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[shrimp]

Finished! Download link and other info in first post.

[Alex May]

Good going guys, this game is great fun. I love the Amiga-style graphics and the level generation works really nicely too

[Noyb]

Very nice job! The level generator creates very fun levels. Definitely feels like a good old school game.

[Melly]

Game's pretty fun. Nice job.

[shrimp]

Thanks dudes!

As usual I just discovered some painful last minute bugs:
- draw order on enemy wheels is wrong (Z has been my least favourite letter for at least a week now)
- there is a weird bug that means sometimes screens are very underpopulated. I suppose playing Hard mode should counteract this a bit

Also the fun-ness of the game is quite variable - sometimes you get some interesting battles, sometimes not. Ho hum. I think fixes/tweaks will have to wait til version 2...

[RayRayTea]

And some final screenshots:

[Alex May]

Hey guys, had a bit more of a play now so it's time for some slightly tipsy feedback! I like the game a lot and like you, I think that a lot more can be done with it.

First off I love the graphics. I think the way the level generation works fits the tile sets really well. There's room for more variety in some of the sets, but by and large the level graphics are great. I think it would be awesome to have progressively more distorted and dark areas as you get further down into the cave system. Or something like that.

The enemy sprites work well, I think. It might be interesting to have some variation in size, and I hope to see some of the chained enemies you were looking at near the start of this thread.

Level generation works well but I think you've limited yourselves too much with the room size. The player is very fast and this makes the cave systems feel very claustrophobic.

On that note, I'd like to talk about the player movement. We did discuss this already, but essentially I think everything in the game is far too fast and immediate. And big. It's har dto see what's coming, where you can dodge, etc, because things are generally moving quite fast and there's little lead in the view. I get the feeling I would enjoy it much more if I were able to dodge things more gracefully, and hover competently. At the moment the homing elements are only really dodgable by getting something in between you and them. It would be cool to see the enemy launch a bunch of missiles into the air, and then watch them turn around and home in on the player. A lower rate of turn would make the missiles easier to dodge, but having more of them would make the game more interesting. Right now it feels like the missiles are kind of fast kamikaze enemies. I'd like to be dodging, hovering and firing at the enemy with loads of these things buzzing about the place.

Let me feel and see the dynamics! The player's upward acceleration is really high, so it makes it really hard to hover. Sure there's a hover key, but it's hard to use that and really be effective in combat. Similarly, I can't really fine tune the player's horizontal movement because as soon as I start moving he's zooming off and takes ages to stop. I want to feel like I'm wearing a jet pack!

Now, I believe I mentioned this before, but since the player's guns are completely horizontal, it would be interesting to make something of the vertical gameplay - mostly this was the dodging and hovering stuff I Was talking about earlier, buit it also has an impact on the level design. How about making the levels a bit more spacious so there's room to jet about dodging and firing? It would be interesting to see what limiting the player's horizontal manoeuvring space while leaving them lots of vertical space would do to the gameplay. How about making hte screen resolution larger? I'd like to see more made of the outdoor platformy sections where hovering would be much more important. Something like Joust maybe!

Moving off a screen by accident is frustrating - I'm sure you have plans to fix this, but it is annoying to instantly flick out of a room and back in to find all the bad guys restored. I also keep getting shot by dead enemies.

I'd also like to see a bunch more shooter enemy mechanics in there - lasers that have a warning line before locking on and firing; gun emplacements; enemies that explode into swarms of smaller ones, all that jazz. Maybe some procedurally generated puzzles too? Even a simple key/door mechanic would spice it up a bit.

Now might be the right time to point out that Exile is one of my favourite games ever and this game could be a lot like that given the chance - jet packs, caves, lots space ship parts... really, this could be pretty fantastic given the chance to evolve! I really want to see more!

[shrimp]

Drunken essay! Thanks man...

Let me feel and see the dynamics! The player's upward acceleration is really high, so it makes it really hard to hover. Sure there's a hover key, but it's hard to use that and really be effective in combat. Similarly, I can't really fine tune the player's horizontal movement because as soon as I start moving he's zooming off and takes ages to stop. I want to feel like I'm wearing a jet pack!

Yeah, I know what you mean - I might make some tweaks there (since there's general patching/tweaking going on). Low upward acceleration didn't really occur to me as I suck at balancing player movement

Moving off a screen by accident is frustrating - I'm sure you have plans to fix this, but it is annoying to instantly flick out of a room and back in to find all the bad guys restored.

Well, *had* plans... I was going to put a trail of recent screens in, with the IDs of the things that had been killed, so they didn't respawn. I didn't think it was too much of a big deal, but it does feel unsatisfying if you've spent ages battling them. Longer term (when the planet is bigger and there's more to do) I was thinking of figuring out a GTA/Morrowind style continuous world.

I also keep getting shot by dead enemies.

MMmmm I thought I fixed that 

I'd also like to see a bunch more shooter enemy mechanics in there - lasers that have a warning line before locking on and firing; gun emplacements; enemies that explode into swarms of smaller ones, all that jazz. Maybe some procedurally generated puzzles too? Even a simple key/door mechanic would spice it up a bit.

Yeah that enemy stuff is pretty similar to some ideas we had, but just didn't make it. Puzzles... yeas

I was definitely thinking of Exile whilst writing this. Also Jetpac (similar vertical/horizontal action you mentioned, and similar repair-the-spaceship business). Not sure how to exploit the vertical movement/horizontal shooting, but I know what you mean. Maybe some vertical tunnels in the caves with enemies on ledges.

[RayRayTea]

Heh, so true

As is, all the enemies have heads etc, but they are built in such a way that they can have smaller / bigger heads, or even be without one (so it can be made that the enemies without heads are a bit stupid, just patrolling left-right, the ones with a bit bigger heads are a bit smarter and fire at you etc)... let's hope we'll manage to put it in the next build!

Here are some other things that didn't make it for the competition build:

[shrimp]

Tweaked/patched v0.2 build available - see first post...

[superflat]

Shrimp I'm finally gonna check your game out tomorrow, I promise!  It looks so cool.  To use the Bitmap Bros' palette was an inspired decision - they sure knew how to use 16/32 colours.  Such a shame they sort of fell off after the 16-bit era. 

It's sort of got a look between Gods and the Chaos Engine (which was actually quite a different colour scheme for them.)  I must admit my favourite colour scheme was probably the 16 colour golds and silvers of Xenon II (maybe I should use them one day, hehehe.) 

[zradick]

Hey awesome!  I particularly liked the cat sprite and the wheeled enemies!  The movement was fluid and the gameplay worked well.  I intuitively figured out what needed to be done and was able to escape the planet with my cat intact!  Hoorah!
Cheers,
--Zack

[shrimp]

Thanks! Hope it wasn't too easy (bugs + misjudged last-minute balancing!) - please have a few goes on Hard Mode if so

@superflat, the art's all Mr RayRayTea, except some placeholder stuff and a few projectiles. You can look forward to some jump/fly/walk/etc animations in the next version!