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[fentlewoodlewix]

Meteor Storm Escape First Playable

New Updates and New Builds are posted at the end of the thread.
This is the build to play from now on... http://www.happylittlealiens.com/meteorstorm/

Escape the Meteor Storm pounding your home City!
Jump into your futuristic hover bike and escape the cataclysm across country.
How far can you get?



Instructions (Read these First)

There is no tutorial in this build so these notes will have to do for now...

Its a meteor cataclysm so your craft is accelerating as much as it can.

Use Boost to go fast and fly into the air. Once airborne do stunts to get more boost. Use boost to go faster & do more stunts, etc. Refuelling stations are stationed regularly, they start off about 1km apart but get further and further apart as you go onwards. When boosting your craft is not using fuel, so you can use boost to go further and further between refuelling.

Avoid Meteors, Trees, etc. Crashing will deplete your shields. Shield pickups are spread randomly to replenish your shields.

<- & -> Left and Right Arrows Steer Your Craft.

Z - Speed Boost. Limited Supply, use wisely. Pushes you forwards and down towards the ground. Use it to gain speed. On release you will leap up into the air. Drive into a valley and up the other side, release on your way back up & out for maximum air/hangtime.

X - Spin/Stunt. Use this when you have lots of elevation. Once you are off the ground, press X then use all four arrow keys to spin your craft. Release to right yourself. Leave enough time to right yourself before you hit the ground.

We need YOUR feedback!

The game is clearly unfinished.
This is one mission of a multi mission multi vehicle version we plan to release on iOS and mac/pc.
Please give us your feedback general or specific.
Help us make it polished and better.

You can play it in a browser via the magic of Unity3d. Follow the link to our First Playable v 0.5.1.

[JOHN ETERNAL]

I have honestly clocked about 30 minutes playing this. My favorites racers being WipeOut and Extreme G. Missions & power-ups perhaps? I enjoyed the boost mode. Keep it up ^_^b

[vedsten]

Enjoyed this quite a lot!
The graphics are beautiful! and the sense of speed is great.
The asteroids work really well both visually (i loove how huge the feel) and gameplay wise (I like how you can see them coming and then have to respond accordingly).

A few times, when I was at really high speeds and in the air, I felt like I didn't have a chance to escape them. You see them coming but don't have enough time to maneuver away. 

I think the the blue sphere around "repair" power up has a tendency to blend in with the track. I'd like to be able to see them from afar (might just be my crappy screen tho.)

Sometimes, when came to a complete halt on a hill I had trouble accumulating speed, even when using boost.

On a last note, I'd like to rotate a bit quicker doing tricks, i feels a tad slow. The shield de-grade punishment also seems a bit too big.

Looking forward to future versions

Cheers,
Mads

[fentlewoodlewix]

Thanks guys! These are all really good suggestions.
We'll be looking into them all and working out which can be implemented for the next version.

stay tuned
sean

[fentlewoodlewix]

Meteor Storm Escape First Playable v0.5.2

Instructions
Same Instructions as earlier post.

What Kind of Feedback?
The game is clearly unfinished. Help us make it polished and better. We are mostly interested in the two major changes since the previous version:

• We have been receiving some feedback about having to glance away from the gameplay to see the values on the HUD. So we have a new HUD layout! What do you think?
• Please Ignore the Visual Glitch on the Exhaust Jets. It may be distracting, but we're on it.
• Some players would like the steering to be a little more agile, so ive tried a new approach to make it more steerable. Try it, and let us know how you get on.

How do i Play it?
You can play it in a browser via the magic of Unity3d. Follow the link to our First Playable v 0.5.2.


thanks
sean

[Windybeard]

Great game, i love the simplicity and its very addictive.

Things i lke...
 - I like the graphics and the music is awesome!
 - The meteors are cool and i like the way they smash over trees.
 - Stunts are addictive to try and pull off!
 - The boost system really feels like a boost.

Things i didnt like so much....
 - Sometimes it is impossible not to get hit due to a wall of fallen trees and meteors. Perhaps add a little bunny hop for this kind of situation?
 - Distance stats on the bottom left are fairly hard to read during play.


Great game and look forward to playing the next build. hope i helped

[fentlewoodlewix]

- Distance stats on the bottom left are fairly hard to read during play.

Yes your feedback helps. The more the better. I'll be taking an indepth look asap.
In the mean time, take a look at the most recent version 0.5.2 the placements of the distances have changed.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2491925/HappyLittleAliens/MeteorStorm/Builds/052/Web/Web.html

[Inanimate]

Pretty fun and simple game! I think some more variety in obstacles would work nicely (perhaps you could have an occasional swarm of lots of tiny meteors) -- and perhaps even a powerup that temporarily makes your boosting break apart stuff would be cool.

I also think that the death sequence could do with an animation of you explodin', or something.

Keep up the fantastic work, man!

[fentlewoodlewix]

Pretty fun and simple game! I think some more variety in obstacles would work nicely (perhaps you could have an occasional swarm of lots of tiny meteors) --

ooh, i hadnt thought of that. could be cool

and perhaps even a powerup that temporarily makes your boosting break apart stuff would be cool.

definitely, we are looking at this currently. maybe given anonymously (smash box anyone?) so the system can give you what you lack most of. invinceability if low shields, boost if low fuel, etc. a smashing boost is a great idea with HUD effect and so on, smash through the meteors and they explode around you! would be awesome!

I also think that the death sequence could do with an animation of you explodin', or something.

oh my yes, many people have mentioned this. perhaps tumbling or something before full on explode.

thanks

[Scott]

Great fun simple game!

If I had to come up with a criticism or two, it would be a) the stunts didn't feel that stunty (they felt too slow to me), and b) a way to get more boost would be nice (power up, do a super-stunt, etc...)

It's more of a relaxing game than a suspenseful one (that isn't bad of course). One possible idea for more suspense if desired might be moments of racing against a meteor - maybe it will strike the ground where a power up is and you have to boost to get the power up first.. or something.

[fentlewoodlewix]

Meteor Storm Escape is nearly finished:

Everyone has been working super-hard to finish the project. To this end we have new music, art, menus, tutorial, and gameplay changes.
We have a new build for you all to play. Please go and check it out. http://www.happylittlealiens.com/meteorstorm/





At the moment we are looking for feedback on any problem areas you find technical, art, audio, or game design, so we can iron them out before launch and also on a few specific issues.

The boosting and stunting system...

• Is it clear to undertand?
• Should we have some more explanation, perhaps in the tutorial? Any Ideas?
• Maybe we need a meter on screen to show the boost status?

Tutorial...

• Is it adequate?
• Too short?
• Not Enough Explanation?
• Too long

The music in the menu is currently some of the gameplay music, this will change to a more menu apropriate track soon.

thanks
sean

[burtonposey]

Can't you make a build that doesn't remember that I've seen the instructions? I'm trying to look it over. I had no idea until I failed that my boost was using fuel. I just thought it would work like any snowboarding/skateboarding game where I'd tuck in and jump. In those games, you don't tire out before you get finished, . That's just where my mind was coming from when I think about the opportunity cost for doing tricks. I'm kinda torn on what feedback to give as a fix for that. Be neat and make a bit of sense if you could spin faster if you were using boost while in air.

As far as the menus, I think you need more contrast. It's all about the same level and it's hard to discern interactive elements at a very basic level. I understand by form, but not by contrast. I think you might be able to make the intro screen more visually appealing by darkening the sky a bit so there's a nice positive negative feel between the top half of the screen and the bottom. That might contradict with your mountain level aesthetic you are communicating though.

I liked it in gameplay. I didn't realize I had fuel at all until I lost, but I might not have paid enough attention. Have you tried to do an audio filter for your sound? It might sound really awesome if you tweak it slightly when you're airborne by a certain amount to add to the emotional impact of that moment.

That's all I've got for now. Keep up the great work Sean. Take care.

[maetheec]

Not bad, I think this has potential.

Here are my feedback:
1) I kinda like the style of the old build better. Especially, the main menu, the mountains and the higher detailed ship doesn't really go well together in my eyes.

2) I don't know if you've fix this in the new build, but a few times when I was playing the old build, I had meteor landed right on my fuel...

3) I think the controls is almost spot on... I felt like it needed to be a bit more precise, it seems like the trees are pretty hard to avoid with the current control, or may be that was intentional?

Overall, great stuff, keep it up 

[Indie_Joe]

The boosting and stunting system...

• Is it clear to undertand?
• Should we have some more explanation, perhaps in the tutorial? Any Ideas?
• Maybe we need a meter on screen to show the boost status?

I think I understand the boosting system.  What I don't understand is how doing tricks is beneficial to me.

Tutorial...

• Is it adequate?
• Too short?
• Not Enough Explanation?
• Too long

Like other posters said, I wish there was a way to review the tutorial.  One thing I remember though, is that the text flashing in was kind of distracting.

A game design comment: I like the idea of a 3d runner game (the genre seems to be popular right now).  I'm not a huge fan of having to find and keep track of both fuel and shields though...if I didn't have to worry about fuel, just shields, it seems simpler while accomplishing the same idea. (or not having shields, and crashing drains your fuel)

[NFour]

This is pretty fun, for the first few seconds I thought it was kinda clunky and I kinda felt too restricted, but I got over that quickly and I found it to be rather exciting. I was well entertained for quite a while, very nice job! Not a thing I encountered ever really made me not want to keep playing.

Edit: whoops, I didn't notice there was an even more recent version >_< sorry. Fixed most of this though.


Good:
-The fuel bars blink with text, which is interesting. It gets my attention enough to tell me something has changed, though is not too distracting.
-The trick system doesn't feel as strict as I expected it to be. At first I thought I had to be facing forward perfectly on landing in order to not get hurt, but it is pleasingly loose in that respect.
-The tricks are slow enough where you fear doing one because you might not making it all the way around in time to land, making it quite a challenge. (I didn't realize at that time you could let go of X and spin back >_<)
-Not always caring that you can't land a trick and kinda just trading in shield for boost anyway
-I really like how limited the number of graphics are. Its really just you, the land, then the trees and meteors. I don't really know why I like this but it feels simple and clean. Fits well with the techy style. (That was 0.5.2 but it still stands, though I kinda preferred the simple, white ship)
-Trees falling over and creating more of a problem by being bigger and more in the way.
-Being able to see meteors coming to avoid them
-Seeing meteors coming and still not being able to predict anything since they knock trees over in your way.
-The pop-up text makes everything feel a lot more active.
-The whole background and terrain is really awesome in my opinion. Even though when I focus on the mountains I begin to see errors, but I still didn't care. The checkered grass and the smooth mountains look really nice together.
-It being possible to miss the refuel points. (And not being able to go back for them)
-The HUD zooming out as you boost. Though I think this effect would be made a little better if the HUD went back to the angled text that it was like in the 0.5.1 build
-The entire GUI is a lot better in the latest version. I didn't like how things were 3D in the menu but 2D in the HUD in 0.5.2, but the menu is very well done in the latest version.
-Those pixely shield collision graphics are amazing.

Bad:
-Didn't realize that there were even tricks at first. Blew through the tutorial too fast (may be my own fault) and went to play. Ran out of boost and just kept going. Strangely though, I was still kept entertained, so this is both bad and good. (Note, that was when playing with 0.5.2's tutorial)
-I like how the new menu makes the fuel, boost, and shield readily available for the eye, but now the other three indicators are completely off radar. I can't even remember what those were for and I just played 30seconds ago. I almost prefer the old layout better, especially the angled numbers and such, they fit nicely in terms of the sorta sharp theme.
-Not being able to jump without boost. I've not even managed to get adequate air off of just speeding off a hill to get any tricks in without any boost yet.
-Tricks just feel kinda off in terms of gameplay, I would find them a lot more fun if they were quicker even though being quicker would kinda contradict with something I said in the good section. But they don't really fit in the theme once you think about it, you're a jet speeding across a terrain as fast as possible avoiding meteors, but doing tricks is rather slow and arduous. Maybe you could try splitting it, so that every time you press the arrow key (with x) you do one trick. And every trick consists of doing maybe 5 quick spins before slowing down to face forward, that way it will still feel fast while keeping the risk of not having enough time to do the trick.
-It'd probably be a hassle to fix, but landing on top of a meteor seems to hurt you regardless of whether it should. I don't know if this should even be fixed but I thought it might make it flow a bit smoother if you could land on a meteor without worry and just keep speeding through. Though at the same time I also like the fact that you can't because it forces you into panic sometimes when you know there's this great big rock in the way of your landing.
-It took me a really long time to figure out that you could let go of X to stop a trick and save yourself. Would have been really handy to know. Also, it would probably be better if you just had it so that it spun back if you let go of the arrow since letting go of X kinda breaks the flow of the game.
-The newest meteor crashing graphic is kinda distracting, though I got used to it kinda quickly
-I had no idea there was a pause button for the longest time.
-The tutorial still needs to say that letting go of X will right you.
-The newest ship graphic doesn't really fit with everything else. The landscape is kinda plain with one-color skins (which I like) but the new ship is really detailed and colorful, which is kinda strange.

Random Recommendations
-It might be a good idea to make it so that the fuel resuppliers get further and further from each other as you progress so that you are forced to maintain a high speed. It would be incredibly difficult to get very far, and also to balance it out so that it is even possible (with all the things slowing you down), so maybe that'd be like a hard mode? also with that barrage of small asteroids that Inanimate suggested, that'd be cool.

Bugs:
I played this on the 0.5.1 version for a few minutes and didn't encounter anything, but within seconds on 0.5.2 I got some strange ones. Though they didn't happen very frequently at all.
Edit: Derpity derp, could probably ignore all these as they are all in 0.5.2, I don't know if they are in the latest.

-I went really fast off a hill and started doing tricks and ended up past the left map boundaries and fell off. I was also quite a ways up high so that might have something to do with it.
-I noticed some trees that were upright and straight floating above a landed meteor that looked almost as though they were placed there. I can't be certain they didn't just fly up there on impact, but there were two of them making it hard to believe they actually landed straight up like that.
-I ran out of shield and triggered the damaged fire particle effects, but then hit a shield boost during the midst of it and got healed however the particles still lasted.
-I Hit something right before going up a slope and lost all momentum. Started going backwards and soon after fell through the floor and out of the map. Couldn't do it again though.

(bugs in the latest version)
-The terrain occasionally overlaps the GUI in the corners. Like the lowest corners of the fuel bars would intersect with the ground and be behind it.
-Music off button in the menu doesn't do anything


This is a lot more text than I intended when I started writing, and while I'm writing this line I still don't even feel half way through...
Effin' heck yeah, that was a lot longer than I intended >_<

Also, what exactly does "Bt" stand for under the boost bar? BoosT?

[fentlewoodlewix]

Can't you make a build that doesn't remember that I've seen the instructions?

i was afraid of this, but also afraid of ppl saying the opposite. to this end you can re-view the instructions from the options menu.

changed it so the next update will only remember the tutorial view flag for one day, not sure this is a good compromise though.

i was thinking that in the final build if it had been a week or month since you viewed it then the tutorial would appear again just for good measure. what do you think of this?

I'm trying to look it over. I had no idea until I failed that my boost was using fuel. I just thought it would work like any snowboarding/skateboarding game where I'd tuck in and jump. In those games, you don't tire out before you get finished, . That's just where my mind was coming from when I think about the opportunity cost for doing tricks. I'm kinda torn on what feedback to give as a fix for that.

i tried to make it like ssx (a fave of mine, but not played it in a few years) which gives you boost in a meter on the right hand side of the screen.

it seems like it just isnt clear to new players. should probablu update the tutorial so this message is clearer... if you land a trick well, you get boost. boost lets you go faster & therefore jump higher. higher jumps means easier to do tricks, which means more boost, and around we go.

Be neat and make a bit of sense if you could spin faster if you were using boost while in air.

that is an interesting idea, i hadnt thought of this. spend boost during stunt to stunt faster, i'll definitely consider this. (we are planning more ships, that spin faster and have better shields)

As far as the menus, I think you need more contrast. It's all about the same level and it's hard to discern interactive elements at a very basic level. I understand by form, but not by contrast. I think you might be able to make the intro screen more visually appealing by darkening the sky a bit so there's a nice positive negative feel between the top half of the screen and the bottom. That might contradict with your mountain level aesthetic you are communicating though.

our artist will see this, lets see what happens :-)

I liked it in gameplay. I didn't realize I had fuel at all until I lost, but I might not have paid enough attention.

this tells me the tutorial needs to clarify the fuel, refuelling boost system.

Have you tried to do an audio filter for your sound? It might sound really awesome if you tweak it slightly when you're airborne by a certain amount to add to the emotional impact of that moment.

i _really_ _really_ want to do this, not sure how though.


thanks for the feedback, its all really helpful!

[fentlewoodlewix]

Not bad, I think this has potential.

Here are my feedback:
1) I kinda like the style of the old build better. Especially, the main menu, the mountains and the higher detailed ship doesn't really go well together in my eyes.

the art direction of the old build was more stylish.
now its more mainstream, its clearer & sets the stage clearly but also maybe less interesting?

2) I don't know if you've fix this in the new build, but a few times when I was playing the old build, I had meteor landed right on my fuel...

adjusted the random distribution of the meteors. there is now less of a chance of it happening.
when (if) it does you can skim the edge of the refuelling stations as the meteor is slightly smaller in radius.

3) I think the controls is almost spot on... I felt like it needed to be a bit more precise, it seems like the trees are pretty hard to avoid with the current control, or may be that was intentional?

Overall, great stuff, keep it up 

thanks

[burtonposey]

Have you tried to do an audio filter for your sound? It might sound really awesome if you tweak it slightly when you're airborne by a certain amount to add to the emotional impact of that moment.

i _really_ _really_ want to do this, not sure how though.

I have messed around with it a bit to have the music for my game muffled when you are on the pause screen. If you have Unity Pro, you can put an audio filter on it. Here's the documentation for that

Looking good! Are you by chance going to be at PAX? I just got two tickets from a friend of a friend (don't worry, they're legit) and wanted to meet up with some people from here if anyone is going. I don't have a booth, but I'm going for the purpose of putting our iPads in the hands of everyone that wants to play our game! Later.

[fentlewoodlewix]

Have you tried to do an audio filter for your sound? It might sound really awesome if you tweak it slightly when you're airborne by a certain amount to add to the emotional impact of that moment.

i _really_ _really_ want to do this, not sure how though.

I have messed around with it a bit to have the music for my game muffled when you are on the pause screen. If you have Unity Pro, you can put an audio filter on it. Here's the documentation for that

Looking good! Are you by chance going to be at PAX? I just got two tickets from a friend of a friend (don't worry, they're legit) and wanted to meet up with some people from here if anyone is going. I don't have a booth, but I'm going for the purpose of putting our iPads in the hands of everyone that wants to play our game! Later.

aah, PAX that would be awesome and really useful i'm sure, but no, we're in the UK.
i'll be taking a look at putting in that  audio filter today.

[fentlewoodlewix]

Meteor Storm Escape

Lots of new Updates...

• Tutorial is in place, but its not finished.
• Shield Loss due to impacts and crashes has been tweaked to make the trees a more significant part of the gameplay.
• Optimised to the hilt!
• Materials, Lighting, Shadows, Polygons, Scripts
• Which of course means we put in like 50 times more mountains, rocks on the tracks and now clouds. Check it out.

Go play it here... http://www.happylittlealiens.com/meteorstorm/

Questions...

• How far can you get? What is your high score?
• The tutorial is in skeleton form currently, we plan to improve it. What parts of the game do you think arent clear? What needs to be explained better?
• If you have time can you make a gameplay video? We would really like to see some footage of people playing it to see what they are actually doing, thanks.
• We're still tweaking the track texture, what do you think of the new version? In keeping, better, worse?

We will be focussing on an iOS port soon with few updates making it down to the Web version.
Read about updates... http://blog.happylittlealiens.com/
Thanks for all your attention,
sean