Rail Shooter Prototype

Rail Shooter Prototype is the spiritual successor to William’s Shootables. Just like that game, the player needs to shoot down several objects in the game world to win.

Unlike William’s, you can actually win this game.

The objectives of this project were to re-create the feel of the classic Starfox games. In those games, the player’s ship moves around the game world on a pre-determined path i.e. rails. The player can then move the ship along the X and Y axes on the screen. This is how the player avoids obstacles and aims its weapons.

What I wanted was to create an “open-world” version of this. This ship can move freely in the game world, but it can also move around the screen as if it were a railshooter. Theoretically, if I wanted to, I could put constraints on the movement and re-create a true rail shooter.

The player can also “boost” to go faster and also do barrel rolls. (Of course.)

Lastly, perhaps must importantly, I have the shootables. There are two types in this: Reds and Grays. Reds know where the player is at all times and slowly follow it around. If they could, I bet they would also shoot. Grays are static.

The must fun thing I’ve done was to write a short for loop to create a random number of Reds and Grays and place them in random locations within a large cube. Then, I counted all these shootables and presented them to the player on a UI element that appears right next to the player at all times.

This is my most replayable game! And it plays pretty okay, to be honest.