... You don't have to have complex controls for your game to be complex. Your game greatly restricts the players field of view, so it coud be difficult for players to understand what's happening. ...
In the case I mentioned you would see the craft from the outside and using
perhaps just one stick to tilt it around. Nothing too special for the title
screen, more like showing off the craft (a key element of the game) and
perhaps some dynamic effects like some swirling patterns circling around
reacting to your movement. Well, that's just an idea.
... In general that's something that I'd really think about with your game. Is there a clear reason that the field of view is so restricted? In general, restricting the players view has the potential to be a usabiltiy issue. This is often discussed in guidelines for heuristic evaluation in games (e.g.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.142.211&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
For me, in order to justify that restriction you would need a really compelling, gameplay driven rationale. There are exceptions for the sake of immersion and simulation, but it's a big usability sacrifice to make if it's merely a stylistic choice. This isn't me telling you that the way the game look is wrong, but I think it's something you should place some serious consideration on moving forward.
Let me explain a bit. First I have to say that nothing is final, yet, but
there are some reasons for doing sort of an restricted view for a couple of
crafts. I also want to mention that the horizontal FOV is actually rather
huge, it's about 90 degrees (and I can do a lil more or less if necessary).
The vertical view is much more limited, of course. One reason is indeed
immersion. I want to produce the feeling of being in a confined environment.
The fastest vehicles on the planet do have only a few tiny slits for looking
through, for a reason. Building a fullscreen/cockpit-less variant or one with
an overlay HUD / pseudo-cockpit won't produce the same sensation, which is
what I got from playing lots of fast racing games. I've spent, for example, a
couple of thousand hours (3000h+) into WipEout, online gameplay, community
etc.. One thing is pretty clear. As better you become with this game the more
you want to have a restricted view/cockpit (not everyone, sure), which is what
the professionals want to have. You can see that trend by seeing how almost
all of them switch to bumper-view over time where the camera is right over the
ground, which could be seen as a disadvantage because you will see less
compared to third-person-view from behind. However, it's a way different
feeling/thrill running that way around the track/corners. You need to
anticipate more etc.. Your are closer to the real thing so to speak. But
unfortunately there is no real cockpit-view in WipEout giving you the
immersion of actually sitting in a craft with all its limits.
Another point is reading of the telemetry/status of the craft while running
around. It's good to have some fixed screen space to put these numbers/bars
etc. without annoying the player by letting these elements move with the craft
as an overlay like in Redout. They went fullscreen and as such need to put the
stats somewhere. However, this all depends on how important the stats are for
the game. One thing I noticed for virtually every vehicle going fast is that
such vehicles are basically flown by data.
After awhile you know the tracks inside out, but if you have a craft which is
running on finite resources you need to manage those during the race (to
finish/win whatever). Take WipEout again when racing with the best. In that
case the game becomes a resource management/strategy game. You have to control
the energy of the craft at all times and couple that with all the weapons and
item pads during a race, for, more energy = more speed/options. And this is
where the thrill is. It may sound odd but the track isn't so important nor how
much you see of it under such circumstances. Sure, if you want to make a
pleasing game to watch you better show the world. But that's not what I'm
after. My game will be a bit different. It's also not about the graphics so
much. What's important is that the essential data is displayed at a good
location so you can count on it while making split-second decisions. Telemetry
will be important.
Another reason for limiting the view has to do with all the strobing, epilepsy
things and stuff. The game will be fast and the elements of the track will
prop to some degree. It's much better in this case to just see a part of all
that stuff instead of seeing it all over the place.
Well, I want to add something more to the limited view. I think it's not so
much about what a player can all see. What I think is more important is that
the player knows where (s)he is, i.e. the orientation. And to enhance the
orientation I will, as stated in same last posts of mine, add some more views
by filling some additional panels you can seen in the graphics of the cockpit.
I also plane to have a fisheye sort of view. This element will show what comes
from behind and will also serve the orientation and continuity.
But it's quite too early to really talk about all the details.
Anyhow. I'm pretty sure that such restricted views etc. won't be for everyone,
no doubt about it. But a game for everyone is a game for no one.
