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[RichMakeGame!]

hey! I seem to have stopped getting auto-updates on the thread- Starflier that is PIMP! haha love it :D

Alquesm:

yeah good crits.. I've got a new version with much lower load times (none more or less on my machine) but it's kind of in a few pieces right now and not ready to release. But the load times will be fixed next version :]

Usability at the moment is pretty weak on the squad control.. there's some unexplained things too. to answer the question of firing in different directions: I want to keep that to split off squad members- but if you put someone on guard, you can right-click drag from them and they will face that direction. Its also not obvious, but guard mode members have a shield which protects from alien shots. I'll probably make that front-facing only so you need to think about their direction carefully

thanks for the input!!

ok, really I need to get a new version out asap don't I

[Alquesm]

if you put someone on guard, you can right-click drag from them and they will face that direction. Its also not obvious, but guard mode members have a shield which protects from alien shots.

Ah, nice, I didn't know either of that.

I just noticed a small bug when I tried your game again. In the first level, my goal was to find the black/white item. I found it, and was heading for the exit, but before I could get to the exit, the game changed the screen to a temporary screen where I should press space, and when I pressed space, I got kicked back to the main menu? My squad was about half a screen from the exit when it happpened, and in case it matters, I was near the top exit.

[RichMakeGame!]

emm, yeah another unexplained thing, sorry!!

basically, in the 'map' top right, the flashing room is the current room, and the white room is the 'end goal' room for the ship you're in. if you complete the white room, its mission complete- except a really crude mission complete which dumps you to menu :S

[RichMakeGame!]

update! its been a while eh..
link is in the first post, please give it a whirl low low load times!



stuff:

- loading should be much quicker, also got rid of level transition delay

- exploding boxes!! also new type of explosion, follows corridors etc. em, grenades are still infinite at the mo try not to abuse them for testing. but for fun, go ahead

- fiddled with enemy toughness

- fixed some bugs and added exit doorway graphics to make exits more obvious, added new characters.

EDIT: oh yeah! bouncy bullets! im testing them out. I might keep them, or make them into an ability (create a field, and any bullets fired into it become bouncy)

IDEAS:
I think I want to make much more out of the abilities. I want to have an inventory of ability items, each item has say, 4 uses. tactics arise from choosing which 4 to have in play at once. Focus is less on which character has the ability item, but more on where they are positioned.. eg. one which shoots out a grenade, and when it activates it draws a tripwire back to the user. so you can leave him at one side of a doorway with the tripwire, then lure enemies through with the other mercs.

any ideas along these lines would be awesome btw :D. I'm also thinking about area affect ones around a merc, which wear off if they move about too much, so its beneficial to activate the power, leave him in guard mode then use the other mercs somehow. eg: stealth field around merc, 'slow enemy' field around merc.. that sort of thing.

does that sound like it might introduce more interesting scenarios to use the squad split with?

anyway, thanks for reading if you got this far
-rich

[Starflier]

Yay for explosions!

It seems a lot more tense now, The enemies seem like a real threat, but It feels right that I can sneak around behind them too. the Radar blips make things actually more tense; Knowing roughly where the aliens are, but not being able to see them is just plain scary.

I found "buttons", I'm assuming these don't do anything yet, but will someday?

Oh, and exploding blocks + bouncing bullets = I have to be more careful about where I shoot O.O

[Starflier]

Okay, so played a little more, and actually have some of the feedback you asked for. But first: Are the mission types and spawners coming back? I miss them

Here's some ideas I had for items that each character could have in his arsenal:
Yellow (Artillery):
Grenade - Current special
Mine - Pretty self-explanatory
Heavy Turret - Can't move once placed. Yellow must be guarding close to it for it to work.
Shot Power boost - Increases the strength of all character's bullets for a time. Wears off faster when Yellow moves.

Blue (Trapper):
Machete - Current special
Walls - Two nodes are placed, and as long as Blue is on one of them, an electric wall is powered up between them. The wall slowly fades after Blue leaves (Maybe wall electrocutes aliens rather than just stopping them)
Alien Bait - Calls all the aliens in the level (Or an area of effect) towards Blue
Stealth Field - As long as Blue doesn't move, Aliens can't see him. (wears off over time)

Red (Physicist)
C-Jump - Current special
Portal Generator - Drop two nodes and portals are created on both. Walk through one to come out the other. (Maybe Red needs to be guarding nearby for it to work?)
Tesla Coil - Light, chain-forming damage on nearby enemies. Red needs to be guarding nearby for this to work
Tractor Beam - Pick up and throw enemies or guarding characters
Reload Boost - Increases reload speed of all characters. Wears off over time, more quickly if Red is moving

Green (Chronomancer)
Bullet Time - Current special, but fades more quickly when green moves
Time Clones - "ghost" team that follows your team's actions, starting at the beginning of the level
Freeze Ray - Stops anything hit by the beam, wears off eventually
Speed Trap - Slows down anything in it's area of effect. More effective the closer Green is to it.

[RichMakeGame!]

those are some great ideas man thanks!

I've decided to take a few steps back and see if I can't make the game a little more unique in terms of the gameplay. I will be coming back to those special powers though, so those ideas are definately going to get used

so- as for the new direction- I'll probably start a new thread soon to reflect the change, but for now here's a prototype of my thinking- I'd love any thoughts on how players feel about it- my best description I can come up with is Space Hulk crossed with Pool

http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/GBM_0.1.zip

So basically the focus is taken right off shooting, and onto the grenades. It's all about trajectories and bouncing stuff off other stuff to land your grenade right next to the baddie. There's a lot fewer bad guys, but they're tough- if you try to go in guns blazing it won't go well . Thankfully, you have plenty of grenades and explosive barrels to do the job :D

Controls are in the readme- you only need the mouse
thanks!

[Fyren]

The control scheme doesn't seem very amenable to moving and throwing grandes at the same time.  You kind of end up coming to a full stop to do anything.

Also, the grenade path lines don't take the grenade width into consideration.  I'm not sure if you want the line to reflect the power for the throw, maybe this would make it too easy.  But I had a hard time judging it.  Is the relationship between how far you pull back and how hard it throws not linear?  Or is there friction/inelastic collision?

[RichMakeGame!]

yeah, you can't really move and fire- I guess I'm aiming for a bit of a slower pace really. Maybe it just works out frustrating though?

the path doesnt currently you're right. its really a rough guide at the moment.. Part of me thought it might be a good thing to still require a bit of aiming judgement, but I'm going to have a crack at getting that more accurate

the pull back part- it is linear, but the line that stretches towards your mouse- when that stops getting longer its on maximum. Right now theres a slight problem in that the scenery can obscure this line.. I'll look at that too!

any ideas on communicating clearly to the player how that all works? or would you do it differently altogether? I do like the elastic-ping feel to firing the grenades

thanks for checking it out!

[Fyren]

It was pretty obvious how stuff worked in general, so I don't think that's an issue.  I just wasn't good at getting the grenades to land where I wanted.  It seemed like, say, pulling back 25% compared to like 75% of the way didn't have the toss distances go 1:3, but maybe bouncing around made me misjudge.

If it ends up I ever want to move and toss grenades at the same time, I think I would get annoyed.  Keyboard for movement might fix this.  I'm not sure if I like having to click on the guy to start the throw, but I guess it does add to the "elastic" feeling.  The alternative would be to just click and hold anywhere.

[Starflier]

It all feels really good so far. The way the mouse movement works either by either clicking at the end point, or clicking and dragging is especially effective for darting under cover, which is basically all you're doing movement-wise. I also like that when an alien is close behind you as you run away, you automatically turn around to shoot at it. Elegant as that is however, it brings up the first issue I had:

I get the whole shift of focus, and the pool-style gameplay is a lot of fun. But as it stands, there's nothing to keep you from getting an alien to chase you, then shooting it 'till it dies. In other words, you could win the game without ever using the core mechanic. I think you'd be better off removing the machine guns altogether, and just give each character an assortment of weapons and special items that use the grenade mechanic, with actually encountering the aliens being something to avoid at all costs. (Maybe you kill them when you run into them, but it damages you as well)

There's so many cool variations on weapons that can use that grenade mechanic... Cluster bombs, seekers, Mines, Sticky bombs, Flame throwers. You could even make a more powerful machine gun with limited ammo, so, like, you run into a room full of baddies and start pegging them off. A shotgun and a sniper rifle would be cool too. Even non-weapons, like electric walls, an area scanner (For letting you see what type of alien those blips are), or portable wormholes, could be thrown in a similar manner.

If you do end up getting rid of the standard machine gun, the right mouse button should be deligated to a passive power, like invisibility, or Red's old jump ability. Something that will make it easier to run away from murderous aliens, but only has one or two uses.

Oh, and the new set-up makes this one of the easiest to play with a laptop touchpad games I've ever played. Just so you know

[Stib]

Hey there RichMakeGame! I hope you still want feedback. I played the 0.8 version of your game for a bit and below are my random thoughts while playing. I didn't read any instructions prior to playing.

• Wanted to hold mouse button to fire instead of click.
• Like the way the squad moves. I didn't have to think about that too much
• AI didn't come running at me when I shot it in the back, which seems unlikely.
• Top down view looks good. Suits game well
• Barrels are fun
• Didn't understand powerups at first. Seems unintuitive to fire at a powerup. Getting in close proximity to the powerup would be simpler and easier to understand.
• I like the fog of war
• Like the red pings from aliens
• Music is going to be a big part of this game in terms of atmosphere
• Didn't understand what the blocks with symbols are for. They seem like switches but I couldn't really figure out how to separate my squad
• Bullets stop at my cursor but they hit what ever is in their way (2d) So this encourages the player to aim long, because if the player aims short the bullets may stop and not hit the target. In my opinion it would be conveinient to just let the bullets fly past the target until they hit. Not really a big deal.
• Bullets bounce off walls. I'm not really sure this adds anything to the game. It's interesting but from the levels I've played not that useful.
• I like the look of the solders.
• I'm not sure what the nine cubes in the upper right are for
• I've figured out that I can select my squad leader and each squad member has a different ability. I like this feature.
• Not sure what the Yellow/Purple powerups do. The green powerup is for health. and Blue is for special abilities.
• There are so many powerups its almost annoying. I want to spend my time killing things, not scavenging.
• After beating a level, I was generated into the new one almost right in the middle of a group of aliens. I find this very annoying. Let me orient and then hit me.
• At times I would like the aliens to come at me in large groups. I want to go into defensive mode. Like maybe I get trapped in a room with two entrances and the aliens are pouring in. Simply hunting them down ALL the time gets a little dull. Mix it up. Honestly I think the basic goal of hunting down the aliens is a little flawed in this way. I think it would be better to have an over arching goal to accomplish. It could be as simple as, get to the other side of the base, or even just survive. After reading more of the thread I see this has been mentioned.
• I could be wrong but it seemed that if you ran out of barrels and grenades (my grenade guy died) and there are big aliens remaining, you're screwed and you might as well die. Even with barrels it's pretty hard to get them to follow you.
• I didn't ever have a big need to split up my squad.
• I got to level 8 or 9 before a squad member died and that's only because I spawned into another huge group at the start of the level. Still I did take damage through the levels and at times needed a health powerup.

My biggest suggestion is to give the player goals to achieve in this hostile environment. Also if you really want to build suspense you need to do a couple things.
1. Let the player know they are in danger. Make them think they could be attacked and killed at any time.
2. Make them worry but not constantly. That can get exhausting. Give some breaks/safe-zones.
3. Don't show them the danger until it's time to attack. And I would suggest making large attacks. You can make aliens easy to kill but if you use large numbers you could overwhelm the player and trigger the psychological flight response. So they will freak out and that's fun  
4. Once the attack starts it turns into a complete fire fight.

To do this you could have an alien here or there roaming the halls and have areas that when entered trigger large attacks. Just my thoughts. If you haven't seen it, watch the TV show 24 or play Left 4 Dead to learn more about suspense. They are masters at this.  

Overall, I liked it  

[RichMakeGame!]

Stib: Whoah man, heavy duty breakdown! really appreciate the depth you went into! Now, you may notice I'm taking a different direction with the project but tons of your points still apply so it's all good info to have

I've got a new build of the GBM direction:
http://www.redprodukt.com/smc/GBM_0.2.zip


Fyren: I've been spending time since the last update on improving the aim and prediction, I hope it seems better now! I know theres still room for improvement though . shots bounce a bit more now (they lost some power hitting walls) so I also hope the power feels easier to judge, but I havent taken a closer look at that part just yet.

I like the 'click hold anywhere' aiming idea, but I'd need to sacrifice mouse movement or guns.. MAYBE, instead of right click guns I could just have you click on something to shoot at it, click anywhere else to move, and right click drag does grenade (click anywhere to fire). This would allow for shooting and moving, but might interfere with the camera code.. I'll get back to you on it

Starflier:
great points.. I personally felt that if I charged in with machineguns last build I would die much quicker than using grenades, but anyway I changed it and now there's no doubt . The aliens are fast :D. they take a bit less damage to kill though, but they'll probably reach you and start doing damage before you can machinegun them. Fairly sure grenades are the optimal strategy now. Running away is a dangerous strategy in later levels with more baddies too, as you can end up running right into them

I do plan to keep the machinegun in, because: 1- when I introduce grenade ammo, you'll want to finish off hurt aliens with it instead of wasting ammo and 2- its sort of a cushion if you fuck up and the guys can try to save themselves without needing to sit on a grenade :] (which will soon do a little self-damage). itll also be effective at cracking open crates/triggering explosive barrels

cant wait to add in some grenade types, been playing old quake mods for inspiration :]