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[Ben Claxton]

Thanks for the feedback guys, glad you gave it another go

Veracity, the slowdown is most likely a Direct X issue. Try turning it off in the Telenaut Settings. We put the option there in case some computers ran the game better with it, but it seems to just cause slowdown. So ye, try turning Direct X off. Let us know if it helps.

Regarding the music. The problem we have is that the system we're using has no option to increase the volume of the tracks in game, only decrease it, so we opted to make the actual mp3s as loud as possible. This, coupled with the fact that I'm not very experienced with sound production, means that the quality has suffered somewhat. Perhaps it would be better sacrificing volume for quality.

Glad to hear you're getting further SaintHeiser. You can use the break a lot more freely in this build so that might help with those tight areas. Keep at it!

[Linc]

What language and libraries was this written with?

[AaronLee]

Nice job, man! I love this! Nicely realized concept from what I can see in the trailer. Well expanded and elaborated.

Not sure if you're looking, but if you want someone to help with mechanical design/pixel art I'd be game. You can see what I do in the game in my sig.

[Danmark]

Veracity, the slowdown is most likely a Direct X issue. Try turning it off in the Telenaut Settings.

Yep, that did it.

Just now, on my second attempt at the WF sentinel, after an instant retry, the dude just stopped indefinitely. I think he was just about to go plug himself into the wall. The first attack he made this time was with rockets (it's been the laser every other time). Here's a screenshot showing his position.

[RyanHuggins]

I really like the artwork in this game. Also, that trailer makes it look like a pretty fun game. It's pretty crazy what MMF can do despite the lack of coding. :I

[AdamButcher]

Thanks for the good feedback all.

If anyone else wants a download link - just PM me! Maybe you Ninjuit?

the dude just stopped indefinitely

Veracity - dammit I thought I'd fixed that bug! Will have to look into it again.
Shouldn't be game-destroying tho - I remember it's pretty rare...

Would love to hear if you've got to the 4th world yet.

Also, I noticed from your screenshot that your fonts haven't installed properly? For everyone playing, we use the EditUndoFont - did it install for anyone properly??

Your HUD is meant to look like this:



If it doesn't look like that, you can get the font files here: http://www.adam-butcher.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/EditUndoFont.zip, or google search 'em.

What language and libraries was this written with?

Linc - "MMF 1.5" is all I know - I think that's C++ through Windows??. Key extensions are DirectShow (using bass.dll) and not many others. All homemade graphics and code.

OK keep it coming, anyone else...

[Linc]

Oh, you used Multimedia Fusion?

[AdamButcher]

Oh, you used Multimedia Fusion?

That's right. It's limited but good/easy enough for a hobbyist.

[Linc]

Right, right. IIRC IWBTG was written in MMF

[Danmark]

Veracity - dammit I thought I'd fixed that bug! Will have to look into it again.
Shouldn't be game-destroying tho - I remember it's pretty rare...

I'm sorry to hear that. Thinking you fixed a bug, and then having it come up again is the worst feeling in making software. Good luck reproducing it. Didn't happen on any other attempt (of which I had 8 or so).

Did make it to the fourth world. Quite enjoyed the first level, except having to fly through the same tunnels over and over was kind of tedious. That escort one... it's not merely unfun, but anti-fun. It seems to be entirely based on trial-and-error and memorization, unlike other levels where new scenarios are introduced, which you can potentially resolve on your first try. Nor does it emphasize gaining new skills, because it's easy if you can recall the pattern in a timely manner.

The timing on the beam is difficult to memorize, and it's necessary to do so, being that your boost is a limited resource, and that the beam only signals a shot a fraction of a second beforehand.

I'm not sure whether that level can be "fixed". Its very premise is broken. Still haven't finished it btw.

Also, once on that level, I killed myself with escape, starting the death tune. The object you escort was destroyed a few seconds later, and the death tune doubled up.

[AdamButcher]

Veracity - that's funny that you hate Genorator Escort so much. It's my favourite level in the game!

Have you noticed the red light markers show when the beam is gonna fire?...as the Genorator passes them on its path. Do I need to make them more obvious. Will admit there's a lot of surprises in that level - I could improve it.

[Danmark]

Have you noticed the red light markers show when the beam is gonna fire?...as the Genorator passes them on its path. Do I need to make them more obvious. Will admit there's a lot of surprises in that level - I could improve it.

Huh. Although I had seen those markers & acknowledged them, I never noticed any influence on the beam. If it's not too cluttered, you could show a physical connection between the markers and the beam track, establishing a relationship obvious before it's even seen in action. You at least need to make it more obvious that the markers are sensors, and clearly show them being activated by the generator.

Even so, those instant-kill wave turret things that come up are broken. You have to be Johnny-on-the-spot when they arrive, which is a matter of pure chance, until you've memorized the timing. Before that, you don't know where they'll come up, let alone when.

Another thing I don't like are the enemies roaming about at the beginning of the level. It's a piece of piss to chew through them all and have ample time before the generator reaches the first gate, yet they're slightly bullet-spongy, so it's also a pain in the ass. I mean, they have no real connection to the level, once you've worked out the obvious tactic of eliminating them first, so disposing of them feels like busywork.

Once you're past that, and before the cool part with the generator on, all you need to contend with is timing. Somehow I experienced no greater success on my first few tries with knowledge of the gates. The way I played it was get into position, circle around where I'll need to lay a boost trail, break the circle at the right time. It's tricky and awkward, as is WF Distribution (much easier in the new version btw), but unlike that level, it doesn't even pose a challenge I find interesting, or that has much to do with the rest of the game.

It's almost as though the level is too simple. Ironically, Generator Escort is the first level I've gotten a medal on (I often qualify for time and accuracy, but not shields).

Anyway, I've done 3 levels in Energy Hive, and it seems there's nowhere else to go? The antennae enemies are probably my favorite so far.

[Hypnohustla]

Would love to test this! Looks sweet.

[AdamButcher]

I've done 3 levels in Energy Hive, and it seems there's nowhere else to go? The antennae enemies are probably my favorite so far.

Glad you've got that far - have you tried defeating the Desert Complex boss? And then accessing the Energy Hive from that side? You'll need to do the 2 side levels on Weapon's Factory to get past the forcefield. Let me know if that's not working. There should be more Energy Hive levels to access from that side!

Also thanks for all the Feedback on Generator Escort. I'll have a think about the design philosphy here. Personally I thought using the Boost Trail defensively was pretty cool, and tried to make it as forgiving as possible...

Would love to test this! Looks sweet.

Thanks! Will send a link. NOW.

[Kit]

Tested the game for about thirty minutes, and my first impressions are fairly positive. One possible bug, though, if you pause during some of the training the music stops.

As for the game, I really like the mechanic of being able to shoot both in front of and behind you. The slight auto aim is not intrusive at all, and not to the point of making the game no fun. I am glad for the option to turn it on or off, however.

So far I've gotten to the Titan Forest Generator and Sentinal levels. Difficulty is not an issue thus far, as I think it's just right for this stage of the game. The few deaths I've experienced thus far were a result of either me not utilizing boost and break or simply being careless (Or both).

The quote text in between levels is very good for the game. Usually funny, and insightful into the game world's lore.

Graphically, I really enjoy this game. The atlas is spectacular to look at. Kudos to the art department.

-A few minor gripes-

You still crash into trees and tree stumps after they've been cut down by the Sentinal. I feel like I should be flying a bit higher than ground level, and even if the trees are enourmous, I still feel like my altitude should easily be somewhat higher.

I agree with the previous poster about enemy debris. Not completely necessary, but more eye candy. I really wish there were some scorch marks and debris after enemies were destroyed, similar to when I am destroyed. If it is a problem of too many things being on the screen at a time, you could make them fade out and destroy over time.

-A suggestion-

I find myself wishing I could do a barrel roll to deflect minor enemies' bullets, and I find myself wishing that when they trail me I could do a loop and end up behind them as they fly past, and I find myself wishing that I could do a U-turn other than when I reach the edge of the map. I've made a game engine in the past with very similar mechanics to this one, and it adds a lot of fun and strategy to the dogfights. What I did was store the last known speed, make the ship stop, whilst doing an animation of a loop or u-turn, and then continue at the last known speed (in the same direction or opposite direction, depending). Of course, the tricks would deplete the boost/brake bar. I don't intend to do anything with the engine, and maybe you can use the idea for your game.


I'll continue to post feedback as I get further along, but so far I am impressed and the game is a lot of fun.

[Maju]

Change the thread title. It's simply false advertising to refer to anything as "Starfox-style" if it's 2D. The distinguishing traits of the original Starfox were that it used polygons and allowed movement in a 3D environment.

[AdamButcher]

Kit630 - really good feedback, thanks. Glad you're having a generally good time! Interested to see how you feel as the difficulty increases...

Maju - we designed this game as a 2D Starfox, and can't think of a better way of describing it! The can't-stop-moving, sci-fi & boost-brake elements were all inspired by Starfox-love.

[ryansumo]

Hey guys, excellent game!  This thread is already almost a month old so I don't know how much merit my feedback has, but here goes anyway.

I noticed the autoaim right from the start and I was very happy to have that. I think I would have given up much earlier if it wasn't around.

The level with the bomb that you had to bring to blow up the generator seemed unnecessarily hard and prone to random deaths because the enemies never ended.  I feel like this is a misstep, because it's hard enough trying to tractor beam the bomb over to the generator without blowing yourself up without having to worry about enemies buzzing about behind you that a) you accidentally pick up in the tractor beam and b) possibly blow up the bomb.  I managed to beat the level almost accidentally, by bringing the bomb to the generator and then hitting it with my ship.  I was destroyed, but the level clearing activated so I happily went on to the next level.

The first level of the weapons factory seems a tad too difficult to finish in one go.  Mind you this was where I stopped so maybe it was also partly fatigue on my part.  It seems that some sort of checkpoint system would be in order here though.

I like the music just fine.

As for the art, I have to express that I am in general very confused about what objects are "walls" and what are not.  In my experience it took me a few collisions with the wall for me to finally recognize the barriers.  A definite difference in value (ie light/dark) between the ground and the barriers would help.  Especially in the forest scene, the colors used for the trees mimic those of the grass so closely that if you squint your eyes you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  before anyone goes and calls me an idiot for squinting my eyes while playing a game, the salient point is that if you made the trees or the grass darker (pick one) the barriers would pop out and this won't be a problem.  I don't know if there are any colorblind folks that have played the game yet, but a difference in value would definitely help them play the game as well.

But otherwise, the art is fantastic, and I'm speaking as an indie artist who's worked on quite a few projects already.

[Danmark]

Glad you've got that far - have you tried defeating the Desert Complex boss? And then accessing the Energy Hive from that side? You'll need to do the 2 side levels on Weapon's Factory to get past the forcefield. Let me know if that's not working. There should be more Energy Hive levels to access from that side!

Interesting. I'd already done all of DC and WF. I see now that there's a gate on the upper side of Energy Hive, but I'm not sure I'd have noticed it without asking. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Thing is, when I opened the lower EH door, it said something about having both keys, which to me implied that I needed both keys to open the door.


Really enjoyed Central Conduit. Energy Streams, not so much. It's another sparse "concept level" that I don't find very effective, like Generator Escort.

Not seeing the walls until you're on a tile had some novelty value the first few times, which wore off quickly. Once the magic's gone, it's just a matter of memorization, and the function of this feature isn't clear. Timing your movement such that you can dodge turret fire is also memorization. There's a little more tactical interest here than in Gen Escort, though not enough to do the rest of the game (that I've seen so far) justice.

Due to the weird way you get knocked back (your direction is reversed, not reflected by the surface normal), it can be just about impossible to recover if you happen to hit into a wall in the presence of a generator and a turret. Even if you do, you've probably lost too many shields.

Killing the turrets first can result in a bug where the generators take unlimited damage. Once this happened to the gen in the top-left corner, and once to one at the bottom-left. I'm pretty sure it's a bug, because I poured on ~8 times as much fire as normal the first time, and ~4x the second.

[Kit]

MIGHT be some spoilers in this feedback so skip it if you're a player that's worried about that sort of thing.

I got to the proving grounds today. I'm assuming this is near endgame. Strangely enough I haven't had any of the difficulty scaling issues experienced by the other players. I think some people didn't realize that the desert is easier than the factory, so that even though the game is not very linear level-wise, it is probably adviseable to go to the desert area first, complete it, THEN go to the factory.

There have been some levels that have taken more than a handful of tries, but again I feel the difficulty is warranted and progresses evenly. The only issue I ran into was the Sentinal of the energy hive. When he surrounds you with the barrier, it took me eight tries before I realized there was an indicator as to where it was moving to next. It was so light against the background that I couldn't see it. After I figured this out, the boss was a lot less difficult, just right. It might need to be darker or more visible somehow. Loved the powerup mechanic for the first three phases of this boss when the giant winglike modules appear. Fourth form where you can actually damage him is pretty easy, but I feel it should be due to all the trouble you go through to get there

I think you may be able to easily add a difficulty level system though if you continue to recieve difficulty complaints. Certain levels just need like one extra repair module to make them much easier.

One minor gripe I do have is that when you go between a collidable object and a wall, you continually smash into it, sometimes until you die. This can be frustrating in the factory, but is rarer than I imagined it could be.

The quotes from Jones and others are pretty entertaining as well as vaguely plot advancing, and I love them.

Haven't found any bugs yet which is a plus. Also, I find the game to be only slightly frustrating, and very enjoyable. It's a good mix, and I cannot wait to see the last level/boss/ending. Maybe tomorrow, at which time I'll continue my entry.

Jones out!