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[chrisjan]

Hi everybody!!!  You might not know me, since I am essentially a lurker in these forums.  I came in contact with the TIGsource community by assisting to this year's BIGjam in Berlin, last august.  I had a great time there, and afterwards I got inspired to write my own game.

So, here it is!  GunFu Deadlands!  A Far West-themed 2D Shooter featuring Bullet Time á la Max Payne.

Please try it and comment what do you think.  Any kind of feedback is welcome.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gunfudeadlands/

There's Linux and Windows executables.  For Macs, you will have to grab the Löve2D executable from http://love2d.org/download and the "love" GunFu Deadlands file from the project website (https://sourceforge.net/projects/gunfudeadlands/files/GunFu%20Deadlands%200.90/GunFuDeadlands_090.love/download).

The mandatory screenshot:


More screenshots at https://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=276983

I must warn that everybody who has tried it finds the game quite hard.  I myself am unable to finish it in "hard" mode...

So, how is the gameplay?
I wanted to do an action game with a big influence from stealth games where you have to play hide and seek with the bad guys.  This means that running towards them and shooting like crazy will probably kill you very fast.  Cover behind the buildings and be ready for dodging clouds of bullets flying towards you.  The action is quite fast, and the AI has been described as "uncanny" by friends who have tested the game.  The graphics are pretty simple, since I am more a coder than a graphic artist, so let's call them functional.  The game is not very long (only 10 levels), although you will likely get killed tons of times.  Each time that happens you restart the level you're in (in normal mode), and you have infinite lives, no need to worry.   Use the bullet time to your advantage.

Enjoy!

[jstckr]

I played this while it was still in pre-release form and I can heartly recommend this. It's awesome fun. Quite a cool mix between reaction-based killings and real-time tactics.

[Hat Galleon]

Wow. I just tried this, and took an instant liking to it. The ideas are simple, the AI is advanced enough that you have no way to really exploit them any more than you would a real person, the gunfire is realistically accurate but has enough leeway to survive if you make a mistake or two, and overall I quite enjoy it for just being well balanced and simple. What I also would like, though, is a shootout mode, simply because the gunfire and AI is good enough that having a shootout with AI allies and enemies would be pretty neat.

Also, as a side note, a setting only allowing you to see people in your line of sight would be interesting. As sort of a balance feature you'd have to make enemies fire inaccurately at first and then more accurately the longer that they see you, all in a very short time period, but this is just me throwing an idea out because currently you can see everyone and where they are and none of them can see you. Evening the playing field a little would make it a little more suspenseful.

On probably a more helpful sidenote, it would also be useful if it took them a moment to turn around or to their sides, because as of now flanking them makes no difference whatsoever, so you might as well take them all head-on instead of circling around is sort of a strategic way.

Also because I just thought of this, they don't take cover in the least, either. Not really that much of a problem, but slightly longer shootouts due to cover would encourage flanking and be a bit more cinematic.

[KareemK]

this is an epic game. which is front-page news material.
period.

[shig]

At first I was really pumped to play this game because of the comments, but after seeing that screenshot I lost my will to play it.
 I'll probably play it later and - knowing me - I'll love it anyways. But the graphics need some serious improvements.

[teh_ham]

This is awesome. It is also insanely difficult. The enemies even compensate for your direction and speed to make sure they hit you. I can't really comment much on the game because I couldn't get past the first level enemy! I'd suggest putting a delay on them between the time you are spotted and the time they react, because like Empyreal said, there really is no difference between ambushing, flanking, and taking them head on.

The Bullet time is good but it takes too long to recharge for an action game, shorten it and I might be able to get off of the first level

[droqen]

Is hard mode different at all except in terms of respawn?

Other than that: I beat it on normal, and it was awesome <3

Empyreal makes some really good points, but I think taking cover might be a bit much compared (actually, a LOT much) to the current AI which is really rather simple, as far as I can tell.
I think that the way the bullet time works is weird. There's a lot of wasted bullet time, and yet it makes just about anything very easy (not easy enough for me to even want to attempt hard mode though).
The graphics: To be honest, I love them. The trees are a little annoying because it's not clear what they cover (but that's also kind of cool), but the graphics are great!

Bullet time: It makes everything too easy unless you are swarmed. Therefore, a suggestion...

Limited Total Bullet Time, with the bonus of anytime bullet time. You hold a button for bullet time (plus, I dunno, a half second after you let go) and it drains from a much larger bar that never recharges (except on level start/restart, of course). Means you'll want to conserve that bullet time bar!


Final comment: Love it.

[Ninja Dodo]

Hi,

I tried this and found it a little unforgiving. If you don't use bullet time or do the sideways jump you're basically dead the moment you enter line of sight. Even in bullet-time you're out-gunned pretty quick.

I agree adding some reaction time to the AI would be good. Also maybe you could have a visual indication on the player character when he's ready to use bullet time because if you take the time to look at the top right corner of the screen you're usually dead.

[cactus]

Awesome game, love the character graphics, but they don't blend well with the environmental graphics. Maybe a more consistent style would be better?

Overall, I loved it though. Keep it up

[Golds]

Super fun.  I'm on my MacBook Pro and had to dig around for a mouse to play, but I love the simple pleasure of stealth combined with the bullet time mechanic..  I agree with Cactus that the environments are too hifi for the characters, but the general look could be really cool polished up a bit.

A note to Mac users, when downloading the GunFu package, OS X will uncompress the zipped archive and remove the extension.  Rename the unzipped folder with a .love to play.

KUUDOS.

[tim_the_tam]

Ninja Dodo stole my words. i felt the same way about the game as he did.

[droqen]

Someone up there said enemies should not react so quickly - I agree with that, as well as that it should be coupled with some kind of line-of-sight for you as well. It's just weird that they have such instant 360-degree accuracy, and it does to some extent mess with flanking tactics.

[Pnikosis]

Lots of fun, but insanely difficult.

Love it!

[chrisjan]

Wow, thank you everyone for the positive feedback.  Seeing that you like it is very encouraging.  And thanks as well for the good ideas.  You feedback is inspiring.

Introducing a reaction time for the enemies and making them unable to turn instantly is a great idea, I'll work on this in the coming days.  I agree that it will make the game more strategic, I like it.  I see that the bullet time needs more tuning, I'll give it a slightly shorter duration and faster charge (more action! hehe).  Regarding cover, I actually tried to have the AI seeking cover, but it never worked right.  This feature needs a lot of improvement as well.

Another interesting idea is to have the character's sprite changed when in bullet time, now I have to think how.  Maybe just change the color?  Like, turning grey instead of the regular black? Mmmh, I have to think about that.  But great suggestion anyway, I'm doing something in that direction.

I am worried that not being able to see the enemies unless they are directly in your line of sight would make the game way too hard. They would be appearing suddenly in front of you at the turn of a corner and gun you down, which could be perceived as unfair, and frustrating.  Moreover, being able to see where all the enemies are from the start of the level lets you plan your strategy, in which order will you attack them.  It is still an interesting idea, but I am concerned about what impact would it have on the gameplay.

Now, the graphics, that will be a bit harder.  I must confess my skills in that area are quite poor, and never got satisfied with what I was achieving.  I agree that they need to be improved a lot, let's see what I can do.  I'll follow your suggestion to make the environment a bit more "lo-fi" to match the characters' graphics.

Finally, it's good to see that no one complained about the music, I was also a bit worried about that.

Thank you everyone again!  It seems that I have a lot of work for the coming weeks, hehehe.  I'll update this thread when a new version is ready, improved with your suggestions.  Thanks a lot!

[Pnikosis]

I don't think that hiding enemies when they aren't in you line of sight is a bad idea. If implemented right could be very nice, like putting in shadows what is not in your line of sight (maybe for the hard difficulty setting).

By the way, I love the simplicity of the graphics.

[Dom2D]

First of all, I shouted AUGH the first time I died. Amazing moment.

I have to say the sound design is phenomenal in its simplicity and efficiency. The gameplay is all sorts of cool too.

[TheDustin]

I recently gave it a write-up over at PTT.   

http://playthisthing.com/gunfu-deadlands

Now hows 'bout a 1.0 release?

[chrisjan]

Hey, I have read the review in Play This Thing.  It's awesome, I liked it a lot.  Thank you!

A 1.0 release is on the works, although it will take some time because I don't have as much free time now as I had in summer.  My plans are releasing it with a level editor (which is 50% done by now). I'll also rework the graphics (make the buildings a bit more lo-fi in order to match the characters' graphics better, as cactus suggested), and try to improve the AI (enemies looking for cover and non-instantaneous turns).  The goal with the AI changes is to enable a more strategic (interesting?) gameplay, by giving the user more choices for engaging the bandits.

I have made a list with the suggestions from the feedback collected in the comments to this thread, and in IndieGamer and JayIsGames as well.  I am implementing and experimenting with each one, in order to see what improves the gameplay.  Thanks again to everybody!

[Dom2D]

I'll also rework the graphics (make the buildings a bit more lo-fi in order to match the characters' graphics better, as cactus suggested), and try to improve the AI (enemies looking for cover and non-instantaneous turns). 

Oh noooooo

[chrisjan]

no?  no to the graphics or no to the AI?