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[KniteBlargh]

I'm looking forward to this.

[Loren Schmidt]

Hi everybody! Despite a severe case of Spelunkitis (which I imagine many of you share), Star Guard marches valiantly onward. Old levels have been refined based on the videos provided by the lovely testers. Bugs have been squashed (in the name of progress, not sadism!), and there are many new aliens and hazards I'm excited about designing levels around.


With little regard for their own lives, a group of allied soldiers destroys a bolt turret.

Video
I don't want to reveal any of the new areas yet, but here is an early video showing a test area containing one of the new enemies, borrowed from the generous Mr. Piglet:




I've been playing Mr. Piglet's 'Jed' lately. I'm very inspired by the level design. One thing in particular that I think he does well is present optional challenges to the player. I played through once and completed all the levels. But I immediately knew, even though it's totally optional, that I wanted to play again and rescue all the hidden robots in each stage.

Star Guard is a really different type of game, but it shares with Jed a focus on replayability. Currently this is encouraged by scoring our kill count and our clear time. The levels, early and late, are designed to accomodate both speed runs and more leisurely play. The goal is for it to be fun to replay the game and discover new tricks and shortcuts, and gradually improve our scores over time. I can't claim to have achieved it yet, but there are games such as Ikaruga (or Jed, or Spelunky) that do a remarkable job of motivating this kind of perfectionism. Somehow, no matter how good we are, it just makes us want to try harder to improve our skills and achieve a higher score.

To that end I'm doing a bit of brainstorming, and trying to think of more ways to make replay fun and rewarding. I think speed, kill count, and pattern learning are a good start. But perhaps the current score system doesn't have enough variability in it. I would also like to add more alternate routes (and alternate ways of completing areas). I'm also thinking about rebalancing the player movement so there's a little more room for virtuoso playing. Specifically I'm considering eliminating all sliding, making precise jumps less twitchy, and slightly increasing air time. But I'm not the best player in the world, and I'm sure I'm ignoring important possibilities here. What else might make the game fun to master? All suggestions are welcome.

[vdgmprgrmr]

I just wanna say that this game looks totally awesome...

[Lazycow]

Hi, these moving blocks are cool. These might open the door for some puzzle-solving in this action centric gameplay. Hope you will put more elements like this in there! 

While the whole graphics-style is very atari 2600-like, what about a scanline-mode? Here is how it could look like:




CU, Lazycow

[Loren Schmidt]

I've got some graphics done for one of the new enemies. These sprites are sort of channeling Space Invaders.

Here they are in the game:
Video:







Lazycow- Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of including some elements with a fast paced, but slightly puzzle-like feel. Thinking aloud, it might be fun to have places where an alternate path is protected by a stream of the patrolling enemies from my last post, and you have to time your entrance carefully. It could also be fun to have a sequence where a couple of them chase you, and you have to quickly navigate a set of hazards. Enemies going in and out of phase also comes to mind.

I like scanlines sometimes. I've also thought about some sort of glow filter, but I don't think I'll use any post effects in this game. I'm probably just in denial, but this game really isn't about being retro. It's more about picking a target spec and trying to hit it as cleanly as possible. So for extra OCD points, I'm avoiding a lot of easy 'retro' effects such as oversized super-pixelly fonts and explosions, deliberately hokey sound effects, and intentionally bad animation.

Any animation that's bad is entirely my fault, not a design feature!

[Devlin]

Are you still after testers?

[Loren Schmidt]

I'd appreciate some help fine tuning the game once all the levels are playable, and you're welcome to test at that point. I'm not doing any testing at the moment, though. Thanks.

[Lazycow]

Here they are in the game:
Video:

Hi, these enemies are nice, but I think they would look even better if they do not move with constant velocity, but increasing velocity...
(left: yours, right: with accelleration)

[Loren Schmidt]

That's a good idea, it might help ease the transition out of the squish. Actually I was just giving those guys some fine-tuning this evening...

Okay, I got the acceleration in. Thanks for the suggestion, Lazycow!

P.S.- I can't seem to figure out how to record video at 60 fps. I'm not getting any slowdown while recording. I think the framerate is capped somewhere in the recording or encoding process. Does anyone know how to set this in CamStudio?

[Eclipse]

man, i wish i could play this
so bad

it looks absolutely amazing so far!

same  is there a release date?

[Loren Schmidt]

Here's a quick update:

• In response to feedback from various people, the player movement has been changed slightly. It should be easier to make precise jumps now. It still needs work, though.
• Several new levels are done.
• There are a number of new effects in the game. Hopefully none of these are too noisy. The goal is to give better feedback, not make the game into a snowstorm of multicolored pixels.
• Most of the new aliens and hazards have made it into the game now.

[aschearer]

Great I'm glad you're making progress. From some of the videos things did seem a little hectic at times so I'm glad you're balancing that. I imagine it's tough to hit the sweet spot of "frantic action".

Can't wait to see some more or even get to play it!

[Loren Schmidt]

The game is almost complete now.





The plan is to do a round of testing, then some fine tuning, then the first public release. If anyone would be willing to help iron out kinks and shoot some honest feedback my way, by all means contact me.

[Matt G]

looking good man. what language/engine are you coding this in?

[Cerogravian]

This looks real good.
If you need more testers just sign me up!

[Tanner]

Sparky I love you and I think I would love this game too.
I'm willing and able to test.

[Synnah]

I really like the look of this too; the videos impressed me a lot with the fluidity of the movement. I'd like to help test it!

[Twiccan]

I'd love to test this!

[lowpoly]

yes, please! would love to test, I owe you anyway 

[N]

I'd like to test it too!