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[Alec S.]

The game's coming soon page on Steam is now live!

Steam Page

[freank]

nice work !

[Alec S.]

Update 9/2/2016

Most of what I've been working on recently has been playing through the game and finding things that need fixing or improving.  I recently fixed a crashing problem that has been plaguing me for a while, so that's nice.  So far I've gone through the city levels, and am part way the arid (desert/canyon) levels.  I'm planning on putting together a press preview build of the first 6 or so levels to send out by next week.  I think I'm on track to be able to release this game before the year's over. 

I've also been considering doing one more overhaul on the powerup system, but we'll see if I end up doing that.

[Alec S.]

Screenshot Saturday

[Alec S.]

Enemies now have faces and portrait art:

[Alec S.]

New Trailer:

[Alec S.]

Update 9/9/2016

There are two levels in this game that work differently from the others.  In the first half of the game, there's a motorcycle level, and in the second half of the game, there's a raft level.  These levels have been a thorn in my side and a daunting unfinished task respectively.  It's been surprisingly difficult to rework the game around constant movement.  After months of occasional tweaking and reworking, the motorcycle level has reached a point of acceptability.  Now I'm attempting to hunker down and build off the rough components I previously had for the raft level.

So far things are going pretty well:



One thing I did was significantly slow down the raft.  From a design perspective, the point of the raft level is to remove the player's ability to wait before entering a combat encounter.  However, when the raft is going too fast, it basically hamstrings most of the enemies' ability to actually threaten the player in any significant way.  This is true even of enemies I reworked to follow the movement of the raft (like the drones, and soldiers who ride on their own rafts) but it's especially true of static enemies like the rocket launchers.  By slowing down the raft, I was able to achieve the dynamic I was looking for without having to modify the behavior of existing enemies too dramatically.

[io3 creations]

Some levels do have things you can hide behind (trees in the forest, rocks in the arid levels, ect...) but I really don't want to make this game too cover-heavy.  I want it to be less stop-and-pop and more run-n-gun.  Basically, I'm going for something in between Sin and Punishment and Jet Force Gemini.

Since you restrict the camera movement, I'd say your game is more like Sin and Punishment than Jet Force Gemini where the camera freely rotates 360 degrees as the player turns.  I think I mentioned after trying the demo, that for such a gameplay, it's best not to let enemies move behind you.  Looking at a few scenes from Sin and Punishment, that seemed to be the case.  Still, there seem to be a few interesting boss fight scenes that are more like a 2d side scroller and you aim your crosshair that way and also have to avoid bullets.  That is an interesting way to add some variety.

About the trailer, the only issue I noticed is that the cutscene dialogue was shown for a very short time and had to stop the video to read it.  If those are important to the trailer, then it's better to show them for a "long enough" time.  On the other hand, if those are not relevant then it might be better not to show as those can divert the viewer's attention and might leave them a bit confused.   Just my preference.

[Alec S.]

Yeah, the game is definitely closer to Sin and Punishment.  The main difference being that you can control your forward/backward movement rather than having a set forward-speed.

[io3 creations]

Oh, I see.  So Sin and Punishment is a rail-shooter?  That would make some of the mechanics a bit different.

[Alec S.]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I refer to this game as a 3D run 'n' gun game (I mean, in addition to the fact that Venusian Vengeance was a top-down run 'n' gun game).  It's not quite as on-rails as Sin and Punishment, but it doesn't have the free movement/aiming of a standard third person shooter (just like top-down run 'n' gun games like Commando, Shock Troopers and Venusian Vengeance are ostensibly on-rails, but have more freedom of movement/aiming than a SHMUP like Gradius).  I'm actually not aware of any other games that control quite like Cold Vengeace so it's hard to get people to understand what sort of game this is. 

[Alec S.]

Played around with the appearance of the standard projectiles

[io3 creations]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I refer to this game as a 3D run 'n' gun game (I mean, in addition to the fact that Venusian Vengeance was a top-down run 'n' gun game).  It's not quite as on-rails as Sin and Punishment, but it doesn't have the free movement/aiming of a standard third person shooter (just like top-down run 'n' gun games like Commando, Shock Troopers and Venusian Vengeance are ostensibly on-rails, but have more freedom of movement/aiming than a SHMUP like Gradius).  I'm actually not aware of any other games that control quite like Cold Vengeace so it's hard to get people to understand what sort of game this is. 

Yeah, that's a tricky situation as those genres aren't explored that well (or I may just not be that aware).   In some sense, it also has similar-ish feel to Star Fox with more freedom than a rail shooter in terms of moving the character/vehicle and being able to aim/shoot separately.   At least the trailer does convey the overall gameplay so chances are people will "get it".

[io3 creations]

A bit off topic, but related to the control scheme and 3d gameplay.  Since you seem familiar with early console games, have you seen game where you can control a vehicle in a 3d environment freely where the vehicle could hover.  I'm thinking of something along the lines of a helicopter but more "futuristic" vehicle e.g. Killing Cloud:

  (gameplay near the end)

[Alec S.]

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, and it was actually a PC game, but there was a game called Recoil where you play as a future-tank and I think there was some sort of hover powerup in that.  And, of course, for fully 3D movement, there are the decent games (although that's not really hovering since you can move freely up and down).

[io3 creations]

Yeah, I remember the Descent games and those are a bit different than what I have in mind.  By hovering I mean that the vehicle is off the ground and can move up and down somewhat but gameplay would still be (mostly) near ground level.  Recoil with the hover powerup is actually very similar to what I have in mind.  Strangely enough, other than helicopter simulators, I can't think of any other example that comes to mind even on PCs.  Perhaps that extra mechanic of moving up/down is enough of a  gameplay or design challenge that it wasn't worth pursuing?

[Alec S.]

Raft level is coming along nicely.

[Alec S.]

Created a game page:

http://renegadesector.com/cold-vengeance/

[io3 creations]

The raft level is looking sweet.

It looks like you used transparent planes/quads for the water effect.  Does having transparent texture have a significant impact on performance?  Since the low poly style of your game doesn't seem that processing intensive, I wouldn't expect it to be an issue, but I'm just wondering in general.

[Zorg]

What are those flickering white squares supposed to be? I don't get it. The water looks nice.