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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsHEAVY BULLETS
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Author Topic: HEAVY BULLETS  (Read 41101 times)
terri
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« on: September 24, 2013, 09:05:50 AM »

Heavy Bullets is a FPS dungeon crawler I've been working on the last few weeks, and you can play it now!

BETA IS LIVE!
HEAVYBULLETS.COM





I'd love all the feedback I can get, and will keep this devlog updated with my progress from now on.




« Last Edit: September 15, 2014, 01:42:10 PM by terri » Logged

tequibo
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« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2013, 01:02:34 PM »

Like it, as I already said on twitter.
Played about dosen of times, got to the 3rd level
Some thoughts/impressions:
- Vending machine UI is really cool! The way you just still look around in game as usual, and it's a shopping interface
- Enemies looks cool, but kind of hard to notice at first, I guess this is intentional?(for caterpillar-sausage it is for sure)
- My biggest problem is that if you are out of ammo that's it. I feel like there should be a way to somehow still fight. But I'm not sure, sometimes bullets would just pop out of thin air? Of from plants?
- Items like bullets and coins hard to notice on the ground
- I felt like sounds do not fit game very well, but I guess those are placeholders?
- Spacebar items - confusing, no indication if it is activates on spacebar, or just some sort of upgrade
- And a bit wierd having bombs on shift and some upgraded bombs on spacebar, would make more sense if there were just one slot for bombs, maybe they would just upgrade
- I did not udterstood what toolbox(something for the shops? died before I get to one), red dust, blood stone(?) do.
- Banking is an interesting feature.
- Are upgrades persist through lifes? Or is it what life insurance does? I assumed it puts some money on deposit. I think I got focus upgraded to level 2 at my new game.
- Felt a bit strange having to reload at the start of the game, but I used to it after few times
- Mixed feelings about having spent a bullet on getting treasure
- Sentry guns are tricky!

That's it for now, maybe post more later as I play it some more.
Again - really like the game, keep up the good work!
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eigenbom
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« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2013, 01:45:47 PM »

The screenshots look quite cool. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Your avatar is also quite spectacular.
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terri
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« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2013, 02:50:18 PM »

@tequibo
thanks a lot man, this invaluable feedback. I wasn't sure how much I should let the player figure things out and how much I needed to lay out... I guess I need to balance it a bit better

- You should be able to retrieve every bullet you shoot. If you lost one to pick up an item, it was a bug. I recommend upgrading the bullet magnets, and buy 6 extra bullets as soon as you can. Try to always keep 6 in the chamber and at least 6 in the inventory. Maybe the player should start with more bullets or there should be more pickups around, I'll look into it.

- I wanted the player to have to make choices about the items, thats why you can only carry one type at time. I definitely need to show more info on the items. Not sure if just "passive" or "use" or if I give out all the specifics. Of course the whole design might be terrible and I need to rethink the item system from scratch, we'll see.

The toolbox turns regular bombs into homing bombs. A red powder will make your next bullet explosive.

- Upgrades are not persistent, just the money you put in the bank. If you buy life insurance you get a % of the coins you were holding automatically deposited in your account when you die.

- Yeah, no music and sfxr are placeholders, they're mostly there for the game play right now. I'm not really sure what direction I should go with this yet.

@eigenbom
sweet, heres a bigger pic


Oh, some people are having slowdowns on the title screen. I'm trying to figure it out.
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tequibo
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« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2013, 04:08:59 PM »

Ah, I just noticed that bullets just jump while laying around!

And only after you said I tryed shooting at wall and, hey, I can pick bullets back up, haha! I haven't tried this before, since I knew ammo is limited. This changes everything!

So I guess my problem was that I did not noticed them for the most part, and just thought that mobs drop bullets as well as coins when they die.

Another confusing thing is that you throw away passive item on pressing spacebar.
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Gear
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« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2013, 02:31:36 AM »

I think the yellow (fuse?) boxes really help when it comes to fighting the turrets. Also, the boss was a nice surprise.
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terri
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« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2013, 04:43:46 AM »

Awesome! Today I'm going to try to rework the "controls" screen into something that explains the game a bit more.
For the items, I'll start by having to hold space to drop items. Other than that I might need to rework the UI a bit, so I wanna plan that a bit more.

@Gear great! how did you find the difficulty?
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Gear
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« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2013, 04:58:38 AM »

@Gear great! how did you find the difficulty?

Pretty hard - it took me quite a couple of tries to make it to the end, but it didn't feel like the game's fault (satisfying enough to come back to, basically). Have yet to work out what some of the items do, like the throw glove and the blood stone.
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Pemanent
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« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2013, 02:25:25 PM »


Dude. Fuck. yes.
This is what I'm talking about.

There is a lot of circlejerking here (as normal with any community) so I feel some very good games like this get overlooked. But games like this are why I come here, games like this are why I make games. This shit is inspirational for me.

The game took a very saturated genre and gave it a whole new life.
Enemies have meaning and are thought out. I was truly surprised by each new enemy I faced. I had to rethink how I moved and used my bullets with each enemy. Powerups also have meaning and are very intentional in the way they interact with the game. There aren't any, "oh and here we'll have a cliche extra damage powerup because well every game has one of them" yes there are extra damage powerups but they are there for a reason. The game is designed around random generation and it's integral to the experience. The bullet system actually encourages the player to wait to shoot until an enemy gets close. With this bullet system not only is it important where you shoot but when you shoot. I had to think about each shot. Money has value. I cherished each coin and scoured levels for that one extra coin I needed to heal. The boss completely raped my face the first time, like a boss should. When I died it was because of something I did wrong, because I made the wrong choice during play and the game punished me for it, like it should. The banking system forced me to think long term after I died. I played a few runs with full intention of dying soon just to collect coins and deposit them for my next life. Being able to carry only one items forced me to choose which one fit my play style. It made each item valuable and eliminated the collect a million strength potions for the boss but never use them. Anyways, I know this is all stuff you already know.

Quote
I wanted the player to have to make choices about the items, thats why you can only carry one type at time. I definitely need to show more info on the items. Not sure if just "passive" or "use" or if I give out all the specifics. Of course the whole design might be terrible and I need to rethink the item system from scratch, we'll see.
Yes I love not knowing what each item does, but I need a little more of a hint. I think the passive and use is a great idea. I tried to figure out the throw glove for a good 15 minutes to no avail. (what does it do?) I definitely would not make wholesale changes, but some refinement is definitely in order.

Needless to say I played for an hour or two and really enjoyed it. This thread is now at the top of my follow list.
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terri
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« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2013, 07:09:54 PM »

V0.03 is up, here are some stuff that changed:
- Drop items by holding spacebar
- Press TAB to view stats/upgrades
- Tweaked some names
- More responsive UI
Some bugs fixed as well.
I have not yet found the reason why some people get massive slowdown on the title screen.

Still working on more stuff!

@tequibo
Thanks for all the input man, your suggestion are great!

@Gear
Good, yeah the throw glove need some tweaking, I think its more clear now. Renamed the blood stone too.

@Pemanent
Its so great that you like it man, thanks a lot for the feedback. I totally agree on the hint thing. I changed some names around. Also on stuff like the toolbox, it turns bombs into homing bombs, but if you don't have any bombs, it was impossible to figure out why its not doing anything, so now you get a message saying you need bombs for it to work. Should be less frustrating
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Pezomi
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« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2013, 07:50:48 PM »

Downloading to give it a try tomorrow.

Looks interesting from the screens.

What did you develop it with?

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terri
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« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2013, 08:32:58 PM »

Its Unity, with Playmaker and 2dToolkit.
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Gear
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« Reply #12 on: September 26, 2013, 12:01:48 AM »

I few bugs I noticed:
Bringing an item into a new level would cause the tool tip to change to N\A
Buying the discount card doesn't update the tab menu, but its effect is still there
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terri
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« Reply #13 on: September 26, 2013, 05:19:35 AM »

noted, thanks!
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Greg Game Man
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« Reply #14 on: September 26, 2013, 07:48:35 AM »

This is awesome dude, i love the colors, sounds and weapon movements.

If the enemies stood out from the environment more, and there were more open spaces i think it would be more fun.

Protip from someone who was using playmaker and switched to C#. Switch to C#.

just looking at your blog and its all great, consider yourself followed.
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terri
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« Reply #15 on: September 26, 2013, 08:17:42 AM »

This is awesome dude, i love the colors, sounds and weapon movements.

If the enemies stood out from the environment more, and there were more open spaces i think it would be more fun.

Protip from someone who was using playmaker and switched to C#. Switch to C#.

just looking at your blog and its all great, consider yourself followed.

Did you have problems with it, or do you just mean its less limiting or more fun?
I've had many frustrated attempts at properly learning to code, but I've been getting some pretty bad editor slowdowns with playmaker which makes me question if its viable for larger projects (not even that large tbh).

Thanks for the feedback on the game!
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coah
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« Reply #16 on: September 26, 2013, 09:25:23 AM »

I like how responsive the game is, I especially like how silver-hearts are handled once they are depleted, there's no confusion about what they do at that point.

Also that the bullets jump around if they are on the ground for a short while is a really great touch.

There are many good things about the game, but those two stand out to me, overall It's damn good.

Having a gradient for the walls really helps focus your attention towards the ground, I found that pleasing.
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Gear
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« Reply #17 on: September 26, 2013, 10:40:41 AM »

Found that the same item that gets the N/A bug disappears when you hold space to drop it.
Also (this just my personal selfishness), I sometimes found I wanted a number to tell me how many loose bullets there were in the level.
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terri
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« Reply #18 on: September 26, 2013, 06:19:28 PM »

Thanks again for the feedback, got those bugs down, 0.04 is up!
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Greg Game Man
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« Reply #19 on: September 26, 2013, 06:39:55 PM »

Did you have problems with it, or do you just mean its less limiting or more fun?

Its worse in pretty much every way, and knowing how to write code makes you feel like one of those badass cyber hackers in 80s sci-fi flicks where they just smash the keyboard and magic happens.
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