next »

[Dacke]

Fast Slow Shmup

Fast Slow Shmup is a tiny shoot em' up pen and I are making. We decided to make something as small as possible and build on that. The graphics were made by pen in less than two hours on my broken laptop. The game is programmed from scratch in Java, making it my first "serious" attempt at making a game in Java.

The game can be played at: http://shmup.erikronnblom.com

The thing is killing the other things for score.

[Alec S.]

It's a pretty good start, and I really like the visual design of the enemy ships.

The game, however, is far too easy.  First of all, all of the ships move purely horizontally, meaning if you don't move at all and just keep shooting, you can essentially clear a path and don't have to worry about anything other than a few of the projectile attacks, which are far to rare. The player also has too much health.

Also, the time should be in minutes and seconds.

[moi]

very good start, nice graphics and solid engine.
But you should preload all the ressources (graphics and eventualy sound) to prevent the game from freezing everytime a new enemy or effect appears.
Also : more levels. And sounds.

[Alex Vostrov]

I'm surprised how good the backgrounds look, given that they're simple gradients.  Also I liked the different movement speed on the little drones.  That made it look like they were a swarm in 3D.

Is there an idea that you're planning to implement here, or are you just looking to make a quick sidescroller?

[Dacke]

Thanks for the great comments!

malec2b:
You are absolutely correct. Balance hasn't been a priority so far. It's pretty hard to keep things balanced when you keep adding new stuff all the time. If it stays a one-level highscore-based game, we will make sure it gets much harder much faster. (Though it gets exponentially harder over time, as it is now. You shouldn't be able to survive too far past 10-15 million points. I think.)

The time-counter will probably be removed in the next version.

moi:
We actually do preload the images (and stuff). However: Java programs are split up into several files (one for each class). It's possible that the applet only downloads the class-files from the server when it needs them. If so, we have to make sure to preload them too. Thanks for the heads up!

Sound probably won't be a priority for some time, unless we find ourselves a sound-guy who can shove all our games full of angel choirs and fart-noises.

Alex Vostrov:
Both the backgrounds and 3D-effect surprised me too! With some more effort put in, it will probably look great.

Currently we have no specific plan for the game. Our original plan was "make-game-in-two-hours". It turned into two days (because I suck). We have some ideas for a more interesting shmup-like game. But currently all we want to do is to add content and apply polish. It will give us enough experience with the language, style and genre to do grander things later.