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[Slaktus]

Hello,

I'm experimenting with procedural level generation, particularly with finding simple, novel ways of making varied and playable content that's built from the player's interaction with the game system.

That probably sounds really important, but only means that defeated enemies leave behind hinged rods that grow when shot. Oh, and that enemies grow. Explonentially.

Flash prototype UPDATED!
Windows prototype UPDATED!

Updates:

• All geometry types and weapons are implemented
• Some performance tweaking dealing with collision detection

Controls: WASD + mouse

Future goals:

• Progression system tied into high-score chasing, unlock content by beating your friends.
• A rather sexy, conceptually integrated UI flow

I'd love some feedback, especially since it's still early days and I can very easily iterate based on feedback. I'm very curious if you find it any kind of compulsive even without scoring.

I've intentionally left scoring out to avoid getting caught up in designing novel scoring systems before the basic design is down pat. I find it pretty addictive, and often end up playing for 15 minutes whenever I make a little change I want to test.

Hope you like it!

[Spring Missile]

It's quite addictive although on slower machines like mine, a low fps is present. May I recommend using a Stage3D API such as starling for your game?

[Schrompf]

Annoying. Sorry, can find any other phrase to describe it. The concept shining through is interesting in an artsy way, but the prototype runs so fast here that I barely survive the very first incoming blob. Maybe some cool player-driven landscape would evolve later, but I'll never get to see it.

[Slaktus]

Hey, thanks. I'll tweak the speeds and upload another build -- I'm probably blind to how hard it is because I've spent the last two days building and testing it.

I'm using Haxe NME and I'm such a lousy coder that I'm not 100% sure I could successfully change renderer without spending weeks on it. I've whipped up a Windows build (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23502117/myriad.rar), which ought to be a little faster although there's so much scaling of physics bodies going on here that I think Box2d is the big culprit. Or, well, I'm the culprit, but you get the idea.

What I could do is update NME and replace the collision geometry on all the actors with primitives. I could also constrain the viewport so it renders in 800x600 instead of filling the entire screen. That'll probably improve matters.

[Spring Missile]

Ahh, I see I thought it was simply using ActionScript 3.0 but the improvements you suggested then seem reasonable. Also, why are you using Box2D? It's not very lightweight, especially when you could easily handle square/rect collisions using simple maths or a short google tutorial? It'd be much faster with a few simple calculations rather than the weight of a whole library on your back

[Slaktus]

Like I said, I'm a terrible programmer. I'm using a suite of tools we developed at the company I used to run with some friends. It features a visual scripting environment that I'm really fast and efficient with that outputs Haxe.

I'm slowly learning proper coding, but I'm not terribly motivated, especially since I'm uncertain what language and frameworks to go for. So I just touch up my generated Haxe code instead. I suppose I'm just avoiding the inevitable.

[Spring Missile]

Well, if you want to learn development for the web, I propose learning AS3. The Flash IDE also allows for export to mobile and desktop devices, so you wont always be stuck to one platform, and the starling framework makes mobile development fast and efficient Also, AS3 is easy to learn in comparison to many other languages and it is similar in syntax to JavaScript so hey, what's to lose? Same with JavaScript, you could learn that first However, if you're looking for more desktop orientated development or console quality games, I would recommend CSharp with the XNA Framework which allows publishing to Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Mobile and maybe from there, you could move onto C++ which is the language many major developers use with the Unreal Engine which I think is a great engine myself

[Slaktus]

That was the reason I went for haxe -- it's basically AS3 with some peculiarities. I should really just learn AS3, like you say, and haxe will follow.

In the meantime, I'll go figure out how to get the game running in 800x600 instead of filling the screen.

[Wolfenhex]

The game ran fine for me until some kind of chain reaction resulted in this:



Overall, the game is fun and addicting.  I look forward to seeing more stuff added to it.

[Quicksand-S]

Well, I can't say it feels much like the levels change based on what I do (Maybe I didn't play enough). I do, however, really like the "smooth" feeling of the movement. The way things handle is great, and I like the circular arena as well as the implosion->explosion enemy deaths. It's a nice effect.

[Slaktus]

Quicksand-S: Nah, the "levels created through play" line refers to the hinged poles the enemies leave behind, as well as the enemies themselves. I don't think about the balls as enemies per se, but rather as hostile terrain that arranges itself into navigation challenges based on player input.

Glad you like the feel of it, that's what I've spent the most time on and making nice, sticky avatar movement and punchy weapons was my primary goal here. I think that's right about the most important thing about games (feel as form, in a sense), and as long as basic interaction is satisfying the content itself is secondary.

Wolfenhex: Yep, it happens every now and then. Funnily enough, it usually resolves after a few minutes and lets you keep playing. I've yet to fix it, I'll look into it before I deploy the next version.

I've added three more weapons since last update, tweaked the feel further and started on a title screen and score tally screen plus tried to work out some way to present a compulsion loop. I kinda hate compulsion loops, but I try to justify them as a part of the learning curve.

Hopefully a new update after the weekend.

[ToddersLegrande]

It's hard! I didn't play long enough to get to try everything out but I like where its going!

[theSchap]

There are a lot of fun concepts at play here. I think with some tweaking and progression of sorts it could be a fantastic game.

[Slaktus]

Hey,

Thanks for all the feedback, extremely encouraging. My development effort has been slowed down considerably as recent Flash and AIR updates made my dev tools unusable (yes, really) and I decided to take Spring Missile's suggestion seriously and so I've started coding properly instead.

Well, "properly" is relative, but at least it works. Have a go! There are new weapons and the beginnings of a menu system that I'm trying to make as elegant and intuitive as humanly possible, while strengthening the visual concept.

Here's the most recent version

Hope you like it!

[Udderdude]

It would be nice if when blowing up an enemy, it's explosion also takes out any untouched red enemies near it.

[Slaktus]

You mean take out without splitting in two? Hm. I was about to say that would mean you could run out of enemies, but since you'll always be making two enemies however many you destroy, that's not the case.

I adore chain reactions, so I might give that a pop.

Anyone got any feedback on the weapons? I think the beam is pretty cool, but something bothers me about the missiles. They feel a little sluggish, but do a lot of damage and grow enemies really quickly. There's something about how they're launched, the speed at which they travel. I can't put my finger on it.

Halp?

[Udderdude]

Beam is too slow.  When using it, I couldn't move around enough.  Missile is ok but hard to hit stuff since they just fly around wherever.  Bullets seems liket he best one.

[Slaktus]

I've updated.

There are now two more types of geometry enemies can drop, a cross and a corner. I think they're both a little unstable, but that may be because I know of all the ugly hackage that went into them, so I know where to look for flaws.

The missiles needed some tweaking, as only firing one turned the game sort of ponderous and methodical. Firing three makes it pretty hectic and makes the aiming meta-game a lot more involving.

I feel like the different weapons make for pretty different play styles. The bullets are good for keeping enemies at a distance, but destroying them and taking out geometry is slow.

The missiles can quickly take out single enemies, but once they start flocking together, it becomes a lot less efficient. It can also be hard to grow the geometry, as the missiles don't home for them.

The beam leads to methodical play that breaks into chaos when the player over-extends. Enemies and geometry pops quickly when you train the beam on them, but the avatar is slowed down while firing. It's easy to blaze a path, but hard to predict where the path leads.

Should I set up a devlog for this instead? I feel pretty sure I'm gonna finish it. Not too many features left implement before I start polishing and planning the final revision.

[Slaktus]

Ok, the prototype is feature complete.

There are four very different weapons and four types of geometry enemies can leave behind when they buy the farm.

Now it's time to polish and add the scoring system plus the rest of the UI. That means I need as much feedback as I can get on the feel of the different weapons and comments on whether the different weapon and geometry types shape play style in meaningful ways. I'm obviously also interested in ideas for more weapon or geometry types.

I'm also very curious about performance. I suspect it runs pretty slow as the code is rather dirty, and my next goal is to replace all my custom geometry with Box2D primitives and use joints instead of all the ugly hacks I'm applying now.

I'm also, of course, interested in hearing whether it's enjoyable or not, and why!

[Udderdude]

It still feels too random, enemies come from the side and hit me before I can even see them, and the stage always feels too small.  IMO the stage needs to expand much faster.