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[sublinimal]

Yeah, it happens right when I boot it up. The first time I tried to run it from the archive, but the problem persisted after unzipping. I only get to see the "Seasons" logo and the cursor (which is under the error message in that screenshot).

Edit: Running in compatibility mode did nothing.

[Udderdude]

Just tried it out

Feedback:

During the tutorial it says to "Summon a quartz crystal", however it doesn't say you have to hold the right mouse button, just use it. 

The enemy in the tutorial shot a very large projectile that blew up all my crystals, with no warning.  It was very close, and I had no time to move my crystals out of the way.  Obviously, this is a bit overkill for a tutorial enemy.

It isn't clear that you don't have to place all your crystals on the big green triangle.  In the tutorial, it even says to move them there.

I was able to trap the second enemy in the top area of the screen, where he could do almost nothing to attack me.

http://rydia.net/udder/!crap/maxTrapped.png

The gameplay feels kind of sloppy.  It's close to impossible to save all your crystals from being destroyed as they need to be so close to the enemy in order to do damage, and the enemy attacks are fast and multi-directional, so the most you can do is save one or two of them when it does a big attack.  This is especially noticeable on enemy 3, when he does that giant bullet spam attack.

If I were you, I'd change things around so the crystals can attack from much farther, giving you a chance to save all of them, and give the player more of a reward/incentive for not letting them die besides getting upgrades faster.  Maybe let the crystals move faster, also.

I was able to get past the skull enemy doing nothing more than placing green crystals close and recreating them as soon as they died.  I put nothing but upgrades into green crystals, also.  It completely removes the dodging part of the gameplay.

I think it has potential, but definitely needs some work in the balance and gameplay dept.

[todd]

@sublinimal- I'm 90% sure it's because your video card doesn't support surfaces. If you hang tight until tomorrow, I'll put a script in the new build that disables surfaces for those types of video cards at the start of the game.

@Udderdude-

Man... just, thanks haha. I'm putting all of this in my to-do list before tomorrow.

I'll address your points paragraph by paragraph:

1-Yeah good point. I'll add "hold" to the text.

2-Since the last build I've added more reaction time and warning signs telling which direction the large shots will be fired. I might even slow them down a bunch after reading your experience. If they killed all of your crystals, that means you had them all bunched together which isn't a good idea.

3-Can you edit your post to clarify this please? There is a counter (crystals on altar/crystals you have on the field) so I'm not sure what the confusion is there?

4-Thanks for the screenshot. I'll definitely have to beef up the 2nd enemy.

5 & 6- Good point. I've increased the range that your crystals are able to damage the enemy at. You're right about making them a bit faster too. Some crystals are going to die. What I like to do is have 2 Topaz crystals that are high priority and 3 quartz that are expendable. I put them in a star formation usually around the enemy so I can see them all clearly and dodge when(and if) I'm able to.

7- I guess you could just spam quartz crystals to beat all the enemies, but in the new build you won't be able to get your deeds(trophies) to higher rankings like that. There will be incentive to conserve your little dudes. The ranking will depend on how many souls you have left after you beat the game. For example, one deed is to beat the game in 8 minutes. If you have 0-49 souls left on completion, you get the lowest ranking. Then from 50-99 you get next rank. If you beat the game with 100+ souls left, you get the highest ranking.

If you want to get the basic deed, you can buy as many upgrades as you want and use tons of crystals. If you want to get higher rankings, you'll have to conserve and skip on some upgrades. I hope it's a system that will set the difficulty naturally, depending on what the player wants to achieve. Like you said, it needs some balancing for sure.

Your feedback is going to help me a ton! Thanks bro.

[Udderdude]

If they killed all of your crystals, that means you had them all bunched together which isn't a good idea.  Can you edit your post to clarify this please? There is a counter (crystals on altar/crystals you have on the field) so I'm not sure what the confusion is there?

Basically, I thought I had to have all the crystals on top of the altar due to the tutorial text.  So yes, they were all in one place.

Some crystals are going to die.

This is what I mean about sloppy.  It should be entirely possible to beat every enemy in the game without losing a single crystal.  Doing so will show the player's skill at the game, as well as showing how well designed the enemy fights are.  On that note, you should try to tone down on the randomness as much as possible.

Also, another idea would be to add more crystal types.  Ex. slowing crystal, knockback crystal, fast crystal (can be moved faster), etc.

I guess you could just spam quartz crystals to beat all the enemies, but in the new build you won't be able to get your deeds(trophies) to higher rankings like that. There will be incentive to conserve your little dudes. The ranking will depend on how many souls you have left after you beat the game. If you have 0-49 souls left on completion, you get the lowest ranking. Then from 50-99 you get next rank. If you beat the game with 100+ souls left, you get the highest ranking.

This sounds more challenging, I'll be looking forward to the next build with this implemented.

[Alec S.]

This is a really cool game so far.  The concept is great and I love the visual style. 

I agree with the criticisms so far.  You've got a great idea combining rts with the dodging of a shmup, but you need to tweak the game to make the most of that.  As people have said, enemies should telegraph their attacks a bit more, and should have more predictable bullet patterns.  Especially since all of your characters have to be really close to the enemy to attack, there's very little time to make assessments on attacks and then dodge them.

Another thing to consider would be to allow players to select a crystal and then move it with WASD, which could make dodging a bit easier.

Overall I think this is a concept definitely worth expanding on, and I'd love to see more stages and a larger variety of crystal types

[todd]

Download MAX v.95!

Alternate Mirror

Changelog
+Two player co-op (see readMe)
+Another song
+Deed system fully implemented!

+More artwork
+More sfx
+Added a sweet fan attack to the ball boss
-Sped up the crystals
-Increased crystal range
-Gave the player some more time to dodge and predict attacks by delaying enemy attacks and making them give hints of where and when it's going to happen
-Changed some sfx
-Increased reaction time and hints when bosses attack
-Changed some text in the tutorial
-Spacebar can now swap crystal types also for trackpad users
-Lowered upgrade prices to 20/40/60
-Slowed down some projectiles
-Projectiles are now deleted when a boss dies so they don't score any cheap shots on you crystals
-Polished and cleaned up a lot of code
-Balance work
-M key now turns music on/off

@sublinimal-Hey bud, I'm sorry but I have no idea what's causing you to get that error  . I've asked a gm-guru friend of mine and he says he hasn't seen that error since gm6. I hope you get to try it out on another pc or get it working somehow! Thanks for taking the time to download it though...

@Udderdude-Your feedback has been invaluable man. Thanks a lot. I tried to hit every point you brought up. I hope you enjoy the deed system! It might be a bit easy after I buffed the crystals. There's a better chance that you can make it out with all units, but you'd have to be a Max Savant to pull it off. Units will probably die, but that's life, and life is sloppy in the void sometimes!

@Alec S.-Glad you enjoyed it! I don't know if you read my mind or a tweet I posted, but I implemented a hotseat co-op thing that lets the other person control the crystals with WASD haha. Even if you are playing by yourself it can be very handy to give added control and speed. I've done some work on communicating when certain enemy attacks are going to happen, especially with the earlier bosses. One thing I want to stay away from though is memorizing patterns. I've never thought that was much fun. Hopefully the random attack order is executed better with more telegraphed attacks and a large boost to the crystal range and speed like you guys suggested. Thanks for checking out the game and the critique!


I've wanted to keep the scope small from the get-go, so I won't be adding anymore unit types/mechanics. If anyone has more feedback/critique I'd love to hear it before I release the final build in a week or so.

Enjoy!

[sublinimal]

At first sight, I thought the monster collage spelled out "BEARS"

[Udderdude]

So I played it again and even though I still lost a bunch of crystals, I managed to get the highest ranking for Upgrade, Crunch, Quartz and Completion.

I don't think my playthrough was nearly as skillful and optimized enough to warrant the highest ranking, but if you want the barrier to achieving it to be that low ..

Just did Meekness and finished with 196 souls.  I think with a little better play, I could have easily gotten 200+.  IMO you should have a special ranking just for that.

[todd]

@Udderdude-Wow 196/300? That's pretty stellar. I definitely don't want it to be a cake walk to get light rank, so I may have to compensate by making crystals a bit more expensive or upping the amount it takes to rank. EDIT: or making the deeds more difficult themselves

If you guys and gals could post your soul count after beating the game like Udderdude, that would be super helpful. I'm off work tomorrow so I'll have a bunch of time to work on this and get the final build ready for sunday. I'd love to make a mini trailer or something for it, but my laptop died this past weekend and I had to downgrade. Even making those gif screenshots comes close to crashing the pc I'm currently using  .

Hope you're all having fun with this. Stay tuned...

[seagaia]

I ended with 41 souls.  My RTS skill level in general is "suck", though. Took the topaz strength/defense, 2-to-attack and extra quartz upgrades. I thought the game was a little bit easier this time around to finish.