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[lamster]

I'm working on a cartoony 2D dogfighting game and I would love some testers and feedback.  Free beta builds are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Download Site: http://www.altitudegame.com/
Screenshot:

[michael]

yay, its for mac! i'll check it out! what happened to the pictures?

[nihilocrat]

Hey, sorry to necropost, but this game is pretty good and well-polished. Wish there were more people playing.

[aschearer]

Wow a mac build! That means I can check it out! Can't wait to play it later tonight :-)

[aschearer]

I just tried to play it but it's saying I need a beta key. When I click the link to get a free one it says they will be available in 1986 :-). How can I get a key?

[aschearer]

Some thoughts:

  * Tutorial is really well done
  * Game is pretty complex, was hard to keep track of all the different keys and nevermind the menu options
  * I like the control of the plane through the hoops, you could probably make a whole based on this mechanic
  * Less happy w/ the dog-fighting experience, I found it difficult to really get a good shot at the bots and ended up mostly just circling around a giant mess of planes shooting w/o much planning
  * I think the graphics are very well done overall
  * Is it possible to spruce up the gui at all though? It's very plain in comparison and also a little more metal-y than it ought to be.

[lamster]

The key server was down for a few minutes there -- everything should be working now.  Let me know if you run into any issues.

Thanks for the feedback!

RE: UI complexity - I agree, we definitely need to simplify the menus.
RE: Game complexity - The hope is that you can get by with just F (for fire primary, and respawn when dead) + the left and right arrow keys (to turn your plane).  Until you have some experience you shouldn't worry too much about throttle (up/down), secondary (D), or powerups (S).  Perhaps additional tutorial stages would help to introduce the complexity?

RE: dogfighting - have you tried playing with the throttle?  If you slow down (by pressing the down arrow) you can make much tighter turns, allowing you to line up on the targets better.

We would like to spruce up the UI a bit but it's a ways down the priority list for now.

Thanks again -- I'll be focusing on the tutorial soon so it's great to have fresh feedback.

[angelword]

Great game! Tutorial is perfect! 

Wish only more people play!

Can you tell us the release date?

And a thing: why do not put some little arrows (or such a things) to indicate the position of the player offscreen? 

[Levin]

Download in progress

Wish only more people play!

Hey, Angelword maybe we can play together XD

[J.G. Martins]

Oooooh, hi lamster (I thought it was Iamster, oops!)! I meant to make a topic on here about Altitude, but never got around to it. I mentioned it in a topic about multi-platform development. It would be great if you could go there and talk about your experiences with Altitude!

To everyone: TRY IT! It is totally seriously worth it! More people = more fun! And there's a map editor and everything! It does have a medium learning curve, but you get better at it with a couple hours' practice. Besides, there have been plenty of updates since I've started playing, which means that the gaming is under some very, very active development

[Cheater‽]

 

I'm going to play the living  out of this game until I have to pay.

[nihilocrat]

The only real issue I had with it is that it's a bit claustrophobic for a flying game, and is hard to recover from a stall because it's not hard to stall in a dogfight at low altitude and just be SOL.

However! That could just be me being a beginner, and a lot of the tactics of the game (like dogfighting in flight sims) seems to be about maintaining airspeed, trading off altitude for speed and vice versa, and trying not to stall at inconvenient times.

I don't find the controls complicated at all, other than that it takes a little bit of getting used to left and right can sometimes mean "up" and "down". The plane select menu is really confusing though, but could be solved by just adding labels to stuff to make it clear what everything is, and what the menu as a whole is. It wasn't clear at all what it really was; it's more of like a class selection screen in Team Fortress but I didn't see any obvious cues. I thought that clicking on one of the plane outfits would let me edit that outfit, but I had to click the 'edit' button instead, because it wasn't clear that clicking on the plane actually selected that outfit; not suggesting anything better, just telling you what my first thought was.

I sort of disagree with keeping all but the starter plane behind unlocks, but I'm on the fence about the concept of unlocks in the first place. On one hand, it punishes a player by forcing them to grind to just have access to everything in the game, but on the other hand, it's a cheap way of giving the player a goal and a sense of success when they get an unlock. I think today's games are a bit too unlock/achievement-crazy, see 'Achievement Unlocked' for an amusing bit of video game satire.

Still, great game! Light and fun, makes me think of Subspace. It's like Teeworld's cousin that joined the Air Force.

[J.G. Martins]

The Loopy (first plane) is actually the best plane for dogfighting. Loads of advanced players still prefer it to any of the unlockables, so it's not really that bad. Unlockables essentially provide you with a different experience, requiring an extra layer of strategy (no auto-aim:P) to play effectively.

I personally play the Biplane because it stalls a lot and requires real careful handling, but with a couple of well placed shots it can leave the opponent dead... and you stalled. There are some awesome recovering manoeuvres for it, like using the machine gun to gain altitude and speed, and altitude and speed are a must with this plane.

I like everything being unlockable, since it does give you a sense of progression. The grinding part isn't so bad because of what I said, in that Loopy remains a stable of gameplay even for the highest level players. Since this is maybe not apparent to the beginner, I suppose it might have an effect on how the game is perceived.

Totally agreed on the plane customization page. Perks especially are rather hard to figure out.

A couple more tutorials on specific parts of the game would definitely not hurt, and I'm not too into regular shots no longer injuring the base.

[aschearer]

One thing you might consider is to introduce more fanfare when you do unlock something. I found that I was notified but it was hard to really tell what was going on. This meant that I didn't know where to find the unlocked good later.

I would consider playing some sort of music and showing a message like you do and then make a bigger deal of it when you go to the menu system. I'd also consider having the menu button glow to attract the player's attention that something cool and new is waiting for him.

[lamster]

Can you tell us the release date?
And a thing: why do not put some little arrows (or such a things) to indicate the position of the player offscreen? 

The plan is to release in about a month, maybe late February.

Offscreen arrows are tricky -- it's hard to find the right balance between providing useful info (like where to go to find enemies) and encouraging lame tactics (like spamming your weapon at offscreen enemies).  I'll play around with it some more to look for a better solution.

The plane select menu is really confusing though, but could be solved by just adding labels to stuff to make it clear what everything is, and what the menu as a whole is.

Good point -- we'll revamp this screen for the next patch.

I'd also consider having the menu button glow to attract the player's attention that something cool and new is waiting for him.

Good idea -- will try to make this more satisfying.

Thanks for the feedback!

[J.G. Martins]

Also, what kind of release are you planning on? Are there enough players to support a playerbase when you have to pay for the game? More details on this would be great

[lamster]

The plan is to launch an all-out marketing blitz (read: beg for publicity from gaming news outlets) right after we release, hopefully attaining that "critical mass" long enough to keeps things going.  Demo users will still be able to play the game, they just won't get all the content -- they'll be limited to the first few planes and perks.

Just pushed a new patch (your client will auto-update) with a modified plane selection screen -- does it help clarify the functionality or just make things worse?

[Lord Tim]

The new update is pretty nice, but I don't see why you have two sets for each plane. Even after getting all the unlocks, I wouldn't see myself changing out enough to need that.

[J.G. Martins]

Well, it's useful. Have you tried the biplane yet? It's really prone to stalling. In more open maps with less players, the heavy cannon is useful because a couple of well-aimed shots or a one-shot-one-burst attack can take out an enemy plane. Since the plane stalls easily with the heavy cannon, one may opt out of the heavy armour and pick auto-repair. Again, in sparse maps, this leaves you a chance to rebuild your strength before going back in.

However, heavy cannon and biplane are useless in crowded maps, but if you pick heavy armour and the recoil-less cannon (which entered just this update), the manoeuvrability you loose because of the armour is offset from the lack of recoil, and you fire many more shots. When there's a bunched up dogfight, shooting at the middle from a distance can really easily result in double, triple or quad kills.

It's just an example, but I hope it illustrates why several settings are useful sometimes

[mildmojo]

I think today's games are a bit too unlock/achievement-crazy, see 'Achievement Unlocked' for an amusing bit of video game satire.

Though Achievement Unlocked went a little far (I obsessively played through it), I'm the opposite.  I'm really excited about achievements in games.  In a way, it's like the game encourages esoteric behavior.  I love when I get an achievement I didn't know existed, because it's like the game's actually taking notice of me and my play style.

I like the addition of rear-firing weapons.  That really changes the dogfighting game.

Anvilfolk mentioned that some add-on items may affect the plane's performance.  I didn't see where that's documented in game.  Perhaps the flight characteristics could be plotted while you're selecting items?  At least the plane's mass, since that's probably what most influences the plane's behavior.

I like the Pacman-style warps on some levels that take you to the other side of the map.  More games need those.

I get thoroughly schooled every time I play, but the planes are durable enough that I don't feel like I spend more time waiting to spawn than dogfighting.  That's a good thing.

I apologize if I missed it, but you might mention the energy bar in the (well-done) tutorial.  Only after a few hours of gameplay did I realize that the afterburner and my firing rate were tied together.

Thanks very much for the Linux build!  I can't seem to set my screen resolution any higher than the default 1024x768, though.  The resolution dropdown works, but the list doesn't scroll.  It seems like I can use the arrow keys to highlight hidden resolutions above 1280x800, but pressing Enter doesn't make them save.  So I'm stuck at 1024.