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[princec]

It's like a casual game, except with shooting and monsters and stuff This is just a tech test, all the sounds and rather a lot of ancillary graphics are just placeholders. Just wanted you to get a feel for the game, get a bit of feedback, etc.

If you've not got a joypad you'll find that the cursor keys move your little guy and the left ctrl key shoots.





Click here to launch it (Mac, Linux and Windows).

If it doesn't run, it's either because you've not got Java installed properly, or because you've not got up-to-date video drivers. Go at once and install these things! Then come back and try again.

All comments gratefully received. Don't tell me to make it harder though.

Cas

[wourme]

I think this game has a lot of charm. My controller didn't behave properly--left and right seemed to be switched with up and down.

I can imagine leaving the station or ship or whatever it is to run around on the surface of a planet. Maybe between areas or something.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more progress.

[Ishi]

Got a nice feel to it so far. Digging the pixelly/not pixelly look.

A strafe thing might be nice - so you can target an enemy whilst getting the hell out of the way of the stuff it's shooting at you. Probably overcomplicating it a bit if you're aiming for casual though.

The switches were a bit confusing - took me a while to realise that they were actually there, then once I hit one I had to go searching for what it had actually changed.

Wasn't sure what the pushy boxes were for. I like that you can use them to block the fire from enemy turrets, most of the time though they just got in my way. I pushed one down a corridor and it ended up just getting stuck there.

Also found the death system a bit odd - I guess the idea is that you can either collect the jewels for points or leave them around incase you die. I ended up just fumbling around trying to find a jewel whilst watching my timer count down though. With him being ghostly I assumed I'd be able to walk through boxes or over the one-way floor, but I couldn't.

Finally, the hole in the floor wasn't very obvious until I'd fallen through it, then climbed back up the ladder to see what happened

Looking good overall though. How does the player's status factor into the gameplay? I got it up to Berserk I think, wasn't sure how I got there though.

[Melly]

As it's been said the game oozes charm. It's a pacman/zelda/gauntlet/space shooter bastard child, or something. The game is pretty easy as far as battling goes (maybe too easy), and the controls are fairly nice. I love the art style of it.

Blocks can be cumbersome and get stuck in odd places screwing you over.

I wasn't really sure on how to affect my status. I was always on coward, though I'm sure I was killing everything on sight.

I can see lots of potential for level design.

Keep it up.

[princec]

Phew, only 3 replies Bugger.

Well...

The pushable crates are there for a special reason which you don't know yet because I've not implemented it yet! But there are likely to be one or two Sokoban style puzzles sprinkled in the game. There are also some switches that only work when a weight is left on them. The crate reset switch is broken for some reason too - there's a switch in the room with the crates that should reset the positions of all the crates but it got b0rked recently and I haven't fixed it yet. It'll be tricky to design rooms so that you can't get irrevocably stuck, nonetheless. I've just (tonight) made the ghost able to walk through crates and arrows.

As for switches - there will soon be an effect which shows you exactly which tiles the switch has just changed, which should help somewhat.

The game is definitely easy right now because it's on difficulty setting 0 to start with. As you progress it'll get all the way up to difficulty 16 which should make it really bloody challenging (faster gidrahs with more hitpoints that spawn more frequently and shoot more frequently).

The status is increased by movement. If you stay still, it goes down. If you move, it goes up. The status directly affects the points you score for a kill. 0 points when COWARDLY all the way up to 50 points per kill when BESERK.

I will be adding a little "dropping" effect in ladders and the hole too

The next big build of the game will feature a "hub" world with 8 subworlds (different tilesets - you're currently looking at "Moonbase Alpha") off of it. Each time you enter a subworld you get a new map, slightly bigger and more fiendish than the last, which requires you to open more doors to escape. The last map in each subworld contains an Artifact worth 10,000 points. The game's difficulty level is based on the number of Artifacts you are carrying plus the current world's map number (so, max 16). Collecting all 8 Artifacts ends the game and doubles your score.

There are also scripted bits to come where you have to enter passwords and magic words and interact with "NPCs".

ETA another 3 months for release...

Cas

[Bad Sector]

I don't think it helps you much, nor that should be concerned, but the game suffers badly from flicker and, um, triangle "cutting" (that is, one of the two triangles that make up the quad is more visible than the other when flickering) when used with the Mesa renderer (which, btw, is quite strange since i have the fglrx driver loaded and i remember it working before leaving for vacations...).

Also since the loading took a day or so, i assume that the redrawing is done for every "loaded item". It might be better (=faster, even where acceleration is supported, because of vsync) to put the redraw in a separate thread that happens every -say- 150ms.

[princec]

Sounds more like duff drivers to me... no Windows or Macs have any problems with triangles or flickering.

WRT loading: already does what you suggest (by only redrawing when there's at least one pixel change in the loading bar, and also by disabling vsync if it can during loading). Maybe your computer is slow for some other reason? On first load it decodes a load of OGGs and writes them to a temp directory - could be a bottleneck.

Cas

[moshboy]

I really quite enjoyed this. Definitely loved the graphical style. Great stuff.

Generally the gameplay mechanics were decent and I liked the auto lock-on feature. Some of the rules could have been a little more concrete.. it did become somewhat confusing in parts.. and some things weren't all that clear at first glance - like Ishi said but this would not be hard to rectify if this is still in early stages of development.

Good work.

[Stij]

I'm lovin' the graphical style, reminds me a lot of Titan Attacks and Ultratron.

[princec]

I should hope it does remind you of UT and TA because we're sticking to that style for the next few games It's our special style we call our own!

I've somehow got to get the instructions for the entire game in on one screen of big text. The rest has got to be either obvious, intuitive, or fun to discover on purpose or by accident. So if there's any trouble in that area we'll need to know!

Cas

[lowpoly]

ya, thought it was tons of fun, can't wait to try it at home with the joystick.
Took me awhile before I really figured out what was going on, but for the most part it seemed intuitive and handled well. clever idea, really digging it.

Also,  The name... I don't know, but I was expecting a match3 or something. I did a double take tho when I saw who started the thread and was pleasantly surprised.

[princec]

The name is ingenious Although it is entirely gay it might get an awful lot of ordinary people to try the game out because it's so inoffensive. And, mysteriously, untaken by any other games.

Cas

[Pacian]

Also,  The name... I don't know, but I was expecting a match3 or something. I did a double take tho when I saw who started the thread and was pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, I'm not sure why I clicked on this thread.  I actually thought this was for a puzzle game that someone posted a while back and that I wasn't very interested in.

But I'm glad that I did click on it, because this is really cool.  I love the controls and the sound design, and the way you linger on as a ghost...  I know the sounds are just placeholders, but I think it would be cool if you could keep the same feel.  (Or maybe I'm talking out of my backside.)

[princec]

I just tweaked the title of the post to be sure no-one else has any dithering moments over whether to look!

Cas

[Guert]

As mentionned in another post, the game as nice retro vibe to it. Still, I'm not sure exactly what i gotta do. Feels like there's alot of possibilities but cna't seem to know for sure which to choose. For example, I picked up the berzerk icon that gave the possibility to actualy destroy an enemy robot. then i pick up a pac man, enemies become ghosts but I can't hurt them. So I return to pick up a pacman after finishing berserking and then I can only attack 3 or 4 ghost icons and then they are all back into standard enemies...

The concepts are interesting. I like how you can walk as a ghost for a while. Too bad that we can't pass through walls or doors. I also like the ladders leading to a sub level! The sliding blocks have blocked me a couple of times and I haven't figured out how to stop the shooting cannons or the spawning of enemies.

What's the goal of this level? Does it have an ending?

Anyway, it's pretty nice, it's fun but I'm still not sure what to do and why I have to do it! Once i know what to do, I'm sure it'll be even better!

Later!

[princec]

Hehe, there isn't any point to the test level you're playing! I wanted to test each and every game feature thoroughly before we went ahead and actually designed the levels.

The ultimate game objective is to find the eight Artifacts (worth lots of points).

To do this you'll be using a hub world, entering one of eight portals. Each portal leads to a different world, and each time you enter a portal, you get a bigger, more complex, nasty map. In each world you have to simply find the exit and get out again alive. The exits are blocked by locks which can only be opened by keys, and you can only carry one key at a time. As you progress through the worlds, you will need to open more locks to get out.

On the way you will encounter various puzzles, and some adventurey quests which may overlap between worlds. They won't be very complex though. You'll also find various items that will help you on your way.

I expect there will be a big fat boss at the end of each world too

It's going to take us another 3 months to do the level designs I think. Maybe longer.

Cas

[jwaap]

Really cool. I love the graphic style you guys use, and the gameplay is very smooth. I just hope you guys add a coop 2-player mode, since it only uses 5 keys. Can't wait trying a more complex version with some things to actually complete.

Good luck making this. 

[princec]

Hehe, there's no luck involved, just hard graft! And the actual real threat of starvation if it doesn't sell in great numbers of course.

Cas

[teknogames]

Wow this looks very pretty. I'm giving it a try now.


eh... I dont really know what to say. Why were all the controls crossed out? I had no idea what to do.
I'm likihng the design though. And of course you'll be able to shoot later right?

[Xander]

Left Ctrl is ALWAYS my favourite button!

Is there going to be a way to strafe in the full version? Not that it's really needed with the nice lock-on system, and the corridors don't really allow for that kind of play, I just always have a desire to shoot the opposite way I'm walking. Apparently that's partly why I'm disallowed access to the armed forces. Probably makes sense. I do love the feel and style of it, it's very Puppy Games, and the fact that that actually feels nostalgic to me surely says something about you guys. Glad to see more games are on the way!

Although...

I...
Hate..
PUSHING BOXES!

I did love the pac-man power too, made my BEZERK bonus seem kinda sad in comparison.