next »

[mirrorfish]

Thanks dude, needed that.

[mirrorfish]

hey guys,

New video devlog / gameplay footage up on YouTube. Any feedback you guys care to give I'll be happy to return for your own project. Thanks!





M.

[Ticebilla]

This is great. The music, IMHO is fantastic. I just want to fly around and explore this world.

Also, that other game looks like Gears of Bug Wars. What you're doing looks much better.

[mirrorfish]

THANKS!!!   

I really appreciate the encouragement man. That feeling of wanting to fly around and explore is really what I want to encourage. That's really good to hear. I think that other game looks good too but I'm glad to hear what I'm doing looks different enough and can live alongside it. 

[mirrorfish]

hey guys,

I shot a new video devblog. Here's what I've added:

New enemy type: Dragonflies

Background art: Clouds

More sound effects for pickups

Unit spawning management system, periodically spawns new enemies over time instead of spawning all units starting at beginning of level. This needs to get improved to slowly make the game more difficult over time based on game state.



Also if you'd like to give feedback on my work I'm happy to check out your project and give some fb on yours.

[SolarLune]

The game's looking cool. It's hard to hear you in the devlog video; I think you need to lower the volume on your computer before you record, but otherwise, it's looking slick so far. Nice music.

[mirrorfish]

Thanks for the feedback Solarlune! I'll double check those levels, I did the video pretty quickly. Glad to hear you dig the music, I like you'r stuff too.

[mirrorfish]

I fixed the levels, I had the voice ducking under the game audio instead of vice versa, thanks for the heads up.

[ashtonmorris]

Yeah that was fun. I like the peaceful ness of it juxtaposed with the Anime like lasers and explosions.

[oleomingus]

I just saw the video and it looks amazing ! The sense of movement through the surreal procedural landscapes is wonderfully captured, and the discordant laser explosions also seem fun.

Good luck with further development.

[mirrorfish]

@ashtonmorris Thanks a lot for the feedback man, really appreciate it!  Anime is definitely an influence. I'm thinking about putting in a screen clearing Akira bubble type weapon to make that reference more overt

@oleomingus The idea of exploring this alien procedural space that still evokes an abstracted nature-like feeling is a big part of what I'm going for, so I'm really delighted to hear that seems to be coming through.  The sound design for the lasers is an interesting one, I had some more traditional stuff but I actually ended up really liking how brittle and dissonant it was.  Thanks so much for the feedback, your project looks really awesome too!

[Fervir]

The atmosphere is really cool and the upgrade mechanic is interesting, but the gameplay is pretty difficult.

It's really hard to hit anything.
Enemies look closer than where they actually are for some reason and since your laser has a short range, it's hard to hit them.
Maybe increase the speed of the laser or make the enemies bigger?

You should work more on controlling the ship, giving it more movements.
Like strafing and slowing down.

I like the feeling of how big everything in the world is though.
And it's nice to just speedboost and fly around the world.

[migrafael]

Really like the concept and the art style that you are going for.
Whenever it is gameover Chrome just freezes for a bit and I can't restart the game. Always have to refresh to play again.

[mirrorfish]

@Fervir: Thanks so much for checking out the build!  I really appreciate the detailed feedback.  The range question is an interesting one that's changed quite a bit in the latest version since I added another attack type for the enemies to shoot lasers, not just homing missiles. I'm now tweaking the balance to accommodate this and working with the ranges.  The challenge with having the player have longer range is that then the enemies need longer range too or it gets really easy and with only missiles that made things even harder. I'll upload a new build end of day today that has the new mechanics.

The ship controls question is an interesting one.  I actually had forward, reverse, strafe and variable speed controls originally. The result however was 'tank' style control which felt really weird for a flying game. I feel like the constant forward movement and having to circle back if you miss a pass is truer to the flying theme. I know there are flying vehicles like helicopters that can hover and strafe but in this it started to feel more like piloting a butterfly tank. It also very strongly limited player risk taking because you would just hover at optimal range and shoot while avoiding being hit. The constant forward movement forces players into the danger zone much more which I think feels more exciting, even if it's balanced strongly towards the hard end of the spectrum at the moment.

I'm glad you like the feeling of the world, that's a really important aspect for me. I've even considered opting for a totally different non-combat mechanic and making the thing more exploration based, but for now I think I'm going to see the combat aspect through.

Thanks again! I'm going to check out your project and try to offer some feedback as well.

@migrafael Yes, I'm aware of that bug. I'll see if I can improve it in the next build, I'm still not great at scene changes in Unity, so far they're both pretty un-smooth and glitchy.  Thanks for playing the build!

[mirrorfish]

hey guys,

New build with the features show in the last video devlog, Unity Webplayer:

http://www.mirrorfishmedia.com/v1/pollen/pollen_v033/pollen_v033.html


Added:
Clouds
New Enemy Type
New Enemy Attack Type
Better Sound Effects

[Fervir]

I like the glitchy sound effects.
It was really difficult to hit enemies this time around.
It looks like I'm hitting them with the laser, but nothing is happening.
You probably need to either make the bullets bigger, or the enemy hitboxes bigger.
Maybe consider giving the enemies less health too.
Enemies were less agressive too which was less interesting.
Didn't really notice any new attack type.

You also have some weird bug where the healthbars for enemies don't disappear.
It was even in the previous build.

I dunno if it was intended, but flying around for a while and into the water made it feel like I teleported somewhere else on the map.
The underwater effect disappeared and my controls got flipped around and it felt like I was in a new world, in the clouds.
I thought that was kind of neat.

[mirrorfish]

@Fervir

Thanks for checking out the new build.  Glad you like the SFX!

I have had a problem with sometimes collision breaking between bullets and enemies, I think that may have been what you've seen. As you can see there are still loads of bugs.  I might give the enemies less health. I hear you about the enemy aggressiveness, once I get the core mechanics locked up I need to do a whole lot of balancing, it swings back and forth between too hard and too easy. 

I'm aware of the healthbar bug, what's happening is you see them when you're facing the opposite way, it's really annoying and I've actually spent a bunch of time trying to fix it and keep failing. I'll sort it out.

I think what happened when your controls flipped is you flew upside down. I can't decide whether to lock that off. It's weird and disorienting but I also think it's kind of cool.  Thanks again for the detailed feedback!

[mirrorfish]

Here are some new screenies. I took a few months off in discouragement and then got back on the horse after trying a few other small prototypes. Happily I've turned some game design corners and made things feel more coherent. I'm making a push to get some kind of finished version to show at the NY Unity Study Group on 9/25 which I've been invited to demo at. It's a great deadline and I've been working pretty hard. I just passed the year mark on this project which is pretty crazy but it's been much less than full time and I started pretty cold. I've gotten a lot better at Unity and scripting in the process and am really enjoying all that. Any feedback, comments whatever are appreciated!

[AidenBainsGames]

I just played the latest build. I like the basic concept and look forward to seeing how you build upon it.

I know it's far from finished and you're probably planning this already, but I'd advise you to implement better indication that the player's projectiles are making contact with the enemy. At the moment it's a little hard to tell (due to small targets and the odd perspective).

I am looking forward to more

[mirrorfish]

Thanks man, I do need to increase that feedback. That build is actually a few months old, I need to build again and upload. Maybe tonight once kids are asleep. I've also gone back and forth on crosshairs / no crosshairs but last implementation was off target so I took out. I think I'm going to revisit again soon. Did you play w/ sound on? There should be a sound on hit enemy that helps some, but I agree it needs more. Thanks again!