My bad? I tried again today and it works beautifully...
Which means that I could not stop playing for like 1h straight, and heaven knows I couldn't afford the time!
Great concept. Interesting. Addictive + fun game-play. Go on!
It is amazing how alive a game can be without any "AI" going on.
A great feature of this concept is that it encourages the player to try out a multitude of different strategies.
I reached 30.0 skill (I think) and "rockets" stage.
Minor details follow...
* I didn't understand what triggered past selves turning red (just random?) and what is the effect of that exactly on their behavior (rotation toward current self?)
* I also wasn't sure about what happened exactly when I got hit (just go back one level, or anything else?).
* Sometimes I wished I could tell my many past selves apart (e.g. labeling them with a number, 0 to N-1, N being the label of the current self and 0 being the label of the 1st still enemy), both for curiosity to be able to better assess my strategies. I wonder if getting hit by one past self should make *that* one disappear in the replay of the previous stage (leaving the N-1 other ones), instead of just the last one as I think is done now.
* It was at times a bit frustrating to be unable to aim precisely from a distance. I wish I could use a vertical ruler to know whether or not I was aligned with my target.
* The shots-from-nowhere / cylindrical-left-right-wrapping-mechanism was also a bit more confusing than necessary, maybe.
* Music is so fitting. So is the graphic style, but it looks a bit poor, so I wonder if the look could be spiced up or even revamped completely (leaving the game-play unaffected). Maybe just explosions-death animations and the likes. The emerging behavior of the flock of past selves is super-cool and looks like could be made even better looking.
* I think it would look more "correct" and cool if the first enemy ship (the one standing still) faced toward you like any other enemy ship rather than face the same direction as you.
:D yay! 30 skills is impressive, damn. That's higher than my last 2 runs
1: Redness. This was a late addition to spice things up and make the Deadline more exciting. It's a random chance when Deadline crosses an enemy for the 1st time that it turns Red. Red means it locks onto you. It also reverses its playback direction (rewinding if it was playing forward).
This was originally to give the Deadline more gameplay effect than just a timer. What happened when all enemies were rotating was it's super easy to just hold one direction and screen-wrap around, the bullets will always be aiming where you were and dodging is trivial. I am testing right now with no-screen wrap and 100% red... 21 lives later: This feels a lot tighter! Makes you want to fight for center because it's easier to get walled off.
I dislike the wrapping because it's so easy to run.. it went in as an experiment and most players like it "woah cool!". I thought about speeding up the Deadline when you wrapped but that seemed very arbitrary.
I'll upload a new build with the wrap taken out (for you + enemy bullets). I played with 100% red rate but I want to try making them un-red when you push the Deadline back above them, I think that could be interesting and help with not getting walled when you kill an enemy near an edge.
Thanks so much for this feedback, I think this next version will be truer to the vision and way more fun. It's more challenging though so I will try extending the Deadline startup time a bit.
Getting hit: Yeah, it sets you back 1 level and removes your last clone so you still have to deal with whatever patterns you set. Most previous versions had instant-game-reset ... a few people found that too punishing, saying the first level was boring. I can see that; personally I liked the steady pace of good execution for many levels and tension when it gets tough but it's pretty overwhelming when it does get too tough. In experimenting with retry I found the tension still maintained - and maintained longer if you had time, so it felt like a good compromise.
Getting hit also speeds up the Deadline for a little bit. Consecutive losses will increase the time the Deadline speeds up. So eventually you have to do better than a stalemate to not lose.
Shots From Nowhere: I'm sorry you had trouble with that. Please try looking at it with this in mind and see if your experience improves: The battlefield is actually smaller than the width of the screen. (Maybe a frame would have helped here? I will try re-add the frame in the next version). You are the ship with the animations inside. When you approach an edge, a projection of you appaers from that edge. Keep moving, and you become where the projection is. Enemy bullets also project, but enemies do not because they will never crossover. They used to wrap but it got annoyingly tricky when an enemy was crossing rapidly + projections on them looked too hectic.
Correctness: Yeah, I'll change that back! They are like that to indicate they are the Imprint (recording your actions). I'll try making them face you for correctness + hollow for readability (so you don't confuse them with an active enemy). By the way there's some strategy in timing when you kill the Imprint, it's better if you can not shoot after you fire the killing shot so they shoot less.
Aiming Difficulty: The difficulty is intentional. Making the ships wider makes you easier to hit too. Adding a grid background would clutter (sticking to minimalist interface out of principle + preference). I've tweaked your movement speed, battlefield height + bullet speed a lot to make it possible to dodge & a little tricky to shoot. Faster bullets make it much easier to hit but dodging is a nightmare.
I have considered a calculator showing if your shot would hit or not and even tried extending a line in front of your ship.. it looked funny. I'm open to suggestions if you can think of something minimalist to try!
Graphics:
I'm not a visual artist
Anything in these strike you as good? For clone paths.
I haven't tried marking ships with numbers or symbols out of minimalism. That might work out though.. maybe small black circles inside of the ship at 360/# degrees apart from each other.. 1 circle, 2 circles etc. Oddly enough this would be easier to implement than text, as Quantum Pilot is written in Javascript and filling text would, I think, be less performant without a custom text renderer. I'm making a note to try out the circles.
Graphics.. I agree with you the game could get upgraded ships, bullets, even a background and still maintain the gameplay. Partially the minimalism is due to my limitations and partly because I like quick reading of a game. As an example of a game that has pretty graphics but the bad color mixing + overwhelming effects sabotages the gameplay, see my First Impressions thread here:
https://itch.io/t/128971/first-impressions - my experiences with that game is exactly what I'm afraid of "better" graphics in Quantum Pilot doing.
I know I'll sound asinine for saying this, but the graphics perform their function to communicate gameplay giving you a clear picture - what's on screen is what's on the "game board" and you can see it in your head clearly. That's why the explosions are so fast - I don't want to obstruct your gameplay.
If someone produced a good vision for how the ships could look, I'd try it. (Maybe QuantumPilot in 3D? Lol) But out of lack of art skills + minimalist joy I'll have to stick with it for now. I'm glad "The emerging behavior of the flock of past selves is super-cool" even with the constraints.
I did make a few compromises on the bullets. I know they're not too fancy but they were originally all lines! The circles does help when the enemy bullets are the same color as yours, as now you can differentiate from yours. Red enemies shoot lines, but their bullets are red so it's hopefully easier to read their trajectory at a glance.
Music: I'm glad you like the music! I have only heard positive comments on it which I'm thrilled about. If you want to try it without music, you can tap M (N to mute sfx). The composer is
http://www.fracturesmusic.com/ who PMed me through Tigsource asking me to hire them after reading an older devlog! They had credits for other SHMUP games & I liked their style. Great working with them and I highly recommend them.