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[diki]

Hey fellow TIGSorcerers,

after a long time lurking I've finally decided to give it a go & try writing a real videogame! To keep it simple, I'll tackle a Space Invaders clone first; shooting moving targets sounds like a solid foundation to build some high-level game mechanics on
In a nutshell:

Video:




The Premise:

• Shoot Things
• Things will drop coins when shot
• Coins are used to buy more shots

Other mechanics to date:

• Things can snatch away coins dropped by others
• Things move in six lanes of opposing directions and different speeds
• More difficult shots will yield higher coin values

This is still a first prototype of a game, so there's not much to see here. But since I'm taking my first steps in a new programming language (Racket, to be precise), I would really appreciate it if you could give it a go - just to see if it works for you at all Thank you very much!


Downloads:

Windows: http://www.polyfaktor.com/temp/game/Space_Piracy_Windows.zip

Mac OS X: http://www.polyfaktor.com/temp/game/Space_Piracy_MacOS.zip

[jonbro]

works for me (on osx).
What are you going to do for the end of the game? when you get to zero shots? are you going to add antagonists?
I like the collecting the drops for shots, and I like the random sized drops too, classic press your luck & random reward mechanics.

[sonjool]

Could be a pretty fun idea.

Right now I feel like, since the largeness of the coin is directly related to the difficulty and when it's bigger, it's harder for you to obtain the coin because other things snatch it away. So there's a reward of achieving the hard shot, but it's immediately contradicted by something else snatching away your achievement.
An analogous experience would be when you use the claw machine to get a prize and you grab it and almost get it to the entrance, but it drops a few centimeters away.

So the predominant strategy, if the goal of the game is to keep the bullet count high for whatever reason, is to opt for easy front row coins.

[diki]

Hey,

thanks for your Feedback! These sort of questions about game ending/progress and antagonists/difficulty are my primary concerns, too. For this next iteration, I was trying to pin down 3 things:

• make shooting more fun
• introduce an increasing difficulty level
• have some sort of progression

Using the following elements, those aims were met with varying success:

Ballistic Bullets
Instead of a simple, steadily moving bullet, I tried a more 'ballistic' approach with a pellet that slows down (and comes back at you if it does not hit anything). Although this makes the bullet slightly more fun to watch, it does not add much fun to the gameplay and instead complicates it (because the player ends up hitting things he didn't want to). I doubt that 'hitting things from behind' can be used as a main mechanic, as it currently requires an unusual amount of planning & luck to pull of.

Targets / Level
The targets are now 3 different sizes & no longer spawn randomly, but 'wrap around' when they reach the edge of the screen. It is a lot easier to aim for a specific target this way, and also makes the world feel more persistent. This mechanic also led to the idea of 'replacing targets with cops', so I'll chalk it down as a plus.

Cops
In trying to make things more challenging, I introduced cops, which are indestructible ships that shoot back at you. Right now, cops appear in the place of targets when they are shot (it was the easiest implementation at the time). Although they make the game more difficult, it is now a lot less fun! The player is kept busy dodging cop bullets instead of shooting the targets, which I feel takes away from the central game mechanic instead of supporting it.

Graphics
Although it is much too early to know where this is going, the temptation to pixel some art was too big & I started messing around with Alchemy to come up with some spaceships. This is a bit of a first try with pixel art, so I don't mind the funny outcome. It remains to be seen wether the final game is really about spaceships or a more interesting metaphor can be found ...

Current build
Mac OS X: http://www.polyfaktor.com/temp/game/Space_Piracy_MacOS-2.zip

[jonbro]

Ok!

so with the fixed enemies, it seems like you can get into situations where the last ship is really hard to hit. Maybe eliminating the ships after a certain number of hits.

add a win screen when you get everyone. It will make the experience feel much more complete, and make the points much more easy to evaluate.

Right now the points feel pretty arbitrary, like what I end up with seems like a function of luck more than anything. I think part of this is that a white ship doesn't turn back to color when it steals a drop. It would be cool if there was a fixed amount that could drop set at the beginning, and then as you don't grab things they fall off the screen. Or maybe when the cops shoot you, the coins fly out of you, and back up into the enemies.

also, a note, you are not going to get a ton of people with mac builds (although, I really appreciate it).