design

Introduction

Pocket Pilots is a Flying Action Adventure. Players start with a small lineup of 2 pilots and their miniature toy planes, and guide them through various levels. Pocket Pilots is played in some very unusual sceneries: kitchen, bedrooms, attics, gardens and more. The emphasis of the game is exploration and target shooting.

The target of the game is to find all the hidden pilots and planes, equip them with all the attributes to be found in the levels, get all medals in every level and defeat the all the enemies.

Product Overview

Player controls a miniture toy-plane and must win aviation prices in different levels inside the rooms and hallways of houses, offices and factories. For each level there are 4 prices to be won. There is a medal to be won in target shooting, one in stunt flying, one in exploration and puzzle solving and one so called Challenge-price.

Player has the ability to shoot and fire missiles. All levels are totally free to fly in, these levels are designed for exploring the various contents of the room like hidden enemies, powerups, bonus targets and secret passages to other parts of the level.

The User Experience: Throughout the game there is a strong emphasis on exploration, secret levels and item search , almost to a degree where this game can be considered as a 3D - platform game with wings. Since there is no time limit to each mission and the tasks in the game are easy to start with they leave enough room for players to find out hidden items or passages in the scenery.

Platform:Pocket Pilots is intended for Playstation and later for CD-ROM

Appeal: The appeal of the game lies in different things:

Natural feel; the mixture of household type levels, toy planes and cartoony feel comes almost natural and should attract a lot of game players, who have wondered when such a game would appear.
The freedom of design; the levels in which the game is played offers room for exploration; players keep coming back to check if they haven’t missed a part; by providing enough clues and hints that there is in fact more in every level.
Appeal to younger players; The game is easy to for younger players to start in; they can’t crash; early levels provide little enemy fire and frankly just flying around and shooting at random targets make kids very happy.
Appeal to older players; although the game is easy to begin with, experienced players can make it as hard on themselves as they like, they can try to capture that special bonus balloon or find that special hidden entrance to a harder part of the level.
Extra features; mission aren’t the only means of game play provided; there are racing modes; multiplayer modes (internet play on PC version); and experienced players can fine-tune their crafts with the items they have found/won in the levels.
Humour; levels are designed in an appealing way for older players to enjoy it; there’s recognition in the form of enemy design and mission types, for instance in one level the player must stop a bunch of dogs patrolling through the snow in the backyard before they reach "rebel base", this level is very much like the AT-AT’s in the Empire Strikes Back. Another level sees the arrival of a speeding toy train that’s on the lose through the house, on the end of the track lies a Barbie doll, player must try to stop the train; this level is designed in a very James Bond type of manner (even tuxedo’s are included); and real time animation at the beginning and end of each level should provide a few laughs.

Time: Playing time for the missions should be more than 15 hours; however since players can come back for more exploration and there are melee and race options playing time can be extended tremendously.

Similar Products: Not really, but can be considered a cross between Starfox, Diddy Kong Racing and Micro Machines

Play-mechanics & Basic Concepts

From the startup animation the player arrives in the menu screen where the following options are available

Missions

Melee

Racing

Load Mission

Training School

Controller Setup

Sound Setup

After the player has choosen a game type he can now choose the plane he wants to use. Certain missions require different planes, and the planes available in Racing are of course of a totally different kind. There are 4 planes in total with each of the plane holding 4 or 5 empty slots. These slots can be filled with upgrades that can be found inside the levels.
Upgrades on planes can make it have a stronger shield, improve the way rockets behave, give it a smaller turn radius or make the plane faster.
When a plane is chosen for a mission it will win experience points; these points will steadily increase the performance of each upgrade indicated by shield, shield-1 or shield-2.
Once an upgrade is fitted into the plane it cannot be removed.
After choosing a plane the player sees the an overview of the town, at this point you are able to select your level to play. From the start there are 3 levels the player can enter.
Every house becomes available after a certain amount of prices have been won. Some house will only open up once special tasks have been performed.
There are also hidden planes available.These can be accessed after performing certain tasks and missions.
Control is kept simple, the plane has a constant speed which can be altered using the Joypads buttons ( Players can edit the button config), When the plane has a constant speed there is more room for players to play around with the weapons.

Default Button config:

The player loses a plane when the shields of the plane are gone, shields can be raised by picking up shield bonusses.
Enemies sometimes hold bonusses, when an enemy is shot down, the bonus becomes visible, attached to a little balloon , these must be shot or picked up before it hits the ceiling.
Apart from enemies, other items in the scenery can hold bonusses. Shooting these objects in the scenery will reveal the object attached to a balloon. Shoot it or fly through it.
There is no such thing as target locks in this game, normal fire has a certain reach and it’s not very important to aim perceisely towards your enemy. The CPU is very forgiving and direct hits are quite easy to achieve.
Player has "lives" , extra 1-ups can be found in well hidden places.
Planes can shoot down power ups, however by flying through these power ups they are suddenly worth double.

Bonus Items carried by yellow balloons:

rockets: 5/10
shields 25/50
megashield 50/100
points 1000/2000
1-ups 1 - 2

Beside the Yellow bonus Balloons there are also red, green and blue balloons.
Red balloons are worth 1, Green balloons are worth 5 and blue balloons are worth 10.
When a player reaches 100, the balloon points can be traded in after the level has been completed for an upgrade.
Players have infinite normal fire power.
Rockets are limited, but can be regained by getting rocket bonusses.
Levels are finished when a price has been won and collected.
Won prices appear as small flags in the scenery, when a player flies thru these flags the level end. Each level can be accessed at any time from the map.