Chopper 2 is getting rid of the tile-based thing. No more square blocks. Everything from the terrain to the buildings to the Chopper will be modeled in 3D.
Sounds great. But are you still sticking to side-scrolling gameplay? I hope so. Also, I just want to put my two cents in regarding controls. I know there have been a couple of people wanting touch control instead of tilt. I actually thought the tilt control for Chopper was spot on, and totally intuitive. Tbh, it is one of the better games to show off accelerometer controls. If you are to add touch control, fine. But please just make it an option, as you said. I know I would still prefer tilt control as, I am sure, many others would.
Chopper 2 will still be a side scroller I did try a third-person type helicopter game once, but it turned into something completely different, and I'm not up for creating a chopper GTA. Chopper is a side-scroller, and Chopper 2 will be too. Tilt is the best possible control for the chopper. It sounds like a touch based control alternative will be useful for some people, but accelerometer control will be the default.
Hey it sounds like Chopper 2 is going to be great. I loved Chopper but one thing annoyed me. When you drop the bombs, they fall exactly where you dropped it, even if you are moving. Basic physics: the bomb should move horizontally at the same speed as the chopper was going when dropped. I would like something more like how the tanks shot their "things." Instead of straight down, I would like it to fall in that nice parabola . But other than that, I will be buying Chopper 2 first day out.
I've posted a couple of screenshots. Early days yet, but the screenshots show the 3D environment but 2D gameplay I am aiming for.
Looks like a fun game to develop. I followed you on Twitter, if you post problems you are having along the way, I'll try to help out. I'm fairly seasoned in creating graphics engines for iPhone flight games after my big (and ongoing) revision of SciFly 1's graphics engine for SciFly II.
Mac check ur pm box with my feedback on way needs to be updated after playing chopper1 thx so much 4 promo
I thought I'd bring this topic back up since the first early video of Chopper 2 has been posted on vimeo (click on image to go to vimeo): Also a few more pictures have been posted on Flickr: It's starting to look pretty good. Chopper still remains as one of my favourite games and Chopper 2 looks like a big improvement on it. I can't wait!
lol, so lets say you bought a car 20 years ago for a good price. and NOW you start complaining to the car company that there are much better cars out now for the same price you paid ages ago, while your now aged, old shitty car sells for a few hundered quid. doesn't make any sense at all^^
I had the pleasure of meeting Dave at one of the big WWDC parties. We had a great talk and I also got to see a little bit of Chopper 2 in person. The new terrain renderer looked amazing!
I just noticed this thread has come back to life. Thanks for positing the video and the pics Palfince! Just keep in mind that it's all very likely to change a lot before release, hopefully for the better And it was great to meet you too, Josh, SciFly II is looking great too. Chopper 2 as you can see now has fully 3D environments (still with 2D side-scrolling game play), but there will also be new obstacles, enemies, weapons and types of mission. The exact set of these new features is still up in there air, so I won't go into specifics just yet. Just as a reminder, there is also the Chopper_2 twitter feed if you want to watch progress and contribute ideas. Cheers!
A couple of posters mentioned they`d like a DPad instead of tilt controls. Now I dont know how the Chopper2 is going to play in the new 3d environment but for chopper one I liked the tilt controls much better. A little simplistic but good enough. Even my 3 year old was able to play the game just coz of the controls. Not that he was abloe to complete a level but atleast he enjoyed flying the helicopter(and crashing it within a minute) Personally I hate an on screen d pad on iPhone. It takes away a lot of screen real estate and most of the times it`s hard to control unless it`s implemented extremely well. I m currently playing Castle of Magic. A fantastic platformer. Love the game except the Dpad. It makes it very hard to look around and and control the game with good accuracy. If you still wanna go with the dPad then atleast make it as transparent as possible. Or better make it invisible and so that where ever you place your thumb it shows up there only. A few iPhone games are already using this kind of d pad and it`s definitely better(atleast IMO) than having a fixed set of buttons eating up the screen space.
Just a quick progress update. A couple more images have been posted recently, notably some shots of a city at dusk level graphics style: I'm aiming for an October release.
I'm currently creating everything to run the same on all devices, however I do plan to take advantage of the 3GS for some nice extra effects closer to release.
Chopper 2 is looking great! I'll definitely take a second chopper flight when this lands in the app store.
problem with that is you are only catering to a fifth of the market. I may get chopper, when i find my iPotch
That is a problem, but I think it's worthwhile at least adding a few nice shaders or a bit of extra geometry to take advantage where it can.
Front Page http://toucharcade.com/2009/09/27/upcoming-chopper-2-sequel-to-the-popular-app-store-launch-title/
