You could do the old trick of static graphics filling up the space?  Or the score table / whatever meta data your game has.

That actually looks much better.  Like an actual 3D texture.

Is that a barrel / boat floating in the water?  It needs some sort of wake / ripples / shadow to make it obvious, because its hard to figure out if its floating or flying.

Morning (and evening) light has a golden hue - can you make the light shining through the window slightly more yellow?  Also - need to check how this looks - make the light shaft more horizontal - the sun has just risen, presumably.

Also - not sure what you are going for, but can you add more cues that it is breakfast time?  E.g. a clock?  Maybe a newspaper & boiled eggs / bowl of cornflakes?  

Really nice game - I'm a sucker for detailed side scrolling games 

A few things:

- Game title still mentions mars?
- Please scale the UI elements for desktop - menu & exit icons are HUUUUUGE
- Maybe an option to reverse the rotate controls, so it controls like the original lander & its clones.

The holograms don't feel hologrammy when they're the same color as the body... probably explained by the early stage of development?
God they look great already, though!

Yeah maybe make the bodies just a bit darker--I think the color of the holograms right now is spot on.

I'd make their holograms maybe fade through some blue / cyan / purple colours or something, maybe be semi-transparent, and possibly flicker too.  Maybe the entire creature could flicker.

...By the way, I tried to go to your website, but it looks like you have some PHP errors. I watched your last development video on your side scrolling sim. That's something I've thought a lot about as well. Making a side-scrolling sim. It looked to me that your game would have benefited from full 3d models. It probably would have been less difficult for you in the long run (with changing orientation, etc.)

Hi EvilDingo - only just saw your reply.  Website is working now, its just a bit dead at the moment.  The main reason why I chose 2D was I am much better at it than 3D, and could knock out *many* more assets.  Yes 3D would have made for better visuals, but I have the stretch goal to model every plane ever made, and no way I could do that in 3D.

Hey WhyNot that looks awesome!  Can I please please have a download?  I also run a website that lists what I call 2D flight sims (AKA side scrolling flight games), but I'm very lazy in updating it.  I'd like to add your game(s) at some point, if that is ok.

...the main source of my inspiration was an old Atari ST game Skystrike.

Hmm, never thought I'd see anyone mention this game again - it was my favourite too, and I too am making a game inspired by it, along with Wings of Fury and Sopwith.  Good luck with your game - it looks very fast & furious, not sure if that appeals to me so much, but I hope it goes well!

Yes!  Yes to all of this.  I love my retro flight sims from the early 8 bit ones onwards.  The dynamic campaign is also very interesting.  I've tried to do the same thing but in a 2d side scrolling view.

Personally I find the high-res non-texture mapped style the nicest.  I really don't like low res texture mapping, game in this style I don't think have aged well visually.  Check out YS flight for a modern (ish) sim in the same style.  The community (which is / was large) may even have models already done that you can use?

Hi - I fly various flight sims, plus also I'm interested in 2D versions of that type of game too   I would say don't worry about blade theory - sure it is useful in simulating realistic planes (i.e. approximating a specific real plane's flight characteristics) - but this doesn't sound like what you want.  In my opinion a 'futuristic flight mode' means a nice generic model that feels nice to fly, without the nasty features of a real plane - I mean in the future they'd have erased all of those, right? 

You don't need a maths degree to come up with that, you can hack together something quite simple.

Been lurking in this thread for a long time now, I love reading about the progress of this game.  Just wanted to mention - how about a mechanic like the water flood in bubble bobble (see

) - where slugcat gets carried by floodwater that makes its way to the bottom of the screen / room (where you drown in the rising water), unless you manage to jump out the way onto somewhere where the floodwater is not so intense.

I see a nice slideshow, but I've seen this before and it looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  I understand almost nothing, and yet I need to implement something like this in my XNA game somehow.

In my opinion - it looks too bright & you've used primary / secondary colours only, like a kids toy.  I'd use a palette of less saturated colours, using perhaps shades of two or three colours only.  But if your rule is to not change the graphics, then it doesnt really matter does it!

Very nice... I guess a first person view with the cockpit is not possible, uh?

You are asking for a completely different type of game!

Myself I used stolen art to get things going, and it looked pretty bad but was enough.  I found after a while I was loosing momentum, so I decided up put proper textures in (still not release version) but the impact it had on the game was amazing, and gave me a confidence boost to carry on.

If the art for your game is a big job, and you are capable of it, do it in parallel to the programming.  I do a lot of art when I am feeling burt out from programming, or when I've got a cold & not in the mood for programming.  It is a nice break from the routine when I can concentrate on some illustration.

Excellent advice Zarkonnen. I'm surprised to hear that videos and screen shots don't attract a lot of views compared to articles. I would have thought the opposite! I'll keep that in mind for sure.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a new article can potentially appear on the front page / will appear in the article feed, whereas new screenshots are not publicized at all, unless you write an article about them.

Like the look of this a lot - this is my kind of game!  I love the spinning because of a missing wing - great effects

Yeah, you're absolutely right, but I think Reddit users are more sensitive.

On a forum, creating an account and promoting a product would be considered spam. At worst, you get backhanded by a moderator.

On Reddit, I think that the users have a stronger sense of representation for the 'subreddits' they participate in. Reddit sort of has a mob mentality so if you get on the wrong side of people, they'll have all the power.

Now that you mention it, people should consider posting on Reddit like posting on a forum. Kind of like how you describe it, there is an etiquette that you have to follow, or else you risk getting negative response.

Got to say I've found the opposite to be true - reddit has seemed very open & accepting, and willing to engage with me, regarding my game.  Not so much on other forums, including this one.  I've put this down to the fact there are too many regular posters on reddit for a 'clique' to form.

I find the 'mob mentality' affects only the default subreddits (/r/pics, /r/videos etc) and really makes those places awful.  Also gaming related (but not gamedev related) subreddits do contain a lot of similar people.

You do have to follow the rules of the subreddit you are posting in, which are on the right hand side of each subreddit.  And as lucidz says, participate also.  This is true for any forum.

Is it just me or is r/indiedev dead?

It does seem to be.  I don't normally visit individual subreddits, the front page aggregates all of my subscriptions.

Remember the 'gamers' demographic includes young petulant kids and epic trolls.  You cannot avoid this sort of behavior on these forums with large membership.  All you can do is act sensibly and with integrity.  Refute where necessary, but do not get drawn into a long trolling thread.