Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411275 Posts in 69323 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 08:06:53 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingI hate bullet hell shooters, so I'm making this instead
Pages: 1 ... 6 7 [8] 9
Print
Author Topic: I hate bullet hell shooters, so I'm making this instead  (Read 32161 times)
tacograveyard
Level 0
**


View Profile WWW
« Reply #140 on: August 16, 2012, 06:21:45 AM »

I just read through the thread and watched the latest gameplay trailer. I laughed a half a dozen times, so that's a good sign. I really like the title art. Looking forward to playing this and checking out your devlog.
Logged

Haga
Level 0
**


A miserable little pile of secrets!


View Profile WWW
« Reply #141 on: August 16, 2012, 07:57:36 AM »

Played this and it was amazing.  Combat feels very satisfying; your FX and Animation work are top notch.  I only have a few comments, and these are picky:

+ The smoke clouds after the explosions have a lot of contrast, which dominates the composition.  This sticks out since the rest of your FX are generally low contrast.

+ I love your mixture of 3-d and sprites, but some of your textures look like they're being mipped pretty badly or something, especially in the explosion.  You can fix this by changing your texture in unity to "Advanced" and turning off mip mapping.

+ Have you considered using more geometry for your FX?  Here's a geometry and dual texture approach for the ring in the explosion:



It's taking _MainTex:
adding the RBG value of _MainTex2
multiplying the A value of _MainTex2
Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #142 on: August 22, 2012, 12:20:34 PM »

Thanks man! Someone pointed out to me recently that I don't think about composition or focal points or smart use of contrast or anything. You can see it in the image above, if you're an art person. I NEVER even thought about that, so yeah I'll adjust some things.

I am also brand new to 3D games! So anything you point out to me on that front is valuable and appreciated, thanks.

Generating things on numbers is something I'm used to, I've made Flash games til now and those are all vector graphics. Right now those rings on the explosions are an animated sprite sheet, which- you're right, that's hilarious, I'll use this. Thanks for drawing this.

...That was a really useful post.
I'm in the middle of taking a break on this game, I'm working on other stuff for a week or so.

EDIT- HAhaha! Oh man, I just came back to this thread after reading a certain facebook post and thinking "Have I seen this avatar somewhere before?"
Jeez. Small world!
« Last Edit: August 23, 2012, 05:23:07 PM by I_smell » Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #143 on: September 11, 2012, 06:35:43 PM »

Third week having not gone back to PUNCHgunner! ...!
I just I've had this iOS game I have to make, and I didn't expect this job would land on me. I'm dieing to get back to it!

I drew some concept art today, but I'm not very happy with it. Long story short it's not as chunky and blocky and smashed-up as I was aiming for, so I'll be drawing that same thing again from scratch soon.

A hundred things have flashed through my head while I've bin away from the game. Here's some stuff I've wrote down in my lil book:
MORE POSSIBLE NAMES FOR THE GAME-
SLASHFEST
GUNGARR SLASHNIK
SMASHON GUNGARR
GUNGREED SMASHON
GUNBRÄDA GRENÄDA
DOMINGO ROTURA
E-X-X-X-OSKELETON
SUIT-UP!
BITE DOWN HARD
Totally just the ravings of a mad man, right? They're just almost-relevant things that I would like to say out-loud a lot.

LOCATIONARY IDEAS (some) -
METAL ROBOT-PLANET
O'NIELL CYLINDER (look it up)
BENEATH THE MANTLE OF A SPOOKY GROSS BEEHIVE PLANET
ORBITAL SPACE-GRAVEYARD ON THE RINGS OF SATURN (I think this is off Red Dwarf?)
DORMANT LIVING MOON-CREATURE (the moon is it's coccoon, or the moon IS the creature?)

ENEMY IDEAS-
Ninjabot who teleports behind you to attack, or smoke-bombs away when you get close?
Forms a coccoon shield around himself and heals?
Gross alien who leaves acidic damage-trail behind wherever he goes?

CAPSULE IDEAS (Capsules are the weapons and buffs you can collect and equip on yourself. I actually wrote the GiantBomb wiki entry for this last week in Budokai 2, the ORIGINAL CAPSULE CRAFTERS)
Make all weapons freeze/burn enemies (expensive!)
Drain health from enemies (should this be its own weapon?)
Getting weapon damage charges up your next melee hit
A weapon that acts as a counter or parry, that you have to trigger right as the enemy strikes
Slash -pause- Slash Slash Slash should do an alternate combo with a different use (Should I just dive in and create a combat-enhancement capsule? Should that be a mandatory upgrade?)


A TASTE!!!!! -of things I've written down over the passed month. Can't wait to jump back into this, and I'm sure it looks much worse in real life than I'm remembering it in my head. I see a tonne of amazing art on the internet, but whenever I open Photoshop I just smear my naive fudge-hands around and spend hours producing a boring, squiggly, foggy drawring. and when I open Unity: JEEZ! It's all slidey boxes and flash-animated gifs! Genuinely thinking of giving this game to an artist at some point.

Stumbled onto Ben Ruiz' beat-em-up analysis blog today, and I'm feeling really energized after reading it. Finally, someone who GETS Devil May Cry!
I CAN'T FINISH THIS IOS GAME FAST ENOUGH!
Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #144 on: September 28, 2012, 06:24:58 AM »

Sad update: I've sadly not had time to work on this game lately Sad
I've sadly got a regular paying job as an animator where I get to decide what I work on and work my own hours Sad
I know! Your sympathy is much appreciated!

Just to show that this project is still very much alive though: I prototyped a new weapon!
WHAT UP, BIG BO!


Big Bo is a bow n arrow that you pull back and release. The further you pull back, the more damage it does, and it also freezes the enemy after a certain torque! I should re-make the freeze effects.
Maybe it should set them on fire instead?
Anyway: The further you pull back, the longer it takes, and the harder it is to aim, naturally, because you'll be further away from your target. Oh also: The arrows stick in the enemies! That was kinda the main inspiration for this weapon if I'm completely honest :/

It's prototype art, so everything's white cubes.

Also I re-made that concept art!



Man am I ever happy about my art these days. I'm still kind of an idiot: It's too messy and flashy and the composition's a little standard n boring, BUT!!!! This is way better than what I would've come up with this time last year.
Here's the original attempt at this. Not as good.

New enemy type: The Scarab Guard


This guy is still in the concept stage. I've been thinking about having a bigger enemy onscreen. Does that betray the vision? Does that make things more complicated? Will his animations be too big to comprehend as binary hitboxes and make the game feel boxy and slidey? There are risks involved.

I got the idea for this guy from Dark Souls. He WILL attack you, and you MUST dodge. If you swoop in for a hit without thinking about it, you will get cut clean in half. Dodging and counter-attacking is key.

...is egyptian robots in videogames played out? Is Halo doing that? Are my attempts to make a big cool videogame backfiring and just coming off as generic and boring?
Logged
Scott
Level 2
**


View Profile WWW
« Reply #145 on: September 28, 2012, 06:31:01 AM »

If you can pull it off it'll be well worth it. It's always a nice feeling to beat up someone bigger than you. Especially if they realistically whip your butt if you're not careful.
Logged

I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #146 on: September 29, 2012, 11:32:25 AM »

I am not feeling confident about basing the earth-robots technology on ancient Egypt.
I'm finding a tonne o shit I don't know about that already does that: WarHammer, Star Trek, Evangelion, Starcraft... I've got a SLIGHT worry in the back of my mind that some of this has got a bit too boring and serious, and being more creative on this point could be a big help.

It's JUST ABOUT not too late to switch art directions with these guys. Just neeed to decide on something I'm happy with. Something that's interesting and deep enough to mine concepts from...
Who knows, I could be stuck on this for a while, lol! I'm keeping the idea that they're all mass-produced, un-manned robot drones. That's fun and helps with the "I'm not too good at modelling" angle, cos it keeps details down to a minimum.
Not really come up with an art direction for the aliens yet (purple team) apart from like... gross centipede bugs. Which I could probably refresh aswel.


EDIT!!! Maybe they should be based on police? They ARE blue, use electricity a lot, have a lot of guards and defense-based bots... hhmmmmm...
« Last Edit: September 29, 2012, 12:41:52 PM by I_smell » Logged
hapsi
Level 0
**


View Profile WWW
« Reply #147 on: October 01, 2012, 02:33:12 AM »

When i click the web link: "ERROR — No such dump exists."

What is this?
Logged
crazysam
Level 0
**


Atomic


View Profile WWW
« Reply #148 on: October 02, 2012, 03:57:44 PM »

Just saying man... you are on a roll. Don't let it fizzle. At the same time, congrats on the job, let it fuel your cells so you can put them to good use :-P
Logged

I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #149 on: October 03, 2012, 07:09:20 PM »

When i click the web link: "ERROR — No such dump exists."

What is this?

Oh, the post on Page 1? I uploaded a Flash prototype a long time ago, but I guess it's not there any more. The game's nothing like that now anyway.
I keep wanting this to get moved to devlogs, but I guess it's stayin here :/


Anyway, since people are posting, here's me transitioning to a different art style for they space-egyptians.

I landed on space-cops.



The bottom half are of the small generic fighter enemies, which aren't pictured cos I guess I never drew concept art of em.
Really liking this new direction, and it really vibes well with what that whole team's about. Kind of daunting, re-designing all the enemies though. The idea for the first boss is kind of a full refresh.

This doesn't help the fact that I have the no-game blues right now over not releasing a new game since November 2011 Sad

-oh incase you're wondering what the hell some of these concepts are: I started off at Robocop, and then basically made it more triangular.
Then I got frustrated that all police technology was this big fat bulky stuff that never looks cool, so I looked at the FBI instead.
Then I realised "Space FBI" is basically what the Men In Black is.
Then I thought "what police-man sihlouettes can I referrence in these fighter drone bots?" and landed on stuff like a belt, a gun holster, lots of white n blue, maybe like a security-camera for a face? They were already electric-based, so now maybe everything's a tazer? And that's basically how that idea evolved. It took a while.
EDIT-- Oh maybe their face-hole should be a megaphone or like a fire-alarm or something. Do I wanna commit to them making annoying noises though? ...still not finished, I guess.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 07:19:32 PM by I_smell » Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #150 on: October 09, 2012, 10:57:11 PM »

Did some concept art of hovering around over a planet's ionosphere:

Maybe you've seen those NASA videos?
This art isn't too amazing, read my comments on it.

And here's the level flow plan of the end of ACT 1!
You head to earth and fuck em all up.



So this is left-to-right which enemies will appear in this level. Things are getting really complex now, I'm really happy about that!

The blue triangular guys are "polygonizers", they basically float around and connect each other's dots. If you're within the lines then you take damage.

The extendo-arm guys are enemies I'm calling "scorpions", because they shoot out a hookshot and grab you. If you're grabbed, then your movement is limited to within that radius, which can be a huge bummer!
Also it electrocutes you.

Loads of combining enemy types in this level, I'm excited to see how it plays out. Ideally, the guys who limit your movement will play nice with the guys who have a dangerous radius. Ideally, pairing some fighitng raptorbots with a big scarab guard won't just be a clusterfuck nightmare.
Hopefully throwing 4 exploding boys onscreen will be panicky and disorienting.

Starting level-by-level design of ACT 2 now. Act 2 is where I drop all the electric enemies completely and slowly introduce the new, even crazier pink alien enemy types.
I can't really contribute to the actual BUILDING AND TESTING of the game any more til I get a new PC. It runs kinda slow, which is fair, because this is my first none-flash game.

Speaking of previous games, Alex is pushing for No Time to get through Steam Greenlight and I just feel bad about that. Cos I made that last year and it's not a patch on this huge new one. All our reddit replies are like "urgh it's a flash game, urgh fuck you, this game is garbage", and yea don't tell anyone but I KIND OF AGREE! I think all my old games suck, cos they're never as good as my new ones! I wanna distance myself from the old stuff, but I've also got a responsibility to not say anything bad about it, which makes me feel like a gross rip-off merchant or something, which is obviously the LAST thing I wanna be thinking about!

Anyway that's just a side-thing.
The main thing is wow, look at how many different enemies there are in this level.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2012, 11:03:53 PM by I_smell » Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #151 on: October 11, 2012, 09:48:53 PM »

I just designed a duplicate of an enemy who already exists Angry





Thought I better post it here for the sake of recording it. I'm gonna delete the crab now.

The other 5 pink enemy types I designed yesterday are actually really unique n interesting, but I'll save those.

Oh and also I guess I should share this concept art:
Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #152 on: October 25, 2012, 01:49:14 PM »





I've bin doing loads of concept art, which you can see at i-smel.newgrounds.com. Or should I just post it...? I also designed and wrote down every level and enemy, and the plot. There are 12 levels, which I'm not happy about.

I want more, I want like 15+ levels, but what's really annoying is I can't think of enough plot points to fill it out. I've definately got enough gameplay to make more levels, but I'd have to come up with so much fake stuff to stretch out the story (which I am ALREADY DOING) that it'd look and feel dumb to go through. So I'm gonna have to shoot the characters' stories in the foot so I can fully explore all the mechanics and so you have enough game time to unlock all these cool weapons.
I really wish I could figure that out. There's a whole discussion I could get into about plot in games, and how most people try to write a movie plot when it only works if you write a TV or book type plot, because those are written in a way you can pick em up and put them down a lot... maybe I screwed that up?

Side-note: Skylanders GIANTS just came out, and stole my idea of ripping off

. Tetra Master is a pretty easy to understand card game in FF9, and what it does is adds this cool meta-game to the RPG where you're always collecting these trading cards from battles and shops n stuff, and each time you go to a new town you obviously meet new people to play cards against and find rare cards in different regions of the world. It's a really awesome optional layer, and my idea was to make the game easier to understand, tie it to capturing enemies or some kind of mid-fight risk, and have your collection carry over to other games. The collectible in my last game was HATS, so this is a way better idea than that because you can actually use em for something.
But I guess I got beat to it more than once now, so... maybe I should come up with a different thing.

MERCHANTS
I've bin thinking about in-game shopkeepers this week. I think they've got this really easy potential to become favourite characters. They've typically got one foot in the game story and one foot in your mindset as the player, and that can be really fun for them to talk about weapons and give tips in a way that they're winking at the camera. When they say "good luck out there!" They're saying it to the character AND to you, and that could be something really special. And you're always in a good mood talking to them anyway, cos they give you all the new stuff.
So WITH THIS POTENTIAL it's kind of daunting for me to come up with one now. Cos they can literally be anything, but SOMEWHERE IN MY HEAD is an idea for everyone's favourite character. Here's me splashing around:

THUMBNAIL


One idea I stuck on, that I thought was really funny, is the foreign merchant who half-knows English and is overly friendly to everyone, constantly calling you "friend", complimenting your choices, and randomly giving discounts of 10 or 20% off. Everyone is his favourite customer, every purchase is a celebration, constantly shaking hands, frequently shrugging as if each transaction is a "between us friends" affair, constantly winking, every day is a good day. Slight hint that his business is completely failing?
I was laughing coming up with this personality, but I have no idea what he should look like, how big he should be, what country he should be from, or just anything at all. I have no idea, it's up in the air. And maybe I won't even go with that! I dunno!

I mocked up a shop interface, it's not very good:



NOTHING is final here.

I'd love to show you video of the level I just made, it's got loads of fast action, but I can't run the game and HyperCam2 at the same time... I don't have any money for a new computer.
Actually I'm really scraping for money right now in general.
I entered a game jam last week, it's not really relevant to any of this.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2012, 01:57:26 PM by I_smell » Logged
Lynx
Level 5
*****


Upstart Feline Miscreant


View Profile WWW
« Reply #153 on: October 25, 2012, 03:22:17 PM »

Rather than a variable discount, I'd suggest making it a flat rate "That's what his prices always are, but he's TELLING you he's giving you a huge discount, this week only" kinda thing so mechanically you always know if you have enough to get X from him, instead of going back repeatedly and buying only when it's at a maximum discount.

Some very cool art!
Logged

Currently developing dot sneak - a minimalist stealth game
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #154 on: October 25, 2012, 03:43:39 PM »

I think that'd be weaker than ACTUALLY chopping up prices randomly.

There's a feeling you get in real life when someone randomly puts a discount on something to keep you in a shop, and it's a mix of guilt from "oh well I better buy this now instead of just leaving" and "is this guy desperate?" and a feeling of "this guy is crazy" or "is this stuff all fake?" and "actually this is a pretty good deal" and "oh man I came here at the right time!" and sometimes "...maybe if I stick around I could get even more money off this..."

Those are all really funny reactions, and if I don't follow through on the joke then I could lose that. Also a game made by anyone else WOULD NOT do that, cos it's kind of really dumb, so I think just having that weird surprise could be a funny quirk for people to remember.

SEEING WHERE YOU'RE COMING FROM THOUGH: It could lead to people entering and exiting the shop over n over again. I might have to think about how and when to randomly trigger that. It would have to ABSOLUTELY NOT be something you can brute-force, so that'll be something to think about.

The shop is also using a trick I learned from the DragonBall Z fighting games, where what's in stock is randomized every time. I PERSONALLY thought that was really cool and didn't exploit it- but I know you can exploit your way to rare items if you just keep coming in and out of the shop.
...maybe the shop should close if you exit it 3 times, and only open again once you complete the next mission. Maybe it should close sooner if you keep trying to exploit it...
Logged
SirNiko
Level 10
*****



View Profile
« Reply #155 on: October 25, 2012, 04:04:51 PM »

Kid Icarus (the new one) did a thing like this.

The shop contains a selection of randomly generated goods, and periodically one of those goods will be at a deep discount. The selection of goods stayed the same until you played a mission, at which point the shop generates new goods.

Because items were randomly generated and varied extremely wildly, you often would rather buy a really good item at the full price instead of an okay or bad item at a discount. Other times, you might pick up a weapon of a type or with bonuses you'd normally ignore because it's really cheap.

This might work in your game as a "Daily deal" or something, encouraging the player to pick an upgrade they might not normally choose simply because they want to get the discount. They can always choose to ignore the discount for an optimal weapon that fits their playstyle better. This also would help with replay value, since it's effectively suggesting a different upgrade path for the player so they have a reason to upgrade differently without intentionally handicapping themselves.
Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #156 on: October 25, 2012, 04:18:47 PM »

Yea that's something I was just slowly figuring out...

Alright good, this seems like a good thing I should write down.
Logged
Udderdude
Level 10
*****


View Profile WWW
« Reply #157 on: October 25, 2012, 07:48:50 PM »

The amount of game design decisions you make on the basis of how hilarious you think it would be is disturbing.  I have a feeling this game is going to end up playing like a gigantic joke, only the player is the butt of it.
Logged
I_smell
Level 5
*****



View Profile
« Reply #158 on: October 26, 2012, 04:56:55 AM »

You mean the like- 2%? There's 12 levels, 30 enemy types who all fuse together to create new ones, and 20 weapons so far that all work in different ways.

I've bin deep in environment concept art and enemy design for so long (see:this page) that I've actually been worrying there's nothing funny in this game after Act 1. Actually- if you can pick ANY ONE POINT in the passed 5 pages where I've sacrificed the experience of playing the game to stop and make a joke, I will instantly take it out. Cos this is like my 5th comedy game and I know I'm not doing that.

EDIT-- Oh wait you're the guy who likes bullet hells.
I'm genuinely thinking about posting the design doc now, cos there's literally nothing funny in it, it's just a network of 80 flash-cards describing game systems (see:this page)
« Last Edit: October 26, 2012, 05:03:13 AM by I_smell » Logged
Graham-
Level 10
*****


ftw


View Profile
« Reply #159 on: October 26, 2012, 05:04:20 AM »

I think that'd be weaker than ACTUALLY chopping up prices randomly.

Yes it would.

Quote
The shop is also using a trick I learned from the DragonBall Z fighting games, where what's in stock is randomized every time. I PERSONALLY thought that was really cool and didn't exploit it- but I know you can exploit your way to rare items if you just keep coming in and out of the shop.
...maybe the shop should close if you exit it 3 times, and only open again once you complete the next mission. Maybe it should close sooner if you keep trying to exploit it...

Or the degree of change in stock is proportional to progress made in the game. You can use the shop to give the sense of passing time, killing two birds with stone. If the player does a level that narratively means, "a week long battle," then reflect that in the shop. If they're gone for 3 hours reflect that too. Then players will use the shop to gauge time, and time to gauge whether they should go back to the shop.

Maybe there's a small cost for visiting the shop... travel distance or something. Then players would have to think _even harder_ about whether to go. Maybe they'd have to take hints from the keeper's personality each time to try and project the best times to go. Then the randomized rewards would be even more realistic and exciting.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 6 7 [8] 9
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic