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[AaronB]

Cool concept!

So basically you are your own worst enemy.  Thought I'd be first to get that in

[quantumpotato]

Cool concept!

So basically you are your own worst enemy.  Thought I'd be first to get that in

  Hope you enjoy the game

[quantumpotato]

Hello   source,

I fixed a few bugs in this latest release. 1 of them the wrong colors were being drawn and 1 of them the score counter wasn't shown after you complete the second mode of the game.

2 special things happen after you finish the normal mode with every weapon, I won't say what.. I hope you enjoy!

www.QuantumPilot.me

[quantumpotato]

​Gamepad interpolation improved thanks to Technical & a helpful Tigsourcer. Details: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=61747.0;topicseen Controls are smoother.

http://QuantumPilot.me

[quantumpotato]

Big update!

"There's no such thing as a core mechanic. If it doesn't work, throw it out" - a board game podcast

Previously, getting killed meant restarting the whole game. I wanted players to feel the challenge of overcoming the whole game.

But some negative feedback has come in regarding "Why did I go back to the start, I wanted to keep the weapon I had.." and similar.

I retried an earlier experiment - getting killed removes an enemy clone and lets you retry. Works out very well.

To prevent you from getting stuck too much - and to have a failure state for losing too much - the deadline will now reset the entire game if it hits you (just like it did before).

Once you finish all of the weapons, you get to the bonus mode. Losing from bullet or deadline there takes you to the ending sequence, and then the game restarts with the difficulty turned up by increasing the number of clones per wave.

The gameplay feels *a lot* smoother. When I got to a challenging set of patterns or a difficult weapon, I got to retry over and over until I figured it out. But since with each retry the pattern is changing.. you aren't memorizing but adapting.

Extra: Each time you are killed a counter increases by 1. The url at the bottom will change to show www.QuantumPilot.me#_ where _ is the number of tries you've taken so far. It's still a valid URL!

Extra: Update the bottom URL to show "New Games: www.Combo.zone" after you finish the bonus round.

Minor bug fix: your laser & ship colors in bonus mode did not always match your weapon, now fixed.

Bug fix: Enemies near the edge of the map were reversing their direction while they were over the edge.. but they could have moved over, tried to reverse, then gone further away and gotten stuck in a little loop that you couldn't hit because trying to do so would make you wrap horizontally to the other side (enemies don't wrap as a convenience to the player). I fixed this by moving the clone + or -1 pixel from the boundary that they passed. Runs better.

Ok, uploading this to https://quantumproductions.itch.io/quantum-pilot!

[quantumpotato]

Re-implemented Lefty support. Right control stick can move, left shoulder button can fire:

Code:

var x = gp.axes[0];
	    	var y = gp.axes[1];
				var threshhold = 0.3;
				
				var m = getm(x, y);
				if (m < threshhold) {
					var x2 = gp.axes[2];
					var y2 = gp.axes[3];
					m = getm(x2, y2);
					x = x2;
					y = y2;
				}

	    	var length = Math.abs(x) + Math.abs(y);
	    	if (length > 0) {
	    		x = x/length;
	    		y = y/length;	
	    	}
	    	
	    	var threshhold = 0.3;
	    	var r = 0;
	    	if (m < threshhold) {
	    		x = 0;
	    		y = 0;
	    		m = 0;
	    	} else {
	    		m = (m - threshhold) / (1 - threshhold);
	    		r = getr(x, y);	
	    		if (r < 0) {
	    			r += 360;
	    		}
	    	}
	    	
				var input = {'r' : r, 'm': m, 'buttons' : gp.buttons};
				
	    	this.game.gamepadCount = i;
	    	this.game.parseGamepadInput(i, input);		

[Connor]

I had a very similar idea to this in the past, so its really cool to see this becoming a thing.

[mtarini]

Looks like an interesting concept, but the window version doesn't seem to do anything when I run it.
No error message, no crash, just nothing opens or happens when I click on the exe.

[quantumpotato]

Looks like an interesting concept, but the window version doesn't seem to do anything when I run it.
No error message, no crash, just nothing opens or happens when I click on the exe.

Ah crap!
Did you unzip the .zip?
What Windows version are you running?
Are you running DS4 & do you have controllers plugged in when it starts?

[quantumpotato]

I had a very similar idea to this in the past, so its really cool to see this becoming a thing.

Cool! Feedback is welcome! Looks like some issues on Windows too - please let me know if it works for you!

I've had success on Windows in the past; I had to update my electron version and I'm worried that's messing things up now.

Today's update:

* Score display now shows Skill (Average Kills / Life) when the deadline hits. If you've finished the first part of the game, shows the total # of Kills since you were last hit.
* Added "Again" sound effect playing when you get hit. Playtesters weren't always sure they got hit so this helps sync the event with a sound.

[Josh Bossie]

I have the same issue as mtarini. I tried to launch the .exe and nothing happens at all. I don't even see a new process spawned

Win10, on latest update. I have a X1 controller plugged in but nothing changes when I unplug it

[quantumpotato]

I have the same issue as mtarini. I tried to launch the .exe and nothing happens at all. I don't even see a new process spawned

Win10, on latest update. I have a X1 controller plugged in but nothing changes when I unplug it

Hello mtarini, Josh, thank you for this info!

I looked up https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-packager/issues/389 where a missing file could cause this lack of launch.

I checked and yep - since reconfiguring my build environment the Windows .icns file was missing!

I just now uploaded a new .zip with the .icns file included. I apologize for the game not working on your first attempts!

Please try this new file and let me know if it still doesn't work, then I will upload one without the .icns file as that has worked in the past.

---

New Trailer is up!

[quantumpotato]

I played Quantum Pilot tonight for fun and found a goofy bug, oof!

With the new difficulty scaling that removes a clone when you're hit - if you kill the last clone the same frame you're hit you advance to the next wave and then that clone is removed.. preventing you from killing any more clones and advancing!

I'm debugging.

[quantumpotato]

Ok, the bug is fixed.
I also tested out a couple more adjustments to the dynamic difficulty. I found that getting hit by the deadline was very rare, since after restarting a level it was easier to get a quick kill.

Tonight I tested having the deadline speed up after you got hit. Then modified that to speed up by an increasing amount, increasing the risk of a restart the more you mess up.

Connecting your accuracy with the deadline is something I've mulled over a few times. It's always stayed out as I felt the danger of more bullets was enough of a challenge in exchange for accuracy. However, even with this thought in mind (and from a previous post, where I talk about enjoying the fluid dynamic difficulty between waiting for accurate shooting and spraying frantically after a miss), I wanted to increase the deadline challenge further because it still felt so much easier.

Now the deadline will speed up if you aren't shooting! It felt very fun the few times I tried it.

I'm going to test it again this week before uploading a new build. I want to make it through the entire game and make sure everything feels good.

Windows users - please check www.QuantumPilot.me for the latest with icons file included! If it still doesn't work, post here and I'll post a build without the icons file to get it working again.

[quantumpotato]

I am smiling so big right now

The Deadline speeding up when you're not shooting makes the action *much* tighter.

Especially at the end of a round, just one clone left.. you burst fire and.. confident you'll hit it? Then you can wait but the deadline is rushing at you. If you aren't sure you can shoot more to slow down the deadline + put more shots on screen.. which means more shots from your clone next rounds.

Playtester today (who'd only seen the phone version before) enjoyed it.

I got through the game in 2 tries (about 30 lives on the second try). The first try I lost on the second weapon, which has a delay before moving after you shoot. It makes very pretty patterns and challenges you to remember how you moved last round. Second time I had a bit of trouble on the sin-wave weapon but that's usual - it's the most challenging level of the game I think and with the new sin-wave pattern it feels "fair". With the sped up Deadline I was being a lot more aggressive and it ended up feeling more fun.

Builds are live on Itch! www.QuantumPilot.me

[quantumpotato]

The game's got a pretty high contrast which can be a little squinty. Testing out a lower-contrast color scheme based on what worked for my terminal

[quantumpotato]

I like the boldness of the original 2 colors for those weapons and the others look better on the lighter background.

I will just keep the new lighter background and black frame. Much easier to see the game!

If you really want to adjust, open

Code:

Colors.js

and have at it.

[AaronB]

Cool concept!

So basically you are your own worst enemy.  Thought I'd be first to get that in

  Hope you enjoy the game

It's cool.  I tried different strategies - continual stream of bullets - small bursts - precision sniper shots (kinda) and it was interesting to see how different the game play becomes as the number of opponents increases.  My best skill level was 9.333

A skill level leader board with a short animation of the last 5 to 10 seconds of play would be really fascinating.  

BTW the shift key for fire didn't go down well with the Windows accessibility sticky key option (which I had to disable).

[quantumpotato]

Cool concept!

So basically you are your own worst enemy.  Thought I'd be first to get that in

  Hope you enjoy the game

It's cool.  I tried different strategies - continual stream of bullets - small bursts - precision sniper shots (kinda) and it was interesting to see how different the game play becomes as the number of opponents increases.  My best skill level was 9.333

A skill level leader board with a short animation of the last 5 to 10 seconds of play would be really fascinating.  

BTW the shift key for fire didn't go down well with the Windows accessibility sticky key option (which I had to disable).

Cool!! Thanks for playing!

High scores hm yes.. that could be fun. I shied away from that out of fear of cheating (and to kind of leave it mysterious like.. what is the max ceiling? it's up to you to figure it out!)

This is playing around with "QuantumPilot.tv" - a replay stream .. of a ship the round before they get hit



(it's fetching replays from my server & replaying inputs)

Good job on the skill! I'm glad you like the new skill rating, too.

By the way.. there is something beyond the skill rating, another scoring system .. if you can make it through all weapons 

Shift.. ugh.. yeah. Why that's there: ArrowKeys + Space on many keyboards just lockups when you press Up+Left+Space (try it for yourself: http://jsfiddle.net/HwR9N/3/

Sounds like I need to add in some Z support (like a few Doujin SHMUPS do).
 Have you tried using a controller?

I'm so glad to hear you tried different strategies and enjoyed the emergent gameplay!

[mtarini]

I have the same issue as mtarini. I tried to launch the .exe and nothing happens at all. I don't even see a new process spawned

Win10, on latest update. I have a X1 controller plugged in but nothing changes when I unplug it

Hello mtarini, Josh, thank you for this info!

[...]
I just now uploaded a new .zip with the .icns file included.
[...]
Please try this new file and let me know if it still doesn't work, then I will upload one without the .icns file as that has worked in the past.

Apologies for the late answer! Unfortunately, the just re-downloaded, most-recent version (v1.6.11, according to file "version") does just the same: no trace that anything is running when I try to exec it.
Win10, Intel i7, Geforce GTX 960M here.
Maybe it is because I've no USB controller of any kind?