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[gummikana]

Actually it's not wavy UV coordinates. I haxored together this piece of code that allows me to render custom made lines.

[William Broom]

This is great, but I guess you can figure that out for yourself! I felt a real kinship to my past selves as we battled the robot bastard hordes. The best part of the game for me was targeting enemies who had killed me in previous lives, thus rescuing my past self. But once I'd done that, they didn't help me no more. I think it'd be great if they could keep fighting under simple AI. This would reward the player for intervening in the past. Of course this would make the game even easier... but I like it that way. You can still rank people based on the number of lives they used, which would hopefully please both hardcore IWBTG types, and pussies like me.

[policedanceclub]

I think it'd be great if they could keep fighting under simple AI. like me.

I think this would be super awesomesaucer too.

[gummikana]

Actually I have some plans for the rescued players. First I would have to test that it actually works.

The AI thing sounds really cool, but could be a possible source of lots of exploits. Like killing yourself on purpose for few hundred times in the beginning of the game and the just killing the one robot that killed everyone and getting this army of bots that clear out the whole level. But I'll have to see what I can do with this.

[policedanceclub]

is this really a problem, if someone wants to play the game like that, why not?

[goshki]

@gummikana: What interests me is what inspired you to come up with such game mechanics (I mean incorporating replay system as an integral and indispensable part of gameplay for an arena shooter)?

[gummikana]

@policedanceclub: Not for me, but people seem to bitch about these things.

@goshki: A lot of things. I've been toying around with the idea of replays for a long time. Mainly it was this year's Experimental Gameplay Workshop and bunch chats I had with friends about the subject. Daniel Benmergui is one of those friends.

But the story isn't really all that simple. We were making this one game, for which I implemented the basics of the replay mechanic. It wasn't going to be anything big, just something little fun. Then that project botched up and I ended up with a bunch of replay code, that I had no use for. The Assembly game development deadline was in two days, so I figured that I'd better reuse that code if I wanted to do anything for the competition. I toyed around with a bunch of different ideas and finally settled up with an arena shooter, mostly because I liked the idea of doing a notebook geometry lines effect. But also because arena shooters are quick to do (you don't need content).

So the games that more or less influenced me on this game are:

• Cursor * 10
• Timebot
• Braid
• The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
• Brave Karma Warriors
• Everyday Shooter
• Geometry Wars

I choose robots as the theme because I wanted to shoot at something that would explode

[Decipher]

I thought it was all because of Futurama Straight-to-DVD Features :/

[gummikana]

No I haven't seen the movie. I wish I would have seen it though. I was a big fan of the series.

[imaginationac]

Just finished the playing release 3. The crosshairs are a big help.
I'm hoping you can speed up the grid rendering (I assume that's it since you said it is). It wasn't too bad, but the last two levels became too easy, though it could be I'm just used to the control scheme (and aiming wasn't off this time).

One suggestion: end the levels earlier. The prompt to go to next level takes about 5 seconds too long.

Oh, almost forgot. The link to the website in the readme file points to a 404 Error.

[charliedog]

I played the demo and liked it.  Here is my feedback.

I love the art style. 

I found the controls a bit tricky at first but got the hang of them quickly.  It's odd having to aim with the mouse and move with the cursor keys.

Using space to time travel is a bit awkward.  I feel as if I am reaching quite a long way to reach the button.  You could use the fire button to do this once you are dead?  Or maybe right mouse?

I agree with the other poster who said the ghosts are too similar in appearance to the players avatar.  It's quite difficult when you have a lot of ghosts to spot your character.  I know they are a slightly different color but it's not enough in my opinion.  I'd do more than just alpha them out though.

I found the controls got very sluggish when there where a lot of ghosts.  Maybe you should put a hard limit on how many ghosts there are?

I love the ripple effect on the explosions.  Is that software or hardware?

I had really bad slowdown at one point.  The odd thing was it was right at the start of a level when there where no ghosts and hardly any action.  Game seemed to be running at about 50% of usual speed

Was there an indicator on the screen for level progress?  I couldn't see one and I think it needs it.

Some sort of combo system would be nice to encourage replay of the earlier levels

But on the whole it was a good five minutes entertainment and I look forward to seeing the later builds.

regards,

Tony Oakden

http://charliedoggames.com

[medieval]

So you made the Groundhog game after all...

That sounds like Solid Snake. Er what? There's no sound!

;Anyway, new demo is double awesome.

[gummikana]

@charliedog: Huge thanks for your detailed feedback. It was really helpful. You know you can also move with WASD, so don't have to use the cursor keys. It makes reaching out for space bar a bit easier. But the second mouse button isn't a bad idea.

There's a really small indicator about the level progress, but I'll have to redo it. (It's the small thing moving from left to right on top of the screen)...

@Medieval: I'll try to add sounds soon

[Melly]

I like the aesthetic you're going for, however I had problems with 'lines' showing up around the player sprite and a section of the playing field:



I was running it at 800x600 windowed.

[Hideous]

Since I'll see you at No More Sweden tomorrow, would you mind putting this on a USB stick for me? I really doubt this computer would handle your lines, and I don't have time to check it now anyway.

[_Tommo_]

I downloaded the demos and I arrived at level 4 of each one...too difficult to go further... and I can say that this is an increbibly addicting game!
I like in particular the ghost idea, that makes this more than Another Geometry Wars Clone, and i like really much the "paper" design...

There are anyway few things that could have been better:

-The funniest part of the game is when you have 10+ ghosts... but then you can't easily distinguish yourself from the ghosts, and I had the feeling that the player didn't shoot where I was aiming...
Maybe the scene would be more clear if the player had a "glow" around him, and a "line of sight" (going from the player to the mouse position) instead of a standard cursor;
And the "new" projectiles should be different from the ghosts'.

-maybe it's me, but i don't like at all the deformable grid. I didn't even think at Geometry Wars, before I saw that grid in demo 3. IMHO it's a bit out of place and looks like a straightforward copy.

-I think that a "kill all" mode would be cool: you must kill a finite amount of enemies instead to wait for the end. IMHO this would put to better use the ghost mechanic;

-Some fancy score that can get to huge numbers! It's always cool to score ONE MILLION, even if it's braindead easy  :D

Anyway this game is really funny, I spent too much time playing it  :D

[Eclipse]

-The funniest part of the game is when you have 10+ ghosts... but then you can't easily distinguish yourself from the ghosts, and I had the feeling that the player didn't shoot where I was aiming...

that's why you're green and the ghosts are not : P

the only tips i can give to gummikana is that atm there's no big reward for staying alive, it's almost funnier to run like crazy shooting everywere and then to die to have a clone that shoots everywhere like you did killing a bunch of robots in the way

[v.dog]

I've just finished playing release five, And I loved it. The only real caveat is the lack of replay value, but once you add the scoring (and hopefully the bonuses) it will be awesome.

Random thoughts:
It looks like you've hand coded the levels. Since they are simply lists of numbers, have you thought about using a random or pseudo random generator to create them automatically? Pseudo random would be better as it would allow players to compare scores.

Have you thought about adding bombs? I think it could be cool if you had to watch that you weren't killed by a previous self.
They would have to be limited in number (say three on the screen at once) to stop people spamming and/or trapping their current self with bombs laid by their former selves; if a previous self used/is using them, you current self would be out until/if they replenish.

As for saved former selves: they are a paradox, right? Perhaps there could be a temporal rip whereby they disappear after a few seconds taking nearby bots with them (you would be immune to this). This would reward players for trying to save their former selves, wouldn't be as hard as coding an AI, and reduce the number of elements on screen (that would otherwise slow the game).
The effect could look like the spawn effect running backwards, but perhaps a bit smaller.

[medieval]

release 3 doesn't work

Please fix it

[_Tommo_]

As for saved former selves: they are a paradox, right? Perhaps there could be a temporal rip whereby they disappear after a few seconds taking nearby bots with them (you would be immune to this). This would reward players for trying to save their former selves, wouldn't be as hard as coding an AI, and reduce the number of elements on screen (that would otherwise slow the game).
The effect could look like the spawn effect running backwards, but perhaps a bit smaller.

Wow cool 
Put that in demo 4. Now