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[dmal]

Hello,
Click to play my html5 demo game. Use arrow keys to read the instructions on the screen.

HERE IS THE NEWEST VERSION FROM 2013-03-31
http://controlledburngames.comule.com/333d_dir/


THIS IS THE VERY OLD VERSION, THE NEW VERSION IS LIKE ASTEROIDS, PLEASE READ MY MOST RECENT POST.
http://controlledburngames.comule.com/22_Accacia_Scrolling_Space_Simulation/



Any ideas to make it better?

What is the objective?  Make the diamonds fall into the wormhole.
Any other ideas?

Do some of you make some money from some of your games?
How would you suggest a newb move to eventually do the same, sometime?

So, this is my very first game.
I want to develop skills and games so that I eventually draw income from the games I create, eventually.

I plan to continue development and a full launch of the game so that I can get experience
with fundamentals, and also with marketing, launch, and an income model (or, a loss model ,
and therefore I want to launch every game cross platform on all mobile devices:
html5, iOS, Android, PC.

And, I want to get it on the Apple Appstore, and anywhere else it can be sold.
I'm living in a dream?  
I plan to present a polished version of my game in a few months at a local indie game conference here in Prague.  I'm hoping to find people who want me on their team, etc.

I'm a decent illustrator.

I'm in no hurry.  
I was hoping that here on this forum I can get some rude advice, snide comments, trolling, haranguement, harsh feedback, flaming, ripping, ribbing, and general B.S.
... along with maybe some constructive advice or feedback you might have?

Maybe the advice is to scrap the above game, and try again with another idea, and maybe try the launch with the next one?  Seems like I could use it awhile, to climb the learning curve, a little bit?

What are thinking?

Cheers,
D-Mal

[Lynx]

Loading this up on Chrome, I get this:

WebGL: INVALID_VALUE: texImage2D: bad image data controlledburngames.comule.com:1

[dmal]

Loading this up on Chrome, I get this:

WebGL: INVALID_VALUE: texImage2D: bad image data controlledburngames.comule.com:1

Aha! Yes, thank you.  It only works on Mozilla Firefox at the moment.
The Chrome debugger I have only started into now.
I'll update this thread when it works on Chrome.

[Quicksand-S]

In Firefox, the text was cut off on the right (it says "Interstellar c" and that's the edge of the canvas) so I didn't know what to do at first. Flying back and forth and back and forth to read the text is annoying. Why not have a bigger window and more line-breaks?

A sound played when I changed directions sometimes, as if I'd done something special. Not sure what caused it.

The laser cannon didn't seem to do anything to anything.

The sprite origin for the player's "ship" seems to need work. Ideally, if I change direction without moving, the ship should stay in the same position it was in and just face a different direction, not shift a few pixels sideways.

Are the defensive barrier things supposed to only aim left? I found it strange that they weren't centered on my ship when first created.

Sorry, but I really didn't get this game. It seemed like nothing I did had any real effect, except for the discharge which did...something. I get the feeling I was missing something important. I would say that you need to explain things to the player more, but maybe other forum-goers will understand the game better than I did.

[dmal]

... I really didn't get this game...

Alas, this is the common reaction.

I'm wonderining if I can learn something by trying to re-engineer it so that it makes sense to people. (and fix all the bugs you mention)... 

OR, should I just scrap it, and try working out another game using a structured approach?

This game was thrown together from tutorials (I'm sure you can tell).

On the other hand my 10 year old nephew speaks no english and beat it 5 times in 5 minutes, and played it for more than 15 minutes before he got sick of it.

One buddy asked about a completed version, another buddy asked why the hell I'm still messing with it instead of moving on to something else.

Knowing when to let go ... or when to gnaw through the bone to get to the marrow?  Votes?

Is it a decent sized failure?  I'm hesitant to abandon anything until it becomes a truly
EPIC
FAIL.

[Quicksand-S]

I don't know if it needs to be abandoned just yet.

If your nephew can beat it, then apparently it works. How about if you tell me how it's supposed to work, and I can try playing as intended? A gameplay video might be good too. Then maybe I can give some better suggestions on how to improve it.

[dmal]

So, I've tried to implement much of your feedback.
I've also got some interesting mechanics implemented, but it makes even less sense now, having no theme, at all, anymore.

Here is a video of the monstrosity in action.




This video shows a working prototype.
The graphics are only place-holders at the moment, and will not be used in the final game.

Summary: Player moves around screen shoots guided missiles at scaling objects; scaling objects come under player control; scaling objects can be set on trajectory to collide with z-space object. Z-space object (wormhole) expands and alters inertia (gravity) of play. Goal is to either collapse or expand (move away or near) the Z-space object.


Play mechanics demonstrated:
Player lateral movement with mouse buttons.
Player vertical and Z-space movement with mouse wheel.
Missile Agent launch and guidance (green balls) using mouse cursor.
Gravity inertia (disabled for player).
View rotation based on lateral movement.
Asteroid z-space 3D emulation scaling (white squares).
Asteroid Z-Space collision detection (white squares with red X).
Asteroid target conversion (collision with Missile Agent).
Asteroid piloting with mouse cursor.
Asteroid trajectory to Event Horizon of wormhole (orange/red ring).
Player and asteroid entering Event Horizon in Z-space (wormhole graphic scales up).
Creator's head lodged way up his own ... (off-screen)/


Here are my theme ideas. Which one sounds interesting and looks like it might fit with the core mechanics?
Wormhole manipulation via Satellite and Asteroid Wrangling
(this was the original theme)

Lion tamer at the circus whipping and managing hungry lions that try to eat the audience and yourself.

Planet of the apes slave driver trying to keep those damned-dirty-humans in line.

Sweeping scorpions into a dustpan as they crawl up the walls and up your legs.

Rolling coins into a funnel.  (not much of a game)

Hockey player charging for the goal.

Cowboys roping (lassoing) cattle during a stampede.

Spiders and flies, webbing and wrapping and drinking, etc.


Zombie/monster wars: zombies versus monsters in a free-for-all RTS with player intervention like Herzog Zwei.

Destruction derby

Roller derby / roller ball

Slave master of Gor (this one is pretty naughty).


Cheers,
D-Mal

[thewizisthebiz]

I really WANT to understand this game, it seems interesting. Don't abandon it. That being said; at the moment it's difficult to be clear on what the objective is, and how to accomplish the objective.

"collapse the white wormhole by causing energy-mass hologram collisions with the white wormhole" & "direct upper mass densities into white wormhole".

These are sentences are a bit confusing.

What is an "upper mass density". What is an "energy-mass hologram collision" What is a "polarity cannon" and why do I want to discharge it?

"Use keyboard digit 3 for defense truss structure" Why? What does that do, and what IS a "defense truss structure". When I press '3' it draws a sort of wonky grey line, but it doesn't have any recognizable effect? When I use the QWERADZXC buttons, it doesn't seem to do anything.

Are the objects that seem to be coming toward me the "derelict satellites"?

It's hard to understand what the instructions mean, and therefore hard to find a connection between the words and the objects that are being shown.

Perhaps it would help to isolate the mechanics into separate tasks — like a tutorial —  since these words are fairly abstract, and the objects are not necessarily recognizable forms.

Simpler interactions with fewer objects would help clarify cause/effect relationships and show players how each mechanic works individually. Then they would hopefully better understand how the mechanics work together in the actual game.

Sorry that was a lot of words, hope it helped. The youtube video already seemed to be a step in the right direction  I am definitely interested in playing another version.

p.s. Can you increase the size of the viewport, it seemed very restrictive?

[dmal]

Its going to be completely different than the earlier version.
Its going to be like a mashup between Asteroids and Space Harrier.


PLAY HERE
http://controlledburngames.comule.com/333d_dir/

Should I keep working on the graphics and 3D models, or should I start developing the tutorial and levels?

Supposedly, there will be a local indie game conference at the end of this month.
In your opinion, should I jump off into graphics and marketing?
Or, should I start on levels and polish?

Or, post a pre-alpha of what I've got so you can get a better idea? (having problems uploading versions, right now.)

Here is a video of a vertical slice of my game.

[dmal]

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