Hexatron

Hey guys! I've finished a game awhile ago in a 30-day competition at the SomethingAwful forums called SA GameDev. It was my first complete game that managed to make it through a graveyard of prototypes that barely have more than two gameplay elements; really don't know how I managed to actually 'finish' this one but I was pretty happy that I finally did something.

I've been in a bit of a lull trying to get back into things and there were a lot of things I would've like to done with Hexatron so I'd like to see some feedback on it!

It's a room-based dual stick shooter in the vein of Super Stardust, whilst trying to make it a roguelike-like. It generates random levels with rooms based on hexagons ontop of a sphere (thanks to Joel Davis!), as well as random equipment and weapons. I've also implemented a multi-weapon system akin to Mechwarrior that let you fire different set of weapons at once. I didn't have anything too inspired for weapon and equipment generation, even though I was planning to experiment with status effects and such when I was developing the game.

Weird thing was that I felt I didn't have enough ideas to make this a fully featured game. The aim I was going for was a Metroidvania feel for it where you collected items you needed and went through quests to unlock the next area and such, but still felt it would've been a relatively weak game. Unexpectedly, I ran out of time so fast that I couldn't even touch any sort of quest system whilst staying up for several days while I hacked in a half baked, buggy end game.

Obviously there is the dual stick shooter part of the game I've drawn inspiration from, but I didn't want to make it feel like a dual stick shooter. I wanted to place emphasis on movement and made it feel a bit loose while still having a good amount of control over it, as well as different feeling weapons. So... wanted to evoke some Doom and Quake MP vibe.

There are problems like lack of a tutorial/better communication to the players, more interesting equipment generation and enemies, etc. but I'd love feedback all the same.

The one thing I hate is how ingrained the stat wankery is in the game. I like the feeling of finding an even better weapon, but I get annoyed at just trying to compare stuff to see how much better it is compared to something else. I wanted to do a system where you could just feed old equipment to the ship itself (like feeding mags in PSO) to get different effects but that just solves the old stuff problem...

Here's a trailer (doesn't really show off roguelike-like stuff though):

WebPlayer build
PC build
Mac build

Controls are WASD/Cursor keys for movement (or left stick on 360 pad)
Aim with mouse and click to shoot (or just shoot with right stick on 360 pad)
Press 1/2/3 keys to enable/disable the respective weapon slots (or press the X/Y/B buttons on 360 pad)
Double tap 1/2/3 keys to enable that weapon only (or double tap the X/Y/B buttons on 360 pad)
Press space bar to start boost (or the A button on the 360 pad)
Press escape to get into inventory menu (or press the Start button on the 360 pad)

The game is pretty unbalanced, too. I've made a settings file to change equations on equipment/weapon/enemy generation so I might do this easily but I never really took advantage of it after I've coded it!

I've also written a bit on random level generation on my blog over here, if anyone is curious!

Thanks for taking the time, guys