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[etodd]

Hey guys, I'm a solo indie developer who's been lurking around here anonymously for awhile. Unfortunately I didn't think to post here earlier in my game's development process; it's (hopefully) less than a month from completion. But! I did keep a development blog here if you're interested: http://et1337.wordpress.com

A3P is an online shooter that steals fun mechanics from the Third Person Shooter and Real-Time Strategy genres. You load out your units (and yourself) with weapons and special abilities, then lead your minions to victory on a twitch-based battlefield. Here's a screenie:



Website/gameplay footage: http://a3p.sf.net
Play it in your browser (plugin download required) or as a stand-alone app: http://a3p.sf.net/play.html

Online multiplayer isn't 100% functional yet, but you can play against bots. There's also an experimental browser plugin available on the website.

Thanks for reading everyone, and good luck with your games! I'll be posting more updates here leading up to the final release.

[etodd]

Quick update: current version in SVN includes a new reloading mechanic, a new rocket boost special ability, and simple shadow mapping. Unfortunately, I have to delay the final release, mostly because my online lobby server isn't up and running yet, but also to allow for more beta testing, added features, and overall polish. I'm shooting to release the final version before school lets out for the summer. Between now and then, I'll be making periodical releases in order to get more feedback for the final one. Rest assured, the next release will have full multiplayer support!

And check it out, A3P's on ModDB now! http://www.moddb.com/games/a3p-acquire-attack-asplode-pwn

Here's a screenshot of the new graphics, which also demonstrates how reloading units are highlighted as vulnerable.

[etodd]

Still plugging away. Online multiplayer is finally here! The browser plugin is officially stable, it should work in most browsers and OS's. Check it out

Here's a partial changelog:
- Implemented reloading and ammo clips. Reloading units are highlighted, to show their vulnerability. Droids carry an infinite number of clips.
- Added a pistol, which shoots darts capable of pinning players to walls
- Added a new multiplayer map called "Orbit"
- Ditched the drop pods in favor of spawn points. Makes things more interesting as your units have to find you after respawning.
- Multiplayer networking is much faster and more stable. I've spent a TON of time fixing bugs and optimizing performance.

Obligatory eye-candy showing off the new spawn points:

[mokesmoe]

It's not working. Whenever I click "Start Playing!" it sends me to the plugin download page, even though I've already installed the plugin.

[etodd]

Did you try restarting the browser? And clearing the cache? If that doesn't help, I'd appreciate it if you could post your browser/OS. Thanks!

[mokesmoe]

Chrome/Vista. Which is probably the best combination for things not working.

Just tried it in IE, and it works. I would appreciate it if there was any way of making it work on chrome, because IE sucks.

Edit: Played it, it was fun, but even after the tutorial I still had no idea what I was doing. Also, there needs to be some way to configure controls.

[etodd]

I agree whole-heartedly about IE. But I've been running it in Chrome on Win 7 for a while now... maybe it was just not detecting the plugin correctly. Try it again, I just removed the bit of JavaScript that checks for the plugin. It's been acting touchy anyway.

[mokesmoe]

It's still not working. I suppose I can suffer with IE for this.

I'm getting the hang of the game now. Wish I had someone to play with though, as the AI sucks by itself, and the tutorial's really short.

Also, I noticed that sometimes games won't start and I'll half to refresh the window. I think it happens if I try to play more than once in a row, but I'm not exactly sure.

EDIT: as you can probably tell from our game, grenades are completely overpowered.
And apparently the game crashes whenever it feels like it.

You should make the opening on the respawn points bigger, as they can be annoying to get out of.
The outer ring of orbit is a bit glitchy. The AI's pathfinding sucks there, and weapons sometimes shoot through the ground. Also, When I grenade jumped really high and hit the ceiling, I just got stuck there.

[etodd]

Thanks for playing! I haven't had the opportunity to do much multiplayer testing; now I have a decent amount of bugfix data to work with. Not to mention weapon balancing.

[mokesmoe]

Actually, the grenade launcher is fine the way it is except for the glitch I was doing.
What I did is equipped two grenade launchers, and went click-tab-click really quickly, allowing me to shoot two grenade at once. With the awesome ability, I could alternate click and tab really fast to spam tons of grenades, although this gets in my way just as much as it hurts you. (knocks me around everywhere, and completely blocks my vision with smoke and explosion effects)

Why do you only start with one helper in the first match, but can still buy stuff for the other one?

EDIT: Grenade jumping FTW! If you join my server now you can see what I mean.
When I did the glitch, the two grenade together seemed to be much more powerful then two separate grenades. The one would blow up together and the double explosion seemed to have a bigger blast radius. I think grenades should be a 300 power, not a 250 one.

EDIT again: Apparently my AI helper hacked his way into a wall, and when when I started moving around he floated up to where I was. Dunno what happened there.

[etodd]

Ah, I wondered how you were doing that. I'll have to do something about that.

About the one helper thing, looks like you've uncovered another bug. Added to the list.

The nice thing about the web plugin is, as long as I only update code, players don't even have to re-download anything, it just updates the 100K or so of binaries. Great for rapid prototyping/texting/bugfixing.

[edit: already discussed this in-game. I'll keep it up for the record.]

[mokesmoe]

Self destruct crashes the game if it affects your player.

New tactic: Sniper jumping.
Shoot your sniper the instant after you jump. Shoot straight down for a high jump, or shoot behind you while rolling for a long jump.
Not overpowered by itself, but with the Awesome ability you can fly if you keep shooting. Maybe make Awesome lower or remove your recoil?

EDIT: Works better with the shotgun. Not sure about the difference in recoil, but it fires faster and you can use the extra speed to close in on opponents where the shotgun's more effective. Also useful when used with your melee attack. Technically it's doable with any weapon with recoil, just not as good.
Looks like this game is getting more complicated than you intended.