Hm...asteroids-style controls? At least they're not too bad since the ship doesn't have so much inertia.
The seed does seem to have an affect on gameplay, although different seeds don't always generate very different gameplay experiences.
Also, you might want to consider using WASD/mouse instead of asteroids-y controls.
You are right about the seeds not affecting gameplay much, basically I had to prune it way-way back in order to stop the game from becoming seriously unbalanced, as some seeds were ridiculously easy to play while some others basically meant insta-death.
It's a so-so solution, like many other compromises I had to make. Ideas welcome!
Very cool game! Love the generated enemies!
It runs flawlessly on my Mac.
and I am at the top of the leaderboard!
It is difficult, but fun! I kind of miss having sideway movement, but I guess this also makes it more challenging.
Although, maybe this part is under development: In the control options there are settings for moving left/right, but they act like turn left/right. This makes the game far more difficult when playing with a joystick (or with kb-only controls), since you lack the freedom mouse aiming provides. I'd suggest implementing free aim with gamepad/joystick, and perhaps only have "keyboard+mouse" and "joystick" controls.
Another suggestion: Mouse pointer can get lost in the chaos, and it can make you turn direction when going forward (when you pass the pointer). Since the pointer looks like an enemy (same size etc), maybe making it stand out more could solve this.
Overall, the gameplay is great! Looking forward for the data defense mode!
Thanks for the kind words!
Yeah the joystick and keyboard support are only halfway there. I kind of need keyboard support as some of "my" players only have a keyboard available (track-pad), and if I took it out the complaining started. I will try to improve it though. My ideal for joystick control would be FPS-like dual-stick control.
As for the mouse pointer getting lost. Have you tried using another cursor? There are like 12 different ones, some color cycling ones too for extra attention. It's hidden away in the controls menu. Maybe I should make it more visible...
I quite enjoyed it, but for me it seemed safer not to move because I could only move in the direction I was shooting. I would enjoy some sort of strafing mechanic and I think it would improve the game that much more... Oh and #1 on the online highscore table! (Not for long I'm sure)
Thanks.
Controls: Yeah ... see below..
Really cool so far! a few notes:
* The ship's physics seemed pretty stiff (acceleration was slow and such). Can they be loosened up?
* I'd have to echo the desire for a strafe mechanic. A good way to implement it might be to have the ship point to the cursor, and the WADS keys strafe/move forward and back.
* The main difficulty comes from quantity of enemies and oddness of control scheme (for an arena shooter anyway). If you made dropped the initial maount of enemies and made it ramp up over time, then it would be way better.
* Corruption could be implemented by either making the enemies "smarter" (dodges your shots and homes in on you) or reducing the power of the ship (shots dont last as long, weaker, maneuvering is tougher).
* My Xbox 360 controller doesn't seem to work with the game. This may be a system issue, but it works with a game i'm developing (on XNA).
Hey you're the first one to complain about the actual physics vs the lack of strafing. Is it the inertia or the slow build up of the acceleration of the ship?
As for your XBOX 360 controller not working, yeah Joystick support is super-rudimentary atm. Honestly at this point you're not missing out. What's your OS though? And how many pads do you have connected?
Strafing Controls:Okay I decided to give this some focus, as basically everyone said this more or less.
First: I guess I should explain my "intent", which was to have a more "haptic" control of the ship. I'm not a big fan of the controls of most arena shooters where the input is direct and entirely frictionless. Besides being twitchy, there is little finesse involved. I wanted the ship to feel more like, well, a ship.
Obviously this is not working as I had hoped.
Now I have added strafing. Strafing obeys still the same physical rules as the rest of the controls, which I've also loosened up a bit.
But - I find this control scheme to be even more confusing than before. Maybe that is just me, though.
A game is ultimately about game-play in the end, so if nothing helps I will probably have to stick with the tried and true here.
Anyway try it out and let me know if it's a step in the right direction or not!
Thanks!I updated both versions now, see the original post.
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