i got 3771 on my second run. Really interesting concept and fun to play, and the music fits perfectly. Imo i think you could add some depth to the game with the "blink" mechanic (The thing you do pressing F), like maybe having to collect something around the map or having certain enemies that die when you use that on them
Im not sure if i saw all the enemies that are on the game or if its useful later on the game, but i didn't use it much. But overall really well done
I dig the concept here a lot - the visuals remind me of games like oldschool Asteroids but the pacing feels like it's going to hit something more in the neighborhood of Geometry Wars as difficulty ramps up.
Do you plan on adding any other modes to the game? I was sort of expecting the missiles to go flying off the edge and come in again on the opposite side instead of ricocheting and feel like a "borderless" mode might shake things up a lot.
( If enemies that appear at harder difficulties already do this, then I guess I just need to get good :P )
I got to 866, let me know if I didn't unlock every ship because if I didn't I'll play it some more. The visual improvements since last time are great across the board and do a lot to bring everything together. Sound effects are mediocre and sound like bfxr, but the mixing and music are both good. I don't know why I was bitching last time about the movement, it felt natural this time. The aerial bombardment ship can fuck you up if you happen to be right next to it when it spawns it's crosshair, not sure if that's intentional or not. Nice job man.
Thanks for the response. I don't really know if you've unlocked all ships, cause it doesn't depend on your score if they appear or not, but on the wave number, which is not displayed to the player.
Yes, the sounds effects are bfxr, lol.
I might've improved the movement since you last played the game, but I don't remember.
It's kind of by design, but the way their crosshair moves is very bad at the moment, I should improve it, but I don't know how.
Excellent concept, and well executed. The first time you get the enemies to collide is very satisfying.
- On the motion, right now you have a fairly long pickup to a really high maximum. I don't think that perfectly fits the game, because the crucial movement is to just move a few inches to avoid the guys. I think you could take the maximum speed way down. You don't need to move that fast, it's just the first ~400ms of movement that matter.
- Wish I had about 100-200 more MS of time between when the enemies turn red, and when they launch. I know it's an extremely fine tuned variable, but the fun part of the game is aligning the enemies just right, not the twitch reaction part.
- If both enemies are moving while they hit into each other, that should be rewarded.
- The rewards (points) can be made a little more clear. It's easy not to notice them.
- I'm not sure the blink is super necessary. The movement itself is more fun, there is a much better moment of tension trying to fly out of the way than just clicking. At that point, it's almost just like a reaction game. A dash might be more interesting than a blink.
- Another enemy type that works like a "homing missile" that you have to steer into the other enemies would be cool. It's a classic movie scene trope, where the pilot is being chased by a missile, and does a cool maneuver to hit it into something else.
- Making the enemies larger (2x or more) would be good IMO. The theme of the game seems to be that you can't really beat the enemies yourself, you have to fight them against each other. Making the enemies a lot larger could help with that theme, and make the resulting explosion more satisfying.
- Fighting more than 2 enemies at a time is a lot more fun that fighting just 2. Not sure how you're triggering 3+ enemies, but I'd bring that number up quicker. In fact, if you do increase the "warning" time so they're easier to react to, having more enemies present makes up for the challenge.
Anyway, good work. Love it.
Also, thats fucking cool that you're using Haxe too. It's awesome. What framework are you using? I'm using heaps.io
1)Yeah, I'm trying it out now with higher acceleration and slightly reduced maximum velocity, and it seems to be better. However, if you reduce the speed too much, you won't be able to get out of the way of charging enemies. So I was going to not reduce the speed too much, but would add a "walk" button, which could reduce the maximum speed while held, so that you can position the ship more accurately(especially relevant when you're being aimed at).
2)It's not particularly finely tuned, I just looked up average human reaction time and took it. And twitch reaction is an important part of gameplay, it gives the pleasant "phew, I barely got away!" feeling.
3)That's a good idea, but I don't know how to implement it yet.
4)I was thinking of making "+1" thingies appear when an enemy dies, but I'm afraid it will create too much visual noise with the explosion particles.
5)Blink was meant to be used when you're too close to enemies or when you're about to die. When I fix the movement, I'm gonna increase its cooldown.
6)That's actually a planned feature, lol. And probably two more enemy types.
7)I'm planning to do that as well.
8)There's an internal wave counter, each wave has a max amount of enemies on screen(roughly half of the wave number) and a total amount of enemies(double the wave number). But the number of enemies on screen cannot be lower than 2 for obvious reasons, so if a wave has no enemies left, but there's only one on the screen, the next wave starts.
9)I'm using a simple custom graphics engine and a custom component framework.
Something about how the acceleration and rotation work in this feels off to me. Decent little minigame but it feels like some more mechanics/obstacles should be added.
Acceleration is very high, so that the ship can reach maximum speed quicker, making it more responsive, but yeah, it seems like it makes the movement more jerky, instead.
Rotation is purely cosmetic, controls are not relative to it, ship is always turned in the same direction its velocity vector points to.
There are gonna be more enemy times, right now only two are implemented.
Anyway, thanks for the comment, I'll check your game later.
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i got 3771 on my second run. Really interesting concept and fun to play, and the music fits perfectly. Imo i think you could add some depth to the game with the "blink" mechanic (The thing you do pressing F), like maybe having to collect something around the map or having certain enemies that die when you use that on them
Im not sure if i saw all the enemies that are on the game or if its useful later on the game, but i didn't use it much. But overall really well done
My first run ended at about 2430.
I dig the concept here a lot - the visuals remind me of games like oldschool Asteroids but the pacing feels like it's going to hit something more in the neighborhood of Geometry Wars as difficulty ramps up.
Do you plan on adding any other modes to the game? I was sort of expecting the missiles to go flying off the edge and come in again on the opposite side instead of ricocheting and feel like a "borderless" mode might shake things up a lot.
( If enemies that appear at harder difficulties already do this, then I guess I just need to get good :P )
No, I'm not planning to add any other modes. In fact, I'm gonna abandon the game for a while again to work on other stuff.
1184
2903
3976
Can you get to 50k points?
Maybe if i really tried. and took a couple hours.
I've just been having problems last 2 weeks, where Itch opens, but the games won't game. So it might take a while to reach 50k, lol
I got to 866, let me know if I didn't unlock every ship because if I didn't I'll play it some more. The visual improvements since last time are great across the board and do a lot to bring everything together. Sound effects are mediocre and sound like bfxr, but the mixing and music are both good. I don't know why I was bitching last time about the movement, it felt natural this time. The aerial bombardment ship can fuck you up if you happen to be right next to it when it spawns it's crosshair, not sure if that's intentional or not. Nice job man.
Thanks for the response. I don't really know if you've unlocked all ships, cause it doesn't depend on your score if they appear or not, but on the wave number, which is not displayed to the player.
Yes, the sounds effects are bfxr, lol.
I might've improved the movement since you last played the game, but I don't remember.
It's kind of by design, but the way their crosshair moves is very bad at the moment, I should improve it, but I don't know how.
I go 139!
That's... not good at all.
Is the game really that hard?
Excellent concept, and well executed. The first time you get the enemies to collide is very satisfying.
- On the motion, right now you have a fairly long pickup to a really high maximum. I don't think that perfectly fits the game, because the crucial movement is to just move a few inches to avoid the guys. I think you could take the maximum speed way down. You don't need to move that fast, it's just the first ~400ms of movement that matter.
- Wish I had about 100-200 more MS of time between when the enemies turn red, and when they launch. I know it's an extremely fine tuned variable, but the fun part of the game is aligning the enemies just right, not the twitch reaction part.
- If both enemies are moving while they hit into each other, that should be rewarded.
- The rewards (points) can be made a little more clear. It's easy not to notice them.
- I'm not sure the blink is super necessary. The movement itself is more fun, there is a much better moment of tension trying to fly out of the way than just clicking. At that point, it's almost just like a reaction game. A dash might be more interesting than a blink.
- Another enemy type that works like a "homing missile" that you have to steer into the other enemies would be cool. It's a classic movie scene trope, where the pilot is being chased by a missile, and does a cool maneuver to hit it into something else.
- Making the enemies larger (2x or more) would be good IMO. The theme of the game seems to be that you can't really beat the enemies yourself, you have to fight them against each other. Making the enemies a lot larger could help with that theme, and make the resulting explosion more satisfying.
- Fighting more than 2 enemies at a time is a lot more fun that fighting just 2. Not sure how you're triggering 3+ enemies, but I'd bring that number up quicker. In fact, if you do increase the "warning" time so they're easier to react to, having more enemies present makes up for the challenge.
Anyway, good work. Love it.
Also, thats fucking cool that you're using Haxe too. It's awesome. What framework are you using? I'm using heaps.io
Thanks for the detailed response!
1)Yeah, I'm trying it out now with higher acceleration and slightly reduced maximum velocity, and it seems to be better. However, if you reduce the speed too much, you won't be able to get out of the way of charging enemies. So I was going to not reduce the speed too much, but would add a "walk" button, which could reduce the maximum speed while held, so that you can position the ship more accurately(especially relevant when you're being aimed at).
2)It's not particularly finely tuned, I just looked up average human reaction time and took it. And twitch reaction is an important part of gameplay, it gives the pleasant "phew, I barely got away!" feeling.
3)That's a good idea, but I don't know how to implement it yet.
4)I was thinking of making "+1" thingies appear when an enemy dies, but I'm afraid it will create too much visual noise with the explosion particles.
5)Blink was meant to be used when you're too close to enemies or when you're about to die. When I fix the movement, I'm gonna increase its cooldown.
6)That's actually a planned feature, lol. And probably two more enemy types.
7)I'm planning to do that as well.
8)There's an internal wave counter, each wave has a max amount of enemies on screen(roughly half of the wave number) and a total amount of enemies(double the wave number). But the number of enemies on screen cannot be lower than 2 for obvious reasons, so if a wave has no enemies left, but there's only one on the screen, the next wave starts.
9)I'm using a simple custom graphics engine and a custom component framework.
Something about how the acceleration and rotation work in this feels off to me. Decent little minigame but it feels like some more mechanics/obstacles should be added.
Acceleration is very high, so that the ship can reach maximum speed quicker, making it more responsive, but yeah, it seems like it makes the movement more jerky, instead.
Rotation is purely cosmetic, controls are not relative to it, ship is always turned in the same direction its velocity vector points to.
There are gonna be more enemy times, right now only two are implemented.
Anyway, thanks for the comment, I'll check your game later.