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[NMcCoy]

So, in an attempt to get myself to actually do stuff, I've committed to releasing a new game every Wednesday. I've just put the first one up on my website.



You are a firey flying thing and must prevent rain. Please go play it and provide feedback.

[ortoslon]

i don't like that i can fly offscreen through the top

[george]

and I had a problem where I couldn't get off the bottom....any pointers?

I liked the flame tail on the ball.

[NMcCoy]

and I had a problem where I couldn't get off the bottom....any pointers?

Was it responding to input at all? You may need to click the applet to give it keyboard focus. Other than that, don't hold left or right when taking off as it might end up turning you towards the ground.
Edit: Ah, yeah, that'd do it - if you're trying to turn and take off at the same time you won't get anywhere, as your upward velocity gets redirected promptly downward. Don't try to turn and flap at the same time, pretty much.

[george]

cool, that's better. Tranquil and pretty. Sound next?

edit: or no going back in the game a week?

[NMcCoy]

There will be sound in future games, certainly, but I'd like to stick to the notion of "once I've posted it on Wednesday, that game is done" - I'm not giving myself any leeway with regard to being able to "finish it up" after the deadline.

I may permit myself a rare sequel or remix, but such things will be a full, new game in their own right.

Edit: It starts off nicely tranquil, but as the game goes on, if you don't keep the clouds in check...

[Stane]

Works well for a week's effort. Nice concept. I'm not sure that I could follow your strict self-imposed deadlines. This could use a couple of days more of polishing (not that there is anything wrong with it at the moment).

[starsrift]

I applaud your ambition on a weekly game.

When I first started playing the game, I didn't like the controls. Then I played it for a bit, and I really liked the controls, especially the way you could swoop back and forth! What I didn't like though, was having no idea where I was "aimed".
I also felt no sense of progress until the end when the score came up.

[ITS_Mike]

The game is nice and simple, but there needs to be some sign of progress.  The clouds change color as you get further, but there is no way of knowing how close you are to the finish line.  It was cool when the fireball would swoosh back and forth, but I couldn't figure out how I was doing it and it seemed random.  As has been pointed out, some way of showing the direction that the fireball is traveling would also be helpful, since it is easy to spin around endlessly when you only meant to make a slight course correction.  I have never been a fan of controlling your character this way (Asteroids is an example of another game that has this setup), but that is just personal taste

Creating a game a week to get into the habit of getting things done is an admirable goal, and you seem to be off to a good start!

[NMcCoy]

It's an endless score-until-you-die game; the sky gets grayer as more rain hits the ground. The lack of any persistent HUD during gameplay was a deliberate design decision (perhaps a poor one, but deliberate). The rotational controls rotate your actual velocity - you're "aimed" in the direction you're moving at any given moment.

[JamesGecko]

Neat artstyle. Flying was kinda fun. But boosting was a bit of a pain. Echoing the people who would have liked some indication of the current direction aside from motion.

I didn't realize that I could catch rain until late in the game. I thought I was getting bonuses for killing a lot of cloud really quickly or something. (I think I was actually collecting newly formed raindrops before they fell out of the cloud.)

[DavidN]

This seems to be one of those Flash toys that you can waste a lot of time in without noticing The unusual control scheme and physics make it interesting, though I was also one of the pile of people who would have liked a direction indicator - I'm not sure if that would completely change the visual mood of the game or not.

I'm also impressed with your dedication to put one of these out a week - it's a nice idea and could spark some concepts that could be grown into more complete games.