next »

[Dugan]

Hmm, so I was thinking - it could be quite fun at some point to revisit an old game I made (RockBoshers) and give it a DX makeover.

Would love to hear from anyone who played RB, what they liked most about the game and what they liked least (any other feedback would be great to hear too).

ta muchly!

[moi]

A link would be appreciated

Also: RockBoshers is one of the best games I've seen from Tigsource

[EDIT] Oh there is no remake yet?

[Dugan]

Yes no remake yet.

And good to hear you like RB  - anything you disliked about it though or you would like to see in a remakeroony?

[Udderdude]

Not sure exactly what kind of feedback you're looking for, but I tried it out and here's my impressions

In the screen with the slave miners where you get the gun, the text that pops up can block the way you're supposed to go and make it difficult to navigate through

The first level you reach with the doors that zombies pop out of can be milked for score indefinitely, thus making the scoring pointless.  You can leave with the button taped down and never be at risk of dying or running out of time.

This is a problem I had with my own game .. when you first start a level, it's difficult to immediately locate where your character is.  What I did in my game is to put a large green circle around the player.  This makes it much easier to tell where you are.

Why don't the turret shots hit zombies?  Is there any reason they should just travel through?  Not like the zombies and turrets are on the same side or anything.  In addition to this, it would be cool if the soldier's shots destroyed rocks.

In the first room with the drilling machines, it's hard to see the yellow key under all those yellow zombies.  Doesn't help that they cover it up almost completely most of the time.

It would be nice if opened doors leave behind some trace outline on the ground so there's some idea that a door was there.  And a key might not be the best object.  Just picking up a key makes you think you need to use the key on a door, not that it will instantly remove the same colored door in the level.  It should be a floor panel or computer or something if the doors just suddenly vanish.

I sometimes found myself sticking against walls while trying to move down a one square passage.  The hit detection is apparently unforgiving and you have to be pixel perfect down these passages.  Would be better if it was a bit looser.  This is especially apparent in the level with the 3 missile turrets in circles - It's easy to get caught on something and die rather quickly.

Again in the rock crusher room, I had gotten the yellow door open and was heading towards the area with zombies, after watching a few of them get squashed by the rock crusher.  I moved over, and a zombie somehow got stuck on me and I was unable to move.  Of course, the rock crusher proceeded to come over and kill me.  I don't know if this was a bug or not, but it was not cool.

On level 8, there's zombies and soldiers together and they don't fight or attack each other.  Maybe later on in the story it's revealed they're on the same side, but from the player's perspective at this point, it just looks wierd that they aren't fighting.  Also on this level, it's very difficult to avoid the soldier's shots as they fire erratically and there's very little room to dodge.

It would be helpful if there was a sound effect for when a growth wall grows back with you on top of it, and you get stuck.

Level 8 was just too frustrating for me with all of the soldiers in cramped spaces with regrowing walls.  Their erratic firing rate really needs to go - At times I lucked out and killed them very close while taking no damage, while at others they started firing as rapidly as a turret!  There's almost no way to dodge their bullets in those cramped conditions with regrowing walls everywhere.  It felt like I was just waiting to get lucky with the soldier AI getting itself stuck in walls and also not firing as often.  I tried level 8 probably 11-12 times.  Sorry, I have to call it quits here.

[moi]

I don't remember problems particularly. Maybe that the gameplay was very retro and thus very frustrating at times, but being retro was the whole point right
I remember the save system was a bit stupid.

[Dugan]

Thank you both - thats all good useful info 

[DrDerekDoctors]

Yeah, for me the think which stuck out as weird was the zombies/enemies not fighting each other. Obviously with the current level designs making that change would be problematic, but if the level designs were skewed towards making use of their hostility for one-another, that'd be cool. I far prefer games where the rules in them apply equally to everyone.

[Dugan]

Yeah, for me the think which stuck out as weird was the zombies/enemies not fighting each other. Obviously with the current level designs making that change would be problematic, but if the level designs were skewed towards making use of their hostility for one-another, that'd be cool. I far prefer games where the rules in them apply equally to everyone.

thanks - yeah it would be cool to have more enemies that in-fight, so its not the player versus everything.

[Dugan]

... so, possibly the most rubbish Devlog ever, but the game is now due out on PlayStation Mobile tomorrow!

The original port began many many years ago (a coder I used to work with wanted to port RockBoshers out from gamemaker) and then an opportunity came up to pop into onto PSM, so he enhanced all sorts of bits of the original game based on your helpful input and then new music/sounds were added.

 

[DrDerekDoctors]

So didjer do the enemy in-fighting?

[Udderdude]

Yeah, how much of my fantastic, amazing and insightful feedback made it in there? >_>

[Dugan]

In fighting is partially in - they still go for you on the main part, but also hurt each other.

Scoring is out - level is purely completion/beat the clock/collect items.
Soldiers can break rocks, and turrets kill zombies etc.
Collision now lets you slide into gaps (bomberman style)...
More too! Was all great feedback.

And look - you get to drive a coal fired tank

[DrDerekDoctors]

So... PC release?

[Dugan]

So... PC release?

Yes indeedy - but probably not until December, or January.