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marcgfx
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« on: December 24, 2019, 07:20:00 AM »



After nearly 4 years of work, I released Devader in September and got swallowed up in the swamp that is Steam. Since then I've been working to improve my game, while at times struggling with motivation. I think I have made a lot of improvements and am getting ready to release a new big update. What I am lacking is player feedback on the new beta, as the few people who have bought (~200) and played are not that easy to reach. Hit me up if you are interested.

For a while I've been thinking about making a web-demo and finally managed to get round to it. It will work in Chrome & Firefox, but not in Safari or IE. The game is made with web-tech (html5/webgl/javascript) and I am developing in Chrome, so performance in the Chrome browser will be as good as on Steam (besides loading times).

Demo (~30mb, Chrome or Firefox!!!):

http://www.devader.space/html/game.html?param=DevaderD

Discord (gotta get some Christmas done though):

https://discord.gg/AWhsvN3

Merry Christmas!
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a-k-
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« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2019, 02:26:19 PM »

The game looked polished from the start. I went straight to Easy mode and didn't try to read much. Initially the mouse cursor lagged, but during the actual gameplay performance was good.

It may be that I'm just not familiar with the conventions of the genre, but the colors confused me:
- The spaceship at the end of the level is red just like the crosshair - I thought it was an end-of-level enemy.
- In the blinkers tutorial, I thought the white objects were enemies and that I needed to place the blinkers near them, not on them. When I did manage to do the latter, moving became blocked and I thought that that was a bug (until I read the second 'click E').
- In a similar vein, the colors in the map were somewhat surprising (white vs. green).

Additionally:
- When the settings menu is displayed over the startup screen, the Confirm/Cancel buttons still look active even though only Back works.
- In the screen where the player chooses among 2 upgrades, one option is initially presented and they need to hover over the other one in order to see its description - I think it would be best to display the one that's closer to the mouse cursor so that precise hovering is not needed.

Other than that, it looked very impressive!
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« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2019, 04:07:03 AM »

I think its very well done, only minor gripes. I made a video about it!





Don't give up, this is a very good effort!
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marcgfx
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« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2019, 06:34:04 AM »

@a-k-:
- the colors: your Devader can be any color + in co-op there are up to 5 different colored players -> it get's worse. the spaceship that picks you up just takes on your own color. the confusion should at least only be once, but I have no idea how to mitigate that without causing other problems. suggestions welcome Smiley
- I find making the tutorials very hard. People seem to figure it out, even with some initial confusion so I was happy with that. If you have any idea how I could improve, I am all ears. Blocking movement was recently added to prevent players from going around and picking up the turrets again.
- minimap colors are surprising I admit, but red for enemies is not really visible without making the map very opaque -> you can't see through it. So many small and weird issues due to my overuse of color. But I don't want to have less color.
- settings menu: confirm and cancel are not buttons, but there to tell the user which buttons to use (gamepad)
- hmmm. not sure I understand. by default one is selected and the other ones activate on mouse-over (or using gamepad/arrow keys). It's actually html, so getting the distance from mouse to the elements could be a bit tricky.

edit 30.12: just understood what you mean about the hovering. hm mouse-over should actually select that one, but maybe not if it does not move. also can be switched using gamepad and keyboard. hm hm hm. thanks
« Last Edit: December 29, 2019, 04:29:49 PM by marcgfx » Logged

marcgfx
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« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2019, 06:35:12 AM »

@michealplzno: thanks again for the video, was very helpful and insightful!
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Vallar
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« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2020, 02:53:10 AM »

I still remember playing this game back in the day. Congratulations on the release definitely. Now after playing the demo you put here is my feedback in no particular order:

1- I liked the idea of coloring my own robot. It was a good touch.

2- The game is fun and I liked the black ball enemies far more than the robots to be honest.

3- While the art serves the game I think it lacks "edge" it feels too indie if that makes sense. It feels outdated. Don't take it the wrong way, perhaps you're targeting this style... but I feel at this point in time, this is going to be a hard sell with all the new flashy vector/pixel art that is around. I recommend you change the art style.

4- While there is a tutorial and the game does explain a few things, there isn't a way to understand some elements of the game such as those weird capsule like objects I pick up. Are these for upgrades (the transparent white ones)? Are they for ammo? What are they? I don't understand what is the point of the special ammo or picking up ammo?

5- I liked the idea of the upgrades and choosing between two or more upgrades (such as the turrets and the nuke vs pulse) but it feels slow and somewhat less impactful.

6- The rate at which I am getting upgrade for my vanilla gun, I am unsure of and I don't know what warrants said upgrade. In one level I had something like a helix stream bullet pattern. Another I had a straight single line of bullets. At another point I had that single line but mid way through it forks into 3 other lines. Then after playing for a bit I ended up shooting like 3 lines then 5 or 6. The game only felt really interesting when I was shooting the 5 or 6 ones.

7- The enemies don't feel that much fun to kill or battle to be honest, aside from the black stuff. Those black things felt really interesting and intimidating. The others just felt like a nuisance. I wished the game would throw at me a few of those black mobs and no robots and it would have been more fun battling those over the horde of robots that just feel meh.

8- The information presented in the UI in my opinion needs some work the UX of the data on the screen while playing is a bit hard to read. Not because of anything aside from its format and its location. I am focusing on the middle of the screen (so my robot) all the time. It felt weird that I had to look up (away from the action) to see if my core is being beat to death or not. It also doesn't offer me any hints if say I am on the left side of the map and the core is being hammered on the right side of the map. Sure I can zoom out but it is just not enough, I need something to glance over and get information.

That said, I'll break the format a bit to discuss quite a few points I feel are really crucial. Your main issue (given what you said in the OP) is the competition. You have lots of competition that are just very, very polished. Nova Drift is a prime example of this. Basically both your game and Nova Drift are under the same genre more or less (sure they don't have a core to defend but at the end of the day it is more of a "kill all enemies while trying to evade damage be it that from enemies or bullets".

If you check that game out or try it you will find they did something really interesting. Instead of having upgrades a chore to get, they throw it at you. They treat the ship (robot in your game) as a DNA lab. In the first hour you can get about 10-15 upgrades if not more. At higher levels I find myself getting like an upgrade every 3-5 minutes. In your game, it isn't as fast and it feels like ages since I get an upgrade and the upgrade doesn't feel "impactfull".  You can change your upgrades any time as well.

Now I am not saying do the same, but they identified one thing, upgrades feel good, so they give you them quickly to keep that "good feeling" coming. Now you can do something different. You can give upgrades every so often (like you're doing now) but have it be quite the thing. Same with your regular weapons. Have them feel powerful. Right now the regular thing feels like a pea shooter at best. The small spiders dies in 1-3 bullets? The bigger one takes about 5+? The hazy one takes about 15+? That is a lot to be honest and it contributes to the "pea shooter" feeling.

Another thing is juice. This game lacks juice. Shooting doesn't feel great. I suggest you take a look at Vlambeer's games for this. They know how to dot his so well, specially in Nuclear Throne. Even their pointless basic pistol feels good to shoot.

Then comes art, as mentioned above, the art style needs quite a pass. It just doesn't look inviting. It feels like this is a game from 90s or so. Now you can say that something like They Are Billions or Factorio don't have that great art. I agree, but then again, they are both in genres that are doing really well at the moment. You think of any automation or base building/defense game and throw it out there with some proper effort and you're bound to make some money. Action base defense kind of game aren't so "lucrative" so you need to optimize every single aspect of your game to get some attention.

All in all, I still feel the game is fun and has something to offer. It has some unique things (like the black enemy) which is very cool and I'd suggest you capitalize on that and maybe consider an art redirection.

Hope this helps in anyway.
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marcgfx
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« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2020, 07:36:33 AM »

Thanks for the detailed feedback Vallar.
Unfortunately I probably can't address most of the points you are making. I really appreciate your honesty, will have to think about it. Tough stuff.

1. Thanks Smiley
2. The black stuff is the star of the game for sure
3. What I do find puzzling is that pixel art is considered less dated than what I am doing. I guess pixel-art is currently just IN. Changing the art style is a huge undertaking as you can probably imagine.
4. Good point. I always assumed people would notice what they are for, but I am likely mistaken. The barrels are health/shield/turrets/assistants and the colorful pods are weapon-power-ups (you can see them on the back of your Devader after pick-up).
5. The thing about these upgrades are that they require new mechanics to be introduced. It's not just a different type of weapon for your standard shot.
6. Guess this ties into point 4, where the power-up system is unclear. The different shot patterns are based on the pick-ups, not the upgrades. This should be made more obvious. Point taken.
7. More interesting enemies. Got it. That's something I can get behind. I think I might be missing some mid-tier enemies.
8. Health/Shields/Turrets are all visualized directly around your robot, the info at the top of the screen is not really required. I guess I still need to add more explanations to make this obvious, but I really did not want to add too much text. Point taken. I have not been successful in visualizing core health, lives and ammo (power-up) in game. Everything else has some kind representation around your bot.
9. The standard weapon is not your main mode of attack, most damage is done with the nuke. One mechanic you probably did not notice was bullet grazing (not your fault, mine). You can absorb enemy bullets giving you an additional attack burst. But that's actually beside the point. I could not convince you and that's the problem I must solve.
10. The hazy ones are special. The red ones instantly die to the nuke, the blue one dies faster to bullets. If you do it the other way round, it takes longer.
11. You mentioned the lack of "juice". I've watched that flambeer video many times, so I would be interested to hear where you would add more juice. I've seen my own game so often, I can't really tell anymore where juice could be lacking. Not enough explosions?
12. Art... yeah that's probably impossible for me. I would not even know where to start. Pixel art would not work, due to the zooming creating very weird artifacts. Anything else would be even more impossible. I don't know how to solve this.
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marcgfx
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« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2020, 11:44:20 AM »

@Vallar was just wondering what difficulty you were playing on. There are also a few more things in the full version that I decided not to add in the demo. On Normal+ you get a starting skill and there are some additional enemies. Does not mean I can't add even more.

edit: The juice thing is not letting me go. Probably the most significant element to get right. I guess most important are weapons/impact. My main problem is that there is so much going on and I currently don't select what sounds to prioritize (as I don't really know how I should do that). Explosions are not the best, I admit. Maybe I need to find someone who can make better impact visuals for me.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2020, 03:11:25 PM by marcgfx » Logged

Vallar
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« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2020, 12:07:03 AM »

@Marcgfx

Alright this is going to be one of those long posts but I'll try to detail my thoughts as much as possible.

Weapons; this is an action shooting game (not FPS but you're still shooting 100% of the time). Now you say weapons and upgrades require mechanics, I am familiar with that. I know how implementation may be hard. Two things here:
1- You need to identify what is the core of the game? What is the "Flare" is it the vertical progression (i.e. upgrades for your robot)? Or it is a horizontal progression (getting more towers and assistants)?
2- You need to hammer on that part.

Right now I don't know after playing the demo what is the "progression" in the game. Do I upgrade my robot? It feels this way, I get some upgrades. But they don't feel amazing that I think it isn't the real hero here. Maybe it is something else. It isn't the towers or getting companions either since I only received one of either by the end of the demo.

So as you can see there are two options (in my opinion and off the top of my head) have slow progression but each tier means something. When I add HP to my robot, I am adding 200 HP not 10 HP. Or have it fast and not that effective. Every 5 minutes, I get a +10 HP or something. This makes things feels relatively good. You're progressing meaningfully not just chipping away in a survival game where by the time you get a house that doesn't fall apart, you'd have put 100 hours in the game.

This means if you think mechanics are hard to implement or an issue to do so for whatever reason, then maybe just make them stronger and maybe introduce them a little faster.

Maybe even just change the drop rate to be more frequent and things will feel better. Right now I got only 1 upgrade per level and sometimes I didn't. So yeah...

Now let's take the X enemy dies by Y gun. While this is a nice mechanic, it doesn't feel good. Why? Because I have to suffer from it. The nuke/pulse recharges every M amount of time and I am stuck shooting peas at an enemy that won't die otherwise. So picture this. I have 5 enemies on the screen, each of them die fast to pulse/nukes. They are 5 different corners of the map. I have to kill them all with that or spend 10 seconds shooting at them like they are meat bags. If I use my pulse on wait, I am waiting for about 5-8 seconds till I kill the other. I am penalized for using my special attack that kills them and I don't find any other way to do that. You treated the weapon as a special ability and had enemies that require it spawn often (not too often I know) so when I use it to get rid of one, I am left without nothing. Do you see the opposing directions in this?

Which brings another question, you said upgrades are mechanics. Now let's take the nuke vs the pulse. They are (mechanically) the same exact thing. In fact they should be using the same code. Albeit the nuke has a delay. The pulse and the nuke have a target. The nuke has a player chosen target while the pulse a constant non changing target which is you. Maybe the nuke has a movement part (albeit it could be just an animation mind you). So all in all, one code, 2 powerups. What about a 3rd version? Maybe like throwing mines are you. Same deal but now mines need another mechanic but it is a simple "enter trigger area explode". Which means now you get MORE variations since you already have the code. Now I don't know about which engine you're using (guessing Unity or GM:S) but if it is Unity I can tell you this is all pretty easy to implement. You did that already (nukes and pulses). So maybe just think of slight variations that don't cost a lot for each of the weapons/upgrades?



Feeling lost is another issue, quite a few things aren't explained like the last two upgrades in the upgrades screen (the one that appears between level). I don't know what they do. Sure I understand the English part but what is it talking about? You said you'll take care of this so I own't spend time on this.

That grazing mechanic... I never knew it existed. In fact I got hit by bullets and lost HP so I decided I'll just stay away from bullets.



I don't know why it is impossible to give the game a fast lift? Also I think it relates more to overall aesthetic and what is the art being used for. Now personally I am not a fan of this style (no matter the game). BUT, I find something like the black stuff not belonging in terms of art style.

Another thing you could do is as you said just get an artist to weigh in and make it more uniform. Choose a nicer font, maybe replace the color palette a bit maybe? Not sure.


What I can however be more concrete about is polish. Here are a few suggestions:

1- A bit of screenshake when I am firing my bullets

2- When I get hit some screenshake and some effect on the screen that isn't as simple as making the sprite go white and back again. Something more. Maybe have some kind of parts fly out from behind me? Maybe have a knock small knock back? Maybe do something more on the mechanics side that when you receive a big hit or large damage in short period of time some EMP/Shockwave fires and stops/throws enemies away?

3- Have my movement more interesting. Maybe some track on the floor? Maybe some puffs of smoke behind me? Maybe make it more like a robot with the animations so my "track legs" can't move until my body turns to the direction of movement first. Maybe have the tracks turn in place for 0.2 seconds before it actually starts moving. Maybe make the robot heavier and the field smaller?

4- Spiders hitting me don't look like hitting me. They barely animate. Maybe add some kind of "tell" before the attack and make it more impactful. Have them glow or shake or something like that.

5- Getting hit by the black stuff doesn't differ from getting hit by a small tiny 1-hit robot. Maybe have it where if I get hit by the black stuff I get knocked back. I get paralyzed for 0.45f of a second. Maybe make it when the black stuff do attack that the screen shakes. Buffs of smoke or some kind of effect fires when they make an attack with each attack depending on power generating a slightly differnt version of the effect.

6- The core getting hit doesn't really feel like a big deal and this is due to lack of any feedback. What if they get hit you actually get the core to shake? Or maybe it changes color in the parts it hits (not just simply a red hue, something that feels nice). Maybe you show a shader on that part like a shield being cracked or something.

7- Some screen indicators that show danger when you're moving around so when you're getting hit at the core you get an arrow or a sign to tell you "hey, you spent too much time on the right side killing 20 spiders and now there are 40 on the other side waiting for you".

8- Then there is music and sounds. I can't really say I felt impressed. Not gonna say it is bad. But it is OK. I mean I don't even remember what they were at this point. Maybe pass on that and see if you can get better sounds or maybe better music?

9- When that ship drops me or takes me out of the field. It feels rather "plain". But what if you can get some kind of shake. A huge "THUD" kind of effect when you're landing "you're the saviour" kind of thing.

10- With the pulse. It feels like some kind of sprite expanding and that is about it. Then everything disappears. What if it makes some kind of ripple (shader?) on the ground with some robots flying left and right (from the shake wave) as they get destroyed and you're stuck in place for (0.25f) seconds or something form the awesome power you just used? Maybe add an ever so slight screenshake.


I can probably go on more and more, but these are all suggestions. Some may work, some may make sense. Some may not. I don't know what works best for your game and I know it isn't a very interesting thing to do overall (I know I always want an artist just to deal with it and tells me when do I call .Play(); on them Tongue ). But I am pretty sure the feel of the game will be drastically different if you implement some of those things or your own versions of them.


Lastly what makes your game unique? So far that one enemy that you introduce once at the end of the level. So you make me go through some mediocre experience up till the point where I get something interesting. This ends in about 1 minute and I am back again to the "oh, this is like other stuff" experience. Why am I not fighting the black stuff from point one? Why don't the spiders get replaced with something more interesting. Everyone tired of fighting spiders -- thy are in every single RPG. Why not make a small weak version of the black stuff? Heck make the spiders from the black stuff and have them behave in interesting ways.

What is unique about me? What is unique about the base? What is the unique about the towers? Now you don't have to make EVERYTHING unique, but you need enough "unique" to sell it out. Right now that is enemies and you're not capitalizing on that, so maybe either introduce something else or capitalize on that and introduce one more unique element that doesn't have to be so prominent for example.

Example take take Hollow Knight. It isn't exactly something new is it? It is uniqueness (in my opinion) is three things:
1- Visuals -- they are just amazing.
2- The overall setting, it seems to appeal to some (certainly not me) and how deep the lore goes with its various connections.
3- It is difficult gameplay; a semi-souls game in a metroidvania coat.

Can you list yours? Are they as unique as the above 3? Are you capitalizing on them like the above 3?

Sorry if I seem harsh or attack-ey. Trust me. Not my intention. But I thought it is better to lay the whole thing and be as honest as possible and as blunt as possible. I feel this will be far more helpful than just try to embellish every word I say.

Hope this helps in some way.
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marcgfx
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« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2020, 01:28:15 AM »

Thanks man, yeah it helps a lot. I don't have to agree with everything, but it's good to hear. I might agree with some points after letting them sit a bit longer. Some points you talk about I believe to have addressed, but maybe just not obviously enough.

The progression is level based. The game has 6 levels with 2 possible bosses, there are 13 final levels/bosses depending on what path you take. I see your point about the spiders.

Just one thing about the nuke/emp and turrets being mechanics. When you are playing with mouse/keyboard they are indeed quite simple. The gamepad controls are more complicated and need tutorials.

I'm working with a custom WebGL engine, not with Unity. So I have to make everything myself, that's good and bad.

Thanks again, got a lot to think about.
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« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2020, 06:12:40 AM »

Sorry, which points you addressed and I seem to not get it?

When you say a custom WebGL engine, is that too for the final game? Or just the demo?
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« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2020, 10:45:05 AM »

I'm not saying you don't get it.

I'm saying I am not making things obvious/strong enough (the juice). e.g. sparks from the gun, leaving a light trail on the ground, some effects while moving. I added a full blown trail today and then removed it again as it's just too distracting. It's kind of cool at the start but with the background changing, it no longer fits. WebGL does not support querying pixels (last time I checked) so I can't easily color the dust thrown up with the colors on the ground. Does not mean it can't be done, but maybe I can't. edit: looks like there is a method, but its very slow (or I'm doing something wrong)
I do have screenshake as well. There is push-back from explosions/projectiles too.
It's kind of all there but probably just not enough.

The upgrade system you are asking for just wont work for me (I believe). I can't have such extremes in hp, or weapons as the game must work no matter what path you go down. There are upgrades down the path that make bigger changes, but not in the demo.

The game is programmed in javascript/html5/webgl, so for the demo and the final version.

I'm rereading your suggestions and I will try to grasp what I can actually change. Maybe some things seems easy to you, that do not seem easy to me (e.g. changing the art).

I really appreciate your feedback, I just have to work through it.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 03:15:10 PM by marcgfx » Logged

Vallar
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« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2020, 01:35:35 PM »

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood what you said.

Yeah, I have seen some of these things to be honest. Can't say you didn't do something, maybe even my suggestions aren't as good. But at least maybe can spark some ideas.

Having your own engine is no easy task. Kudos * 100. I would never be able to do something like you do so great work. I do understand however how hard and not so easy things I take for granted in Unity is in other setups. I wish I knew some better ways to get things looking better. Sorry.
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« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2020, 05:37:36 PM »

Your suggestions are food for thought. I'm working on a few things to improve the "magical" game-feel. Some more sounds and visuals.
Having my own engine only makes my life harder, it does not really change the players experience.
Really absolutely no reason to be sorry, your feedback is much appreciated even if (or because) I didn't like hearing it all.

What difficulty did you actually try the demo on? Easy is pretty slow/boring, for me it gets interesting on Hard.
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« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2020, 08:31:12 PM »

> I'm working on a few things to improve the "magical" game-feel. Some more sounds and visuals.

Great, looking forward to seeing those.

As for which difficulty, I played on Normal.
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« Reply #15 on: January 16, 2020, 11:36:04 AM »

Amazing looking game! The graphics are stunning! I tried to launch the demo in firefox (newest version of firefox but the game took really really long to load). So I ended up downloading the demo for windows instead.

The demo was really fun to play. Good graphics easy to understand gameplay and a generally awesome monster slaughtering game!
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« Reply #16 on: January 17, 2020, 05:34:07 AM »

@Strikewave: Thanks a lot! Where did you get the demo from? I'm kind of behind on updating the demo on my website, the one on steam is actually more up to date. Have to fix that. Sooo much to do.
@Vallar: Working on it.... I've added the dust back in, just needed to make it much less prominent. I've also noticed a few thing I mistakenly removed due to changes in the code, e.g. the spiders attack does not cause a visual impact. Thanks again for giving all that info to me, it's a real help to just go through all the stuff again with fresh eyes.
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« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2020, 07:39:40 AM »

I've just updated the demo. I've added a lot more "fluff".
- Muzzle effects on the weapon while firing
- more screenshake
- slight dust particles are thrown up when the Devader or assistants move
- The Devader has some engine-noise
- bullet grazing has a slight electrostatic noise
- invincibility is audible
- I've added some explanation for the power-ups
- Explosions have a chance of spawning child-explosions -> less monotonous
- Some explosions have been altered
- pitch randomization reduced
- particles for destroyed assistants
- fixed a bug that prevented impact visuals to spawn when spiders attack
- fixed a bug that was causing doppler-effect to fail (you likely wont notice this)
- slight change to how units are initialized, should help with performance (minor)
- minor changes to balance/enemies
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« Reply #18 on: January 24, 2020, 09:56:35 PM »

I'm following the stuff you do, I really hope this takes off. Also I love the art style so I disagree that you need to make it pixel.
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« Reply #19 on: January 26, 2020, 12:53:56 PM »

The music volume slider doesn't effect the menu music.

Starting game interface - There should be a big PLAY button in the lower center of the screen. You select the difficulty, select your color, and press play—That would be intuitive. Clicking again on the difficulty that is already selected is not. Yeah, people will figure it out in a few seconds of clicking around anyway, but it is a UX issue, and makes the game feel weird and unpolished.

The start is really overwhelming. You start the game on "normal" and suddenly you see a bajillion tiny robots fighting each other, others possibly mining some crystal thing, bunkers, craters, upgrade pickups or something...and to top it off, nothing resembling a player character is anywhere to be seen, none of your controls do anything...It's like you suddenly joined an MMO in the middle of an end-game boss fight but it bugged out and didn't spawn your character.

Is there any point to having to wait for a UFO to drop your character? Why not just start playing immediately?

It definitely needs a tutorial. Make it 100x simpler than you think, but allow people to go through it quickly so you don't wast their time. The first tutorial "level" should be just your character and an empty room, and some text to tell you the movement controls. Maybe the next one would be you, 1 enemy, and nothing else. Having all the controls overlaid across the screen, making it even harder to see what's going on while things are exploding and enemies are shooting, is not good.

Nuke Vs Pulse interface: Another weird UI design. The main point and some of the most useful info is in the smallest text and shoved to the bottom of the screen. The buttons are oddly far apart and low on the screen, instead of in the center. If you need to change the background art to fit things, do it, it shouldn't get in the way of the functional UI.

What you have:


What I would recommend:


Add smaller text with the weapon info on either side (either permanently or only on mouseover:



In the second level after you get your special weapon, before you spawn, a whole bunch of little bombs drop and explode everywhere? But they don't actually harm anything? Again, this is just weird, unexplained, and confusing.

I really hope the desktop version runs better than this does on Chrome. I have to turn the pixel size up to 2 or 3 for it to run OK, and that still leaves the menus very laggy. For your next project I recommend you pick a game engine that can build cross-platform. Using web tech for desktop games just adds a ton of overhead (in both size and speed) for no reason (you save a week or two of work learning a new language I guess?).

As for the art...yeah it's not great, though not terrible. But you're not going to get a beautiful game by tweaking a few things. Unfortunately I don't know of any good "Art Direction Basics for Solo Indie Game Developers" classes, so learning the fundamentals yourself would take a while. I suggest you partner with an artist for your next project. The most important thing to know is that consistency matters more than quality. The quality of individual graphics does not matter AT ALL. You can have the most amazing robot design, but you put it together with an amazing background texture that has different lighting, contrast, style, etc., and together they make an ugly game. You have to design the whole screen together, not individual pieces. A well-designed game with nothing but flat 2D shapes can look beautiful, while a poorly-designed one with high-quality, textured and animated 3D models can be very ugly. Pixel art, vector art, whatever, it doesn't matter. You need an artist.
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