TIGSource Forums

I'm trying to get some feedback for the two games I'm working on.
The first one, Cosmos Remake, is complete, but could probably be improved in lots of ways. For the Core Runner, so far the reactor maze generator is done, but I'd really like to get some commentary on that before I continue.

You can download Cosmos Remake from here: http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/Cosmos.zip (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/Cosmos.zip)

If it doesn't work, chances are you need the latest Visual C libraries, here: http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/geeny/release/vcredist_x86_sp1.exe (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/geeny/release/vcredist_x86_sp1.exe)

To try out Core Runner, download the database from: http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/Reaktor.ged (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/Reaktor.ged) then drag&drop it on Cosmos.exe (it's a mod).

Some screenshots:

Cosmos Remake:

(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmosthmb_1.png) (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmosthmb_2.png)

(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmosthmb_3.png) (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmosthmb_4.png)

Core Runner:

(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/reaktor_01.png)(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/reaktor_02.png)
(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/reaktor_03.png)(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/reaktor/reaktor_04.png)

Criticism, ideas, bug reports & etc welcome, have fun!

I'd like to give it a spin, but first, I strongly suggest that you introduce yourself in the introduction thread (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45.0)...

Later!

Ooooh look at that :)

I only missed it because my brain makes blindspots on anything that has 'obligatory' in it... Cross my heart!

 8)

I downloaded and ran. I had little clue what I should do... but that zoom out / zoom in view on action was very cool. The sole flocking like movement was cool also.. I pressed few buttons and a little bigger ships flew in but they mostly got destroyed quickly..

I will try it again more seriously once I have more time..

Uh, I forgot to post the link to the manual: http://www.sinistersystems.com/cosmos (http://www.sinistersystems.com/cosmos).

Does that help at all?

As a side note, I updated the Core Runner demo. Pressing 'space' starts the game now, although so far, you can only move the ship around the maze (using cursor keys). No collision or any other stuff yet.

Enjoy!

I tried out the game and have no idea what's going on...

The graphics are nice and the animations run smoothly but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Perhaps an in-game tutorial would be a good idea.

I really don't know what's the goal of the game.this should be quite clear for the player when he starts the game. Also, I didn't know what to pres to quit so I had to shut it down using alt-tab then ctr-alt-del. It would be a good idea to use the ESC button.

Sorry I couldn't give you more feedback but right now, I have no idea what to do in the game.
Later!

Well... With my limited resources, time and personnel, an integrated tutorial is (sadly) pretty much out of the question. There are, however, instructions included in the game's readme file, and they're also on the game's site that I posted earlier.

In the meantime, I also updated the .zip file. The game was much too difficult on 'easy' so I had to balance things out a bit. It's much better now (I finished it in about 2 hours of play).

As for the gameplay, it's not as complicated as it seems at a first glance. Your goal is to defend the convoy from the yellow marauder ships, by either shooting them with your cannon (mostly the bigger ships), or sending your fighter squads to battle. If the convoy survives, you get some credits which you can spend on building new fighter ships and, most of all, upgrading your starbase. The best strategy here seems to be: start with a few levels of Photonics and Core, then concentrate on the Factory (so that you can build better ships) and Docks. Once that Interceptor class fighter becomes available, you can just throw everything into the Dome to finish the game. Oh, and it's a good idea to upgrade Photonics to at least 5 before the Motherships start dropping in (convoy 40+) so you can blast them with secondary weapon (they're damn tough).

What else? Well, when the convoy arrives you have to give it clearance by clicking the red/yellow bar beneath it. To access the status screen, use the triangle in the left-bottom corner of the screen, and to release/dock the fighter squads, click on the triangles to the right of the viewport.

To quit the game, use Alt+F4 or 'Initiate Self Destruct' in the Dome section of the status screen. It's here where you'll also find the 'Injection' button when your Dome is complete, allowing you to end the game, and to watch the gorgeous ending sequence ( :P ).

All in all, it's really just point-click-and-shoot game with a bit of extra tossed in. But it's also just an experiment so it might be missing that 'something it' to make it into a real actual game.

Cheerio.

Core Runner is out :)

Download: http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/crunner/CoreRunner.zip (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/crunner/CoreRunner.zip)

Homepage: http://www.sinistersystems.com/crunner (http://www.sinistersystems.com/crunner)

Screenshot:

(http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/crunner/crunner.png)

Have fun!

I've been playing Cosmos Remake, it needs some balancing. I've got more money than I can spend right now and I keep making money faster than I can spend it. This is largely because the upgrade speed for the dome is incredibly slow and it's artificially making this game take forever to complete because the rest of my stuff is already at such a level where the marauders aren't posing any threat at all.

EDIT: Okay I finished the game.
Unfortunately there's no way to quit once you do that and you can still access the tactical view:
(http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/2388/wakkazm1.gif)

I suspect that there might be a bug related to the timing of marauder invasions. I'll check the whole thing out and I'll fix the ending sequence, thanks for pointing that one out I'd never have spotted it myself.  :)

As for the dome, yeah, I was a little bit afraid it'd make the game too easy if I lower the price. I just got an alternative idea however - would it be better if I made the dome cheaper (let's say by 50%) but only allow upgrading it after the Core or Kyplos overall has reached a certain level?

It's not about making it easier. I eventually found the factory setting for "fast" "normal" and "slow" but even then I only completed the game by leaving it on to build all the stuff once I had enough cash. I just alt tabbed out of the game and went to do something else while it built. I would suggest making the factory build upgrades, especially dome upgrades, much faster.

Combat stopped being a challenge around convoy 35 or so, you might want to pick things up a little bit there, and the game is just begging for another player ship to be available when you upgrade the factory to maximum (the interceptor was the best ship I got). I finished the game on convoy 70+ but the intervening 40 convoys were too easy to present any kind of challenge.

Ok, I fixed the end sequence bug, and now the game informs you how to restart or quit (left/right click).

As for balancing it out, I did the following: upgrade twice faster for all factory speeds (does not influence ship building though), lower the dome price by 20%, lower convoy income by (roughly) 30%, increased the marauder pressure in general but especially for later levels, as they will now appear more frequently, in bigger numbers and with later big ships made a little tougher too.

I just hope I didn't make it too hard to play now, though. This game is rather difficult to balance as there's lots of factors involved, you need to play it for a long time before seeing how well balanced it is, and I'm a one man team with (as it seems) yourself being the only play tester so... :)

I know that I myself didn't find it as easy as you did, had lots of moments in the game when I was pretty sure to be totally screwed yet I pulled myself out somehow; but I never upgraded any module beyond 50%, and kept upgrading the dome all the time so finally when I could afford to throw everything into the dome, I had it built in like 15 minutes time, 5 convoys later.

I agree it'd be cool to have another player ship; I'd also like to add more enemy ships, but I'm just a coder not an artist and so the biggest problem is having to paint them. I tried my best with these so far but now I kind of ran out of inspiration... So if there's any volunteers... You only need to draw a single sprite for each ship, you can check them out in Texture/Voxel subfolder... Marauder mothership looks like junk too, that one really needs a face lift :)

Uploaded new versions for both Core Runner & Cosmos.

New features for Cosmos: ability to directly control your squads (F10-F12), a new player ship model for Factory level 20 (Crusader, sort of Interceptor * Gunship), tougher enemies, faster and more balanced gameplay, some minor stuff.

Core Runner: four additional ships to chose from. When in the menu, strafe to select, space to start.

Enjoy!

I ran into some spare time and a video-capturing software, so I made little movies of Cosmos Remake & Core Runner gameplay, here they are:

Cosmos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8aEiKahF4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8aEiKahF4)

Runner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KAp5JOKJI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KAp5JOKJI)

Have fun!

Linux ports available now, for anyone interested.   :beer:

http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/crunner/corerunner.tar.gz (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/crunner/corerunner.tar.gz)

http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmos.tar.gz (http://www.sinistersystems.com/projects/cosmos/cosmos.tar.gz)

Have fun!