TIGSource Forums

Hi.

Here is some small game. It started as some test code and I thought I'd try myself at designing something.

You play as some infected and you like killing humans. You may transform people so you get some allies to help you killing people with a maximum of 4 allies that you can order to attack. The goal is just to make points. There's no end in the game, humans continue to spawn as you kill them, you decide when to stop (or get killed).

I am looking mainly for some gameplay feedback (did you have (some) fun playing this?) as I am not an artist
and I'm aware the graphics and sounds are quite bad here. (I'm also not a game designer but whatever  :) )

Some obligatory screenshots:
(http://i.imgur.com/sNYnAV5.png)(http://i.imgur.com/mGW2A7P.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/VI19Bps.png)(http://i.imgur.com/SKgnLNj.gif)

Game is available here:
Windows (http://oxyde.org/patzy/games/BadCold/badcold-win32.zip)
Linux (http://oxyde.org/patzy/games/BadCold/badcold-linux.zip)
Web (http://oxyde.org/patzy/games/BadCold/web/BadCold.html)

Edit(03/24/2014): Added a title screen describing controls.
Edit(04/06/2014): Added some visual feedback for calling allies and getting hit.

Make best graphics and control.

As I said I'm not an artist, I doubt I can make better graphics  :P.
For the controls I guess you played with the keyboard, I agree those can be hard to get. From my experience this is better using a gamepad.
Thanks for trying the game :).

Hi!

First it would be good to know wich controls I must use, the game starts and I didnt know which keys to press. Then I realize that "H" is for help, a screen before game starts would be excellent.

Controls were the issue to me, maybe some graphical feedback from the avatar when pressing an action will be ok.

The game is fun! Its cool that killing or eating people get my hit rate up, may put some other RPG touches.

Graphics and sound fx arent that bad, just put some slow music and it will be ok.

Hi, I'm glad you had some fun trying this :).

Showing the controls before the game starts is a good idea (the text telling about the H key is too easy to miss).

What kind of visual feedback for actions were you thinking about? There is some when attacking, not much when eating (the dead body disappears) and none when ordering your allies. Maybe I can add something for this last action. Thing is actions are not available at all times, e.g. attacking requires an active target. Maybe this is the problem? No feedback if you try to do an action that is no available.

Concerning the RPG touches actually there's none :p The hit rate message is just info about why the score multiplier is being raised but I like the idea of improving the player's character as the game progress. Actually I tried this before but the issue was that ennemies weren't scaling up and the game was getting easier as you played (that's also why I limit the number of allies to some maximumn if you have too many there's no more challenge). So all you get as 'improvements' is the score multiplier increasing under certain conditions (maintaining over a defined hit/kill rate, number of killed ennemies etc...). I'm not sure how I can add some light RPG touches without getting into something much more complex on the ennemies generation.

Gfx and sounds aren't that bad but not that good either :p I was looking into adding some music too (was thinking some slow one too) but haven't found anything yet (and got distracted by another game idea).

Thanks for the feedback !

Ok, I´ll give another try and write as I play.

-I think it has to do with my avatar. I want to be different from everyone else.
Maybe adding like a wave or a short distance projectile or a punch, I dont know, for meelee punch.

-When hitting an enemy make it solid white for 0.1 sec and youll get a feedback! that will improve it so much.

-Also its not clear the shot range, maybe a crosshair in front of the avatar?

-It isnt clear if zombies come to help or what, maybe I can get used to but I think this is all about that, simplier controls and clear control feedback will make you not to worry in things that are not attached to gameplay exclusively.

-Adding RPG touches would be awesome! Maybe adding something like this:

IF PLAYER IS LEVEL 1 ALL ENEMIES ARE LEVEL 0.5 (REMEMBER THERE ARE MORE ENEMIES THAN PLAYERS) AND PROGRESS...

BUT 1 OR 2 (2 OUT OF 10 SOMETHING LIKE THAT) ENEMIES MUST BE EQUAL TO PLAYER OR HIGHER TO GET SOME DIFFICULTY.

I know its hard but it will make the game rich, besides getting a high score.

Hope it helps!

Ok I see the kind of feedback you're talking about. The noly visual feedback when hitting an
ennemy are the blood pixels but this is probably not enough. Making the ennemy white for a short time sounds like a good idea I'm gonna try this soon.

As for the shot range, at first I wanted to allow hitting only when the player is really close to the ennemy (like touching it) but this was annoying so I extended the range a bit (not that much though). I'm not sure about adding a short range 'weapon' though the idea is to get the player close to the ennemies so it gets harder for him to avoid attacks. He just has to kill the ennemy before it gets killed but if he wants to hit some he'll get hit too.

I wanted to add some visual feedback for allies like maybe some sort of lines showing where there going with its color depending on the order (get closer to the player or attack the player's current target).

Adding basic leveling mechanics is probably not that hard but will definitely take some time to adjust properly.

Thanks again for playing :)