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[Zoramon089]

So this is what I've basically created in the last couple weeks or so. My first game effort really. I've been changing a lot of things about it, trying to decide on what I want the game to finally be like but this is what I have so far. I feel like it gives a pretty good basic idea of how the game should play.

The game is what I dub an "aerial beat em' up". Although you have a gun the ammo is limited, based on your current EN, which is shown with a rudimentary HUD along with your HP and other stuff (you can ignore). The idea is that the game is split into levels, and each level into Zones which are represented by screens. When you defeat all the enemies in a Zone you can go on to the next one. In later levels there will be split paths and such.

CONTROLS
A - weak shot
S - strong shot
A+S - special shot
Z - short range melee
X - mid range melee
Z+X - special melee
A+Z - hold to convert EN to HP
S+X - press to convert weakened enemies to EN

GAMEPLAY
Use the weapons at your disposal to defeat enemies. Shots use up EN but your chains, your melee attacks, don't. When you weaken enemies enough you'll see them turn red (if you don't completely kill them). At this point simply press S+X and you'll absorb all weakened enemies to recover EN.

FEEDBACK
I'm really open for a wide range of feedback. What you think of this very rudimentary demo so far. What you think of what I've described. Ideas for enemy attacks, for new weapons and attacks for the main character. Balance questions. If you think bullets drain your EN too fast or if shots/melee are too weak/strong. Enjoy!

http://www.zshare.net/download/7766864906e3448e/

[14113]

I like the graphics, I've been following their development on the pixel art thread, they're really good!

However, I do have a few minor/major gripes:
firstly, the bullets travel way too short a distance, you can more or less only hit an enemy when you're right next to them.

Secondly, i only managed to figure out the controls after randomly hitting keys on my keyboard, some explanation of the controls would be great.

[Zoramon089]

Haha, yeah, I guess I should have put the controls somewhere in there. Anyway, I've put them in that blank screen between the title and level screen and I've increased the bullet distance. The link has been updated

[14113]

A couple of bugs:
Firstly, at one point both the A and S weapons stopped working, I hadn't even known about them before.
Secondly, at the end of the second (third?) level, I won whilst still firing the Z weapon, and the game bugged out and just left me constantly firing and not able to continue.

A bit of advice, it might be better to make the weapons simpler to use, and make the enemies weaker, but more numerous. At the moment it feels like you're trying to make it hard for the player to control the game, instead of making it easy to control, but having more difficult enemies.

Regardless of what I've said I see a good future for this game, it feels like it has a lot of potential but still needs some polish.

Also, I know this is just a demo, but how about introducing the enemy types more slowly, maybe one per level.

[Zoramon089]

Yeah, as I said, I was more exploring the idea of an "aerial beat em' up". One that combines a BMU and a shmup. As such, I wanted to take more from the BMU side with enemies in that they aren't numerous but the few that are there hit hard and take longer to take down compared to in a shmup when it's usually 1 hit to kill and tons of enemies that go down in <1 - 2 seconds of firing

Anyway, I don't really know how to make the controls simpler. I thought having 2 shoot/melee buttons for weak and strong was better than just 1 with a button to toggle between them.

Ideally, I'd want for there to be numerous attack "groups" which would consist of a set of weak/strong shots and melee types and you'd be able to switch them up during that period after you complete a zone before progressing

But thanks for the comments. This is a VERY early demo. It'll go through lots of polish as I settle on the base mechanics, which this thread should help me with

[KirbyKid]

I played your demo and I can see you put a lot of work into what you have so far.

I think you should play around more with the idea of a BMU. Have you played Bangi-O Spirits for the Nintendo DS? If not here's a link to a review on my blog.

http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2008/10/17/bangai-o-spirits-review.html

In that game you have swords, shields, bats in addition to various types of missiles. So you can battle enemies up close for a kind of hand to hand combat, or you can blast them away from far away. Another unique feature of this SHMUP is that you can fly around freely or fall with gravity like a side scrolling platformer.

So, instead of making your attacks super flashy and big, imagine that you're working on an NES game. Make some melee attacks that are small and simple (like Link swinging a sword) and then see how engaging it is to use them.

The idea of designing the enemies so that there are fewer that take more effort to kill is neat. But I think that design direction gets muddled when you can fill the screen with tons of bullets and other over the top attacks.

In other words, start simple and try to make the most basic actions simple, clear, and fun.

BTW. I like the dash movement.

[seniorsrule]

Looking good to me mate 

[Zoramon089]

A NEW DEMO!
http://depositfiles.com/files/frusyvuyp

I've changed a lot of things. The controls are in the demo and it's pretty self explanatory. I've tried incorporating some other elements, with some of the basic shmup principles and I've kinda reached a balance that I like. What I'd really like is some feedback on the attacks. Which did you use the most, the least, which did you feel were useless? Although, there aren't that many attacks. The game will mainly involve a variety of subweapons but at the moment it's just a basic gun

Also some more games to look at for ideas, inspiration or general ideas you have would be nice! 

[Kicks]

Pretty cool concept so far, man. There's not much to critique so far, but here goes.
Firstly, way too many buttons. Here's what I'd do.
Tap D: Melee Punches
Hold D: Gun
(this also makes the gun slower which adds more variety to the melee vs ranged system you're reaching for)

Direction+S: Grapple Cord/Tongue Thing In that direction
-Keep holding S to absorb
-Don't hold to grab, press again to throw

or

Tap S: Shoot Grapple Cord
Hold S: Activate Absorption Field

Instead of focusing on the chains or whatever you had in mind for your Gun vs Melee system. Think about scenarios and enemies that would require the use of different attacks. That's much more interesting. The headbutt seems sorta tacked on. It should have another separate function that the other attacks can't do if you decide to keep it. Like breaking armor, or knocking red enemies into other enemies.(but that's way similar to the grapple) or give in a cooldown and let it reflect bullets too--that way you cover the shield as well. Or instead of a cool down, you could be vulnerable for a bit at the end.

I really like the idea of enemies turning red, then you can do stuff to them. It makes enemies a resource which is almost always awesome in games. Your enemies are pretty cool for the most part. In particular, the ones that fire the cross laser are really really nice. They really change up the battlefield in an instant and make things more dramatic and intense.

Keep thinking about what the different attacks could do, how they both affect the player, the enemies and the environment and the different types of enemies you could have.
Two good games I can think of that do this are Dodonpachi and ESPrade. Dodonpachi has one main attack button. Tap it to shoot. Hold it to fire a laser. The laser is stronger but a smaller area of attack and you move slower. But you can also choose to have a stronger laser or stronger regular gun when you pick the ship.
ESPrade had two buttons. Main and sub. The main gun was like many shoot em ups, but the second gun was stronger and could be fired in different directions, but had a short cooldown. In addition, it stuck to enemies for a bit. if an enemy was destroyed like that, you got more points for it. Think about all the ideas you want, then try to combine them in ways that make sense and simplify the controls.

This might totally be the wrong direction for your game, but a quick thought I had is that after you grapple an enemy, it's automatically dragged into a chain of enemy 'corpses' trailing behind you. Each time you grapple an enemy, another is added. Then you could expel them at enemies or absorb them and the amount of corpses used up could just be determined by holding the button.