable, but it still works if you are upside down) and the locations will repair or refuel your plane.

Player resources:
Fuel, Bombs, Ammo, Health, and Score (not shown)
gT0RZ.png


Player Items:

Machine Gun
gT1vP.png


Bomb
gT1JZ.png


Rocket (planned)

Refuel at the fuel tank:
gT17D.png


Repair & Rearm at a Hangar:
gT1mW.png


Get missions from the control tower (planned)
gT2FU.png


Enemies:

Tank
Tries to shoot you out of the sky with its low rate of fire gun. It may shoot slow but hits hard!
gT0Zl.png


Zeppelin (planned)
Multiple small machine guns make it a hard target to get near. Patrols back and forth on small areas. Cut it apart with machine guns or use a rocket to light it on fire!
gT29c.png


AA Truck (planned)
Several small machine guns make it hard to get near. Stay high and use your bombs or risk going in straight down in its blind spot.

AA Emplacement (planned)
Dug in emplacement with several high powered Flak cannons. Stay low to get out of its range and use bombs or rockets to destroy it. Flak will fire a bit slow but the enemy will predict for that and fire ahead of your flight path. Fly erratic and don't let them get a bead on you.

Ammo Dumps, Factories, random buildings (planned)
Will have small machine gun emplacements on the roof to defend themselves. Bombs will do the most damage but cutting it apart with a machine guns is also possible.

Barons (planned)
Enemy aircraft that will attempt to ruin your day by shooting you down.

Birds (planned)
Seriously, screw these guys. Just randomly flying around. Hit them and it will cause engine damage.
 
Quite a fun game! The controls are a bit tricky and I haven't quite gotten used to them yet.
Also haven't managed to do the refueling, but that is probably because I didn't know how to.
Will try this again probably tomorrow.
 
The controls currently are set up so I can test it without taking my hand off the keyboard while in Unity. I hope to be able to adjust them before too long to something that makes a bit more sense. I am open to suggestions!
 
To be fair, the controls do make some sense and I don't particularly object to them. Any game takes some getting used to and this one is no exception.

Personally I might like using the numpad + and - keys to increase/decrease the throttle, because that is what I'm used to from the old Virtual Sailor days.
And then arrow keys for movement, space for machine gun and control for bombs? Just making things up here....
 
Hah! I used to play Sid Meiers "The Ancient Art of War in the Sky" decades ago and still have a poster from it hanging on a wall in the shop. Will try this soon.
 
The zeppelins now fly a simple patrol pattern, nothing special. Still need to add the weapons to them but right now I am reworking the flight system to be a bit different.
 
I have always enjoyed 2D pixel art stylized games.

Reminiscent of "Dogfight - Battle of the Skies" (2005, a remake of the original Amiga version), and reborn by the same German coding author who made the game "Typhoon 2001" (which was remake of Tempest 2000).

Murphy you might want to take a gander here:

http://www.xbattlestation.com/2dfs/game.aspx?id=dogfightbits

and HERE:
http://dogfight.kuto.de/ (Wenn sie Deutsch sprechen)

Many of the features you have wanted to include are here in this version.

Another game which is similar is "Wings of Fury" (1987, Broderbund)
This was also remade by an author recently.

http://wingsoffury2.com/forum/

Both games are rock tight, even though they are quite old by today's standards.
 
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