next »

[richie]

Compromised is a top down shooter that myself and another guy have been working on for over a year now.  We released the game on XBLIG back in May but have been continually working on the game.  We are releasing our beta PC version in a few weeks on Desura and IndieCity.  

I would love feedback here on everything from the demo, to the website, name, screenshots, etc.  Any and all feedback is welcome!  I will try to post info about game updates, lessons learned and our marketing success/failures on this page.  

To kick off here is the trailer we made for the XBLIG release of Compromised http://www.youtube.com/embed/yZgdKmNztIU

Our website has a download to the demo: http://compromisedgame.com/

Some screenshots:

Thanks!

[richie]

I also want to include a link to a thread I just finished reading with some great insights about one guys efforts at marketing and PR. 

You can find it here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=27113.0

[richie]

I have spent the last few days emailing press sites.  So far I have sent about 15 - 20 emails and had 3 replies.  It has taken me a few days to write all of the emails because I want to make sure every site I send an email to covers indie games for PC. 

I also try to make the email at least somewhat related to the individual I am sending it to.  Since very few gaming sites know me or my studio, I figure taking the time to write a specific email to them may increase our chances of at least getting looked at.

Here is a nice resource by pixel prospector about contacting press: Pixel Prospector - How to Contact Press

I read through it and am now reading through the links.  It has some great stuff.

[Schrompf]

I like the graphics style! It's so refreshing to see something which is not driven by 16-colour-huge-square-pixels. Will try the demo when I find some time. Thanks for posting!

[richie]

I like the graphics style! It's so refreshing to see something which is not driven by 16-colour-huge-square-pixels. Will try the demo when I find some time. Thanks for posting!

Thanks Schrompf! 

I got an email saying the status bar was not updating on the installer.  Can you post back (when you get a chance) about whether you had success installing the demo.  Anyone else, please let me know if you had success or failure with the installer.

Much Obliged. 

[Schrompf]

Hi richie,

I tested the demo now. First thing to say: well done! No, actually the first thing in order of sequence would be "WHAAAAAAaaat the fuck?", because the game kept switching resolutions at maybe 10 times a second, make both of my monitors showing unhealthy flickering. I switched to Windowed Mode, but according to some flashes of the game window I got the impression that whatever you did there kept on going.

The second impression was "Well done". Smooth panning and animations, nice particle work, solidly themed everywhere. The only grudge I had with the graphics was that low brightness look - everything looked as if was rendered really dark and then a steep gamma ramp tried to make it visible again. If you're serious about that 16bit look, this might even be intended, but I didn't like it. Some of the graphics looked awkwardly upscaled, too.

Gameplay: I had fun. The ship controlling felt good, the occasional bump into walls didn't hurt anything - excellent design choice! The basic shooting was well done, even though I got the impression that it might get boring after a while. I missed some beefy shooting sounds and hit feedback. The last boss battle was really good! The other fights would gain something by better visibility of enemies and bullets. Also I found it strange that the main weapon aims at the cursor while the secondary weapons fire in move direction. Why?

Oh, and the whole "controlling by mouse/keybord", but you already wrote somewhere that you're on it. Acknowledging tutorial pages by '3' is strange enough, but I also didn't find the key to skip animations. They're quit slowly paced, I always felt the urge to accelerate them a bit to see what's next.

Overall impression: nicely done, but a few usability details might need fixing. And the aforementioned "gamma ramp" look together with the piece-wise level design and the very low-count particle effects made it look cheap to me. But that's just my personal impression.

[F8_Sean]

It looks neat, I like the idea of slightly less on-rails shmups. Good visual direction, nice effects.

I'm not sure about the music. Then again, I'm probably in the minority there.

[richie]

Hi richie,

I tested the demo now. First thing to say: well done! No, actually the first thing in order of sequence would be "WHAAAAAAaaat the fuck?", because the game kept switching resolutions at maybe 10 times a second, make both of my monitors showing unhealthy flickering. I switched to Windowed Mode, but according to some flashes of the game window I got the impression that whatever you did there kept on going.

Are you using 2 monitors.  There is a bug when multiple monitors are running.  I will let the other guy know.

The second impression was "Well done". Smooth panning and animations, nice particle work, solidly themed everywhere. The only grudge I had with the graphics was that low brightness look - everything looked as if was rendered really dark and then a steep gamma ramp tried to make it visible again. If you're serious about that 16bit look, this might even be intended, but I didn't like it. Some of the graphics looked awkwardly upscaled, too.

I will look into all of this.  There were some problems with visibility, so I added some brightness effects.  As for the upscaling, yeah I think I know what you are talking about.

Gameplay: I had fun. The ship controlling felt good, the occasional bump into walls didn't hurt anything - excellent design choice! The basic shooting was well done, even though I got the impression that it might get boring after a while. I missed some beefy shooting sounds and hit feedback. The last boss battle was really good! The other fights would gain something by better visibility of enemies and bullets. Also I found it strange that the main weapon aims at the cursor while the secondary weapons fire in move direction. Why?

Glad you like the gameplay.  Yes there were some reviews of the XBLIG version about the basic gameplay getting a bit old by the end.  We are trying to come up with some ways to keep it exciting and fresh.  As for missiles firing in the direction of the ship, it is a design choice, the missiles are extremely powerful but require more skill to use.  Some people like it, some don't...

Oh, and the whole "controlling by mouse/keybord", but you already wrote somewhere that you're on it. Acknowledging tutorial pages by '3' is strange enough, but I also didn't find the key to skip animations. They're quit slowly paced, I always felt the urge to accelerate them a bit to see what's next.

Not sure what you mean here.  Are you talking about the pop ups in the tutorial?  I think I see what you mean.

Overall impression: nicely done, but a few usability details might need fixing. And the aforementioned "gamma ramp" look together with the piece-wise level design and the very low-count particle effects made it look cheap to me. But that's just my personal impression.

Thanks for taking the time to play through the demo and all of the feedback you gave! 

[richie]

It looks neat, I like the idea of slightly less on-rails shmups. Good visual direction, nice effects.

I'm not sure about the music. Then again, I'm probably in the minority there.

Thanks!  The music is a bit different than what someone may normally expect in a shooter.  We like it but others have found it a strange choice for a shooter.

[Schrompf]

Oh, and the whole "controlling by mouse/keybord", but you already wrote somewhere that you're on it. Acknowledging tutorial pages by '3' is strange enough, but I also didn't find the key to skip animations. They're quit slowly paced, I always felt the urge to accelerate them a bit to see what's next.

Not sure what you mean here.  Are you talking about the pop ups in the tutorial?  I think I see what you mean.

No, not the tutorial. The tutorial text pages can be acknowledged by pressing '3' on the keyboard. This is clearly communicated, it's fine, except maybe a bit clumsy. But there are also animated screens in front of each story mission. Within those story screens there's only a little text "> to skip" in the lower-right corner, and I *think* that refers to the Start button of an XBox controller, but I haven't found the keyboard key which does the same.

Good luck!