Thank you very much for taking the time to play my game. This is the first feedback I have gotten from someone who isn't a friend or totally high or both. This is pretty exciting.
First of all, our avatar is not easy to spot on the game field. It looks like a buttlet from the enemy. The first thing we should spot is where we are and what we control. I suggest that you either make the avatar bigger or in a very different color, like black, since all enemies are white. I'd start off by spawning the vaatr, then after 2 or 3 seconds, the enmy could appear. This way, we know who we are and where we are.
Good point. I plan on making the bullets look less like the avatar, so hopefully this will resolve the problem.
Second, I feel like there's too much things happening all at once. Theres hundreds of bullets every where shooting randomly. I suggest that you use fewer, targeted bullets. Instead of shooting everywhere, shoot at the player and at a location nearby it. This way, you force the player to move and to be precise on when to stop (since a bullet is heading to a possible evasion location).
Most of the shots are targeted at the player. They won't target the snake though. But, I agree that my bullet patterns are pretty lame. I have been teaching myself the GML language (I made this in gamemaker btw) as I go, and hopefully as I become more proficent in it, I will be able to program better attacks. Also, I plan on making the difficulty ramp up as you go, so there will definitely not be this many bullets right from the start. Also, did you play this with the sound on? All the enemy attacks are synced up to music so you can hear them coming as well as see them coming.
Dying and stopping the "snake mode" has the same animation, which leads to confusion. I thought numerous times that I was dead but wasn't.
This will be changed in the future.
Now, I want to talk about my motivation as a player. What's my goal in all of this? Is there an upside to consuming the enemy in snake mode? Whatever the story you might have cookep up for the game, the player's motivation should be clear while playing it. You have to gives us some feedback, rewards of penalty, for everyting that we do. Doesn't have to be points or 1ups, just something that will motivate us to use a strategy or to play in a general way. Eating an enemy part could make us bigger. Shooting it might makes us fster or deal more damage. You may even want to give us something extra for dodging bullets. The key is to make sure that you know what is the heart of your game. Is it to shoot, to collect or to move/dodge? Is it to go fast or to be precise? Try to give about 3 ways of playing the same goal. If you decide to make it about being fast, put a time limit (either by adding a timer, add the guy's that ate the pill health status that's always decreasing, or a fixed life span) then give us 3 choice to alter this time, may it be by making us go faster, give time extensions or giving us more fire power. There's alot more options that could be created here so don't be scared to use your imagination. In all cases, that will motivate the player and will give the game more possibilities hence more experimental value.
Well, the main motivation for destroying the bits you blow off the enemy is survival. They are little kamikaze guys that are trying to crash into and destroy you. They move just slightly slower than you when you are not in snake mode, making it difficult to shoot down more than a few at the time. Thats the main reason for using snake mode.
Its a bit of a trade off. In normal mode you can move in 8 directions and shoot. In snake mode you can only move in 4 directions, but you are a bit faster, the enemy can't aim at you (this might change in the future), you can block some bullets with your tail (this will improved in the future), and you can destroy the blinky kamikaze guys much more easily. The basic idea is that normal mode is for attacking and snake mode is for defense/running away. But, I do like that power up idea.
The game feels very arcade-ish. Do you plan to have different enemies, with different behaviours, numerous levels, etc?
It is going to be a bunch of sequential boss battles, with each boss having a different shape, generating a different bit of music, and using different attack patterns and rhythms. It will probably be done super mario style so that after you beat it you can go back and play a harder version (probably just more enemy health).
Developer
