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[namre]

(Note (08/30/2010): I've updated this thread to mirror the content found on my devlog thread.  )

Short Description
Trapped in Time is a top-view manic shooter where you are trapped inside a giant clock level and you need to survive swarms of enemies all while dodging the fast rotating clock hands with timed jumps.

Game Features
Here are some things that you could expect from the game:
- Jumping! - What sets it apart from other manic shooters is that you need to jump to avoid enemies and obstacles, which is unheard of in this genre
- Weapons - There are a variety of guns at your disposal. Each has it's own pros and cons. The Gatling Gun, Shotgun, Laser Beam, Rocket Launcher, and Mortar Launcher
- Enemies - Enemy variety is aplenty and are guaranteed to keep you on your toes to keep you challenged all the time!
- Power-ups - The level is constantly littered with items that can give you special abilities, and even affect your surroundings.
- Challenging gameplay - The longer you play, the harder the levels get. This makes the game more challenging and satisfying when you get a high score.

Latest update:
- Freeze Ray – Freezes enemies. Once frozen you can smash them to kill them instantly.
- Splitting Bullets
- Arc Lightning Gun – Lightning jumps randomly from enemy to enemy damaging them
- Familiars – Kinda like mini helpers that shoot enemies that are near
- Mortar Launcher
- Rocket Launcher
- A power-up that could slow or reverse the movement of the clock
- Force Field
- New sprites
- New effects
- Better controls
- Scoring System
- HUD is now on the screen displaying number of bullets as well as health
- Improved and cleaner graphics

Coming Soon
- More enemies for variety
- Bug fixing
- Release!

Demo Download
Here's a download of a demo of the game. In this current version, most of the basic stuff are implemented, like weapons, basic enemies, etc.

Latest Release (08/30/2010)
Download link to Zip file
Download link to Rar file

Videos
Currently working on a new video featuring the latest build of the game.

Credits
The game has no music or sounds yet but Tyler Schmahl, aka Havoc, has expressed interest in providing some tracks for the game. Thanks, Tyler!

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Trapped in Time is the current game project of Accidental Rebel made using the Construct game engine.

[AuthenticKaizen]

interesting.


ideas:

• effects when you kill enemies (accompanied by nice sounds)
• combo scores... "2x, 4x... *boom* etc"
• powerups like bullet time, invulnerability etc.
• maybe only the moving rotating clock hand should hurt the player... those who are standing still should be harmless.
• the problem with the rotating clock mechanic is that when you jump over the thing its sometimes impossible to avoid crashing into the enemies...
  (maybe overthink that particular mechanic a bit... and play a bit with it instead of having the thing moving all the time... maybe let the clock stand still... but every once in a while there happens something special... for example 4 o clock = tea time... first you notice the lettering "tea time" and then the clock hand moves to that particular time... a nice glowing cup of tea appears that makes you stronger and you can chill down a bit. moreover "breakfast time, prime time etc"
  
• what about the idea of having a neutral clock hand. it can also harm the enemies...
• moreover i thought that you can hide in the open "corners" when i first played the game...
  hmmm....think about of having a spot that appears every now and then where you can hide. maybe a platform that is higher than the clock hand.

for some inspiration consider to check these games out.
look what makes these games fun...and implement.

http://www.pixelprospector.com/tag/arena-shooter/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev/tag/arena-shooter/
http://www.pixelprospector.com/2010/01/naac/

[namre]

@AuthenticKaizen, thank you very much for your thoughts! Here are my replies!

effects when you kill enemies (accompanied by nice sounds)

Yes, more effects and sounds will be added soon. Right now I just want to know if the game feels "right" 

combo scores... "2x, 4x... *boom* etc"

Yep, will implement this as soon as I implement the scoring system.

powerups like bullet time, invulnerability etc.

It's already on my to do list. Power-ups that control time (which in effect controls the clock), rewind, stop, and forward. As for invulnerability, there will be a power-up where you can get a force field and be invincible for a short while.

maybe only the moving rotating clock hand should hurt the player... those who are standing still should be harmless.

Yeah, this is something I've been debating with myself with. And will try to reconsider as soon as more people give some feedback.

the problem with the rotating clock mechanic is that when you jump over the thing its sometimes impossible to avoid crashing into the enemies...

Yeah, I had this problem before. This is the reason I introduced the Power blast (right click) which is unlimited in this demo, but will be limited in the final game. The power blast is a good power to use when you find yourself surrounded by enemies.

(maybe overthink that particular mechanic a bit... and play a bit with it instead of having the thing moving all the time... maybe let the clock stand still... but every once in a while there happens something special... for example 4 o clock = tea time... first you notice the lettering "tea time" and then the clock hand moves to that particular time... a nice glowing cup of tea appears that makes you stronger and you can chill down a bit. moreover "breakfast time, prime time etc"

It's a nice idea, however, I really like the clock hands to be part of the gameplay and to force the player to always move around. Also, the clock hands are the main reason why I started this game as a new mechanic.

moreover i thought that you can hide in the open "corners" when i first played the game...
hmmm....think about of having a spot that appears every now and then where you can hide. maybe a platform that is higher than the clock hand.

Hmm.. I want the character to be always on his toes, to be moving all the time. Do you find the game to be too much that I should let players take a rest? I believe when the time controlling powers, are introduced, players can have the short rest that they need.

for some inspiration consider to check these games out.
look what makes these games fun...and implement.

Thank you! This would really help!

Again, thank you AuthenticKaizen, much appreciated.

[Arowx]

Looks good but do you use a time mechanic, as this game is crying out for a one...

E.g. Metagame where you are trying to turn back time/leap forward in time...
Enemys try and prevent you from doing this...
The passage of time can speed up and slow down go forward and backwards...

Could get a bit complex you would need to be able to rewind/fastforward/slomo but it could add a new dimension to the game!

What about pushing the hands of time?

[namre]

Hi guys, first of all, thank you for all your comments and suggestions.

I've uploaded a new version of the demo. Just check the updated first post of this thread for the download link.

New features:
- Freeze Ray – Freezes enemies. Once frozen you can smash them to kill them instantly.
- Splitting Bullets
- Arc Lightning Gun – Lightning jumps randomly from enemy to enemy damaging them
- Familiars – Kinda like mini helpers that shoot enemies that are near
- Mortar Launcher
- Rocket Launcher
- A power-up that could slow or reverse the movement of the clock
- Force Field
- New sprites
- New effects
- Better controls
- Scoring System
- HUD is now on the screen displaying number of bullets as well as health
- Improved and cleaner graphics

[Guert]

Hey

So I tried your game. Here are some quick comments.

The first thing that popped into my head that could be improved was the control. Right now, to control your avatar in your game, you must use the WASD keys, space bar and the mouse. There’s a strong focus on the keyboard controls (WASD + space) and the mouse inputs are very passive (shooting and optional shot). During play, your player ends up clicking numerous times on the keyboard and leaves his finger down on the left mouse button. One hand becomes very busy and the second one becomes “numb”. Even when aiming with the mouse, you end up feeling like you could do more with the mouse hand.  I suggest that you mix up your controls a bit to give more emphasis on mouse control.   For example, you could place the jump button on right-click and the switch the weapon on space bar.  In your game, you are way more likely to jump than to use a secondary weapon. This way, you will have a more “balanced” hand involvement. The player will be using both his left and right hand at almost the same pace. This will also help the player use the jump button and have better timing when performing them.

The second thing that came to mind is that your game area isn’t 100% clear in terms of accessible and inaccessible ground. When designing a level, make sure your live area (where you play) and your dead ones (where you can’t go) are very well defined. Here, the live area is dark grey and the dead area contains a lot of black and the contour of the clock. It makes it hard to tell at first glance where you can walk or not.

The feedback on getting damage from the clock is not clear enough. I didn’t know I could get damaged from the long hand. I thought it was only a blocking element.

The game felt unfair due to the fact that monsters do not obey the same rule as the player regarding the clock hands. It’s okay to have some monsters fly over the blocking element but I would very much like it to have some way to delay the attacks of enemies. For example, I could slow down the enemies by jumping over the hand and shooting the enemies that can fly over and then focus my shots on enemies that must walk all the way to me.

The action gets quite repetitive and uninteresting. The difficulty feels rather cheap. You see, your game has some interesting concepts but has low mastery value. Once I know how to move and shoot, I’m pretty much done with the game. No secondary or third mechanics are there to spice things up a little. You are creating an action game and you are throwing bucket loads of enemies at the player. You place your player in a state of quick learning, making him much more apt to assimilate the basic controls and become good at it very fast. The problem with what you have right now is that you got some good basics but once they’ve been digested, you got nothing else. There are few things you could do to fix this. Working with time, as mentioned in other posts, is a good idea. Adding an extra mechanic to your core could be another way. Focusing your economics in a fashion that a certain mechanic is favoured (like combos or extra points for jumping over enemies) would also push players to learn and master specific mechanics in order to be better.  The difficulty felt cheap since I didn’t feel any progression but rather a “increase enemy count” until I just couldn’t keep up. I didn’t feel like I failed but rather that the game wanted me to lose. What you want here is your player to blame himself for the loss, which will make him want to try again, knowing he can become better. 
 
The experience felt short and, in relation to my last point, the progression was almost inexistent. I didn’t feel like the game advanced or changed. The game felt the same after 5 seconds of play and looped. Always the same strategy, always the same results, etc... You have to keep your player on its tow not with simple challenges but rather using alternate rules or changing the live area. There are many ways to keep a game going. Some earlier posts had good ideas for that.

Basically, the game has potential. I’m looking forward to see what you are going to do with this one.

Good job and good luck! 

[namre]

Thank you very much for your comments, Guert!

Here are my answers:

The first thing that popped into my head that could be improved was the control.

Yeah, I might do that. The reason for the current control scheme was because I thought that placing the jump button on the right mouse button would be too awkward. I'll test it out and see how it works.

The second thing that came to mind is that your game area isn’t 100% clear in terms of accessible and inaccessible ground.

Yeah, this was brought up before but I didn't have the time to change since I focused on the weapons for now. I guess I might take out the dead area for now and change it to something different.

The feedback on getting damage from the clock is not clear enough. I didn’t know I could get damaged from the long hand. I thought it was only a blocking element.

A proper damage feedback will be implemented soon. I'm thinking of shakign the screen and a little flashing red.

The action gets quite repetitive and uninteresting. The difficulty feels rather cheap. You see, your game has some interesting concepts but has low mastery value. Once I know how to move and shoot, I’m pretty much done with the game.

To tell you the truth, I've never really thought of that. The game was originally intended to be an arcade style of game but I guess I could spice things up a little more, eh?

===============

Again, thank you for your comments, Guert. It's a good lesson learned from a newbie like me.

Cheers!   

[Guert]

I'm looking forward to see where you'll go with this game. The concept is interesting. How many games have you created so far?

[namre]

Hi Guert,

I'm looking forward to see where you'll go with this game. The concept is interesting.

Thank you! It's nice to hear that people find my idea interesting. I shall make sure to consider all suggestions I have received in making my game even more engaging.

How many games have you created so far?

I've made a Tetris clone before but I don't think that counts, haha. So this one is my very first game.

[AuthenticKaizen]

really good progress since the last demo

[namre]

really good progress since the last demo

Thanks! :D