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[skaz]

Click here to grab the prototype!

Hi space cadet! Dreaming of having your spaceships blown into pieces and your lifeless carcass sucked in the vacuum of space, to pop like a party balloon? Dream no more!

BULLET VOID

First things first: screenshots.


Ok, right here, you're dead. Period. Sorry.


I this some missiles trying to get inside your nozzle???


Plasma canon is cool. Plasma canon is HOT.


PEW PEW PEW KABOOM PSRRCCHT. Yeah, no sound effect yet...


This dude should watch those asteroids instead of spreading bullets like that. Whatch the road, man!


He has a shield too buddy, except he can drop FOUR BOMBS AT A TIME. FOUR.


Want to know more? Follow the devlog right HERE!


I wont make it to redundant with the Devlog, I'll just want to say to anybody taking a few minutes to try it and give some feedback that it's really, highly appreciated. Invaluable, in fact. It's a game I make for the sake of learning how to make games, I'm really open minded.

I won't make promises I won't be able to keep, but if you give me a few minutes of your time, I'll try to repay you in-game. I might have a mission system at some point, and give some NPC names, what about being one of them? At the very least, I'll make a thanks page and you'll be mentioned inside.

I know what time is worth, so thanks in advance to anyone who will participate!

As to the kind of feedbacks I'd like to hear, don't hold back your words, I can take a beating if something's really shitty (as long as your criticisms are constructive. "It's plain shit" is not a useful feedback. "It's plain shit because your controls sucks and your pixel art is terrible", that tells me something). Controls, general feelings, difficulty, art, weapons feeling, everything is interesting to me. Keep in mind it's only here to evaluate the gameplay of combat, the game is not meant to be mindless killing. You are seeing the bare bone combat system of something bigger.

Right now, the prototype is about shooting down ships and not getting shot down. Green bar is your HULL integrity (0 is death), blue bar is your ENERGY. Energy replenish pretty quickly, but its drained by your SHIELD, and the PLASMA CANON. So beware. Empty it and you'll be left defenceless.

Controls are classic, WASD to move (ZQSD enabled too) mouse buttons to shoot with primary and secondary weapon, left ctrl to shoot guided missiles, cursor over target to lock them, space to activate the shield.

The score keeps track of enemies you take down, and every single piece of metal scrap you collect. Every enemy drops quite a lot of scrap, so collecting it is the best way to get a decent score.

If you can't stay behind enemies, try to lure them on the upper part of the screen, then brake violently and go behind them!

Happy space killing!

- Skaz

[lithander]

The sprites and animations and effects are super awesome. I especially liked the plasma effect. When enemies die a lot of stuff spawns that does look relevant but is it? Or just weird looking debris?
Of my 4 tries 3 times I accidently clicked outside the window on my second monitor and the game closed. Can you constrain the mouse to your fullscreen window?
Because plasma only shoots upward I was lurking on the bottom screen all the time, still didn't get a good angle on the enemies.
I really missed the sound. At first thought it was a bug or something wrong with my headphones.

All that said I'm really looking forward to future versions.

[Quicksand-S]

I love those sprites. The ships remind me a lot of the old game Raptor: Call of the Shadows, just in terms of some of the shapes and colors used. Very nice.

I hope you add music and sound in the near future. It feels so strange playing a game like this without those elements.

Movement feels good. Combat...doesn't. At least, not for me. My main issue is that my primary weapon is fires relatively slow projectiles, but the enemies are constantly moving at high speed in random directions. I could take them out, but it never felt like I was using skill to do so. It was just a game of trying to spray bullets where I think the enemy is going and hoping that it decides to stay where I'm shooting.

I think with less erratic enemy movements, it'd be more enjoyable for me. I think it would also help to have a little more feedback. I wasn't really sure how much damage I was doing to enemies a lot of the time. Maybe some noticeable fire or something when they're near death would be good.

The plasma cannon didn't seem particularly useful. Whenever I moved low on the screen, enemies would hover around down at the bottom too, often going off-screen. I expected it to be more powerful too, but it didn't seem that much better than my main gun. Also, with enemies hovering around close to me, they rarely got into a position to actually shoot at me. It's probably better if they use the open space on the screen to line up shots. I realize that I can manipulate them easily enough, but I don't enjoy the "move up, brake, shoot, move up, brake, shoot" thing that much. It gets repetitive and the combat feels less skill-oriented again.

The asteroids are a nice break from constant combat and the radar is fairly useful (although I think I'd rather see more of what's coming up than what's already passed by me).

I rarely noticed enemy projectiles. I saw bombs a few times, but they blended in with the background a bit too much. Most other enemies never seemed to shoot at me for the first while. After the first wave of asteroids, things picked up a bit, but I still felt like half the enemies were just flying in circles and not really doing much.

Anyway, it's decent. I love the look of it. The ships and explosions are great. The combat could still use a little work, I think, but the ship handles really well.

[skaz]

Thanks a lot to both of you!

I get you like the sprites (which is nice, I never risked myself at spaceships before), so we can start with what's not so good.

- The debris that spawns on death are actually ships parts, do they look like anything else? Do they look like crap?
- The dual screen issue is interesting, unfortunately I only have one. I'll try to find a solution to constrain the cursor inside the game area, test it on windowed mode, but I can't make promises I get it's quite an issue, first thing will be implementing a pause function (I'm doing it right now), and try to make the game pause if you click outside. At least you wont die instantly ^^' ...
- Sound, definitely a priority. Even if they're place-holder, I should implement the sound code to make sure I don't build up a huge debt, and find myself with a colossal task if things don't go as easy as expected. Music, well, not a priority right now.
- Fighting: the big stuff. I was ready to hear some negative thing about it, I tried something a bit unusual. The ships don't obey classical patterns, they try to outmanoeuvre you, and spending time on the bottom of the screen can only lead you to be outmanoeuvred. I get that spending the whole time going from top to bottom feels repetitive, and the enemies are REALLY nervous, they don't give you a second to breathe. I tried to give the enemies more organic reactions, more like you are actually fighting a pilot that pilots. I may have to change my approach and goals.
An issue is precisely the directional attacks, as some of the enemies shoot upward, just staying at the bottom of the screen would make the whole thing look absurd. In classical SHMUPS, this problem doesn't exists if enemies simply aim at you, or shoot in the opposite direction than you do. I guess I'll have to try a few things, maybe make the ships obey to some patterns, get in position, attack, retreat, react to attacks, an leaving you a few windows to land shots.
A lot of work!
- Bullets you raise a problem of slowness, and you are not the first one. It's frustrating to miss that much, I get it. I must find a balance between fast bullets, and the possibility to dodge and evade. Maybe make the player ones much faster.
- The plasma is really much more powerful, but doesn't feels like it because it's really hard lo land multiple shots on a target. Modifying the enemies behaviour should solve that issue.
- Feedbacks: I tried to make visually clear the fact you hit the target with the flash, was it noticeable? Ships also leak more and more particles with damages, but it might not be evident that its correlated. I will try to make thing visually stand out much more.
- Happy to hear that the radar was useful, I spent an unreasonable amount of time on it, I was afraid to just had make an expensive gadget. Something that's not in the prototype and can make navigating in asteroid fields way less punishing:

- Projectiles have to stand out more. I'm going to make tracer bullets, of different colours for the player and the enemies, and the bombs are going to be really easier to notice.

Well, that was really helpful. Will give me a lot of stuff to think about Thanks again!

[Quicksand-S]

- The plasma is really much more powerful, but doesn't feels like it because it's really hard lo land multiple shots on a target.

Just thought I'd respond to this part. Actually, I found the plasma much easier to land hits with because all I had to do was strafe underneath an enemy. It felt like it wasn't that much more powerful because whenever I did get a lot of shots with my normal gun to hit an enemy, I felt like they died just as quickly as they did to plasma. I guess it's just a matter of perception. I never get a chance to directly compare how quickly things die to each weapon type because enemies are always moving differently.

[skaz]

Just thought I'd respond to this part. Actually, I found the plasma much easier to land hits with because all I had to do was strafe underneath an enemy. It felt like it wasn't that much more powerful because whenever I did get a lot of shots with my normal gun to hit an enemy, I felt like they died just as quickly as they did to plasma. I guess it's just a matter of perception. I never get a chance to directly compare how quickly things die to each weapon type because enemies are always moving differently.

Yeah I get where the feeling comes from. A good technique is a defensive use of plasma, back down, stop and burst. enemies just impale themselves on the stream...

I tried to address the problem of frustrating bullets and readability. First, bullets are much faster, second, your own speed only affect their own motion at half your own speed. It's less of an impact.

I made tracer bullets. The're much bigger, much brighter, and the colour is different between you and your enemies.



I've updated the build on Gamejolt, the new one is available with those changes, including the asteroid warning.

[Quicksand-S]

Played the new version a bit.

I like the bullet speed a lot better now, but the rotation speed of the turret is still really slow to keep up with all the enemy movement. It doesn't seem like it's built to deal with such fast enemies. That said, the slowness it does add a feeling of "weight" or something to the weapon rotation, so it's not all bad.

I noticed enemy bullets a lot more often, so that was good. I found myself wishing that my bullets were the yellow/orange ones, though, because they look cooler (and because the muzzle flash of my gun doesn't really fit with the green shots). It wasn't a problem, though, and the tracers were nice and easy to keep track of.

The asteroid warnings kinda make the radar useless at this point. Spotting asteroids was the only thing I ever used it for.

I like this version a lot better than the previous one.

[skaz]

Funny thing you mentioned the turret speed, I just modified it to be really faster too. Faster bullets made this issue obvious, it turns pretty quick but the final steps, where the motion is smoothed, makes it feeling slow. Now its really faster, it is just impossible to make a 180° without feeling the rotation, which was the goal. I could keep a much slower turrets if it was mathematically and mechanically intended (like a huge, slow rail gun with instant, devastating bullets).

I guess the problem now is that the tracer rounds looks like lasers. It gives a nice star was vibe, but it must remain obvious that it's plain solid bullets. I should make the tail really longer, and fading out, simulating like retinal persistence. MAYBE a particle or tow from time to time. I'll give it a try.

I'm also making new impact sprites, to give a nice feedback when you land a shot. Looks nice so far! I'll make the white flash last a frame of too more (from only one right now), so the impact will be noticeable on the white sprite.

I'm glad you liked this one better, I hope you'll like the next one better too! And thank you for your time. 

[skaz]

The Game Feel/A.I. update.

Grab it HERE!

Hi there! I'm back with a new build. I've taken the vast majority of your remarks into account, and I'm eager to know what you will think of the modifications I've made for this build. Lots of stuff for the Juice, and a brand new A.I.


Shake your ship baby!

As mentioned on the devlog, if you beat the 100 points in this build PM me and you will get a little something as a reward!

As usual, any feedback is highly valued, I'm still open to any constructive criticism. Criticism that have been very constructive and helpful so far, thanks to the gentlemen (or ladies, who knows?) of this forum!  


Trails of bullets. Trails EVERYWHERE!

Thanks in advance to anyone who will give it a shot!

- Skaz

[Quicksand-S]

Ok. I was going to go for 100, but by 20 I was getting bored and kinda lost focus. I made it to 40.

The shooting feels better. The enemy movement is better. There's just one big problem: Many of the enemies don't shoot probably 2/3 of the time they're on-screen.

In my entire game, I think I was hit by maybe six or seven enemies, and at least half of those were basically unavoidable because they swept across the screen while shooting. A lot of the time, enemies would just fly to the far end of the screen and sit there (which is fine) without shooting (which is probably not).

Apart from the lack of shooting and the seemingly unavoidable attacks when some enemies do shoot, I feel like ships have a little too much health. I wouldn't want to fight 100 of them at the rate I was going through them. Then again, I didn't really use my other weapons so maybe that's why. I kinda forgot I had them until just now...

[GeniusInteractive]

Hmm. Why do the enemies spawn behind the player? With some work this could be an advanced version of Call of the Shadows. I used to be a fan of it back in the day, I can compose your soundtrack if you want.

[skaz]

Thanks for your time Quicksand!

You got bored because of the relative slow pace of the enemies arrival? Monotonous gameplay? At 40 things are going to become more exiting with a counter of maximum simultaneous enemies higher. The start is slow so you can figure out how it works, it may be TOO slow though. Maybe one enemy of each is enough.

Enemies don't shoot aside from their attack motion, I made it this way so you can have a lot of enemies on screen, without making the whole thing a chaotic mess. They also offer you a window to be shot, window that can be set to various values. Right now they can spend quite some time idling, but I'm really at the beginning of it, it might be shorter when they are alone, but longer if there is a lot of ships on screen. I'll work on that.

But I get you found it weird to see them idling like that. May look less weird is they were moving a bit, I'll experiment with that. But shooting while idling is not planed, it'll turn the game into an unreadable mess with 5+ ships on screen.


By what you say, it seems you didn't use the shield. The game is not designed to make dodging the main escape route, but shielding a mandatory action. Which is why enemies shoot all the way through the screen, it's not meant to be dodged. If you actually didn't used the shield, I'd like to know a few things. Nothing is meant to be insulting, I take the whole responsibility as the game maker, just willing to understand. Did you read the first screen or is it TL;DR? If so, it's my mistake to assume people will read it, and I must find a more elegant and efficient way to communicate the controls to the player.

I already have an idea for that regard, with the ship's A.I. that could tell the useful stuff as the game goes, or if it notices that you don't use something. More fluid, allow the player to simply jump in with zero reading.  I must work on the game's affordance at this point if I want people to spend time on it.

Same thing with the missiles, they make thing really faster as you can practically one shot ships with a landed shot. I perfectly understand that the game must be a bit boring with only the machine gun. I won't talk about the plasma, as I think it's totally useless right now, I'll have to go back to the drawing board with this weapon.

As usual, you feedbacks are helpful, thank you very much!


Thanks too GeniusInteractive. Right now enemies come from the back, but they will come from anywhere in the next build. Do you have some tracks to showcase your work?

[Quicksand-S]

I got bored because:

-The space between enemy arrivals is too long at first.
-The enemies weren't shooting a lot of the time, so I just sat at a distance and fired without needing to maneuver.
-The environment never changes.

The last point is probably more of a personal-preference thing. I've never been a huge fan of arcade-style shooters. When I played shmups, a large part of what I enjoyed was flying over interesting and ever-changing landscapes. In space, I don't get that unless there are space stations to fly over or through.

Enemies don't shoot aside from their attack motion

In theory, that's a good idea but yeah, I think the timing is off. I had ships move up to near the top right corner and just sit there for ten seconds, doing nothing at all. I think it might work best if movement and attacks were separate. It could make for more interesting gameplay.

What I'd probably try is having their shots be on a predictable timer, like a burst of three shots every four seconds. They could still move the way they do now, but their attacks would always feel relatively fresh because the situation would be different depending on how they're moving each time the timer runs out.

Did you read the first screen or is it TL;DR?

I read it the first time I played, but ignored it this time and forgot that I had other options. I wouldn't recommend having a screen like that in the final game. Teaching players while they play is probably more effective and more likely to stick with them. I don't think you should ever expect players to read things.

must be a bit boring with only the machine gun

I guess the question is, "Should it be boring with only the machine gun?" In most games I play, I seem to stick to the basic weapon I'm given. It's generally a decent challenge because it requires me to think and move rather than relying on brute strength or special abilities. I feel like I'm cheating when I use something like an energy shield, unless the game is set up in such a way that using it is the only way to play. Take Dark Souls, for example. If you played without dodging or blocking, you'd probably die really quickly because the game isn't set up to allow that style of play. It's very clear that the game is designed to require at least one of those actions.

On the flip-side, Bullet Void feels like it's playable with just the basic gun and no abilities, until some enemy sweeps across the level while shooting and whittles down your health a little. It's not a constant threat of "If you don't use your shield, you're dead" so when that fairly uncommon event suddenly makes the machine-gun-only approach less viable, it's annoying rather than feeling like it's just the design of the game.

Hopefully that made sense. Not sure if I explained my point well.

[GeniusInteractive]

Thanks too GeniusInteractive. Right now enemies come from the back, but they will come from anywhere in the next build. Do you have some tracks to showcase your work?

Made the soundtrack to this game. http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/outrace-racing-3d-race-game-about-drifting-and-love/72621/

If you dont have Windows I can pm you the individual mp3s.

As for enemy spawns, if its a game where enemies spawn from odd locations, then they need to shoot like the player does. Which would be odd gameplay wise. Theres a reason games stick to the old "spawn from top third only" because it just makes for better gameplay, fixed patterns that is. Odd random spawns makes for messy gameplay.

[GeniusInteractive]

Also, I dont hand out free soundtracks willy nilly, your game has to have a certain level of quality to it. Your game has potential, but thats also a bigger potential to muss it up. If your game is commercial, I want a piece of the pie.

[ProgramGamer]

Alrighty, so I just found this and here's some of my feedback after playing:

-Game feel:

The ship is satisfying to control, but stops way too slow IMO. This is an obvious problem for me because one of the weapons (which is tied to a resource) needs to aim at enemies by moving the ship, and I often end up overshooting and end up beyond where I should be. This may be me not being used to the game though, so maybe test it out some more to make sure.

One thing which I am confident is a bad thing though is the lock-on reticle. It makes it seem like shooting at enemies with your mouse over it will make the shots always it it, or make them seeking shots or something, which they don't since you actually need to anticipate enemy movements to hit them. That's a game design red herring, which is bad. Doubly so because it is subtle. If you really want it in the game, only show it when some missile-like weapon is seeking that particular enemy.

I don't mind collecting ship parts and I don't really have a problem with how they look right now. Maybe just make it easier to catch up to them as you first start up the game so you can learn that they're collectible more easily?

-Sounds

they are non-existent which is inexcusable. Almost excusable because space, but still inexcusable because video game.

-Conclusion

Keep working on this, it is rad as all hell and I want to see it finished. You can do the thing!

[skaz]

Thanks everybody!

Quicksand-S:

From what you say I get that the very beginning is too slow, I'll make it quicker, one enemy of each first (instead of 2). This short sequence is just here to introduce the 4 enemy types. I can also make it so you only see them separately the first game you play, and not after hitting R (but it will be reseted if you close the .exe, for now I don't want people to bother with an installer).

I will experiment with a system that modulate the idle time, depending on the enemy number. Few enemies, very short idle. Lots of them, longer time. The overall action will go up, without becoming overwhelming.

The background is a placeholder. It is very monotonous, and it's meant to be replaced with at least some more interesting stuff. Galaxies, planets, asteroid belts, gaz clouds, that kind of stuff.

The idea of a separate timer for motions and fire is really interesting, I'll explore in that direction. Maybe not predictable, but I'll test it anyway.

The TL;DR problem is a priority right now. I've added the ship's AI protrait with animations, and the text is the very next on the todo list. Here is a partial screenshot/mockup of the thing:



I will not make it to intrusive, only popping if the game witnesses that you fail at something, or didn't get the controls.

Dodging and shielding should both be valid options, but in certain situation one is the best answer and the other is not. Maybe damages should be a little more dramatic to really emphasize on the importance of the shield. More bullets should also make it clear, dodging is not a viable option all by itself.

@GeniusInteractive:

It's not really meant to be a classical SHMUP, but more of a twin sticks shooter if you see what I mean. The scrolling is purely visual, it's an arena shooter, enemy will attack from different angles, and so does the player.

@ProgramGamer:

I get that inertia can feel  bit weird (in the very first iteration the ship had ZERO inertia compensation!) but it's meant to be a parameter the player will play with. Customizing the ship to be heavy, light, have quick acceleration but slow maximum speed, the opposite, you get it. In space you don't just decelerate, you have to apply an opposite force to stop a movement. Here you have to burst in the other direction to make a quick stop. I want the player to have a sense of weight.

With reverse thrusting you can practically stop instantly. Plasma canon can be problematic right now, but it's also completely useless. I really have to find a solution to make it worth the shot (and I will, I love plasma guns to much :p Maybe some kind of snare weapon... Or put back the heat mechanic).

Comes the problem of the locking reticle. I get what you say, but it's used to lock targets for the missiles right now. I can't really see an other way to make it, you roll-over the target, lock it, fire, the missiles tries to take it down. If you can't lock target this way, how do you select which target the missile will seek? You don't select weapons, so I can't give you various targeting reticles or mode. Every weapon is accessible from a single key (I tried weapon selection in the beginning, it was TERRIBLE, make things way to slow, you just never switch in the end).

Maybe locking the current enemy at the precise moment of the shot, or from this moment to the impact. Or dump the manual locking and have the missile select its target itself, which wouldn't be as pleasant. I really want the player to do stuff, not only rely on automatisms.

Sounds is also on the top priority list after the in game tutorial. It's 50% of the game feel, it's going to be so much better with it (don't expect some wet fireworks, I like my sounds BADASS)!


Thanks very much to all of you, the progress is low, but steady. Not going to give up any time soon!

 

[skaz]

So, it's been a while. As explained in the devlog, I overscoped and missed. BUT! A new build is out, let's call it

THE ASTEROID UPDATE

As you might guess, ASTEROIDS ARE BACK. If you tried the earlier builds, you will notice a lot of changes (detailed in the devlog). If you have some time, I highly value any feedback! Tell me how long you survivived!

[sAm_vdP]

So I only played for a couple of minutes so far (one 96s run, one 110s), but you got a cool thing going! Not sure if I missed any awesome things that come later?

Things I like about the game:

• Graphics are really pretty and nicely retro
• Movement and aiming feels good
• The AI moving around and being clever is nice

A few things could be improved I think. The balance between avoiding asteroids and fighting the AI feels off. One collision with an asteroid is game over, whereas the enemies don't do that much damage, especially with the shield up. A lot of times I could just focus on avoiding the obstacles and eventually the enemies would just crash into the rocks.
I think it would be nice to be able to survice one collision or maybe be able to shoot the asteroids.

I'm not sure about the large number of projectiles. I think it might be more interesting to have weapons that shoot fewer, but more powerful projectiles. But that might just be my personal preference, coming from Instagib UT matches

[fingerman]

Hello skaz,

most importantly, your game was fun to play! I kept hitting that "R" button after crashing into asteroids after a few seconds in my first couple of playthroughs because I was trying to kill the enemies.

Here is some feedback:

The approach, that the enemies come from behind is a fresh one.
Nice that they react to your position and shooting rather than just flying patterns.
I killed a lot of them by zone-ing them out with my cannon and letting them fly into the asteroids.
Those asteroids take so many hits!
Nice graphics, you need sounds to match!
Was I collecting cremembers of the enemy ships I had just blown up?


EDIT: 155 seconds longest survival time, average about 60 seconds


Take care, fingerman