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[Jcup]

You could make the grab something other than right click... I mean if you wanna stick with Flash. Just seemed odd that their couldn't be a dummy button or something in the mean time.

Also just something to think about,is making it so the player gradually moves towards the mouse, so he doesn't out run his bullets he shot 10 minutes earlier. I can't see it in my head if it would make it look better but like I said just a thought and wouldn't make or break the game.

Otherwise I liked it, it was pretty cool. I've always loved bullet hells and such. 

[I_smell]

Here's an update

If you press R to restart now, you'll be sent to the loadout screen, where you can pick your weapons and perks and so on.
I made weapons and perks take up the same slots. The idea is that some of the more over-powered ones will take up 2 or 3 slots, and you can buy or discover new capsules, and you can mix em around if you can't beat a certain level or boss.
Or maybe you just wanna play it twice, right?
There's more weapons than you can fit in one playthrough, so try it out twice.

So this is cool, right?

[bome99]

This is really good!

I like the diversity of the weapons, the grab and sword is bada**.

But I think the mouse control feels a bit to responsive. It almost makes the game to easy.
Maybe you could let the hero "drag" after the mouse? you could make powerups that make him react or move faster. It might give the feel of him using a jetpack? I dunno..

I think it could give the game a nice flying feeling.

But really good!

Have to give that "No Time To Explain" game a try, the trailers are great.

[I_smell]

DILEMNA!!!!




This new enemy type will grow larger until he explodes. He grows faster if you shoot him, but will deflate and die if you get in close and attack him to death.

When he explodes, he harms other enemies and you. So it CAN be tactical to encourage him to blow up.

Here's the problem though: Why wouldn't you just shoot him to death every time? The point of making this enemy was to force you to stop shooting, and switch to attacking.
If he doesn't do that, then he's a boring enemy...

I tried it so he'd pop, and still be there, back to small-size. So he'd loop; and the only way to get rid of him would be to attack.
BUT that gives the problem that you could just use him to harm enemies over and over again, and that's not interesting.
Then I thought that he could pop into 2 every time, but that's the same problem. So he should definately pop and dissapear...

THEN I REMEMBERED! While writing this post, I remembered that you collect coins to spend on the weapons and upgrades. So duhh- I'll make it so that he only releases coins if you get in close. That way, you have the choice of popping him (damaging other enemies) or chopping him (getting a bunch of coins).
Or being a dumbass and letting him blow up in your face (damaging you).

PROBLEM SOLVED! That sounds like a fun conclusion.

I started off with 2 enemy ideas: one that would grow bigger and explode, and one that would be invincible to bullets, and release an area-of-effect attack. Halfway through drawing him, I just fused em into one.
It makes no sense having 2 enemies who're almost the same thing, right?

I forgot how hard this design thing was, ughhh.

[I_smell]

New enemy:



This guy can be REAL FUCKING TROUBLE if you don't know how to handle it.
Oh and these aren't final graphics, obviously.

Maybe move this thread to devlogs.

[I_smell]

Trying to come up with a design for the main mech. BOY DO I SURE SUCK!



I'm just kinda flailing around right now. All I know is that I want it to be top-heavy, because the main character is a bear, and the game feels all heavy and impactful. Also I guess I want it to be red? Not sure. This is really difficult. I need some direction on machinery or vehicles or aircraft...
I think it's gonna be 3D art eventually.

Also hey, am I comin to the wrong place to talk about videogames? Cos what always happens with my threads is that it's just me talking to myself for 2 weeks, and maybe one other guy every once in a while. Are my games just boring?
I feel like I could talk all day about how to do upgrades, making a Horde Mode in a scrolling shooter, co-op weapons, all different enemy types that drain you and poison you n throw stuff around, but every time I come back a thread it's always sunk right down to about Page 3!

[I_smell]

Update:





everything still sucks

[I_smell]

I want this other character to be a famous #1 space pilot, who becomes very jealous as you become the new hot topic and he devolves into an angry whimpy baby.



I definately want him in a skinny white jumpsuit, but I'm still lost on what I want him to look like. I started leaning into a tall blocky Woody from Toy Story, then I spun into a stubby spikey angry Vegeta, then I watched some cartoons and completely fell on my ass. So I guess I'll come back to it later.

I think I want him to have a pointy chin, and I think I want him to have a long nose.
Not touched the gameplay for a while. Weird, right?

[Greg Sergeant]

Good to see you working on something new, the weapons are awesome, your coding has improved a lot!

I'm hoping this game has a unifying theme and feel to it, some of your older work has some fairly random locations/characters, making it hard to be absorbed into the world.

edit: a pro technique for character design is to do tons of black silhouettes, trying out lots of different weight/shapes, then choose your favorites and do some vague detail work with a white brush - then choose favorites and go into colors/fine details

[I_smell]

yaaaaaaayyyy somebody cares

Coming up with a solid game world and style was definately something I wrote down before I started. Most games are just made up as I'm going, and No Time To Explain was especially a god-damn mess in that regard.
This is why I'm doing a tonne of concept stuff now, to make sure I've got a CONCRETE idea of what I'm doing before I dive in. I wrote down a plan of what happens in Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3, and I'm splitting those into what happens on individual levels now.
It's still a goofy cartoon, but now all the characters and enemies are part of a really neat little story with a beginning, middle and end.
I'd write what it's all about, but then this post would look like a wall of text and nobody'd read it.

I drew this to help communicate what I'm aiming for:

I think I'll draw more scenes like that soon.

Anyway while I was outlining what happens on all these levels I realised I need way more enemy types. So I got more ambitious with what I was doing:


These guys are regular shoot dudes, EXCEPT they have 2 interesting states:
If you grab one, you'll hold him facing the opposite way. So you can use him as a weapon.
If there's a storm ball onscreen, they'll all gravitate towards it. This means you can't get close to them without being electrocuted, and also it makes their fire more concentrated and dangerous.
Enemies that have relationships with other enemies is FUCKING COOL!! I can't wait to have robots who combine like a megazord, or enemies who infect each other or whatever. Fastball special.
Here's something I did with that concept:



These guys are 30 little bots who will seek eachother out and bite onto eachother's tails to form one long snake. They're invincible when connected, but otherwise have pretty low health. Also they're more dangerous when connected cos they take up more of the screen.

Now I just need to keep my head on straight and decide when something's genuinely cool, and when it's just programmer-cool.

[Dane]

You'd better finish this, man.

YOU'D BETTER!

[I_smell]

I've not started it yet, this is still the Flash prototype I guess.

I've still not told my producer anything about this game, cos then we'll launch into solid production-time. Once we do that then I'll HAVE to finish it, as my job. So I'm still too scared to do that lol.

That's why updates are so slow.

[Jay Tholen]

A few weeks ago I started a small game called Space Puncher. It's a little different in that your guy is a social outcast because he was born with freakishly large hands, but it still has punching in space. We may share a wavelength.

That said, this one is almost entirely different and I love it. Brilliant weapon design, and the enemies are looking great.

[Nektonico]

Its nice, but the flamethrower weapon is kinda pointless, and the homing clusterbombs thing is overpowered i think.

[character]

Subscribed. Love where this is going.

Like:
- Player following the mouse
- Shooting AND slashing (double bonus of awesome right there)
- The flying group of stick men that stay on you but don't overwhelm the player at the same time


Not Like:
- Middle mouse button for the weapon wheel. Would rather see this mapped to ctrl or somewhere else that is convenient on the keyboard


Keep up the great work!