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[FishyBoy]

If I were a testing man, my joy would be infinite!

[salade]

I would like to test, but it would be kind of selfish cause I already did. other people need to play this.

how big has the game become? it's starting to look as if it has grown to epic proportions.

and I don't just throw that word around.

[Loren Schmidt]

Thanks for offering to help, everyone! There's probably room for a couple more testers, but we're pretty much set. The beta will go out in a couple of days. The deadline I've set for myself is Friday, but I'm hoping to send it out sooner than that.

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

The game is written in ActionScript 3.

how big has the game become?

There are 9 levels. The goal here is to put more work into a smaller number of levels instead of quickly making 20 or 30 levels.

[Eclipse]

WORLD WANTS A DEMO


and the wizard too, or he will sent you his army of robots   

[Loren Schmidt]

All the levels are playable now, and there's a round of testing in progress. The game still has several large holes in it, but it's nearing completion. I'd like to thank everyone who's tested so far, it's been really helpful.

The next version will be a public release.

I'm also pleased to say that Lunar will be working on the music portion of the game. I'd also like to thank Pongball for connecting me and Lunar. I'm really looking forward to working with him!

[Loren Schmidt]

I'm mid-way through the current round of testing, and there are a few areas of the game that stand out as needing improvement.

Checkpoint System
Currently if we die, we respawn back at the last checkpoint. All changes that happened during the last life are persistent- aliens stay dead, and our corpse stays to mark where we last died. The goals here are to keep wasted time to a minimum and decrease frustration.

Unsurprisingly, there are a few wrinkles. The way this is currently implemented, this has the unfortunate effect of rewarding a brute force playing style where player deaths are meaningless. If we just charge ahead blindly and fire constantly, we will eventually be able to muscle our way through nearly any situation. Several people have had their experiences with the game ruined by this kind of loop.

What are some good ways to encourage more skillful playing? Should the game use more conventional checkpoints instead? What variants on the current system might avoid this problem?

Replay
I'm interested making replaying the levels more rewarding. Time, kill count, and (indirectly) death count are the main ways of getting a higher score. One other thing I'm doing is including one gem in each level, some more hidden than others. William Broom (Chutup) got me thinking about ways of making replay more enjoyable. I'm also thinking about unlockables such as extra levels and a higher difficulty level with limited lives and possibly no checkpoints.

I think the scoreboard itself could be a lot more engaging, too. For instance when playing a shooter such as Ikaruga or Raiden, there's a moment of suspense as the score is tallied, and in some games there's a kind of tangible effect when a new high score is reached. I think fleshing this out might help as well.

It might also make sense to have more in-game feedback about scoring. A bonus score counter that ticks down in the corner of the screen might help. I hesitate to make the game any more complicated, but I'm sure there are things that could be done to reward good play without being overly complicated or busy. In the past a scoring system based on accuracy or chaining kills seemed like it might fit well.

[vdgmprgrmr]

I think that you should make the checkpoint system more conventional (if you die you reset at the checkpoint and your progress is undone).

I also think you should have a score counter in the gameplay screen. I kept killing things and the "400" or such appeared over them, but that was the only time I really saw it other than levels' ends.

Also, I think a way to make the game less repetitive would be to add multiple paths through the levels, and (even though you're aiming for simplicity) add perhaps, powerups. Maybe have some enemies drop limited-time upgrades which cause your weapon to act like theirs. So, you could have thirty seconds of little homing balls, or thirty seconds of big white triplet balls of doom, or even a one-use mega-laser (that would be cool). They could even all be one-use if you think thirty seconds is too big an effect.

Another thing which I mentioned in PM but would like to emphasize is that I really think that the little green AI helpers could have had a much more major impact on gameplay. I think seeing some big invasions on things or even a pitched battle in a pit would have been really cool.

[Inane]

You could have the checkpoint system you have now with limited lives?


_{P.S. super super duper fucking sorry I got the first beta and never gave feedback I feel guiltysauras.}

[Twiccan]

What about an overall time limit on each level, or at least for each checkpoint like in racing games?  It does feel like the emphasis is on how fast you can make it through.

Also, I tested it a bit but am going to play it some more before I give feedback.  I did record my playing of the first 3 or 4 levels though and will send that to you tomorrow.

Thanks for letting me test this.  It's really great so far.

[Xion]

Maybe keep the checkpoints as is but have a time penalty (possibly increasing in severity) on each death? Or have enemies drop little collectibles that figure into the score but are partially lost on death?

In the past a scoring system based on accuracy or chaining kills seemed like it might fit well.

This sounds good to me.

[Lazycow]

Hey, it's enjoyable to play! It reminds me of old Atari 2600 games and I would be happy if there had been such a game decades ago for the Atari. Unfortunately, I had to use a german keyboard. (Y and Z are swapped on german keyboards) So I had a hard time to recall which is the jump button and which is the fire button. It is this type of game I will play for some high noon breaks.

I have spotted one situation where I had to jump over a gap and an evil guy was waiting on the other side. Is that a dead-end situation or can I solve this without loosing a live?

Suggestions:
- permanent score display
- a life counter and a GAME OVER
- configurable keys for jump and fire
- (minimalistic) background music

 

[Super-Dot]

You could have it so that when you run out of lives, you restart at the last checkpoint. So every three or so deaths, the enemies return. For extra coolnitude, of course, your lives get replenished at each checkpoint. Or instead of a fixed number of lives, you could adjust the number of lives allowed at each checkpoint, so that you're allotted so many deaths per challenge.

unlockables

[William Broom]

I really like the idea of a chain-kill scoring system. It could be as simple as a multiplier that goes up once for each kill, and down to zero if you die. And then maybe make it so that at the end of the level, your time is converted to a bonus, which is also multiplied by the multiplier. This would tie all the player's goals into one, which is the getting of a high score. For the best score they would need to be extremely accurate but also as fast as possible.

The game is too long to feel like a classic score-attack game, where you can play over and over in search of that elusive high score. On the other hand it is possible to have a slower burning type of score-attack motivation. Legend of Princess is a good example of this I think.

[Loren Schmidt]

These score and respawn system suggestions are all really good. I'm writing them all down. I could easily see any of these working. I definitely want to do something to improve the respawn system, as it seems like it's currently the biggest problem with the game.

I'm also thinking about ways to make the end of the game more varied. Several people found it got too repetitive. I'm considering making the large laser beams appear exclusively in levels 8 and 9- I think that might help give the end of the game a more distinctive feel. With the beams, the grouped turrets, and the pits of white goo, I'm trying to give the sense that the last two levels are somehow different from the rest of the game (music will also help here). I'm also thinking about introducing more unique aliens at that point. The original plan was not to introduce any new aliens in the latter bits of the game. From a design standpoint, I think it might be more interesting to try and create a feeling of newness by reusing known aliens in interesting ways instead, but I could go either way on that issue.

I've been making changes to pretty much all the levels, some small, others large. Almost all the levels have gems hidden in them now.
I'm 100% sure I'll add a gem counter in the score board (probably visual).
I'm also terribly sorry about the Z and X problem on German keyboards. I know this isn't nearly as nice as having configurable keys, but would it work to have Y be an alternate jump key? Getting this working is high on the list of priorities, so if that's functional I'll do that as a stopgap measure.

I have spotted one situation where I had to jump over a gap and an evil guy was waiting on the other side. Is that a dead-end situation or can I solve this without loosing a live?

Ooh, thanks. Eventually the enemy in question should move out of the way, but it shouldn't have been there in the first place. Enemies slowing down jumps like this is a problem, and I want to eliminate it. Was this toward the end of level 3?

Also I would like to issue a public apology for the extremely long turret hallway at the end of the beta. It's definitely going to be improved or removed. Actually I have a question about the turrets in question. Would it be a good idea to make dodging between projectiles impossible, so moving between gaps in the pattern is the only way to pass through?


Thanks again for all the good suggestions! 

[William Broom]

I'm also thinking about ways to make the end of the game more varied.

A boss?

Would it be a good idea to make dodging between projectiles impossible, so moving between gaps in the pattern is the only way to pass through?

Yes. This would be so much more interesting and fast-paced. One thing about that corridor is, I was able to get through it pretty well at first just by running to the big gaps, as opposed to inching through the little gaps. The place where I always got caught was when the corridor got tighter, giving me less time to see where the bullets were before they landed on me. If you made the corridor a little taller, you could get away with it still being fairly long (though I still wouldn't want it as long as it is currently).

[Loren Schmidt]

I'm also thinking about ways to make the end of the game more varied.

A boss?

Definitely.

Would it be a good idea to make dodging between projectiles impossible, so moving between gaps in the pattern is the only way to pass through?

Yes. This would be so much more interesting and fast-paced. One thing about that corridor is, I was able to get through it pretty well at first just by running to the big gaps, as opposed to inching through the little gaps. The place where I always got caught was when the corridor got tighter, giving me less time to see where the bullets were before they landed on me. If you made the corridor a little taller, you could get away with it still being fairly long (though I still wouldn't want it as long as it is currently).

Yeah, I think that's the way to go. The original idea didn't have dodgeable gaps in it. So I made the projectiles much larger. I'm also working on improving the way the turrets are being used. I want to have more firing horizontally, and then revise the vertical section as well, so it's less awkward.

Respawn System
Now when we respawn on top of an enemy, the enemy is killed (instead of us recursively dying). Thanks for putting up with the annoying fireworks in earlier versions. 
Also as some people mentioned, if a movement key is held as we die, we instantly run in that direction upon respawning. This leads to running into lasers and off cliffs into lava pits. So what would be the best way to fix this?

• At first I thought simply requiring the movement key to be released and pressed again would work. But I have this implemented now, and it feels awkward. It prevents accidental deaths, but can leave us holding down a key for several seconds and wondering why we aren't running.
• An alternative is to have a 'press x to respawn' prompt. This seems okay in most ways, but would either mean losing time bonus or pausing the game until the button is pressed.
• Some people have suggested just having a forced delay before the controls work. The downside of this is that it would interrupt the game, and it would be really nice to have a system that has no dead time.

[Synnah]

Okay, my playthrough and feedback are up on Vimeo.



Some points that aren't really covered in the video:

• I really like the controls; they're instantly responsive and pixel-perfect, which allows for a lot of precision movement. I can't think of anything I would change about them.
• I mentioned wanting a one-second delay after dying. Considering what you said above, if probably would break gameflow. The times when it would be most useful are when you die quite some distance from the previous checkpoint and the camera has to scroll back; it's quite easy to keep holding left and charge into a pit without realising it. I do like the fact that there's no death time, though. The only thing I could suggest is to make sure none of the checkpoints are next to pits or enemies.
• The 'Corridor of Pain' at the end of level 9. As you can see in the video, it all kind of fell apart for me when I came across the enemies at the end. I think you could probably get away with this if you reduced the maximum number of shots that group together from 4 to 3. The 4-in-a-rows always buggered things up for me.

Hmmm, that's all I can come up with at the moment. I'll have another play through tomorrow and see if anything else strikes me.

Bugs!

• 
  
  , as shown in the video.
• Pushing up against the left wall beneath the entrance to level 6 causes some strangeness. You can see this in the playthrough video, where I get warped into the tunnel with the red blocks.

I can do some proper testing on all of the platforms if you want, to find any more bugs like this.

[Tanner]

If you're going to change the end like that, at least give the player a walk button, like in knytt stories.
When I originally got to that part, I tried to do exactly what you're going to force the player to do. I found the character to be too fast to reach the next gap consistently.

[Loren Schmidt]

Recent progress:

• new holstered run animation (feedback welcome- I'm not a very experienced animator, and this doesn't feel heavy enough yet)
• music system working!
• misc. code cleanup
• lots of little cosmetic changes (mines and beam turrets no longer leave corpses, troopers no longer jump into mine pits, etc.)
• changes to levels here and there to improve flow

Tanner-
Player speed does make the final hallway in the last release twitchy. It's especially twitchy given the problem Synnah mentioned- the random groups of up to four projectiles. It can be hard to suddenly turn around and back up to the nearest safe spot.

In terms of fixing this, I'd rather make the game fair than add a walk button. There's nothing wrong with walk buttons, but for this project I'm trying to keep the controls extremely simple. The way these grouped turrets were used in the last version (especially at the end of 9) was pretty crude, so I've put some work into the turrets themselves, and am heavily altering the way they are used as well.

[Synnah]

New holstered run animation (feedback welcome- I'm not a very experienced animator, and this doesn't feel heavy enough yet)

This is much better than the previous run cycle. I had a look at it again, and it does look kind of strange by comparison; the motion in this one is much more natural. Quite an achievement considering the limited number of pixels!

By the way, I don't know how you feel about having a full playthrough of your game on Vimeo. I can take it down if you want.