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[Fifth]

Original post:

My turn!
I'm a little late in starting, but hopefully I'll be able to get something finished by Monday.



The plan is fairly standard, I guess:  the player enters a name for a planet and travels there.  The planet is randomly generated, and contains "random" enemies.  The player can explore at his discretion, fight enemies, collect loot, powerups, and random weapons to mount to his ship, and then, before running out of energy, fly away.  The planet's size, difficulty rating, and potential loot rating are all randomly determined and will be available to the player before he decides whether or not to visit the place.  The enemies tend to vary quite a bit from harmless lumps to hyperactive swarms, so it'll be important to pick an appropriately difficult planet.

What I've got so far is a randomly-generated planet full of Active Object-shaped enemies that do whatever it is they do.  You can kill 'em with a simple weapon, but you can't take damage or die or win or anything.  I still need to make a lot of graphics, a weapon system, a loot system, and the overall selection screen.  And sounds.

Oh, and and it still needs a name (I'm terrible with names...)


Anyway, it's still kinda playable in its current state, if anybody's curious enough to try it.

EDIT:

And it is now "complete"!  And it is called "Mujakwi", which apparently means "Random".




It features randomly-generated planets, enemies and weapons based on the planet's name.  The menu screen is a little (or very) rushed, but functonal enough to play it.

You start with the ability to have two weapons on your ship.  Change what weapons you're using by opening the menu with SPACEBAR.  You can add two more to your wings, but need to find and attach a "Wing Mount" to do so.  There are 9 types of mounts (4 or which, I'm afraid, don't do what they're supposed to), and attaching one to a weapon uses it up.

There should be some interesting weapons hidden about, but you'll have to brave the more difficult planets to find the good ones.  If a planet is giving you trouble, you can fly away and try again later (you lose your map, but doing so fills your energy and saves your game).  Even so, it's advised to start with a smaller, easier planet until you've got a full four weapons, and maybe a few additional energy units (which you can purchase from the planet select screen).

FINISHED VERSION

WASD to move, mouse aims and fires.
Tab will open your map, and Spacebar opens the menu.

[Terry]

Neat! I really like the idea of exploring the interior of a big planet like this, and I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun once you start adding enemies and new features to the game. As a base to start making content though, it's excellent. I really think you need to add a fullscreen option though - or at least allow the user to move the window...

Also, I think the control system needs a bit of work - I don't know if you're deliberately going for something a bit different or if it's just a work in progress, but right now moving about is pretty confusing. I ended up doing a lot of circles by accident

Should be interesting to see how this develops...

[Melly]

Call it Dungeon Planet.

[Ivan]

More like Cave Story Planet, amirite?

[Melly]

More like Cave Story Planet, amirite?

Ooold.

[Ivan]

Oh, come on!

(Looks amazing by the way!)

[___]

What I've got so far is a randomly-generated planet full of Active Object-shaped enemies that do whatever it is they do.

COPYRIGHT ROMEOPIE SOFTWARE.

You make cool stuff in MMF.  This is cool stuff.  Actually damn this is really rad.  I like the little map system... :O

[Fifth]

Neat! I really like the idea of exploring the interior of a big planet like this, and I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun once you start adding enemies and new features to the game. As a base to start making content though, it's excellent. I really think you need to add a fullscreen option though - or at least allow the user to move the window...

Also, I think the control system needs a bit of work - I don't know if you're deliberately going for something a bit different or if it's just a work in progress, but right now moving about is pretty confusing. I ended up doing a lot of circles by accident

Should be interesting to see how this develops...

Thanks!  I'll add some configuration soon.  And I guess there's no reason not to include the window frame.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean with the controls, though.  Was it because the camera is focused on a point between the ship and the crosshair which could potentially mess with your angle if you're aiming close to the ship, or because of the ship's slow turning speed, or something?  I don't quite get what was troublesome...

Call it Dungeon Planet.

Heh, someone else actually suggested calling it "[something]: Mysterious Planet" after I was telling him about the plans for random weapons and such.

You make cool stuff in MMF.  This is cool stuff.  Actually damn this is really rad.  I like the little map system... :O

Kweh, thanks!  That really means a lot!

[Akhel]

Very nice, very nice. Sounds like it will be great. I find it a little weird that you can just bump into walls, though. Do you plan to change this in the final version? Also, I really don't like the camera. I think it moves too much. could you add an option to keep the player centered at all times?

[Terry]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean with the controls, though.  Was it because the camera is focused on a point between the ship and the crosshair which could potentially mess with your angle if you're aiming close to the ship, or because of the ship's slow turning speed, or something?  I don't quite get what was troublesome...

I think it's probably something I'd get used to - I kept expecting WASD to steer me forwards, backwards or left and right, rather than absolutely up down left right as it does. I think it was because the way the camera panned when you stop moving and moved the crosshair would indicate that intuitively, so I kept messing it up.

I think Kao's point about the camera is spot on - if you set it so that the camera centered on the player rather than the midpoint of the player and the cursor it should be a lot less disorienting! Even still, I think I'd probably prefer a more asteroids-like control scheme - just as a personal preference

[BobFM]

The randomly generated planets are really cool.

I liked being able to look around with the pointer, though perhaps the camera shifts too far. Maybe one fourth the distance of the pointer instead?

[Xion]

This is quite nice.
I actually had no problem with the camera and movement. I rather prefer my WASD movement to be absolute rather than relative to the player position, and the camera moving around to the average(?) of the ship and the crosshairs seems like a fair trade-off - increase range of sight at the cost of being caught off guard from behind, or keep the crosshairs close to see all sides at the cost of accuracy.

Maybe options?

Anyway, exploring as is is quite fun. Though, a suggestion, I would like to see more variation in tunnel widths. Unless in the finished product touching walls will cause damage, some thinner tunnels would be cool, mixed in with the larger ones.

Call it "Space Spelunk" or "Astronomical Adventures" or "Planet Sweepers" ('Cause I felt like I was cleaning the planet's insides.)

[Melly]

I actually had no problem with the camera and movement. I rather prefer my WASD movement to be absolute rather than relative to the player position, and the camera moving around to the average(?) of the ship and the crosshairs seems like a fair trade-off - increase range of sight at the cost of being caught off guard from behind, or keep the crosshairs close to see all sides at the cost of accuracy.

I second.

[___]

I think the camera system is fine.  Are there plans for random palette variations for the background tiles at all too?

[Fifth]

Am I still within the time limit?

Ugh... I so ran out of time at the end.  Polish is not my thing, it seems.  And what a time for all these new bugs to pop out of MMF2.

It's "Finished", in that it's playable.  But just barely.

[Fifth]

...And if you downloaded the game in the few minutes before this message, go ahead and re-download it, on account of bug-fixes and the like.

Whew... it's not so fun working so close to the deadline.

FINISHED VERSION

WASD to move, mouse aims and fires.
Tab will open your map, and Spacebar opens the menu (important).

There's more information at the bottom of the first post.

[Tommunism]

Pretty cool, extra points for use of owls:)

[Melly]

I like the ship customization. I can see this becoming like a space Diablo once you fully develop it.

I'll suggest again that every planet has a kind of core chamber with a boss.

[Fifth]

I'll suggest again that every planet has a kind of core chamber with a boss.

Yarr, you're right.  It would certainly have been nice to have such a definite objective for each planet, instead of the "fly around 'til you're sick of the place" like it is now.

It would also have been nice if I'd had time to add a proper store where you could buy and sell weapons...
And some sort of weapon synthesis place.  I keep accumulating useless weapons and would like something to do with 'em.

Heh, and sounds.  Ah, well.

[Melly]

You can always keep working on it later on.