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[Xnite]

Super Mutant Alien Assault is a sci-fi, arena combat, action platformer game, about a ships robot that must fight off an alien assault. These aliens mutate when coming into contact with the ships radioactive fuel, turning already dangerous enemies into vicious monstrosities. Weapons and explosives are limited, and randomly dispensed by the ships weapon vending machines. With random weapons, and semi-random levels, skill is your only chance at survival.

Features

• High impact, skill-based combat.
• Semi random levels, so no play through of a level will be exactly the same.
• Short, but challanging levels, for quick intense game play sessions, in a game that not only respects your time, but understands its limited.
• Customizable combat options, in the form of sidearms, defensive abilities, special abilities and perks.
• Optional local co-op play

The Team
My name is Chris Suffern. I'm a one man (many hats) developer that is currently handling everything on the game except art. My very talented free lance artists name is Fabian Jastremski. I'm working on the game part time. Game music will be sourced elsewhere or made by a free lancer as well.

Current Progress
I estimate the game is about 30% done at the time of writing this. Most of the work so far was redoing everything from my first game (Mutant Alien Assault) in Game Maker. The first game was made in Flash with Flixel. I've made many changes and improvements to the game during this progress, pretty much re-writing and re-thinking everything from scratch. Now whats left is all the new systems, weapons, abilies, enemies, level modes, and levels.

Whats Important to Me
Whats important to me is tight controls, pre-level strategy (customization), dynamic game play, and skillful tactical combat. I won't elaborate on those things right now, but I will say that I enjoy combat that keeps me on my toes, gives me lots of combat options, and lets me do fun or ninja like stuff. Randomized weapons and enemies will keep me on my toes. Pre level load out options will give me strategy, lots of interactive game elements will keep things dynamic, and sidearms, secondary explosives, special abilities, and defense abilities will give me the fun / tactical / ninja combat. Oh I also love local co-op.

So yeah, I'm basically designing this game for me. To suit my particular tastes for this kind of game. I'm a big believer in designing for yourself anyway, and right now I have the liberty to do just that. So excuse me while I indulge.

Platforms
I'm using Game Maker so my platform options are pretty good. Right now my focus is PC. And mobile is pretty unlikely as I would never play a game like this with touch screen controls.

Website: www.mutantalienassault.com
Announcement Trailer:


My Twitter: @chris_suffern - twitter.com/chris_suffern

If the game interests you please sign up the the newsletter on the website to get major updates. I will be sharing the development progress and development related things in this dev log. Thanks for reading.

[Vanhail]

Gorgeous would be an understatement. Love the colors, and those explosions are ace.

[Christian]

This looks great, very vibrant

But seriously?

And mobile is pretty unlikely as I would never play a game like this with touch screen controls.

Vlambeer's Super Crate Box has a similar set-up. Move left, right, jump, shoot, hectic twitchy combat platforming. It works perfectly. I don't see why this game couldn't work well on mobile

[DarkWanderer]

First saw a screen of this on twitter few days back, really looking forward to seeing more This game looks like it'd be fun to play with friends.

[Xnite]

Thanks guys. Agreed, I'm consistently floored by Fabians art.

This looks great, very vibrant

But seriously?

And mobile is pretty unlikely as I would never play a game like this with touch screen controls.

Vlambeer's Super Crate Box has a similar set-up. Move left, right, jump, shoot, hectic twitchy combat platforming. It works perfectly. I don't see why this game couldn't work well on mobile

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I'm not saying it won't happen, or that I've ruled it out. But you have to realize that I'm the kind of guy that won't play an FPS on a console unless its exclusive & co-op. I just can't stand sub-optimal controls. And I don't think anyone would argue that touch screen controls are sub-optimal compared to a controller.

Additionally, my game has 4 extra buttons than super crate box. Grenades, Special ability, defense ability, and use. I believe that makes it considerably harder to make work well for touchscreen than Super Crate Box was.

[Christian]

Thanks guys. Agreed, I'm consistently floored by Fabians art.

This looks great, very vibrant

But seriously?

And mobile is pretty unlikely as I would never play a game like this with touch screen controls.

Vlambeer's Super Crate Box has a similar set-up. Move left, right, jump, shoot, hectic twitchy combat platforming. It works perfectly. I don't see why this game couldn't work well on mobile

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I'm not saying it won't happen, or that I've ruled it out. But you have to realize that I'm the kind of guy that won't play an FPS on a console unless its exclusive & co-op. I just can't stand sub-optimal controls. And I don't think anyone would argue that touch screen controls are sub-optimal compared to a controller.

Additionally, my game has 4 extra buttons than super crate box. Grenades, Special ability, defense ability, and use. I believe that makes it considerably harder to make work well for touchscreen than Super Crate Box was.

Oh, yeah, that's certainly more complex. But man, this is the kind of twitchy hardcore action I love to see on mobile.

Love the weapon variety and how chaotic the gameplay looks

[rocket5tim]

I know you've been hearing this a lot already just just had to say that the art direction on this is fantastic. I also like how the levels all look like they fit on a single screen which leads me to believe that gameplay has some puzzle solving elements in addition to the combat.

[Xnite]

Thanks man. We would never get sick of hearing positive comments. I don't think any dev or artist would

Single screen was something that I initially tried to avoid. I thought that having levels larger than single screen would be better. However, I quickly found that it did not add to the gameplay, in fact it seemed something was lost.

The larger the level the more spaced out everything was, the less things interacted. Empty space was counter productive to fun. Single screen levels just bring everything closer together, and makes for a more intense, interactive combat experience.

So that is why I'm sticking to single screen levels for this game. At this stage, no puzzles are planned, this is a combat focused game.

[Christian]

So I tried the flash game and it's seriously addicting. This game just shot up my most anticipated list. Can't wait to see how you've fleshed out the mechanics, the visuals are already massively improved from the screenshots. There's definitely a Super Crate Box vibe, but I'm actually enjoying your game more: the mix of limited ammo, the primary goal of powering up the reactor, the evolving enemies. It all comes together really well.

Honestly, if preorders were available, I probably would have bought SMAA already; the flash game definitely sold me.

What kind of perks and abilities are you thinking of?

[Xnite]

This game just shot up my most anticipated list.

Thanks mate. Really encouraging feedback. Means a lot.

What kind of perks and abilities are you thinking of?

Since you asked, I guess now's a good time for me to discuss my plans for special abilities, defense abilities and perks.

Special Abilities
These are abilities that use special ammo. This ammo is dropped in the form of green cubes when killing mutant versions of the enemies. The function of these abilities will vary considerably. Some will be use for offense, some for defense, and some more utility in nature.

2 examples that are in my current build:

Special blast - This special ability sends out a wall of energy in either direction from the player. It covers from top to bottom of the level, and travels at high speed, but for limited distance. Using this will use all special ammo in one go, and the distance is determined by how much ammo you had. While it does decent damage, its not a one shot kill. It will kill most normal enemies in one hit, but not the mutant versions. It has decent knock back though so if it doesn't kill them it will knock them back, making it useful for both offense and defense.

Hacker - This special ability lets you interact with every machine in the game in a special way.  The effect on each machine is dependent on the machine itself. For example, hacking the weapon or grenade machine will reset its timer instantly. So if you pick up a weapon you don't like you can hack the machine to have another go. Especially helpful in co-op where you have to share the same machine, this lets both players use the machine with no waiting between turns. Also, for co-op hacking a downed player will revive them instantly. Hacking the fuel rod machine will let you pick up a second rod (held in place of your weapon) so you can deliver 2 rods at once, but you have to make the run with no weapon.

Defense Abilities
These abilities are all defense in nature however, some will have movement and alternate reasons for using them. They have no limit to using them, except they are on a very small cool down, so you have to wait a little before using again.

2 examples that are in my current build:

Dodge roll - Usable in both the air and ground this dodge makes you invulnerable for a short period of time. It will protect you from any thing that can damage you, except explosions. You can dodge through enemies or enemy projectiles. You can dodge through your own mines or any other contact explosive that normally touching them will trigger an explosion.

Conc belt - Using this causes a forceful wave to shoot out in all directions from the player, forcing all objects and enemies back. It has particularly good multi-function use when combined with your weapons or grenades. For example, concing a held/cooked grenade will shoot the grenade out further and faster than throwing it normally. Concing at the same time as shooting a rocket will launch it at a much higher velocity. I also particularly love it for concing placed mines off ledges into enemies below.

Perks
Perks are passive abilities that you always have. Currently I only have a couple of standard pretty unimaginative ones like health and ammo. Health giving you one extra heart for the level. And Ammo giving you 15% more ammo for each weapon/grenade pickup. However, I plan to have more creative options available to select for your perks.

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Edited to add gifs where relevant.

[ashtonmorris]

Wow  Yes! I agree with everyone above as well, the art direction is fantastic. I really like the color pallet.

I think the "hacker" special ability would be very cool.

I've used LICEcap to make gif's before, it was very easy and I felt the output was of good quality.

http://www.cockos.com/licecap/

[Nairns]

This is looking great, I will be following the updates!

[Xnite]

Thanks guys.

I've used LICEcap to make gif's before, it was very easy and I felt the output was of good quality.

http://www.cockos.com/licecap/

Wasn't sure the quickest / easiest way. But that certainly looks quick and easy. If it works well, it will be much faster than what I was planning. Thanks for sharing.

[Xnite]

Updated the post discussing special and defense abilities with GIF's. Its a few posts up. Should be able to provide GIFs from now on.

[Christian]

How's development going?

[Xnite]

Slower than I would like. Mainly due to a bunch of other activities surrounding the development of the game. Nothing I can announce right now but I hope to be able to announce soon.

Also, had to do a bunch of re-factoring like rewriting how levels are handled. I can now build my levels entirely in Tiled, and they are just imported into game maker. This will set me up for a much more streamlined level building process that is quicker and easier to iterate on.

Additionally I've got a bunch of new weapons and enemies in development. I have a couple I can show that are mostly finished.

New Weapons:

Shiv - This is sidearm. It has a larger damage out put then most sidearms. This is to make up for its limited range. Its also the first of many melee weapons I plan to add to the game.

Boooooomerang - Standard boomerang with an explosive payload. Dangerous to catch while armed. So you want to make sure you hit your target, to explode the payload, or you can de-arm it with your sidearm to make it safe for catching. I've made the boomerang fairly easy to juggle, so a lot of fun can be had keeping it in the air to hit multiple enemies.

[Xnite]

I regret neglecting this dev log. Being a solo dev its hard to juggle all the priorities.

Announcing the upcoming release of the game on the switch made me remember I had not updated here that the game was even finished.

So, I'm just here to say. Game is done

[ProgramGamer]

While it's unfortunate, I totally get it. In any case, congrats on the release!