The cave shooter mechanics of yore, coupled with today's graphics. As the fearless pilot of a thruster-powered space ship, you must destroy aliens and rescue civilians whilst avoiding to bump too harshly into the scenery.
If Retrobooster's 3D models are arguably not the most detailed, the subtle physics and the special FX are indeed... really slick. Impeccable flightstick support and a DRM-free demo always impress, too.
scavvenjahh, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I only have room for one monitor here on my table and don't know anyone with a multi-monitor setup, but a long time ago I did work in virtual reality with large display devices with many screens so this stuff is fun and interesting to me. Retrobooster is a multi-directional shooter where you fly in every direction a lot, so it would make the most sense to play it on a square display if there were any of those. But I can understand how it would be fun to have displays on the sides for better immersion.
I did a little prototyping. It was pretty easy to open a window with a really wide aspect ratio and make better FOV rules so that both the horizontal and vertical FOV stay large enough that the game is playable. I wish I had more monitors to test this on. I still need to make the glow effect more flexible because now all the glow is stretched really wide and looks strange. (There are always side effects to making big changes like this.)
To add the highest quality multi-screen support, you would need to open separate windows and use separate view frusta to account for the gap between monitors. This would require some major additions that I don't think I have time for in the near future. I don't know if anyone here even cares about this kind of detail. Also, most of the enemies in this game are small and could get lost under the gaps.
I don't know what sort of setup most of the users here have, but some probably have rotated displays. Since this is a 2D game and some of the graphics are designed to be viewed from only one direction I think rotated view frusta would cause a lot of problems. This is also a difficult addition for the same reasons I mentioned above.
Anyway, if anyone has feedback on any of this stuff I'd be interested to hear it. If anyone is interested and I can get the glow problem fixed, I could probably post links to a test version of the game demo here with the new widescreen support.
It's a jungle out there in the world of PC displays ! I'm glad you find this an interesting issue. Our grading system and "wider is better" motto may seem a bit harsh toward Retrobooster, but that's not to say your solution of a fixed diagonal FOV does not make sense. If you find a way to improve the game for the ultra-wide and multi-monitor niches, I'll happily spread the word to rally testers and opinion givers. Have fun !
