Ball O Doom Experiment

(Yes there is no sound)
In 1999 I did a quick prototype weapon for an FPS game. I wanted a weapon which was more about "swinging" than it was about "aiming". The result is the "ball of doom". It pushes enemies around and does damage relative to its speed. You press "fire" to reel it out ahead of you, and just look at surfaces closer to you to reel it back in (so a bit like a laser pointer with a user dictated range).

It actually worked pretty well once you got the hang of it, and with a bit of depth auto locking, or more forgiving size on the ball itself, it'd be choice. Still, no-one has come up with anything similar to it, so it might be one of the few original ideas I'm allowed in my life! With so many FPS games using physics these days, it seems to me that this thing would be a very useful way to interact with those objects, knocking them about in a very intuitive fashion. You could describe them as some kind of spell, or if you went nuts, a scifi weapon. I've no doubt that something similar will probably turn up in a Wii game.

In this video I test the "ball o doom" with one of my bestest buddies, Tim "Zephro" Cross.

Not captured is the co-op session when Zephro managed to knock a bezerker up into the air, and juggle it. Every day since that day has been an anticlimax :(

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• quake2
• quake
• weapon
• prototype
• experiment
• gameplay
• game
• design

[robdun]

1996 or 1997 quake1

[JunkerJames]

Erm. Quake 2?

[DecinoFreak]

wow what mod is this?

[JunkerJames]

It's just an experiment. It was never released or anything.

[bboylawson]

Nice concept.