next »

[ArenMook]

Allow me to brighten your severe case of Mondays with some well-placed explosions. Use WASD to drive, mouse to aim, LMB to shoot, hold RMB to zoom the camera in some direction. 1234 to switch weapons. All enemies can be defeated in 2-3 hits with the right combination of weapons.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/TasharenEnt/battle-treads

The game is called Battle Treads (working title, but I don't think we'll come up with anything else so that's what we're going with!). It's being developed in our spare time by 2 devs and an artist. You drive around in a tank, and you shoot stuff. You can also capture stuff. You can pick up mini-nukes from crates, or you can shoot them! Either way, they explode. In fact, everything explodes!

We do have a menu, tank customization screens, as well as a mission system worked out with objectives, "quest" log and such, but they are not in this build. For now what we can use help with is getting some more feedback on the game mechanics themselves -- driving, shooting, that sort of stuff.

So if you have a couple of minutes while sipping your morning coffee, any feedback you can offer would be most welcome.

[Colton]

Fun little game, though I wish there was a way to heal yourself. Unless there is a way and I'm stupid and missed it. I would love to see a multiplayer version of this, though I'm sure someone's suggested that already.

Also, when I switched tabs in Chrome to view something quickly, it froze Chrome and I had to forcefully close the tab using Task Manager. I don't know if you have any control over this, but a fix for this would be wonderful.

[ArenMook]

You can heal yourself by resting on the respawn pad. I know it's not obvious at this point -- we're hoping to explain the basics via tutorials which aren't a part of this build.

Multiplayer version is definitely planned!

As for the chrome freezing... that sounds like a Unity bug. Turns out that was actually a bug in music switching code. It should be fixed.

Thanks for the feedback!

[ArenMook]

*bump* for updates. Procedurally generated random terrains, 3 player profiles, tank customization, random objectives, random time of day, and more.

[aDFP]

Fantastic game. Loved it. It is initially a bit too complex for the fast-paced play style, and yeah, the healing does need to be heavily signposted (green particles, a big 3D text message, an arrow pointing to the nearest friendly respawn pad when your health is under 50%, etc.)

The complexity issue is a tricky one to resolve. It can be a personal thing, and it's hard to judge when you know the game intimately. I'd suggest you show it to a bunch of new players, and use fraps to grab a video of their games. I'd love to see it when you have a tutorial mode.

Great work, though. I'll be following you with interest.

Dan

Edit: Forgot to say, Unity crashed when I was selecting the tank on my third game, so you still have an issue there.

[starsrift]

That font is making me twitch. It seems so inappropriate. 

Nonetheless, I'll come back and give this a proper look, using this post to bookmark for when I'm at home.

[Colton]

Can you make it so on the Game Over screen, there's an option to retry the level straight from there? It's rather annoying to have it load, then load again if I wanna try again. Minor inconvenience, but still. Also, that freezing problem no longer exists. Thanks for that!

[ArenMook]

@Colton: Retry option -- yup, certainly.

@starsrift: Font -- which font do you mean? The scrolling combat text that's in the screenshot above?

@aDFP: Thanks! Strange about the crash though. That doesn't sound like it's music related. Maybe something to do with profiles? I'll double check.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

[Xion]

the screen is too big and doesn't fit on all my monitor which makes playing it kind of awkward since I have to sacrifice either the top or bottom or a bit of both. Very pretty though.

[ArenMook]

Retry option is now in, tutorial is in, and a bunch of other features to make it easier for the new players.

[starsrift]

Finally got around to trying this today... Really fun!

Shooting seemed to be fine! The targeting laser is really needed and well-placed. The driving felt a little awkward, reminded me of playing Mass Effect. The tank seemed to go a little faster, it just didn't feel like tanks should accelerate so fast and bounce around and stuff.

The terrain(procedural?) seemed a little too hilly, I even got stuck one time wedged in between a slope and a crystal rock formation.

I approve of the font used in the game, as opposed to that screenshot up above

[ArenMook]

Thanks! The terrain can be varied. Each game you play randomly chooses objectives, time of day, and terrain type. Some are very hilly and are meant for stunts (try shooting sideways as you clear the rim of a hill). Others are smooth and are meant for driving around quickly. I was going for a fast-paced game, which is why driving seems so fast. The fast acceleration is actually a result of people on Kongregate complaining about tank's responsiveness. :| I will tone it back down and make it upgradeable in the future.

[Jasper Flick]

Looks nice!

The tutorial level was very white, which made the tutorial text hard to read.

* Acceleration and steering is fast, but responds sluggishly to your input. To me, it always takes too long to start or stop moving, then moves too fast. Difficult to go to an exact spot. It feels like I'm controlling a remote toy car, not a tank. I tried a dual stick controller too and it worked, but it felt worse than the keys. I think you should decrease speed and reduce delay. I guess you're using Input.GetAxis? More tweaking here would really pay off.

* Another effect of the fast speed is that once a tank spots you, it can be right next to you within a second if it's properly aligned. It's silly for a tank to rush you like that.

* On my first level, I spawned next to a turret and a tank and was dead before I knew it. Died twice more on the same spot before I could get rid of them. I would be good if you could prevent such unlucky spawns.

* A mute button would be nice.

Keep it up!

[ArenMook]

You can mute the music via options on the main menu.

Alright the "works with a controller" part is completely unexpected. This is all Unity! I did indeed use GetAxis(), but I never even had a controller to test it on. That's cool to know that it works at all! :D

I know the "sluggishness" has been something people commented on frequently, but if anything, I would make it more sluggish rather than less. Realistically when you step on the gas pedal of your car, it doesn't just reach 60 miles an hour right away, right? As I recall it's exactly like driving a car in GTA4 using an XBOX controller. Would you have a game in mind that controls like you would expect this game to control like?

In regards to you dying as soon as you spawned... yeah that happens. Procedurally generated levels with no logic to prevent this kind of "oops" cases... I will certainly address this in the final game. The player will spawn in a turret-defended fort.

The enemy tank responsiveness and movement speed matches the player right now. It's certainly something that can be toned down though.

Thank you for the feedback, it's much appreciated!