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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingDYING ENGINE - suck brains from humans and use them to create an army!
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Author Topic: DYING ENGINE - suck brains from humans and use them to create an army!  (Read 639 times)
Highlandcoo
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« on: July 25, 2016, 01:06:08 AM »

Dying Engine!

A 2d shooter where you can abduct humans and use their brains to create robotic slaves to fight for you.

You are an alien AI, on a thousand year mission to retrieve the lost power crystals that will save your creators. The shards have landed on a primitive world and the natives are trying to stop you.

Controls are explained in the in-game tutorial.

I'm really keen to get some feedback, but the main thing is that you enjoy yourselves. The game just loops endlessly, you cannot win or lose, but you can explode. Smiley

Developed in Gamemaker studio 1.3.

Download!

Follow me!




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Fincks
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« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2016, 03:04:24 PM »

Hi,

I've played twice, probably around 30min.
First of all, pretty cool music! The graphic fits well with the style of the game and are well polished. I liked it.

I never used the right weapon (the laser) to shoot, maybe it has an interesting use in some situation but I didn't felt like it could help me. The left weapon felt more intuitive.
The sound of the words when they appear in the introduction of the game is a bit too aggressive.

I didn't see right away the health number in the botton left, at first I thought it was the number in the bottom right corner, as I'm usually used to see the health on the left and ammo on the right. (too much css I guess)

I don't have much feedback, but the game is pretty nice Smiley.
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Highlandcoo
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« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2016, 01:51:07 AM »

Thanks for the feedback - you know, now that you mention it the HP and the ammo GUI do seem to be the wrong way round... ok I'm going to change that.

Eventually all the weaponry on your main character will be supportive in nature - like freeze guns, landmine launchers, etc. The bulk of killing will be handled by your minions. At least that's the plan.. so you will see the purpose of the main torso gun eventually Smiley


EDIT - better now?

« Last Edit: July 26, 2016, 01:59:10 AM by Highlandcoo » Logged

Fincks
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« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2016, 12:09:03 PM »

More intuitive I would say Smiley. Gl with the rest of the dev!
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Babar
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« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2016, 12:37:01 PM »

It's a nice start !

I played 15mn and really dig the music and the general atmosphere.
The shard mechanic is cool.

I think the gameplay needs tweak though, I feel the robot is too slow and it's a pain moving ! I also didn't manage to use the right click weapon correctly, it's hard to track where it is and to move.
I didn't understand how to get humans to build help (maybe I missed tutorials), and I couldn't understand if the small guys that flee where important

That's about it ! Keep up the good work

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-Ross
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« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2016, 04:05:18 AM »

Ooof, this thing is slow. I think I'd rather just be a turret than this snail-mech. And too much stuff going on! With the eye-watering channel shift and CRT effect, screenshake, huge and complicated HUD, big green things zooming across the whole screen, more big HUD arrows popping up all the time, minions wiggling around, a bunch of little dots with shadows slowly moving away from you (I know now they're people Tongue), different colored borders on the buildings, a really fast day-night cycle for some reason, all different enemies coming at you, reticles for two different weapons that move at different speeds, dead enemies smoking garish yellow and blue  . . . whew. It's just too much, both visuals and gameplay.

I do think a lot of the visual chaos could be solved by better overall art direction though, and the gameplay would probably feel a lot better if you could see what was going on. You've made a bunch of the important stuff brightly colored, which is good, but you haven't paid attention to your values(aka brightness), which is actually much more important for visibility. Look at your game in black and white:

Not the worst, you can see your minions, one of your reticles, and yourself. But you can't see the HUD at all, you can't see what parts of the landscape are solid or not, and you can barely see the enemies. The black char-marks stand out a lot even though they're totally unimportant.

And it gets worse when there's more action: can't see your own mech, minions and reticles start getting muddled with explosions and debris, and again the non-functional corpses of enemies stand out well.



Compare this to something like Alien Breed . . .


 . . . which has a very clear distinction between the walls and the walkable area, bullets are extremely obvious, HUD is quite clear but also compact and out of the way so it doesn't interfere. The enemies and player are maybe not ast distinct as they could be, but they're also very different shapes than everything else, and they move around, etc.

So, I would make a list of each major element in the game, and prioritize it by how important it is for the player to see each thing. Then adjust the contrast of each element until the critila stuff is always clear, and the less important stuff doesn't distract.


I did a quick photoshop job on a screenshot to show some of what I mean. It's not great, there's more I would change, but I think it's better than the original.

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-Ross
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« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2016, 04:43:42 AM »

Some other random thoughts:

- The slowness of your mech isn't a bad idea by itself, but right now there's no strategy to where you position yourself. Half of the enemies are flying, so you couldn't hide from them anyway. Instead of your slowness forcing you to think hard about where you move, it's just frustrating that you can't dodge and it takes forever to get where you want to go.

- The "torso and shield direction" indicator is pointless: you should be able to see your mech, not have to look away from combat to see which direction you're facing.

- The cardinal direction indicator is also pointless, since the camera doesn't rotate.

- "DEFCON 5" is by far the most prominent part of your hud, yet it's relatively useless. I would shrink it way down and move it closer to the top. Or maybe replace it with a GTA-style wanted level meter.

- Your health meter is the least legible thing on your HUD, and I would argue that it's the most important. I would replace it with a big health bar at the top or bottom of the screen, or at least remove the % text and make the mech icon a vertical health bar, that would be intuitive and easier to read at a glance.

- The shard icons next to the arrow indicators are pointless. The arrows are color-coded and only ever point to one thing.

- I would put those shard arrow indicators at the edge of the screen. That's more standard usage when indicating things off the screen, and then they wouldn't get in the way of the action.

- The scale of things seems pretty wonky. The people, cars and other vehicles, streets, sidewalks, and buildings don't really match up. Not that everything needs to be perfectly realistic of course.  

- Your description and the actual gameplay don't match. I expected to be hunting down humans going about their daily lives and sucking their brains out, with the cops searching for me. Instead I'm kind of sitting around blasting things trying to survive. Your mech doesn't seem particularly alien either. And you say "The shards have landed", which didn't prepare me for meteor things crashing down after I'm already on the ground.

- Also, these power crystal "shards" are spheres? And the size of your mech? I expected some smaller, pointy, crystal thing.


Anyway, I hope some of my blathering helps. I think this game has a lot of potential.
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