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[-Ross]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some feedback on the alpha version of my side-scrolling shooter project. It's much like a typical side-shooter except for the movement mechanics. There is gravity, some wind force, and your ship maneuvers like a high-powered Lunar Lander: you can rotate and thrust up and down. You also have a multi-purpose Boost ability, for quick dodging and crushing enemies. The game is designed for 1-3 players, local co-op.

Check out the game's Itch.io page for more info and download: https://rossgrams.itch.io/gunpods-vagabond

In-game instructions are a bit limited and out-dated at the moment, I'll try to update that in the next day or so. It's mostly missing details about how the boost and weapons work though, the basic, important stuff is fairly clear (I hope). The Itch.io page has some more info. [Edit] Done!

Any and all critiques and feedback are welcome. Gameplay, graphics, performance, etc. Nothing is set in stone yet. Thanks!

Some gameplay gifs:

[Babar]

We tried two players coop, here are some feedbacks about the game :
Visuals are pretty nice, maybe plasma grenades need to explode stronger :D

The gameplay is interesting, but hard to catch. We thought about some things that could make it better :
- On controller, use both sticks for moving, and triggers for the rest. Having both thrust and rotation controls on the same stick was difficult to play. Having RC car style controls could help.
- When player has a weapon slot, catch weapons automatically. The timing for pressing Switch button is unforgiving.
- We felt like we were reloading 50% of the time :D

Good luck with the dev !

[-Ross]

@Babar Thanks for the feedback! I'll try those controller bindings. I'm not much of a controller person, so you certainly know better than me. Sometime soon I will have rebindable controls so that sort of thing won't be an issue.

I'll experiment with different ways to pick up weapons too. I'm trying to avoid the usual side-shooter issue where hitting weapon pickups can be worse than hitting bullets!

Did you get the note that weapons reload independently? As in: you can shoot one weapon while the other is reloading. The instructions leave something to be desired, I'm working on that today. I've tried to make reload times long enough to matter, but not so long as to be awful.

[-Ross]

Uploaded a new build: https://rossgrams.itch.io/gunpods-vagabond

- Added a new instructions menu with (hopefully) everything you need to know.
- Changed the controller bindings according to Babar's suggestion. It does seem a bit easier to fly, though a little more tricky to aim your boost and do the other stuff. I need to do configurable keys soooon.
- Added a new, seeking enemy, mostly just appearing in the late game (280+ seconds), though I made a few spawn early on.
- Made weapon pickups stay around(as they did in earlier versions) so if you switch the wrong weapon by mistake you can just switch back.
- Some other minor tweaks. Changed the color of bullets slightly, so each kind is clearly color-coded, fixed a bug with the menu button focus, etc.

[c13303]

Played alone a few minutes, game feel and visuals are nice, I Spent some time understanding why I was playing a shoot'em up telling me I have no weapon,  then I killed a couple of ennemies but didn't know if something else will happen or if I was a demo loop .. It's hard to stick to it without any objective / story / meaning for me. Also I think I didn't get clearly the mechanics.

Every first level should invite the player to use every mechanic one by one ... like a tutorial ?

I like the idea of gravity and stuff for a shooter like that.

[-Ross]

@c13303 Thanks! That's good feedback. Yeah, I am working more on instructions/tutorial stuff (the biggest pain of gamedev in my experience). I made a couple-page instructions menu and you can fly around in the menu to test things out. I thought that was enough to get people started, but it seems no one tries that stuff. I've had one guy hit play without even checking what the controls were.

Your ship has two weapon slots, but you start out with only one weapon. So if you press switch, there is no alternate weapon there.

Not sure if I will ever have any story to it. It's basically an endless survival game. I should probably make that clear though.

Thanks again!

[Nordanvinden]

Hey!

I tried the demo quickly and overall I though it felt nice, good job! The graphics felt coherent and I liked the sounds and effects.

I did have some trouble getting the controls right though (playing with gamepad).
I found it kind of hard focusing on both learning how to steer the ship while shooting incoming enemies and objects. I think someone mentioned a tutorial, which would be kind of nice

The main problem was that you are falling down constantly in a rather high pace. And that you had to rotate the whole ship (including cannon) to be able to go forwards or backwards (the ship also auto-rotates forward constantly?). After a few minutes it felt better though, so maybe just needs some time.

[-Ross]

Whew, a blast from the past!

Thanks for the feedback! It's all extremely valid. The weird controls and gravity are basically the whole point of the game, but it really needs a good tutorial/intro area and a bunch of other stuff reworked so it feels like a fun challenge rather than weird, annoying controls. It does get more fun after some practice. If you turn on "Practice Mode" you can mostly ignore the enemies and focus on flying. The ship does auto-rotate back to roughly horizontal, which is supposed to make it easier, but that may not be the case, especially with a gamepad.

FYI - This project is abandoned at the moment. I've actually started rewriting it in a different engine—I have the basic movement and weapon mechanics rewritten (and improved)—but I have another little project that I want to finish before I focus on Gunpods again. Most of the things I have changed/will change in the rewrite are to address the feedback I got in this thread, so thanks again to everyone who wrote here!