   why god oh why space flight simulation.
  hay alli have to make a space flight simulator and i have never even played one that isn't side scrolling or asteroids. i personally hate flight sim's ill play barbies dreamy decadence bonanza before i touch a flight simulator.so on the good note when i make this it means i can make anything.i would like to know what you guys find fun about them all i have to do is create 5 minutes of game play.i am not after story lines unless they interact well with the game mechanics any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.   
  is this for school or something? Just make the person start in a asteroid belt and they can fly around the asteroids. to make it fun, let the player shoot the asteroids.   ;  Can you not make it side-scrolling or asteroids?  There's that Battlestar Galactica game that's 2D and not too boring.  What was that Mac-only tech demo thing Matt Burch made, where you fly the Manta from Escape Velocity?  He said that took about three days of casual work to crank out, and it had a lot going for it.   ;  Hell, I was precisely going to say Battlestar Galactica, only, not the game, but the TV show.The most interesting thing in this game is that, cantrarily to Star WArs, the space fights happen to be believable in the inrtia department.Space fighters DO have inertia, and do not make noise when going from one point to another in space. even explosions are silent!! classy!Yes, try to get something with inertia in it, and authorize your space ship to pivot along the six axes. Now give a 3D room with moving objects with targets on it. Try to destroy all targets as fast as possible while balancing the effects of inertia. Remember that, when facing too many Gs, your screen should go either red or completely black (red veil or black veil can probably be googled for...) and let your players toy around with gravity and inertia in that fighter.If you want to go further, get some Ai on a targetable object that will try to evade the shots, or that will try to shoot YOU. Try to get two of them. Try to get a HORDE of them and survive long enough for your comrades to come after you! HAVE FUN!!!   ;Quote:Original post by Kuczmendai would like to know what you guys find fun about them all i have to do is create 5 minutes of game play.In these types of game I usually enjoy two kinds of gameplay :* exploring big 3D structure (like a space shipyard) while chasing enemies. Having to use and master some piloting skills are actually a great fun (that's more arcade style)* tactical style. Choosing wisely my missiles/ammunitions/ships, reacting to other ships behavior, see my squadron managing to split enemies and take them down one after the other.For a 5 minutes demo of a fun gameplay, I would go with the first one. Escort missions are quite convenient for a game designer : the path is indicated by the trajectory of the big, slow, defenseless convoy while enemies will attack in a hit and run fashion. It means the player will have to explore a bit the surroundings, try to chase enemies who hit and run and shoot them down quicly before they brought him too far from the convoy.;  I think if you take a flight simulator or a space simulator only at its basic level (i.e. all you do is fly) then I don't think anyone would really enjoy it. The real pleasure in it all is the challenge of flying - it could be landing a space craft into a dock, or navigating a tunneled asteroid while fighting a pirate that's trapped you in. What about those lander type games that always forced you to land your space craft in a specific way or you could hit a fuel tank and blow the ship up. Games I can think of that I really enjoyed (and that tried to simulate space flight - obviously in a less strict way due to it being a game) are X2, X3 and Vendetta Online. All three had the focus of player vs enemy (all three games) or player versus player (vendetta online) and it was challenging because if you played the game like a flight simulator, you've already lost!Hope that gave you a few more ideas that fit in with your taste that could make the project more motivating to work on.;  I think you would find issue 136 of the Escapist relevant.you never know ;)   