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[Xonatron]

I do not wish to beat a dead horse, but EvilDingo is right and I think I can help: Consider the idea of "popcorn" enemies. They are popular in all the great shmups, enough to have their own name! They are enemies that die with one hit. Most indie shmups usually fail to capture this and have waves of enemies that cannot be killed. And your game is exactly that (only with asteroids)! The problem that is created is a feeling of powerlessness.

All that said, I do not wish to sway your design one way or the other, but I do wish to help. If you did everything I suggested, you would end up with a Xona Games shmup!

[skaz]

To respond to both of your criticisms, in the build I'm woking on, asteroids are not just a kind of static enemy that you can destroy, they are treated as obstacles but you can move them with your weapons. I'm even considering the possibility of making them indestructible with bullets, and only make that possible with specialised weapons (missiles, drills...). Destroying an obstacle only makes a situation simpler, it's a basic way of solving problems.

In SHMUPS, especially bullet hell, you make situation more complicated by adding obstacles, and a lot of them can't be destroyed. I choose to treat asteroids as massive, heavy object you can influence, and the only efficient way to solve the situation they produce is to let them go out of the screen. It can be simple dodge, but you can also use them as cover or even weapons, if you deflect them on your enemies. You can also push enemies on asteroids. If you get caught in heavy fire, you will get kicked too. It create situations a lot more interesting than simply "destroy everything on screen to make way", you have to analyse the situation and decide what's the most efficient.
It opens a lot of design possibilities, like enemies you can't destroy with bullets but only by throwing asteroids at them, or boss fights in which you have to use asteroids to take cover.

But I do understand the simple joy of swaying a lot of stuff, I think smaller asteroid could be a part of this, especially if they appear in dense clouds you have to eat a way through. You can still destroy them very easily, and even if they don't do massive damages they kick you out of your way, which can lead to dramatic consequences :p I'll consider the opportunity to make really weak enemies too, but it's not a priority tight now, as adding stuff only move an hypothetical deadline away.

Next build will be out soon, you'll have the opportunity to tell me if the game is more enjoyable this way.

[TS42]

Hey skaz,

your game looks very nice. I really like your art style. /follow

I'm working on a space ship simulation game since over a year now... I don't have much time to work on it and haven't worked on it the last weeks because it's kind of frustrating with the features (and because I just have short time frames to work on it... so adding a big feature in 5-10 sessions is a huge pain). Maybe your solution to cut the list and make something that works with less/simple features is a good advice. I'll try that



 

[Xonatron]

It create situations a lot more interesting than simply "destroy everything on screen to make way"

Good explanation. Thanks for breaking that down for us. I understand better what you are shooting for now. Perhaps when the design of your games is ironed out this philosophy of your game will be better communicated and the expectation for it to be following another shmup's philosophy will no longer exist.

[skaz]

@ TS42

Than you very much! Not sure to understand what you mean by splitting tasks, do you mean that I've hacked the initial game idea of several "games" and only taken one, or the way I slice features and try to integrate them?

But if you're alone, I guess going for simplicity is really the only realistic way, at least for me... Don't get yourself discouraged! Something I've found out, if you loose interest and get frustrated, do something inside the project that is not a priority but gets you exited. You are at least going toward somewhere, and you might get your mojo back while doing so  Keep yourself excited about the project. if you aren't, and can't get excited about seeing it moving toward completion, maybe it's the wrong project. Again, only my point of view, for what it's worth 

@ Xonatron

Yep, I guess I can't really convey the goal of this project because it's really taking shape with each iteration. But I can tell you what it's not going toward, and that's classic SHMUPS, and bullet hell especially. Not that I found anything wrong about this genre, it just doesn't appeal that much to me. So I'll have to make a game about ships fighting in space that fits another nomenclature :D

ANYWAY.

A NEW BUILD IS READY!

Let's call it the KINETIC build!

Get it on gamejolt as usual!  Can't believe I've already earned 10 cents thanks to the site, I guess it makes me a PROFESSIONAL, isn't it??? 

To sum up the goal of this update: it's about the feeling of weight and density of objects, shall I say, the simple kinetic joy of manipulating virtual objects (I read books sometimes). everything can collide with everything, and asteroids are now a threat you must deal with by pushing them. They're now indestructible. The "engine" I wrote to manage collisions is far from perfect, but tries to gives a feeling of coherence. Bullets impact pushes stuff away, it's your way to control objects. Well, colliding in asteroids also moves them a bit... But you will get heavily damaged and kicked back, don't try this at home kids! At least the shield proves useful to negates those collision's damages.

Ships also bumps into each others, opening a lot of possibilities in the future. Asteroids comes from anywhere but the bottom of the screen. Funky collisions of asteroids coming from opposite directions might turn some places into steel grinder. Pay attention!

I remade some graphic stuff, bullets especially are now way BIGGER. I guess I play to much nuclear throne? But recent experimentations with backgrounds proves my previous bullets hard to read on non-black background. So I made them bigger and more contrasted. Shield was remade too. Double minigun pirate ship was also redesigned with bigger miniguns. HUD HP and Energy were also remade bigger, more contrasted.

Alternative weapons are back, you now have a spaceship SHOTGUN. short range, high recoil, huge damages and a huge knock back, it's one shot material, try it!

I almost forgot, GAMEPAD IS SUPPORTED. Not perfect, but it's still a W.I.P. You might get weird slow movements while the left stick is released, I'm working on fixing that. For now, if your pad is plugged, it's the default control, keyboard won't respond. But why would you want to play with the keyboard anyway? :p I'll implement a toggle option when a MENU will be planed...

The CONTROLS:

Keyboard:

WASD(ZQSD also works) to move
Arrows to shoot in 8 directions
left ctrl to fire the shotgun
SPACE to activate the shield
R to restart

Gamepad:

Right stick : move
Left stick : shoot and aim
Left Trigger : shield
Right Trigger : shotgun
Start to restart

As usual, feel free to kick me on the head with anything you want, I love it.

It's a huge change of gameplay, I'm eager to know what you think of it!

Skaz

[Zorg]

When i started the new version i had the impression i'd prefer left shift instead of left ctrl for the shotgun, but then i discovered right ctrl and everything was fine. I'll test it with gamepad soon, but i already can say this is the best version so far. Especially kicking around asteroids and enemies with the shotgun is fun, the regular turret still feels pretty powerless against enemies, they take too many hits before destruction, imo. You should not spawn all asteroids at once, increase them over time instead, start with one enemy and one asteroid.

It's good, i like it. Add a difficulty curve, a menu (customizing controls), music/sounds and you have a very cool game.

[skaz]

Thanks for the feedback, I do hope builds keep getting better, otherwise I will be doing very bad work :p

The physics of the game must become a core mechanic, and I must design encounters in which manipulating asteroids is required to either throw them on enemies, or use them to deflect deadly attacks.

I get your feeling of powerlessness, but I don't really want the game to turn into an instakill fiesta. Shotgun grants you some lethal power when fire point blank, pushing enemies with the minigun is part of the fun. I couldn't achieve that with high damages bullets. BUT I still get your point, I have several options:
- make weak enemies to give some self appreciation to the player, like small drones attacking in swarm
- design enemies firing destructible projectiles, like missiles
- lower small ships HP, but design encounters with very powerful ships you can't simply outgun

The spawning sequence are very basic, because I simply couldn't program something more complex for now. It's my next task

Side note, I won't work on the project for a few days, I'll be participating in the Ludum Dare this week end, it's my first jam, I can't wait!

[Niteris]

Your game looks great!

Let me know if you need trailers or other promotional videos for it, I'm a freelancer audio/video editor (and voice actor if you need it) and I work extremely quickly and at a fair price.

Send me an email at [email protected] 

[skaz]

Four months since I stopped developing this game, but the recent achievement of FINISHING a game just got me willing to do it again with this project. Problem was I didn't knew where I was going, and features after feature crept into the game aimlessly. I finally decided what this game will be about, and I will stick my guns to it.

First, the game will be renamed. Welcome
VOID MINER



Get it HERE!

As the title may suggest, it's a mining game from now on. Mining asteroids is a pretty cool thing to do, specially with a pair of heavy drills attached to a spaceship. The gameplay will be centred around the collecting aspect: mine asteroid, ore fly around, fly to get the ore, increase your score. Of course pirates are still a part of the equation, and the will harass you, damage you and kick the asteroids around. They are also you only source of health, as destroying them spawn scrap metal to repair the ship. Destroying them with the drill will get you extra scrap, too.


Mandatory screenshot.

The central part of the game is to intercept asteroids loaded with ore, either by shooting at them if they fly in your direction, or by direct drilling to slow them down. Right now, everything is random as for the spawn sequence, but I plan on doing it in a more controlled way: asteroids with ore will spawn based on a semi-random timer, so mining as much as possible from every single one will be the best way to score, as difficulty will increase during the game. Preventing your precious asteroid from leaving the screen while fighting pirates at the same time is quite challenging!

So for now, I'm looking for feedback on the core gameplay, does drilling the asteroid feels fun, is it too hard, too easy, what do you fin challenging? Every feedback is highly welcome.

The CONTROLS:

Keyboard:

WASD(ZQSD also works) to move
Arrows to shoot in 8 directions
SPACE to drill
R to restart

Gamepad (still WIP):

Right stick : move
Left stick : shoot and aim
Left Trigger : drll
Start to restart