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[UserK]

2.5D. 3D environments with 2D mechanics. Maybe 2D sprites as well, I'm not sure.
3D stuff nowadays have too much advantages. Do maze wall lighting in 2D... nah.

[arseniy]

2.5 - lol. Should be included into poll but too late now )

[coinilius]

Both would be good to see, because I do actually feel that there is a lot of potential in a 3d sequel to TGL - however, in terms of a fan game sequel, I believe that it would probably be easier to work on and complete a 2D sequel - at least first (a 3D one could always come later, after all).

[arseniy]

pretty agreee. Have you seen phubans 3d art of imaginary gameplay? in his intruduction post.

[RagnarokNAJU]

 

[UserK]

As I said in this thread I spent some time in converting certain stuff for "more modern standards". There's very little work done so far (perhaps I'll be able to produce the prototype screenshot the next week), but it made me think.

In a closer look, sprites in TGL are somewhat incoherent. Maze tiles seems to be viewed 45 degrees. Miria appears to be viewed almost from the side. Pyramids looks like they are viewed almost top-down, definetely higher angle than 45 deg.

After all, we know how NES games worked. They had tiles/characters, and computed collisions on those tiles (perhaps this is not exactly how NES worked), I don't know.
Now, reproducing certain appearances in a 3D environment would take quite some work. I am not worried about that as I am confident the changes would be welcome by most.
However, certain situations are difficult to reproduce in a 3D environment and even in 2.5D.

For example, I remember of a maze room in which asteroids would fall down and impact Miria when they had the same screen position. This obviously does not make any sense in full 3D as the object really does not collide in world space. This is perhaps the most trivial case, but it also happens a lot when you walk near an enemy (for me it's the little blue "droplets") that would pass behind your sprite in 2.5D but ends up colliding in 2D. The thing is generally completely ignored in SHMUP stages. If we assume the shots to travel on the same plane Miria moves, then in line of concept they should not be able to damage the enemy. At the same time, the bullets fired from a different plane won't be able to hit the player when flying over. (example here) Now, how to deal with the problem? I considered two methods. Have every collidable object spawn a 3D volume of some sort, its extrusion on 3D space (looks fairly complicated) Keep a list of screen-space collidable polys, transform the original geometry based on camera setup and resolve collisions in 2D. There's always the third option: Mazes: say goodbye to this. SHMUP: have a dual 2D and 3D model (I am somewhat scared by the idea of keeping those in sync).

[UserK]

The idea of spawning a full 3D volume is just terrible. I haven't slept this night... I hope it's not for this!
I will avoid the gory details. Screen-space collisions would work just better.
But there are still cases in which they don't make any sense.
What do you think?

[arseniy]

I haven't played full 3d SHMUPS so I just thought of 2d option.
Yes the example you show is obvious. The walls look higher but bullets fly there.

[zeldatimelinefreak]

Actually... One night (years ago, and it's still clear in my head!) I had a dream that showed the organic level with 3D graphics but 2D gameplay. I also saw the final boss in the same context (but he actually brought his hand back for 1/4 second and tried to grab the ship! Plus the background was kind of tie-dieish with the colors changing). It still had the subscreen and it still felt like TGL, but it was kind of calming, even in the intestines of the organic stage. I still vote for 2D because this dream was still a little different, but it was just so clear to me...

[AlastorSX]

I say 3D only to enhance the graphics and details, but I think the layout should be the same view as the original. In all honesty though, I would like to see a sequel demo developed just like the original, and also see what others could do with the idea, so really this was a very tough vote for me.