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[RichMakeGame!]

excuse the ahem, working title

Inspiration comes from Space Hulk, Cannon Fodder, and a dash of Syndicate Wars, and a few other spices. You control a team of mercenaries, hired to retrieve data/tech from derelict spaceships. Various nasty things live in the ships (as represented by terrifying black orbs in the video)

its single player, but you control a team and can split them up to provide cover while you loot the ship, or just use them as bait  

vid:




pic:


download:
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.8.zip   (3.7meg)

old download:
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.7.zip
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.6.zip
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.5.zip
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.4.exe
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.3.exe
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.2.exe
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/squad_v0.1.exe

MAIN GOAL:
destroy all the blue container boxes in a level, and hoover any valuables (orbs) inside

Controls:

wasd - leader movement
mouse/lmb- aim guns

mouse/lmb- loot rays - when mouseover loot item (yellow outlined orbs), click once to begin beaming them to mothership. shooting will distrupt transport beam

rmb - use 'ability' (icon on the left).
*bonus* press N to name your guys.. ENTER completes each naming

wait, there's more!:

to go into pause 'squad control' mode, hold spacebar
in this mode:

- right click on players to toggle their 'guard' status. This tells them to stay put and shoot at whatever they see

- left click-drag from 'guard mode' players, to draw a path for them
- hit F at any time to have them follow that path. Paths are reset if players exit guard mode.

thanks for taking a look!

[JohnnyJohnJohns]

That looks cool, hard to know without playing it though .  It seems like its pretty frantic, is that the art style your going with or do you have concept work for what the final game will look like?  The splitting the party seems cool but I was a bit concerned when a couple of the team were off screen, I'd rather see a screen split or something rather than not being able to see them.  I sometimes think games like this aren't much fun because all you're doing is click on things to hit or places to go, however this looks like a lot of fun.

Can you tell us more about what's planned for the game?

[Starflier]

I love it already, it's definitely a cool-looking RTS game. It would be really neat if you included some jump-in, jump-out keyboard-sharing multiplayer, seems like this would be an excellent game for that sort of thing.

[flavio]

It's very promising! I hope you're going to improve the graphics, though. Great job so far!

[tesselode]

The idea of splitting up is interesting, but the enemies are moving in lines so slowly that I'm not sure this could ever be that fun.

Try making the enemies more interesting. Have some obvious puzzle elements that involve splitting up the ships.

[nihilocrat]

Looks awesome, I don't mind abstract graphics. I hardly ever split up in cannon fodder because the allied AI would just waste grenades/rockets and shoot really slowly, good to see they seem more effective in your game.

[RichMakeGame!]

Hi all! thanks for the comments!

there's now an exe in the first post please check it out, I would really love some feedback on the following:

1- how many levels did you play?

2- what was the most fun you had?

3- what was the least fun you had / most annoying bit?

4- anything else spring to mind? suggestions or crits?

here's a bit more info:

firstly btw, I want to streamline the squad management- I want a way to manage without having to move the mouse all the way down the screen. maybe a radial menu?

the idea is also to have an upgrade screen, where you can use the loot you gather to buy upgrades for your team/weapons. Also if a guy dies, and you 'hoover' his corpse, you'll be able to pay to have him revived.

the graphics will definately change, all placeholder stuff. I don't want to spend any time on gfx before I've got the game fun. Different monster behaviours are planned, such as ones which shoot back- will have to see what I have time to implement!

to give a flavour for graphics, here's a (very old) couple of mockups:
note: don't think I'll be matching this camera view, will see.
edit- damn, this super thin forum trips me up every time. sorry bout the scrolling.



as for the actual look, I'm very fond of vector style flat shaded graphics. expect something vaguely along these lines:

[Starflier]

I downloaded the demo. I'll give it a play after work tonight.

I like the flat-shading. It will give the game the necessary visual distinction it will need from games like Alien Swarm. You might even be the first in the genre of "Buncha peeplez shootin alienz" to have a distinctive look. That would be great...

[Fyren]

I played through the levels till it looped back to level 0.  I think the very basic idea and feel are good, but it's too early to say a lot more than that.  Right now it's really easy and there is no reason to ever micromanage individuals, but with different enemies/weapons/upgrades I could see it being necessary.  I don't think I'd have much fun with this until there's more difficulty or at least a lot more enemies flying at me.

The only thing I didn't really like is that holding down fire reduces accuracy but you can just reclick for full accuracy effectively being able to always fire at full accuracy.  Either make accuracy go back up over time not firing or just let us hold click and never have accuracy suffer.

[RichMakeGame!]

Thanks Fyren!

with the accuracy, the idea was to create a similar feel to FPS games where firing constantly on full auto leads to large spray, and I wanted to encourage burst firing. However you're right it should return to full accuracy over time- quickly just not instantly. I think displaying this in the cursor is also going to be a good idea

I'm actually pleased you found it too easy, I think it can be harder to make a game less difficult than it is to make it harder. There's plenty of factors to tweak to balance the difficulty.

One thing I'm keen on getting feedback/ideas on is how to make player decisions more interesting / varied.

right now I think in the players head, the choices are something like:

- which way should I move (doesnt have huge consequences)
- what targets should I aim for
- should I split the group? (which tends to be 'no')
- what lead member should I choose (which tends to be 'doesnt matter')

here's what I'd like it to be-

- which way should I move? (some way to scout areas ahead would be good)- pre-placed enemies which will only attack on sight, so some you want to avoid
- how should I approach the objective (I need to make the level goal something more interesting/varied than 'smash all the crates'. In fact I want there to be varied level goals
- what targets should I aim for?
- should I try collect this loot (loot eventually being something the player can use to upgrade, and there being a 'greed' factor involved vs the risk
- should I split the team up? (I want to make 'overwatch' function more useful. Already, it gives a damage bonus and armour boost, but if you never feel the need then it's pointless)
- which lead member should I choose? (I want each member to be able to carry an 'artifact'- a bit like stalker except they do more active things instead of just passive abilities. You can only use the artifact of the leader, and it affects all in his squad/group. These would probably have a long 'cool down' period after use, or be limited to once/few times per map

also considering adding something to the 'hoovering' mechanic to make it a little like the reload in gears of war/alien swarm. Timing minigame with risk/reward built in

[Fyren]

In the games you mention in the first post, you split up your guys because either the objective requires it (like, "hit these two buttons in different rooms at the same time") or because they have different abilities.  You could leave a guy with a flamer to cover a chokepoint.  Or have a bouncy grenade launcher guy sit at a corner and keep firing around it.  If these weapons replaced the normal rifle, then maybe those guys would need to have a guy with a rifle with them for protection.  Another idea could be aura-like effects that are stronger if fewer friendlies are nearby.  If you had a guy with a move speed aura, he would run really fast alone, but only provide a small boost if you had all four together.  These could be active abilities with durations/recharges instead of just passive, always on effects.

[RichMakeGame!]

ok, new version to test! this one is massively more difficult.. too much maybe

changes:

faster small enemy, more damage done
big enemy now fires bullets, more damage
enemies now invisible unless in line of sight of players (encourage good positioning of overwatch guys)
players move slower when firing weapons
big enemies do not instantly know where you are- must see you to pursue. will also wander about aimlessly
small enemies are as before, instinctively can 'smell' players fear..

thanks for playing!

[Fyren]

It is more difficult but still easy.  I did lose when I first played level 0, but I was fumbling with overwatch (I actually never even tried it when I played yesterday).  I said 'screw this' and tried 1-5 and then 0 again without overwatch/splitting and completed them.  Instead of always being at 90%+ health, sometimes I'd go as low as 40%.

Level 0 was the hardest.  I think because well-connected areas seemed to be the most dangerous.  Four way intersections or the center of maps where lots of areas connected put the most pressure on me.  Most of my damage was taken by coming around a corner blind or having to work in a shortish dead end after a corner, though.  Using overwatch would have helped in those dead ends, of course.

The beginning of maps were all basically a Zerg rush with all the little spawned guys showing up quickly.  The rate they came in would decrease and eventually there'd be a lull. (Are you capping the number of spawned enemies?  Am I killing all the little enemies and being left with only large enemies?)

Now that the large enemies shoot, it's often annoying when I get hit by such slow shots because my guys don't try to dodge and I can't do it for them.  Since the three kind of cluster behind the squad leader, I can't move them into something like a line against the wall.  A little bit of AI to make them try to dodge shots while staying near their normal positions would work, but I don't know if that'd again make it really easy or if that'd be the game playing for me.

Another movement issue is that the individual friendly unit pathfinding can get confused if a single unit gets split apart from the others while you're commanding all four.  I once had a unit walk the wrong way down a branch of a T-shaped connection and once had one stuck in a little dead end.  I can MS Paint up some images if it'd help explain.

[RichMakeGame!]

thanks for the feedback!
can you say if you had any fun moments? where is the potential enjoyment for you?
if you had to change one thing, what would it be?

maybe more stationary 'defensive position' objectives could be useful, as right now the game can be a big dash.. slow enemies or trickle of fast ones, with key areas/objectives triggering a horde

I have an idea for dodging which I'll try out, hopefully allow players to squash up against the wall to allow passing bullets. I do want to have shooting enemy types, but as a fair fight and not hampered by controls.

PS I forgot to mention, I added a switch squad button, to spacebar. this should make teamwork a bit easier hopefully, and allow quick moving of overwatch players in danger. its a little buggy but once it works it works.. (basically switches between current active player, and last player to be set on overwatch)

[Fyren]

I think I had the most fun the first time I played v0.2 and lost, heh.  It felt like it was difficult enough that I was unsure if I would finish the level, but that if I made the right choices, I would, and if I made poor choices, I wouldn't.  I enjoyed when there was enough pressure that I would probably take at least some damage and that it wasn't immediately obvious what the best choices were to make.

Some kind of progression with upgrades or different weapons/abilities would also be enjoyable.  There isn't anything that is terrible that I would change, just waiting to see where it goes and what gets added.

[RichMakeGame!]

hey, thanks for the info
i think next is going to be enemy spawners, sort of gauntlet-esque. clearing all spawners will be one type of mission goal

big things on my to do list:
- spawners, instead of random spawns (at least for some enemies)
- thinking about doors at edges of levels, to choose next level (smash tv style)
- explosions, grenades maybe
- equippable artifacts, giving specific abilities
- upgrades to players

there's an update, exe in the first post!

changes:

- dead players do not respawn on next level (except if everyone dies, then reset all)
- enemies easier to kill, more of them
- numbers of each enemy type maintained (eg, don't end up with level full of big enemies)
- enemy numbers increase as you smash more containers (i guess more hear you in the area)
- less items, and varied collection time (some take quite longer now) (more yellow = longer to collect)
- pickup items give health on collect. smaller ones give more health
- random mission goal, between: collect all loot, and collect special item (with goal of having methoical missions, and some which are more of a quick shootout). special item is black/white, goal displayed top left ingame
- improved squad management:

squad controls:
- to change squad leader, Click on them, or click their name on the icons along the bottom.

- overwatch controls-
spacebar is the overwatch control button.

- hold space and click squad members to toggle overwatch (does not work on lead character)
- hold space and right click to remove all members from overwatch
- tap spacebar to switch 'group' of players, switches all members overwatch state

[Fyren]

I couldn't seem to get my guys to wander off on their own in this version (not that I'm exactly sure how it happened before, I never did it on purpose).  I played around with actually using overwatch and it seemed like I could stick down two units just about anywhere and forget about them.  If I stick them in the center of the map, they mostly mop up every enemy themselves and my other two guys are free to work under very little pressure.

A dedicated key per unit (1-4?) to toggle overwatch might be better.  It takes a lot of time to click.  A key for un-overwatching and selecting everyone might also be useful.

[RichMakeGame!]

thanks Fyren

the next version should hopefully help with some of those problems.. I've not tweaked any enemy behaviour (except fixing a bug where the pathfinding died..) but the spawn behaviour will change, to a mix of spawn 'pods'- destructable enemy spawns, and 'cracks' which are holes in the floor panels that enemies crawl through. Standing players near/on cracks blocks enemy entry, which adds a new dimension to using overwatch. there will also be a new mission goal which is to destroy all spawn pods, ignoring pickups entirely.

ok, for now though until the update, here's a bit of concept art I'm noodling around with.. Since the guys will probably end up having interchangable armour, I want to have unique look to the characters through body shape/limb design (especially head..) comments welcome!

[Starflier]

This is turning out to be a really fun game. And I love those sketches!

[RichMakeGame!]

Thanks Starflier! any crits, or just keep on truckin'?

here are some general feedback questions for peeps:

- do you think hiding enemies out of sight of players adds to the game?
- what do you think about doors/keycards?
- I'm trying to keep levels very simple to author, but fun to play.. any ideas for 'generated' type of puzzle scenarios? (eg, monster you can only shoot in the back type of stuff which create interesting situations)

I've updated the first post, with a new version.
changes include:

0- (heh) you only need to click once to begin beaming up items now, instead of holding lmb. shooting still interrupts the process.

1- 1-4 buttons change squad leader (although, I'd still like a simple, quick ingame solution. you can still click on the squad member, but sometimes you change accidentally this way. any thoughts?)

2- graphical overhaul. this is still temporary but it's heading in the direction I want..

3- grenades! right mouse click to throw grenade. try not to spam them because they won't be unlimited in the 'real' game.. have fun for now though :D (grenades will be one of several 'abilities' you can equip btw)

4- 'spawn pod' and 'spawn crack' enemy generation. pods, can be destroyed. cracks, cannot, but can be blocked by standing over them.

5- new mission type- destroy all spawn pods

don't forget, space+rmb rejoins the squad. so does the green square bottom right