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[Starflier]

The only actual criticism I have so far is something I assume you plan on fixing anyway, and that is to shade off or otherwise hide the areas that the characters cannot see.

Oh, and it would be nice to have a key that recalls all overwatching characters, and to stop LMB from shooting when I'm selecting overwatch units.

As for things that would make interesting situations, I can think of a few:
*Train tracks: Oncoming trains would have to be avoided, but could be used as temporary cover, and of course, luring enemies into the path of one would be fun.

*Stereotypical Puzzle Game Doors: You know the ones that are only open so long as you're standing on a button. I think that would be an interesting way to necessitate use of the overwatch

*Pressure Pad Traps: On the same note as the puzzle game doors, things like lasers, flame throwers, spike pits, that activate whenever you or the monsters are standing on the triggers.

*Security Cameras/Monitors: While one of your characters is looking at a monitor, you can see everything in the corresponding cameras' line of sight. Maybe colour-code these.

*Exploding barrels: ^^

*Civilians: Have to be protected, maybe shepherded to safe points

*Supply Trucks: Need to escort them to their destination

[RichMakeGame!]

Thanks Starflier! definately like the idea of pressure plates/consoles! and the security cam idea too cheers

I've put up a new version! everyone please check it out, only 3 meg

changes:
1 - each player has an 'ability'- grenade, tele-dash, slow enemies and repulse blast.. these use energy which can be collected from blue orbs. I plan to add more, suggestions welcome! look to the icon on the left to see current ability and power reserve

2 - new 'health orbs' (green) restore health. 'loot' orbs no longer do (btw- health and power are ditributed between all players who are 'hoovering' it at the time

3 - visibility simulated (bit awkward atm but it does the job )

4 - ship navigation! rooms are now interconnected. once you complete a room, you can choose which door to exit through, to go to a new room. Ultimately, there will be a final goal to work towards, right now it's just to explore

Designers: I would really like to know what direction you would personally take with the game- ie, where do you see the most potential for fun at the moment or in the future?

I think I would like to try take it a bit more tactical- add value to things like flanking enemy positions, which isn't really an option right now since enemies go straight for you all the time

thanks for playing!
-rich

[capn.lee]

instead of enemy spawners that you would have to destroy, how about having doors or access shafts that need to be sealed instead? one guy has to sit and use a blowtorch on the spawner to seal it off.

[Nugsy]

VERY excited for this. I love all the games you mentioned, and i expecially like the fact that you have given the soldiers the names from Cannon Fodder! Downloading now.

I have never played Space Hulk however, going to have to give that a go.

To sum up this post:

Edit: Wanted to say that i really like the flat shaded 3d models too!

[RichMakeGame!]

capn.lee: like the idea! once I get some of the fighting dynamics a bit more fun and interesting, I'll take a look at that

nugsy: thanks!

anyone who's tried the game:
did you have an idea of what it was going to be like, and the game was different? what were you expecting and what would you change? (and please try the new version  )

I've made a new version in the first post, with some fairly big tweaks to gameplay:

1- only initial fog is used (exploration). you can view enemies in any area previously seen, this is for tactical purposes to plan your moves

2- all enemies now have a direction, and can only see forwards. this means now you can sneak up on them

3- removed 'all seeing' nature of small enemies. will now free roam until they see you instead of crowding you.

4- big enemies can *only be damaged from behind*

5- players set in overwatch have personal shields.. repelling enemy shots. use this feature to distract shooting enemies and flank with player controlled duders.

thats the main stuff, along with a few other tweaks not worth a mention.

thanks again for looking! be brutal
-rich

[Starflier]

I just played the latest version and I've a couple of notes:
*First of all, I think I preferred not being able to see the aliens that were out of your line of vision, It added a level of creepiness that just isn't there now.

*The level goal "Destroy all spawners" is kinda anticlimactic, it gets easier the closer to your goal you get. It would be cool if the fewer spawners there are, the higher their output, so that the last spawner is literately sending out swarms of mobs.

*On a related note, I think there should be a reason to leave the level quickly once the objective is completed, Ceiling cave-ins or undefeatable boss monsters or something. The "Get 80% of the loot" levels already basically have one: the swarms of baddies that you have to contend with. But it might be good to have some kind of instant death danger that forces you to weigh  the options of getting to the exit or nabbing a few more crates of loot.

*Conversely, if the goal is to allow players to meander around the level after killing everything, then it would be nice if those rooms' layouts were saved, so that when you return to a previously explored room, things are as you remember them, rather than having a new level generated, which doesn't really make sense, unless it's a magical spaceship.

ALSO: I found a bug:
*If you huddle up in a cul de sac two squares wide, Big enemies won't shoot at you and Small enemies run right up to you but don't hurt you.

Oh, and I had an idea for a crate type: When you explode it, it calls every mob in the level to that location.

I like where you're going with having the bigger enemies only vulnerable from behind. I think that a few more enemy types (enemies that shoot but try to stay out of your bullet range, enemies with blind spots right on their noses, Enemies that follow you by scent, IE follow the path you've walked, Enemies that pretend to be a loot crate :D)would round out things nicely.

This is sort of my vision of where I would like to see this game go. It was written at 2:00 AM, so is probably not at all coherent. Ignore as neccesary:

I can see there being some different level types, that kind of give the feel of being on a large spaceship. For instance, cargo holds have the bulk of the loot, engine rooms have lots of power upgrades and let you access schematics of the ship, armories have lots of weapons to pick up, Sleeper holds contain survivors, who you have to shepherd to the exit point, the bridge contains your ultimate goal, the blackbox, which inconveniently triggers the self-destruct, and you have to make your mad dash back through the ship to your exit point. Other special levels could block you off, requiring a key object found elsewhere on the ship, or could function as a sort of bonus level, lots of loot and no monsters.

The layout of each derelict should be randomly generated, and each new one would be bigger than the last. It makes sense that before you've cleared a level it shuts you in, but once a level is cleared, you should just be able to walk through it. I think this would make the ships seem more like unified worlds.

[RichMakeGame!]

Starflier: awesome ideas as usual some of those are also the way I want it to go- definately start off exploring small ships, less dangerous enemies- then graduate to larger more complex areas and goals. You brought up some good balancing points there too. The way I intended the spawner levels to work, was that the less spawners there are the more concentrated the enemy population gets in the remaining areas, so it is tougher. But, I suspect the spawners aren't fast enough and things just thin out, especially if the player moves quickly. Will take a look at that!

I think my holy grail is getting a lot of variety into the play. So sometimes you're under pressure to loot the ship and get out, and other times due to different curcumstances you can take your time.. I'd like to be able to create different flavours of atmosphere you know? like tense, cautious progress with a couple of enemies which can kill you quick, vs all out shootyness. I guess varying between the atmosphere of the films alien and aliens basically

I'll post a proper update with new version soon (enemies fight each other if different species!), in the mean time here's some sketches:

[Inanimate]

This is stunning art, man! Pretty great game so far, too. I would like a little more control over tightening / spreading the squad (RJ keeps walking off, reminding me of Clyde, haha), but it's pretty neat! Maybe instead of "loot" it could be "necessary energy"?

[Starflier]

This is stunning art, man! Pretty great game so far, too. I would like a little more control over tightening / spreading the squad (RJ keeps walking off, reminding me of Clyde, haha), but it's pretty neat! Maybe instead of "loot" it could be "necessary energy"?

Ancient Ant Adventure is a somewhat similar game that had a really tight formation system. It's all built into one UI element with the weapon selection and upgrades in a way that, while not groundbreaking or anything, is really clean and usable.

Also: I'm loving the character designs. Surprising no one I guess, because they're awesome.

[Fyren]

You've probably considered this, but if you want a more Space Hulk/Aliens feel, you could remove non-LoS vision and add some sort of motion sensor view.  It could either be a minimap or just blips on the play area.  Or maybe it could be one unit's special ability that drained energy over time while on.  It could be indistinct like the table top Space Hulk version that merges all nearly blips into a single blip, so you're never sure how exactly how many there are.

And also, if you're not tired of hearing it from me, it got really easy again, heh.  The big enemies were nearly harmless and I could just rush up to them and surround them so that someone in my squad could hit.  Maybe make touching them damage you and give at least the smaller enemies a larger FoV.

In the most recent version, I saw a little bit of graphical glitching on the inside area of walls (that were thick enough to have an inside).  The textures seemed to be flickery, perhaps it was z-fighting?  I've got a 8800 GT and I was playing in full screen.

[RichMakeGame!]

hi! love the blips idea! gotta add it to the list of 'try out' stuff
I'm not too worried about the difficulty right now. Basically the enemies exist for me to test out various AI attributes (such as a new one I've added for small enemies: kamikaze)

the small ones now explode when they attack or die..

thanks for the bug report too, I noticed it as well and hopefully it should be gone more or less

thanks for the art encouragement too guys! appreciate it

Ok there's a new version in first post with some important changes.. the main thing I'd like feedback on is the new squad control stuff..

here's how the new system works:
1. Hold space to enter pause mode. This lets you think a bit about your actions more
2. right click on units to enter/exit guard mode. Note, to exit guard mode, a unit must be near the 'lead' player
3. click on unit tab to switch lead units. when a unit becomes active, any units close to him will become active and follow him.
4. MAIN POINT- when in pause mode, you can draw paths for any 'guard mode' units. left click and drag from the unit to draw a path.
5. press F at any time to tell guard units to follow their path

I'd really love people to fool about with this new guard and path system tell me what they think!!

thanks for looking!
-rich

also, here's an art update I'm testing out for the level tiles:

[Maunomau]

After trying earlier version (0.3 or 0.2 I think) I tried this again.
First of all "scanning location" took pretty long and at first I thought the game had crashed.(How about some sort of indication of stuff happening like "0/142 items scanned" or something)
Then I tried to figure out the controls shooting and orb collecting were easy although boxes were kind of hard to hit.
Even after playing for a while I couldn't figure out how to split the party so I thought that there's probably some button besides space that I'm missing and pressed F1 only to be thrown out of the game and forced to start a new game.
Including at least a readme with the controls would be super if ingame instructions are impossible.

Being able to move units in guard mode is great but I wish the camera would move more with the mouse and that you couldn't make paths over walls. Sometimes the activation of units nearby when selecting the lead units isn't what I want and sometimes it doesn't activate all of the units I want. I'd prefer just activate all button instead.
Different abilities of units are nice although I never got around to figuring out what the "snail" did.
Also there seems to be very little feedback on whether shots are effective or not, some sort of clearer sound and visual effect for when the big aliens aren't/are hurt would be nice. Maybe make the back have a different color.

I think having some clickable button for each unit to switch unit from active to guard and back(with greying out when unavailable) would be good.
Also explosions from little aliens don't look threatening enough. There are lots of other white explosions happening that you don't have to worry about.

Why the hell isn't the healthbars and the weird grey rectangles next to them usable for selecting the units?(It took at least an hour of frustration and randomly clicking around to figure it out)
And why can't you set units to guard through their names?

[Krux]

nice to see a revival of the good old Bullfrog games. Naming suggestion: Alien squad.

But notice it is very important to something around the alien figting. Having a base and sending out the squad into missions like in UFO would be awesome.

[Paul Jeffries]

This looks promising; my main crit at the moment would be that there doesn't seem to be any advantage to doing anything 'tactical' rather than just keeping all your guys together and concentrating their fire.  Sure, you can force the player to split them up using pressure plates etc. but that seems a little artificial.  I think the ideal solution is to create enemies that require more advanced tactics to defeat.  Say, ones that try to sneak around behind you so you need a rear-guard, ones with area-of-effect weaponry that you need to spread out to avoid, ones that carry shields that make them take very little damage from the front, but that are vulnerable to one of your guys sneaking round the back... maybe some kind of cover system that lets you pin enemies down while sending some of your guys flanking...

I suppose the downside to that would be that the more complicated the tactic the longer it would take to set up and the game would lose its current fast pace.

[RichMakeGame!]

Hi folks! thanks for taking a look

Paul J: thanks- I think part of the problem at the moment is that there are lots of features which are not very clearly presented or documented.. at the moment, the big guys are currently only vulnerable from behind, but there's no graphic to represent it..

Similarly, you can right now do the pin-flanking thing buy setting your guys to guard mode, and then taking one or two behind the enemies..

I'm currently adding a pressure plate type system, which equates to activating computer terminals. Terminals will have symbols and you will need to activate for example 2 terminals with corresponding symbols to a spawn point (eg, a hatch of some kind) and when you activate the right terminals the hatch closes. This can also be used for disabling security bots, or maybe activating pre-placed traps..

Endymion: fantastic feedback, really appreciate it. I'm sorry it's caused some frustration in parts, my next move is trying to sand down some of the rough edges in user interaction because I know its pretty bad in that area at the moment. These crits are extremely useful right now! cheers

[Starflier]

Just played V0.7 (To OCRemix's The Sound of Speed Sonic Remix, it fit so well ^^  )

It really seems to be gelling now, I feel like I'm entering a battlefield, trying to dodge and fight my way through someone else's war. I love the monster infighting, and that I can hear it going on, even when I can't see it. Having the option to either beeline for your goal or explore the whole ship really enhances the experience. The levels have a lot more character now too, though I kind of miss watching them generate.

For some reason, I keep entering a level right on top of a spawning pod. This happened four or five times in a row

I like the special power system, But I think Blue's isn't powerful enough, and I'm not entirely sure what Green's does. Personally I think Blue's burst should stun enemies as well as knock them backwards.

Sometimes the guard mode characters can't be unset by the right-click in pause mode. This happens quite a bit. Also I feel as though there should be a hotkey that recalls everyone.

Other than that, no real nitpicks. Your core game is there in full force.

[tyronehenrie]

I just tried it and aside from the fact that the flat shaded look will be SUPER DOPE I think the core game has a lot of potential for fun. Once the enemies are fleshed out more and have some clear unique abilities being communicated it will really shine.

For the tactical mode I would enjoy the option of changing who I have control of so I can really separate my team. I would like to go to tactical mode and give orders to each of the guys and then take the lead with any of them. Also, It seems a bit tedious to pin / unpin my guys. It may flow a bit better if you could give group commands like hold position and regroup just to get everyone in the same mode faster.

Looking and feeling good so far! Rock on.

[Starflier]

Okay, so, I know this isn't my game, and that by this point I should just back up and let you be, but I had a feature brainstorm.
What if, at the start of each new ship, two or three species of aliens were randomly generated? So in each ship you need to learn how to interact with your new enemies.

The aliens' behavior could just be a combination of attributes, such as Armored, Tiny, Fast, slow, Shooting, Minelaying, Exploding, and then the game makes two or three species per ship, using a combination of three attributes each.

[Starflier]

Preemptive Fan Art ^^

[Alquesm]

Cool game!

I played 3 levels, and it was pretty entertaining. However, the levels felt a bit cramped. Not much, but a little. I'm still not sure if I like that or not. I certainly adds to the tension that there's not much room.

It took some time for me to understand how to split up the team, but once I got it figured out, it worked pretty well. However, it was a baptism of fire, because on the first level my squad was immediately surrounded by a horde of small aliens, and some big ones. The small ones were charing me right on and new ones kept coming. The big ones kept firing at my squad, so I had to strafe the squad back and forth while maintaining my fire to keep the little ones from reaching my squad. And I couldn't kill the big ones unless I split up my team, but I was under attack and couldn't remember what I was supposed to do to split them up. That was pretty tense and frustrating. So I had to run away with my squad and hide somewhere to figure out the controls.

Here is my suggestions to improve the game experience:
- A group on guard should to some degree be able to duck or avoid enemy fire. It happened to me several times, that I had split up the team and was collecting intel, when I heard that high pitched sound when my squad is hit by fire. It would be nice if my team would yell over a radio (Either via audio or text on screen) that they're under attack. Maybe even tell me if they see a Big One, so I know I have to get back to flank it.
- I'm not sure how, but I think the squad should be able to fire individually. When being stormed by a horde of small ones from different directions, it's a bit frustrating that they all shoot in the same direction, at the same target. Would it be possible to make them a bit smarter so they would pick different targets?
- About the special abilities: I didn't really find a need for them. Besides my baptism of fire, I didn't really have any problems with the enemies, so I didn't have any motivation for exploring these special abilities. I did, however, try out the snail ability, but I was a bit confused when I couldn't see any timer on screen after I used it. So I had no idea when I would go back to normal.
- Loading screen. I also thought the game had crashed because nothing happened for some time. It would be nice if the player could somehow see that the game was doing something.
- Exiting a level. I accomplished the goal on a level and went for the exit with my squad. However, just when the first two of my squad members crossed the exit, a grey block popped out of nowhere and blocked the exit, and the last two of my squad members were pushed back into the level. So I had 2 squad members outside of the level and two inside the level. The game did continue however, and all squad members were reunited in the next level. :-)

Well, that's it for now. I'll keep an eye out for updates to this. :-)