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[handCraftedRadio]

It would be so sick if we could set up a tournament of this game. We could compete to see who is the Ultimate Samurai Warrior.

C'mon - don't be modest - we all know it's you. =)

Why do you think I want a tournament so bad?

Derek, I like the idea, only the player should have to wear 3d goggles so the ninja jumps right out of the screen and onto your face.

[Bennett]

Oh Derek, your artwork suggestions seem to all fall on a particular theme! :D I almost decided to add your he-man pose to the game today, but then I decided to keep it simple. I think you might be secretly itching to do some kind of 80s airbrushed Conan/HeMan/KarateKid/Airbrush game. It would look like this:



On a serious note, I'll try adding an introductory sprite, but I don't want it to affect the loading time. I hate flash games which have a 'now loading...' progress bar. I just want them to appear. I even briefly considered getting rid of all the music - that would reduce it down to about 45k.

[AdamAtomic]

I know this will make the game easier, but...I would outlaw certain angles of shuriken, or at least allow them to be blocked from multiple angles.  Now this might just be because I suck of course!  But every time I lost it was because a shuriken was coming in very low (like under a 30 degree angle from the ground) and yet it was I guess suppose to be an up, and not a left or right.  I have yet to actually see a ninja throw from anything I would consider above me - am I just blowing at this game, or is this a semi-real issue?  I think it would be more fun if the shuriken's angle was a bit easier to read, and the ninjas and stars just came faster and harder, personally.  I have yet to be convinced that there are indeed too MANY ninjas...

One idea along the "too many" theme would be to use the bitmap data class to cache the ninja's corpses, so they could pile up on the ground while you play without affecting playspeed overmuch.

[Bennett]

The samurai has 360 degrees of coverage now, so you can hit every shuriken, I'm pretty sure. It's just a matter of whether you time it right. I've been messing with the algorithm which controls when they throw shurikens at you, but it feels like every change I make makes it play worse...

<EDIT> ... yup, if they throw shurikens at you when they're close, you don't have time to see them, and it seems more random. I tried changing it so that they'd get meaner as your score went higher, but it didn't make it more fun.

[Radnom]

I sear this game has become a helluvalot more frantic over the last day or so... love it!

The ninjas do seem to be jumping even lower over my head now, so a sword attacking upwards (even a jump perhaps!?)move would be great.

I also have been getting ninjas that stand near the edges and jump straight up a few times...

Still a perfect framerate for me.

[Bennett]

Jesus, BUGS! Computer programming is like walking through a house with giant muddy boots, and the house has just had the floors painted, and the paint is still wet.

Stupid hopping-ninja bug should be fixed. I tried making it so the samurai could poke his sword upward but it didn't look as manly as Derek's picture. Maybe I will try a jump attack. Or maybe not. I still have to get my NEXT addictive flash game to a playable state.

[Xion]

Maybe I will try a jump attack.

What, for the player? No, no, no! T'would be much too much. I like that statuesque sort of "you can't f___ing move me, b__ch!" type hold your ground feeling.
As for the upward attack, maybe a quick transitory swipe followed by just holding the sword vertical, slightly bent elbows. With both hands, of course.

[Bennett]

Alright, well maybe someone can tell me how to fix this pose:

[Lim-Dul]

Ha! The "getting-hit-by-their-own-stars" tweak has made the game quite a lot easier (no, I don't experience lag, got quite a high-end machine here), which is a good thing since you can get to the later levels and experience some intense action. :-D I am constantly hitting 50-60.

I can't get my head around it but it seems that the ninja behaviour was tweaked a bit too, am I right? There seems to be much more star-throwing and less idle hopping going on, true? Combined with the "deflection-kill-technique" it makes slaughtering ninjas much more fun. :-D

[Bennett]

Yeah, I made some minor tweaks to enemy movement. I think it is a bit easier to get going now, or maybe it's just that I've played nine million games of it in a row. 

I'm really glad you think it's more fun.

Another question (maybe it should go in the Business section) - should I upload this onto NewGrounds.com? I read over their legal policy and I can't tell if it would be silly or not. I think I'm ready for a wider audience. It's not really how I originally envisaged it, but I still have a good time playing it, which is all I can go on.

[Lim-Dul]

Well - I'm a Newgrounds.com reader/watcher/player. I think you could risk uploading the game there but be prepared to hear some heavy shit-talk - no matter how good something is, there are always rude whiners... On the other hand there should be enough positive feedback as well - you decide...

Ah - one small suggestion - I think you should change the ninja-jumping sound - it sounds a lot like speaker static to me which is quite annoying - believe it or not but I've been checking all my audio plugs before realizing where this "popping" sound came from. :-D

Last but not least two questions: are you using sword-swing sounds from Zelda by any chance - there are A LOT of games with sword swings but I'm just wondering. =) And the second question - does each level have its own, slightly modified music loop or are you just speeding up the playback?

P.S. I really DO like this game - it's very small and simple but I haven't been THAT MUCH addicted to a game for a long time and I've been playing many coffee-break titles... In fact I spend most of my spare minutes playing this. "Whoa! I've got like five minutes - OK, some quick "Too Many Ninjas" rounds!" ;-) There's something deeply satisfying about slashing these pesky ninjas in the face even though you know you're bound to die. There were first-time titles that have been more refined and technically advanced but I think you really caught the "ZX Spectrum/Old Arcade Machine" spirit and along with it a helluva lot of gameplay-fun. =)

[Guert]

Ah good, you added the star thing...

Before you submit it to new grounds, or any other website, I think you should have a more "finished" version. Like, you could finish the splash title and work out a bit of tweaking... This, way you'll show a more polished version of the game to a wider public and you'll get less criticism about details that you already know to fix. Also, it'll make you look more pro since you're showing something that's not buggy and that plays well...

Well, that's my opinion. The game is getting better everytime!
Later!

[Bennett]

Well, I think (hope) all the noticeable bugs are gone, now. I can't decide whether or not I want to do a more complicated 'splash' screen... what I like about that game is that it doesn't have anything to slow you down.

What would you think if I uploaded it to JayIsGames? It has a smaller audience, and apparently a strict "no criticism" policy. :D  I was just about to do that actually, and there's nothing stopping me putting it on newgrounds later if I polish it more, or if the response is good.

Lim-Dui:
- All the sound effects are original. Well, I used some licensed sound effects as the base of one or two of them, but they're at least 'derivative works'. Even if they sound like audio glitches sometimes!
- Thanks a lot for your compliments! I'm addicted to it too, but I wonder if maybe people will only like it if they used to own a ZX Spectrum...

[handCraftedRadio]

I don't know if you fixed this glitch yet, but when I was playing the ninjas started flying around. They came in from the side of the screen and just went straight across without falling down at all. Some went up top and threw shurikens and others were ground level. It was pretty funny, although they killed me pretty fast because they just flew full speed into my face on both sides.

[Bennett]

Yeah, I think I finally fixed that one. I also finally fixed the one where the ninja jumps on the spot, and the one where the puff of dirt appears over your head. Oh and I got the one where a dead ninja throws a shuriken at you (although that would totally happen in Naruto)

[MattC]

With score 74 the level should be 8, not 7. A bug in game or a little miss when editing that picture?

Hahaha, that was definitely a bug. I only said the next rank should be "Cheater" because of how incredibly difficult it was to get to the score I posted. (The next rank still hasn't been reached.) I actually noticed this a few hours after I posted when I got a 72 and saw a rank of 8.

On the topic of bugs, I was just about to relay the same one HandCraftedRadio did. In one of the earlier builds of the game a ninja flew horizontally across the screen right above my head. (I meant to mention this in my super-long post.) I started laughing and died. Haven't seen it since though and it was only one ninja. [You've now posted while I was typing, so... thanks for fixing it!]

On the "cheapness" topic, I don't think that double-sided attacks are all that bad. Most of the time I end up blaming myself for not being fast enough. But one thing that does always bug me is when a ninja is jumping off-screen and just as he exits throws a lighting fast star. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention?

Also: I thought it'd be funny to see some ninjas killing other ninjas after throwing their stars, but alas, they have good teamwork I guess.

[Bennett]

Yeah sometimes they do throw a somewhat faster star when they leave the screen, but it shouldn't be unhittable. This is a product of the weird method I used to calculate the star trajectories. I tried changing it to a sensible method where the ninjas do some trigonometry sums in their heads and aim AT you, but it wasn't as fun to play It's amazing to me how ephemeral this 'fun' quantity is, and I've reverted quite a few 'fixed' versions now in favour of old kludgey code.

The level bug, yeah I think it's gone, but maybe not. It's intermittent, and hard to test for. Somebody tell me if they see it again.

[handCraftedRadio]

Yes, I actually found that glitch again.



As you can see I scored 500 points, but for some reason the rank did not switch from 1 and it still says im a trainee. You need to fix that glitch big time.

[Bennett]

Damn, I thought I removed that code which launches MS paint and draws in random numerals! 

BTW, you totally earned that 'Ultimate Samurai' badge!

[Lim-Dul]

I experienced another non-gameplay-ruining bug. Some ninjas jumped over me (after not being in sliding range) and landed on the other side (this time in sliding range I presume) and began to slide but AWAY from me and off the screen. Situational comedy abounds. ^^