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[Mr. K]

COIN
(Cash of Infinite Necessity)

DOWNLOAD FINAL VERSION!! (11.5 MB zip)
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You are a bandit from the 1800s.  You have stolen so many coins that you have run out of coins to steal.  Your next move?  Rob the future...

-Grab coins and kill enemies to raise your multiplier, which makes even MORE coins appear!
-Discover the best strategies to keep your multiplier up and become rich!
-Take on the world using the online leaderboard!




Original post:
COIN
(Cash of Infinite Necessity)

I decided Assemblee might give me a little game-making push.  And indeed, it seems to be working.

So here's my project.  The basic premise: You are a bandit from the 1800s.  You have stolen so many coins that you have run out of coins to steal.  Your next move?  Rob the future...

It's going to be 3 or 4 levels of running around shooting stuff platforming action.  The fun part is that there are coins hidden all over the place.  And if you pull off combos killing enemies and stuff, you get even more coins.  Skilled players will truly become rich (virtually)







As you can see, it puts a lot of different graphics together, although with some questionable style mixing (like black outlines vs. no outlines, but due to what I've got to work with it's a necessary evil)  I'm also utilizing particles in some places, as I'm pretty sure I read that procedurally generated stuff like that is completely fine.

It's currently at a very early stage, hence the lack of HUD and other amenities.  I think it's going to progress quickly and smoothly, though.

[Kazerad]

Simple but fun sounding premise! Glad to see someone using Yokomeshi's excellent cowgirl sprites.

[saluk]

Yay cowgirl! was hoping to see that. Concept sounds fun, like achievements are part of the game.

[Pishtaco]

I would say changing the outlines is procedural enough to get away with.

[Mr. K]

I'm happy to see the positive support for this so far.
@Pishtaco: Perhaps it is, but I dunno if I can pull it off.  I'm making this in Construct, which probably would make it hard (as if it isn't already... I've got no idea how I'd start)  So I'll just leave it, it doesn't look bad at all.

Here's today's update.

The big gameplay component, the multiplier, is in.  Every coin is worth half a multiplier point, every enemy kill is worth one multiplier point.  When you kill an enemy, it will spew a number of coins equal to the multiplier.  The multiplier decreases by one roughly every second.  This seems pretty balanced as it is... it is initially difficult to get your multiplier above two or three, but once you get in the groove of things your multiplier is easy to maintain.
Even with my minimal level so far, there is a decent bit of strategy... finding the best path around the level makes it easier to make your multiplier higher, and thus your score higher.  Sometimes just plowing through isn't the best idea-- if you backtrack through the trees in one area, for instance, you can gain a bunch of coins, then take on the enemies below for much larger gains.

Apart from that, I've put in a real background, expanded the level a good bit, added music, and the HUD is mostly in.  You still can't get hurt or die, but I'll be doing that next.

[MaloEspada]

Wow, this is looking really awesome.

When are we getting a demo?

[yokomeshi]

This looks impossibly awesome.

[SirNiko]

The multiplier concept is very solid. I think that's an excellent design for the game.

Will you be implementing an online leaderboard, or will the levels have static targets the player can achieve for trophies, etc?

-SirNiko

[Mr. K]

When are we getting a demo?

I'll be tossing a demo out as soon as the first level's done, which is probably going to be next weekend thanks to school commitments until then.

Will you be implementing an online leaderboard, or will the levels have static targets the player can achieve for trophies, etc?

As long as I don't run into any server hiccups, there should be an online leaderboard for the final version.  Dunno about trophies/achievements or anything due to the short time frame for the project, but perhaps in a post-contest update if I can't get to it right away.

[Mr. K]

Demo! (4.9 MB)
This requires the latest DirectX updates.  If you don't have them, it'll link you to the site where you can download them.
I also recommend a Pixel Shader 2.0 graphics card.  It'll run without, but the screen transitions won't work.

I'd really like feedback on this.  It feels a little flawed to me so far, and I want to get all the major kinks worked out before the end of the contest gets too close.

Also, some updated screenshots to go with this:

[yokomeshi]

I love it!

Might I suggest you give the main character a bit of horizontal momentum? At the moment she goes from standing still one frame to full speed the next, even in the air -- it feels a little stiff.

Also, it's sometimes a little hard to tell when you've fired; maybe a little bit of a screen flash would help there.

[Kazerad]

Just played it, the graphics and sounds are excellent.

However, I thought the view movement when you change directions terribly dizzying. I often found myself overjumping a coin by just a bit, and edging myself to the left to get it would send the view flipping all the way to my left and back to my right.

What if, instead of moving all the way to the "aiming left" position when you change directions, it moved depending on how far you walked? Like, if I was going right and then walked one pixel left, the view would move two pixels to the left (until reaching the "moving left" position)?

[Kekskiller]

Man, that's cool. I really like the combination you did there, but please make the screen panning a bit less abrupt.

[MaloEspada]

I really like your level design. It was marvelous.

I played til the ice rock thing, then the game quit. Is that the end?

[saluk]

Great game so far! I have a few minor issues:

The character is really hard to see. I died a few times because I walked off a cliff not realizing where exactly the character was.

I think I would prefer the character to be in the middle of the screen instead of to one side. It's really disconcerting to me when I switch directions. Others might disagree with me, but it made me quite dizzy. Another solution would be to move the camera more slowly. I understand the reasoning behind this, it just didn't work for me.

I never got the multiplier to go up, or at least I didn't notice it going up. Some feedback in game somehow of how to make it go up, when you did make it go up, might be helpful.

[Mr. K]

OK guys I've been away for a bit, lemme cover some of your feedback:

-So I can see the screen shifting is being universally panned.  I will definitely try to find a way to fix that acceptably.  This is a holdover from another project of mine, where everybody complained that they couldn't see where to jump or anything.  It's one or the other...

-Multiplier was probably a bit harsh.  How it works: you gain 0.5x per coin, 1x per enemy kill.  It decreases 1x every second.  It does make it hard to get it started.  I'm thinking of making it decrease exponentially, with it decreasing slower with lower multipliers and quicker as you get higher, to balance it out.

-Yes, that ice rock is the end.  It gives more coins based on how fast you get through the level-- a sorta time bonus.

-Other little things: more visual feedback is probably good, as would be changing the player's mobility a little... we'll see. The player's visibility isn't really something I can fix, but perhaps with the camera change it'll be easier.  Who knows.

Also I've got a question for y'allz: Does anyone get an error ("terminated in an unusual way") when they close the application?  Nobody here mentioned it, but I had a guy at my site's forums get it, and I noticed that I get it as well.  It only seems to happen if you press enter to skip the intro, though.  Really strange bug.

[Mr. K]

COIN is finished now!!

Unfortunately, there is still only one level, but I tried to expand it as much as possible, and added an end-boss.  I wasn't aware the holiday season was going to kick me around as much, and I spent most of my time after releasing the demo visiting family, then I got a minor computer upgrade and reinstalled Windows, which slowed me down, and then I got pretty sick and didn't have much will to work.  But I've managed to get myself back together and finish it!

I've fixed up the multiplier, which now decreases on an exponential scale (higher multiplier, you lose it faster, but at lower multipliers, you don't have to hurry).  I also managed to get the online leaderboard in, although it is a little crude since I am not a web programmer at all.  It WORKS though and that counts!  Also, of course, I've fixed bugs all over and have eliminated all of the random crashes I was experiencing before.

Check the first post for the download, and enjoy!

[porousnapkin]

That was neat! Played through it twice and had a lot of fun. The screen shake on firing is a great touch, and seeing that many coins fly out of an enemy never gets old. No bugs spotted.

[deadeye]

I enjoyed this a lot.  You made very good use of the assets, it feels really complete.

Other than having a bit of trouble with knowing where the tree branches ended and falling a bunch I thought the game play was really nice.  And the level design is quite good.  The only major complaint I have is that the game closes when you lose your last life.  A game over screen would have been nice.  And I suppose the boss should have had a pattern to his fireballs instead of them being random.  Other than that it's a really solid entry.  It felt very satisfying to blast enemies with a large multiplier

I did spot one small bug, and that was a coin remained on the screen after I picked it up and wouldn't disappear, but it only happened once.

[feeblethemighty]

I beat the boss!  Fun little game.

One problem i had was that when running at a full clip, the character ends up hugging the screen near the right making it really hard to see what's coming up.  You should look into making a "camera" object that leads the player the faster he goes so you can see better what's coming up.