[@Udderdude-]

@Udderdude-Wow 196/300? That's pretty stellar. I definitely don't want it to be a cake walk to get light rank, so I may have to compensate by making crystals a bit more expensive or upping the amount it takes to rank. EDIT: or making the deeds more difficult themselves

If you guys and gals could post your soul count after beating the game like Udderdude, that would be super helpful. I'm off work tomorrow so I'll have a bunch of time to work on this and get the final build ready for sunday. I'd love to make a mini trailer or something for it, but my laptop died this past weekend and I had to downgrade. Even making those gif screenshots comes close to crashing the pc I'm currently using  .

Hope you're all having fun with this. Stay tuned...

[Download MAX v.95!]

Download MAX v.95!

Alternate Mirror

Changelog
+Two player co-op (see readMe)
+Another song
+Deed system fully implemented!

+More artwork
+More sfx
+Added a sweet fan attack to the ball boss
-Sped up the crystals
-Increased crystal range
-Gave the player some more time to dodge and predict attacks by delaying enemy attacks and making them give hints of where and when it's going to happen
-Changed some sfx
-Increased reaction time and hints when bosses attack
-Changed some text in the tutorial
-Spacebar can now swap crystal types also for trackpad users
-Lowered upgrade prices to 20/40/60
-Slowed down some projectiles
-Projectiles are now deleted when a boss dies so they don't score any cheap shots on you crystals
-Polished and cleaned up a lot of code
-Balance work
-M key now turns music on/off

@sublinimal-Hey bud, I'm sorry but I have no idea what's causing you to get that error  . I've asked a gm-guru friend of mine and he says he hasn't seen that error since gm6. I hope you get to try it out on another pc or get it working somehow! Thanks for taking the time to download it though...

@Udderdude-Your feedback has been invaluable man. Thanks a lot. I tried to hit every point you brought up. I hope you enjoy the deed system! It might be a bit easy after I buffed the crystals. There's a better chance that you can make it out with all units, but you'd have to be a Max Savant to pull it off. Units will probably die, but that's life, and life is sloppy in the void sometimes!

@Alec S.-Glad you enjoyed it! I don't know if you read my mind or a tweet I posted, but I implemented a hotseat co-op thing that lets the other person control the crystals with WASD haha. Even if you are playing by yourself it can be very handy to give added control and speed. I've done some work on communicating when certain enemy attacks are going to happen, especially with the earlier bosses. One thing I want to stay away from though is memorizing patterns. I've never thought that was much fun. Hopefully the random attack order is executed better with more telegraphed attacks and a large boost to the crystal range and speed like you guys suggested. Thanks for checking out the game and the critique!


I've wanted to keep the scope small from the get-go, so I won't be adding anymore unit types/mechanics. If anyone has more feedback/critique I'd love to hear it before I release the final build in a week or so.

Enjoy!

We have some flowers that smell nice outside so I decided to pick some and bring them in my room yesterday. I found out this morning there were many baby caterpillars on those flowers. I will not be bringing those flowers in my room again.

This movie might give you some inspiration for characters/settings.

All of your characters must have optional in-line skates.

[@sublinimal-]

@sublinimal- I'm 90% sure it's because your video card doesn't support surfaces. If you hang tight until tomorrow, I'll put a script in the new build that disables surfaces for those types of video cards at the start of the game.

@Udderdude-

Man... just, thanks haha. I'm putting all of this in my to-do list before tomorrow.

I'll address your points paragraph by paragraph:

1-Yeah good point. I'll add "hold" to the text.

2-Since the last build I've added more reaction time and warning signs telling which direction the large shots will be fired. I might even slow them down a bunch after reading your experience. If they killed all of your crystals, that means you had them all bunched together which isn't a good idea.

3-Can you edit your post to clarify this please? There is a counter (crystals on altar/crystals you have on the field) so I'm not sure what the confusion is there?

4-Thanks for the screenshot. I'll definitely have to beef up the 2nd enemy.

5 & 6- Good point. I've increased the range that your crystals are able to damage the enemy at. You're right about making them a bit faster too. Some crystals are going to die. What I like to do is have 2 Topaz crystals that are high priority and 3 quartz that are expendable. I put them in a star formation usually around the enemy so I can see them all clearly and dodge when(and if) I'm able to.

7- I guess you could just spam quartz crystals to beat all the enemies, but in the new build you won't be able to get your deeds(trophies) to higher rankings like that. There will be incentive to conserve your little dudes. The ranking will depend on how many souls you have left after you beat the game. For example, one deed is to beat the game in 8 minutes. If you have 0-49 souls left on completion, you get the lowest ranking. Then from 50-99 you get next rank. If you beat the game with 100+ souls left, you get the highest ranking.

If you want to get the basic deed, you can buy as many upgrades as you want and use tons of crystals. If you want to get higher rankings, you'll have to conserve and skip on some upgrades. I hope it's a system that will set the difficulty naturally, depending on what the player wants to achieve. Like you said, it needs some balancing for sure.

Your feedback is going to help me a ton! Thanks bro.

[edit:]

@subliminal - Ah! Did you get the error right when you started the game? I haven't encountered this yet, but if you could give me a bit more detail I'll try to fix it asap. Thanks for downloading and also for posting a screenshot of this!

edit: I could be divinding by zero somewhere, it could be an issue with your video card and surfaces, or it could be that you need to run it in windows xp compatibility mode. I'm looking into it.

@Angelbait- Thanks haha  . This has been really fun to make. As for the scope of the project, the build I'm releasing this Sunday should be where the feature creep stops. I just wanted to go fun, short, and polished with some replayability.

The new build will be released tomorrow around 12pm pst. If you haven't had a chance to play the game yet I encourage you to wait until tomorrow to get the new build. I've done a lot more balancing/tweaking per your guys' suggestions. Also- the trophy system is 100% ready, hotseat co-op is a go, more music/art, better controls for trackpad users, and maybe s'more cool little stuff.

Just finished the deed/trophy thing in my game MAX. I'm still polishing some graphical stuff but it's working 100%. The deed ranks are related to how well you did on the playthrough when you unlocked it.



Going to post the new build with this implemented on Sunday. Sleep time!

It has to be. I see red placeholder room change-y objects.

Very nice Franklins Ghost.

[@Franklins Ghost-]

@Franklins Ghost-Glad you enjoyed it! I will definitely keep trackpad users in mind and implement a key on the keyboard for switching up crystals. I hope the deeds add more replayability like you said. There will be 3 rankings for each deed: bronze, silver, and gold. Which one you get will depend on the number of souls you had to use.

@seagaia-Thanks for giving it another playthrough. Knowing how many upgrades you got is very helpful. I'm considering lowering the prices a bit now. I think the sweet spot would be 20/40/60 instead of the current 20/50/80. The music should only cut off after the boss dies, then start again at the upgrade screen. I did a playthrough and it worked fine on my end so maybe I'm misunderstanding. But yes, I hope to give each boss his own theme song.

While driving today, I thought it would be neat to have hotseat co-op where the second player is able to control a crystal with "wasd". You'll be able to work together to beat the game and unlock deeds. It will be super easy to implement which is the cool thing!

Thanks again for the awesome feedback guys. I'm going to release the next build on Sunday. If you have any suggestions before then I'd love to hear them.

EDIT: Here's a preview of the deed screen. There will be 7 of these guys rotating around the center of the screen.

Welcome to the forums whale, and thanks for the great feedback! 

This really feels like it needs to be on a touch screen Just sayin.

I have to say I also agree that this seems very well suited for an touch device.

It would be cool to get this on a touch device but I don't own one or possess the know how to port it...

I was thinking that you might be able to accomplish shortening the needed reaction time either having the monster draw a path of its attack before it does

This is good advice. I'll definitely work on improving the warning signs before an enemy attacks to give them a bit of predictability and give the player more time to react.

Regarding the dragging, you don't have to click on the crystal you want to move. It automatically targets the one closest to the mouse when you click and hold.

Time to get cracking!

[@seagaia]

@seagaia-Please let me know how it goes with the mouse! One thing I'm interested in is if the difficulty ramps up nicely. Do you feel like the upgrades are a bit pricey?

@everyone-I updated the first post with some feedback questions you can keep in mind while playing.

[alternate download link]

Download isn't working for me on chrome, it says it can't find the website.
I'll try again on IE

Edit: Hm. nope.

Hmm it seems to be working on my end. Here is an alternate download link. Ill update the first post also. Someone else might have the same trouble, so thanks for catching that!

edit: I also added more to the summary of the game in the first post to give everyone a better idea of what this is about.

Did a major crunch the past few days to get the feedback build of Max done.
You can check it out here.

I'm still working on the trophy system and finishing up the music.

[MAX v.95]

MAX v.95

*click image for video*

PC DOWNLOAD

Alternate Download Link

v.95 uploaded 7-2-2012!

Some game art/screens

Summary
Max is a bite sized action rts/boss rush game where you play a collective mind of souls that dukes it out with another, more sinister looking, collective.
-5 bosses
-"deeds" or trophies
-2 player co-op

Game Status
The game is pretty much done save more music that I want to add, and gameplay tweeks suggested by everyone's feedback.

Feedback
-I don't plan on adding anymore features or mechanics, but what can I do design/gameplay wise to make the experience more fun and intuitive?

I'd appreciate any feedback/suggestions/critique.

Enjoy dudes!

@RichMakeGame - I already pmed you my thanks when you posted, but whiled this is bumped, thanks again for the great feedback as always. I'm really curious now as to what the game would feel like if you were able to use your chain multiple times in the air. Maybe we'll give it a try just for the heck of it.

@jiitype - Thanks for playing! In regards to the audio issue, check if the audio folder and supersound.dll is in the same directory as the game's .exe. Also, check the in-game options/settings to see if the audio is turned on. If that doesn't work I'm afraid I don't know what the problem is 

[@brettchalupa -]

I'm glad macs have those magnetic power cords because I've tripped over a few and ripped them out trying to make my way around in coffee shops.

I've had good experiences and it's fun when people walk by and want to chat about what you're working on. Also, maybe bring some kind of small power strip or outlet hub in case all the power outlets are being used.

@brettchalupa - I think it's encouraged because the majority of coffee/tea places offer free wifi, at least around here.

Rabbit that is pretty good for your first pixel art ever. Great edit too John. It's crazy how much defining a light source and a bit of shading can give something volume and really make it pop.

Of course! Next weekend I'll throw it into the feedback thread so everyone can give it a go.