What if you took the classic Breakout mechanic, but changed it to a polar coordinate system? You put a "mini black hole" in the middle of the screen, set the thigs to be broken up in rigs around t, and have a smallish paddle (say, 1/4 coverage of the starter hole) in to bounce the ball off of. The paddle stays the same width barring power-ups or debuffs, but the hole gets just a bit bigger with every piece of brick rubble that falls into it - you can disintigrate rubble into the paddle or absorb it to power fuel to move it out away from the hole in the middle or laser shots or whatever as well, but the main point is to slow down the growrg of the central hole, as the more it grows the less coverage your paddle provides and the less distance there is between it and the inner blocks to give you reaction time to catch and bounce the ball again. You could set the ball up to do slingshots and orbits around the hole back out to hit another brick, if you were good enough... expanding this into 3d would be even cooler, but I think it would become too hard to control to play reliably. Set up a random noise generator to place the bricks, and you can count levels cleared versus total time to score points, in classic arcade game "play until you die" (or the score counter overflows the byte length) style.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
The problem with this is that the way put the "center" in the middle would mean you'd be making very large changes in location on the paddle for minute changes closer in.
Control would less intuitive, and you'd have to make the paddle significantly faster or it would be unable to keep up.
Use a dial, not a joystick or a set of buttons. Turn the dial clockwise, the paddle rotates clockwise; turn the dial counterclockwise, the paddle rotates counterclockwise. Control is completely intuitive that way.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Yeah, I was thinking of it in terms of having the paddle follow the mouse pointer, within the limits of its movement. If you want to move fast, just shortcut the pointer through the center. For an arcade cabinet, a physical dial that the player can spin infinitely in any direction (working like one axis of a mouse) with an arrow mark that the paddle always stays aligned with would be the way to go. Special effect power ups like being able to fly away from the base track just above the current surface of the center or shoot at the bricks directly would be activated by a few seperate buttons - I'd say four total, one each to cycle available power ups for paddle and ball, and the other to activate them.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Hmmm.
Shades of
Tempest 5000.
(Now all you need is a milspec neural-interface processor and a holoprojector....)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
Well, in the sense that the player controlled unit is moving around a central feature that you want to keep things out of, yes. Most of the rest of the details differ, though.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
I'm also seeing shades of Vortex, probably the main reason for a iPod's scrollwheel breaking.