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WARPATH: NEON FRONTIER

A modern remake of Warpath 97 (Synthetic Reality, 1997) — design documentation.

An arcade space shooter where the real weapon is your wallet, the real score is planetary love, and every match ends with a galaxy that remembers what you did.

Status: design complete + playable vertical slice built (v0.1, 2026-07-18) on the web/PixiJS stack.

▶ Play the slice · Landing page · source in src/ — build/test instructions in the README

Document map

Doc Contents
01 — Original Game Analysis What Warpath 97 actually was: loop, controls, economy, AI, weapons — sourced from the official pages, cheat-code list, and 1997 beta notes. What was addictive, what aged, what must stay. Ends with the five pillars.
02 — Game Design Document The master GDD: vision, pillars, core loop, mechanics, controls per platform, empires & enemies, hulls, weapons & modules, progression, galaxy generation, monetization, roadmap, risks — plus the imagined "Best Indie Action Game" retrospective.
03 — Art & Audio Direction Retro-military × neon × clean sci-fi: full palette with hex tokens, lighting, particles, explosion grammar, UI style, minimap, typography, and the complete audio spec (adaptive score, SFX, radio-mumble voice).
04 — Technical Architecture Camera decision (pure top-down), engine comparison across 8 stacks, recommendation (TypeScript + PixiJS v8 + Capacitor + Electron), the deterministic sim/render split, package layout, testing, perf budgets.
05 — Concept-Art Prompts Eight image-generator-ready prompts (main menu, gameplay, dogfight, boss, dock, galaxy map, mobile HUD, recap card) with a shared style block.
06 — Roblox Feasibility The alternative path: multiplayer-first F2P on Roblox — server architecture in Luau, service mapping, GDD deltas, platform risks, and the decision framework between the two engines.

There is also a rendered design artifact with all UI mockups built in the game's actual visual system: claude.ai/code/artifact/5018bbbc… (private; owner access).

The five pillars

  1. The galaxy is the opponent — conquer a living, simulated map, not waves of spawns.
  2. Guns and money are the same verb — mining, investing, and shooting all push one number: allegiance.
  3. One ship, your ship — persistent outfitting; loadout is identity; loss costs real things.
  4. Readable real-time chaos — top-down momentum combat, one glance = full information.
  5. Sessions that end — every galaxy produces a winner, a recap, and a story.

Locked decisions

  • Identity: spaceships, faithful to the original (not a tank re-theme).
  • Camera: pure top-down with parallax/zoom juice.
  • Sessions: 15–40 min galaxies; meta-progression strictly between runs.
  • Monetization principles: no pay-for-power, no consumables, no energy, no ads — on either engine path.
  • Web path stack: TypeScript + PixiJS v8, deterministic 30 Hz sim core, Capacitor (stores), Electron + steamworks.js (Steam).

Open decisions

  • Engine path: web/PixiJS (premium, owned) vs Roblox (multiplayer-first, F2P cosmetics) — see doc 06.
  • Name: "Warpath" belongs to Synthetic Reality (Dan Samuel) — contact for blessing, or fall back to a renamed tribute identity.

Next step

Phase 0/1 slice is done (flight feel, dock loop, invest/liberate/allegiance, win/lose recap, touch controls, 33 headless sim tests). Next per the roadmap: PWA/offline, meta-progression (research tree), adaptive music, then Capacitor store builds.