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[gummikana]

Edit: I'm kinda done with the game now. I mean I released it and I don't feel like continuing the work on it. There were a lot of stuff I would have wanted to try out, but couldn't do because of the time limit.

I thought I would do a little diversion from my usual working habits (which don't include sharing work in progress games). I'm doing this game for the Assembly 2008 game development competition, so I thought I could use a little feedback on the game.

Choke on my Groundhog, YOU BASTARD ROBOTS

• Download release 5 (7.0 Mb)
• Download release 3 (3.1 Mb)
• Download release 2 (2.9 Mb)

Older shots:

You're Earth's last survivor and with your time traveling groundhog sidekick you have to combat the vast troops of robotic liberation army! Blast your way through dozens of bastard robots and if you die, just travel back in time and use that your advantage.

Control with [WASD or ARROW KEYS]. Aim and Shoot with mouse [LEFT BUTTON]. When you die press [SPACE] to travel back in time.

There are 4 levels currently in the game. While I'm looking for all kinds of feedback I'd really appreciate constructive criticism. I'm trying to improve the game, so you're invited to throw in suggestions on how to do that. Also I'm not sure the levels are balanced properly, so let me know if they are too difficult / too easy / too short / in completely fucked order.

Also I'd like to know what you think of the game mechanism. Does it work at all, is fun to play, does the player move too fast, or too slowly?

• Download release 5 (7.0 Mb)

Stuff currently in the TODO list:

• Audio (sound effects and music)
• Scoring mechanism
• More levels
• UI stuff (help screen, in game stuff)
• Crosshair

[medieval]

That's pretty damn awesome.

[Alex May]

ROBOT BASTARD!!!

[Alex May]

Random thoughts:

• I often couldn't tell where I was shooting, so some kind of cross hair would be good. Since it was windowed while I was playing I found myself clicking outside the window a lot - might be worth locking the mouse or at least pausing the game when it's not focused.
• The mechanic is great of course, as proven by a couple of other games, and here it's been implemented really well.
• I felt a little hard done by after finishing a level and not being allowed to go back to the beginning to make sure I wiped out all those robot bastards. Might be worth making the win condition complete eratication of the robot race?
• I like the graphics - maybe do several redrawn frames in sequence to reinforce the hand-drawn look?
• Would love to see bosses and maybe some hazards like laser beams going across the whole playfield. Robots are made from cold, unfeeling metal so they'd probably be immune to lasers... or rebound them ah ah ah
• I'm using my mouse off-hand (left hand instead of right) and it was still pretty easy. How many lives are you thinking to give the player? Maybe just give them a rank based on how many they use but not impose such an outmoded limitation on game play as "lives"? I think the controls are fine, the player moves fast but that's good in this case I reckon. As I said, needs more crosshair.
• The levels seemed OK, I think I got to level 3before being interrupted by real life. Order seemed fine. Again would really like to see more enemy types and some hazards and bosses.

[gummikana]

@Medieval: Thanks!

@Haowan: Huge thanks for the random thoughts. That was really useful. Crosshair is in the works! (It's now in the TODO list).

• Would love to see bosses and maybe some hazards like laser beams going across the whole playfield. Robots are made from cold, unfeeling metal so they'd probably be immune to lasers... or rebound them ah ah ah

Lasers would be awesome. I have to figure out how to do them exactly (should they target the player / should they just at random direction), but I like the idea. Also the aesthetics of a hand drawn laser beam would be cool! I'd like to do bosses, but I'm afraid that I don't have enough time to do them properly


A little bit about the graphical style... It was inspired by cactus'

(the rotating of the characters in a very perverted way). Before starting to work on the game I emailed cactus and asked if he was okay with me using the style and he gave me the permission to do it. He's so cool. 

[godsavant]

I've been playing Seal Hunter obsessively for the past five hours in my dorm with roomies, so I think simultaneous multiplayer would be really cool.

[Hideous]

Just a quick note: Do you do all the graphics for your games yourself?

[Decipher]

yes, he does. though he used 3rd party patterns for evolution shmup. and no i'm not obsessed with Petri.

ps: i'll post a review sometime but i won't do that as long as i type from a hanheld (read: torture)

[gummikana]

@godsavant: Do you guys have an extra XBox 360 controller or another dual stick controller? I could hack a two player coop pretty quickly. Actually I thought of doing that at No More Sweden...

@Hideous: Yes, I do my own graphics. (I might use someone else's textures and photos from time to time, but I edit [and credit] them pretty heavily.)

[gummikana]

yes, he does. though he used 3rd party patterns for evolution shmup. and no i'm not obsessed with Petri.

Thanks for replying for me

[trolligator]

I really liked the style, thought the character movement was spot on. The mechanic of all your ghosts helping you out was also cool, I would add the following though:

- it's hard to see what's going on when you have more than a few ghosts on screen (maybe just alpha them out a bit?)
- sound is gonna improve this game so much if it's in keeping with the overall style

[gummikana]

@trolligator: Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to tweak the graphics so that the player is more visible. And yeah, I can't wait to get a change to add sound effects and music to the game. It's gonna be fun.

[Zaknafein]

Not much constructive commentary, but I love the concept and had much fun playing the pre-release!

[Daniel Benmergui]

So you made the Groundhog game after all...

[godsavant]

@godsavant: Do you guys have an extra XBox 360 controller or another dual stick controller? I could hack a two player coop pretty quickly. Actually I thought of doing that at No More Sweden...

Ah, no, sorry, I forgot this was a mouse-controlled game. I was thinking WASD and left/right/up/down/ controls, but I guess it could be pretty awkward.

Genius idea with the time-travel, tho. It makes death a potentially useful strategy.

[imaginationac]

Pretty fun, but a couple of things to note:

• The aiming seemed to be off, about 35 degrees or so. I don't know if it's because I played with a maximized window or that it occurred after a playing a while.
• You didn't change the window title to Release 2 so I had to double check if I got the right download.

That's all I have to add. Hope to see a new release soon.

[Decipher]

So, there goes my review:

• The idea is awesome! I can easily tell someone has seen Futurama: Bender's Big Score! And apparently you also got influenced by the co-operate oneself concept which is yet another awesomeness.
• To be honest this is by far the best game of yours that feature a more dynamic game interface. I liked the small details like health bars on top of bastards. I'd suggest you to add your patented scoring mechanism. It surely adds that "I'm created by Petri" feeling.
• There's a huge collision bug! When you're walking your face back to the bastards, you can walk-by on them, which looks weirdsome.
• One suggestion: Wouldn't it be more challenging if you make it so that your ex-self's bullets can hurt you as well? Otherwise, you can die 50 times in the beginning and keep owning the whole game.
• Related to the last item, I think the game lacks a reason to not die. Because if you die, you get more powerful, there might be something that will push the death into the second plan, something like "die only if you really need".
• Just realized that collision doesn't work for the head while walking aswell.

Apparently these are all of I can bug about right now . Again yet another great game!

[gummikana]

Thanks guys for the Feedback!

• The aiming seemed to be off, about 35 degrees or so. I don't know if it's because I played with a maximized window or that it occurred after a playing a while.
• You didn't change the window title to Release 2 so I had to double check if I got the right download.

If you resize your window (or maximize it) the aiming will be off. I fixed by not allowing people to resize their windows anymore

Also I fixed the release number in the title (for the new release).

• There's a huge collision bug! When you're walking your face back to the bastards, you can walk-by on them, which looks weirdsome.

It's not really a collision bug, the player has a very small collision when compared to the graphics. This is because it makes the game a wee bit easier and because with smaller collision you can pull off ninja dodging moves and feel really good about yourself. You rarely notice the smaller collision, because of the speed of the game, but it's there if you know to look for it.

So you made the Groundhog game after all...

Actually we (me and few other guys) were planning of making something completely different for Assembly this year, but it botched up at the last minute. So I had to do something for the Assembly and I only the weekend to do it, so I decided to go with a groundhog / areena shooter game, because that's something I could do during the weekend. I didn't even think about groundhog element that much until you mentioned it

[gummikana]

I made a new release of the game:

Download release 3 (3.1 Mb)



I fixed some little things. Included the crosshair (thanks haowan!). And I spend most of my time cranking out and tweaking this geometry wars style background grid element. It's supposed to be a notebook... The rendering of the grid is actually surprisingly slow, so if you have a crappy old computer (like I do) there might be a drop in the FPS when you blow stuff up. But it makes it up in this cool bullet time effect

I'll probably work more on the game during the weekend...

[Decipher]

Yippie! Wavy texture coordinates!