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[J. Kyle Pittman]

Updated October 25, 2008: Arc Aether Anomalies is complete.  The final build is available here.

• Added "sticky" aim assist (optional, enabled by default)
• Added non-linear scaling for Xbox 360 analog stick axes
• Increased the gravity on pickup cells so they are much easier to collect
• Bug fixes to leaderboard system
• Various other tweaks and fixes what I've forgotten

Updated October 14, 2008:

Added online leaderboards.  Tweaked some of the game rules; movement is a little less floaty now, and pickup cells don't disappear so soon.  The Controls and About menus have been implemented.  Added options for mouse speed, Y-look invert, and southpaw/legacy gamepad controls.  Added a fade-out when the game is over before the mission analysis screen pops up.  Made several engine performance optimizations.  Set up a site up here: http://www.j-kyle.com/arc/


Arc Aether Anomalies is a 6DOF arcade shooter.  I've been working on it since February, based on tech that I've been developing since I was a student of the Guildhall.

Regarding desired feedback, mostly I just want to know:
Does it run?  This is original tech, which means original bugs.  I've successfully tested it on a handful of machines, but I'm still pretty wary of some of the shortcomings of my engine.
Is it fun?  I'm too close to the project to be objective.

As far as system requirements go, you'll need at least a Shader Model 2 compatible graphics card.  The faster the better.  I'm afraid I can't be more specific than that at this time.

Controls:
The Xbox 360 controller is currently supported.  (WASD/mouse is also supported, naturally.)  Support for more devices and a complete control binding option will be coming...at some point.

WASD/mouse or analog sticks: fly around
Left mouse button or right trigger: fire laser
Right mouse button or left trigger: fire arc beam

The laser is straightforward.  Shoot baddies ("spores").  Blow them up.  Collect the cells they drop.

The arc beam is where it gets interesting.  This will freeze baddies in place.  If you keep it locked on a baddie for a little while, he'll mutate into a bigger, faster baddie (a "superspore").  When you shoot these guys, they'll drop more cells and split into two smaller guys.

Grabbing cells (by running into them) increases your score multiplier and the remaining time.  There's no health bar -- you play until you run out of time, so grabbing cells is important to stay in the game.  The longer you play, the less time you get per cell, so it's best to collect as many as you can early in the game.

Download (updated October 25)
http://www.j-kyle.com/arc/Anomalies_Install_2008-10-25.exe

Screenshots:

[Bezzy]

Really beautiful. Particulates, fogging, rimlight stuff - all put together pretty masterfully.

Would love an invert Y axis option to be able to judge the gameplay a bit better though.

Red blood cells seem to disappear maybe a bit to quickly - before I even know what to do with them? Unless it's going to be part of core gameplay (edit: just realized they increase your clock. Didn't notice it while playing first time through to be honest, though - possibly get some more noticeable motion graphic events going on with hud text when you collect them?), I'd consider treating them like "God Of War"/"Ninja Gaiden" power orbs - auto gravitate them toward the player, and have some kind of effect + sound effect to show they're being collected.

As for the arc vs. regular shot... it seems like a pretty "niche" function for a whole weapon to take up, somehow? I was wondering, what if you had an enemy type which grew due to your laser fire, which then "deflated" over time, spawning the basic badguys as it did so, so that you could farm the smaller guys. And if you simply overload that "spawner" enemy, he'd pop, but get you less points (but for the trade off of less dangers).

It's a little bit hard to keep the bad guys in my view with console controls. You might want to consider a console fps style tweak, such that, if you are aiming at an enemy, your turning "inherits" the movement of the enemy you're aiming at... a sort of a sticky-aim assistance which doesn't "hard" lock you to any one target, but just helps you "maintain" aim a little easier. Try some Halo 3 or COD4 in local multiplayer and test out its aiming to see what I mean.

The floatyness of the aim sort of makes sense given the theme, but any time you reduce the responsiveness of controls, you're most likely to antagonize. I'd recommend tightening the aim smoothing as much as you can without completely loosing it.

edit: Pretty good article about it here.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2119/firstperson_control_design_for_.php

Taking away input control when stunned is a definite no-no, though. I like the rumble you've got going when you're hit, but extend that into more effects (especially showing that you're losing time off your clock). This idea might be worth an experiment as a replacement for losing control: "bump" the aim velocity toward the enemy who just hit me, while giving me a simultaneous impulse away from the enemy so that it hints toward where the attack is coming from. Obviously, if the player is bumped into another enemy as a result, they might want to ignore the "emergent" bump since they're in a bit of an "invincibility cool off" period. Represent on screen the duration of that period (flashing crosshair?)

[Stargoat]

Worked fine over here, although is a tad stuttery at the start of a game, 2.2ghz c2d, 2 gigs ram, 8600 M GT.

I obsolutely love the aesthetic of the game, very awesome. Not quite sure why shooting spores releases blood cells... or why collecting them is good, but it's cool none the less .

The arcadey-ness to it is nice, too. The arc-beam mechanic is neat, but could be fleshed-out a bit more, perhaps something along the lines of "linking" mutated spores (for a larger score multiplier... or simultaneous destruction?)? Additionally, the time increase given by collecting cells is... perhaps a little insignificant.

I'd really like to see something... larger made out of this, more adventure-like. What's there at the moment is still high in awesome, but a true classic could be on your hands if you bring it further. Good luck with the project.

[Alex May]

Looks great of course. I'd love to see the terrain used for something a little speedier. It feels like it's inside a body, so it would be cool to be going on a journey through a bunch of stuff, having to deal with currents etc.

With respect to the sound, it sounds really arcadey, and that's OK, but I kind of expected a little more in terms of organic effects, you know? Watery stuff, like when colliding with the terrain, and this is a gameplay issue as well, it feels hard, like I don't want to collide with it, and that detracts from the organic feel of the game along with the synthetic sound effects. I feel like I'm battling the synthetic stuff rather than being the synthetic stuff!

Echoing earlier feedback I think that the point and shoot gameplay is good if you have some more responsive controls, particularly if you're giving the player a time limit. This kind of 3D spacial aiming isn't easy to do with mouse lag and isn't particularly well-suited to stick control either although I didn't try that in this case.

I like the idea that careful use of the beam weapon will let you play for a very long time on any level if you're good, but that wasn't well communicated, and I kept missing tutorial messages as I was concentrating on the display rather than the messages in the corner. I think that needs reworking a bit - probably a good idea to introduce the concepts over a couple of levels.

As Bezzy said the red blood cells disappear too quickly for me to do anything with them - I feel like I want to play the game as a gathering thing, collecting as many of them as possible. See PixelJunk Eden to understand what I mean - you get tons of stuff from each action but collecting all the stragglers could be bad for your time limit, it might not be worth it. With this I feel like I can't shoot a bunch of stuff and then swoop in and collect the goods. The short life span of the collectables means I'm essentially limited to destroying one spore at a time.

Hope that helps. I'm interested to see where this one goes, good luck!

[deadeye]

Looks amazing.  It ran really smooth on my machine and I have just about the cheapest possible card you can get that still supports pixel shader 2.

I agree with the previous statements regarding the floatiness of the aiming.  Some float would make sense, but I think this is just a tad too much.  Though I must have gotten somewhat used to it, because after I finished playing I had a hard time clicking on my Quick Launch icons for a few seconds there (I opened both Winamp and Notepad before finally getting at the Firefox icon between them )

I'm not sure I dig the timer-based play.  I was hardly aware of the timer the first time I played, and when my game ended I was rather mystified.  The second go around I was a little more prepared and had a bit longer game, but as was stated before the cells tend to disappear a little too quickly.

Another thing that bothers me slightly is the aspect ratio.  Well, not the ratio itself, but the squished-in feeling I get from it, as though it's cutting off my field of view.  It was rather hard to keep track of several different spores if they went out of view and I got hit from above and below a lot.  While playing I thought it might be nice to have somewhat of a fish-eye lens effect going on so you can see more of the surrounding area, and I think the fish-eye aesthetic would actually compliment the micro-biological atmosphere nicely as well.

[Farmergnome]

controls were a bit too floaty, and its a pain in the ass to collect the cells, maybe make them move toward you when dropped or something, very pretty, overall great job 

Actually, to be honest, shooting spore things isnt the best part of the game, but the enviros and atmosphere itself, I think you should realy expand on that and make that the focus, like swimming around inside someones body, hell yea, and have shooting as the secondary focus.  Also, I dont know how hard it would be to do, but making the walls of the (whatever it is) spongey, would be badass.

[Alex May]

Actually, to be honest, shooting spore things isnt the best part of the game, but the enviros and atmosphere itself, I think you should realy expand on that and make that the focus, like swimming around inside someones body, hell yea, and have shooting as the secondary focus.  Also, I dont know how hard it would be to do, but making the walls of the (whatever it is) spongey, would be badass.

Signed!

[J. Kyle Pittman]

Excellent feedback all around.  Thanks, guys!

I originally conceived this on a larger scale, with more of an emphasis on exploration and discovery, and less arcade shooter action.  The decision to downscope it into a time-based shooter was mostly a pragmatic one, and while I think this has the potential to stand on its own as a fun little game, I tend to think of it as a stepping stone on the way to something bigger.  I'd still very much like to return to my original fleshed-out vision at some point, and it's encouraging to know that there would be interest in something like that.

[brog]

I'd still very much like to return to my original fleshed-out vision at some point

Pun intended?

[Hideous]

I can't download it. It says it finishes immediately, but when I try to open it it just fails.

[deadeye]

I'd still very much like to return to my original fleshed-out vision at some point, and it's encouraging to know that there would be interest in something like that.

I would definitely be interested in something like that.  As it stands now, it's very pretty and impressive but doesn't hold a lot of replay value.  And considering you developed this from scratch, to leave it as it is now would seem a waste of all that effort.  Hanging some deeper content onto the existing framework would transform this from "slick tech demo" to "potentially classic game."

[PHeMoX]

I can't download it. It says it finishes immediately, but when I try to open it it just fails.

I don't know what you've tried , but usually this sort of thing happens when I right click & download things that stubbornly want to open themselves in a pop-up kind of way.

[Zaknafein]

Just wanted to chime in to say how much I liked the graphics. It's like I'm playing a demoscene production. I loved the fullscreen shader effects!

[Hideous]

I can't download it. It says it finishes immediately, but when I try to open it it just fails.

I don't know what you've tried , but usually this sort of thing happens when I right click & download things that stubbornly want to open themselves in a pop-up kind of way.

Yeah I fixed it by clearing my cache.

In other news, this lags a lot, but not as much as I had thought it would.

[PHeMoX]

Cool to play.

[Graham Lexie]

The graphics are sweeeeet. The stereo windlike noise while moving sounds awesome with headphones. The controls really didn't bother me at all(I used keyboard/mouse btw), but I got bored after ten minutes or so. You definitely need to expand the gameplay somehow.

[Radiant]

As a big fan of the Descent series, I must say this sounds very promising.

Unfortunately it doesn't run on my system, it gives an error about DirectX input. Then again I needed to upgrade my specs anyway.

[Pishtaco]

It runs fine for me, on a 128mb Radeon mobility 9700.

I liked: the graphics; the controls. The floatiness felt good.

I didn't like: the bloopy sound and the shooty left-mouse-button laser. They felt too lightweight and space-invadery for this cool biological game. The right mouse button attack is better, but the horizontal flash you get at the end of it looks out of place in a world where everything is curving and there's no up and down.

Not sure about: the narrow field of view. I like the fish-eye suggestion above. Alternatively, putting in a straight radar probably wouldn't fit with the style of the game, but maybe you could do something with blurry colours or dots in your periphal vision, showing at least when you're about to bump into something.

[J. Kyle Pittman]

New build is available here: http://www.j-kyle.com/arc/Anomalies_Install_2008-10-14.exe.  I've updated the first post with this info as well.

The biggest change here is the addition of online leaderboards, which I felt was essential for a score-based game like this.  Beyond that, there are a number of general performance improvements, slightly more responsive controls, and a functional Controls menu with settings for mouse speed, look invert, and a handful of other options.

[ThetaGames]

I really like this; the graphics are near perfect, and the gameplay is ideally simple and fun.  Those vessel walls (and cells, for that matter) really did remind me of House.  Nice work!

~ Theta Games