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[Wilson Saunders]

Windows .exe download:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wnqDR7ac-OtcH9Q6O507JV5g04BfrajD

Link to Dev Log Entry

Hello TIG Source. I would appreciate your feed back on a game I am working on. It is a bare bones space dogfight game heavily inspired by the mechanics of X-wing vs Tie Fighter. It was developed around an xbox game pad, however a keyboard interface has been provided, I suppose other input devices would work as well, but that is for you to test.

Things in development that will change
* The sounds effects are temporary place holders
* There will be an energy bar that the boosters and the weapons will draw from (right now you can boost and shoot indefinitely).
* There will be no Missiles, but some fighters will have more exotic guns as their primary weapon.
* There will be more spaceships and mission / mission types.
* There will be a Token system where dead enemies spawn tokens that can be collected and returned to your mother ship for more points.
* I will eventually add UI that will show your shield and hull stats, as well as that of the targeted enemy.

Types of feedback that would be appreciated:
* General game play feel
* Suggestions for alternative input configurations
* Feedback on the Enemy/Friendly AI
* Suggestions for public domain sound effects that I could use
* Suggestions for public domain 3d space ships I could use
* General encouragement (ego needs to be fed from time to time)
* Mission Menu game modifiers that would create alternative types of play.

Stuff that might not be obvious:
* The X cross hair turns green when you have a good shot on the targeted enemy.
* The Blue box around the cross hair turns red when an enemy is shooting at you.
* The house Icon on your radar scope indicates where your Landing Zone is. If you fly into your landing zone you will dock with the landing pad and all hull damage will be repaired.
* The shield hit box is bigger than the hull hit box, once the shield fails shots that would normally hit pass through unless they hit a hull hit box.
* The hull takes damage in three sections: fuselage, left wing, and right wing. To score a kill one of these sections must take more damage than its maximum.
* The death roll animation is influenced by which section maxed out on damage and it is possible to max out multiple sections.
* Some sections have damage multipliers like the wings on the hornet or the fuselage on the Scorpion. You will score a kill faster by hitting those components, but those components are also smaller hotboxes.
* The F1 key activates "Kids Mode" In this mode a high level AI takes control of steering the ship and all the player has to do is shoot, target, and hit the boosters. I made this for my 5 year old son who like to play X-wing but can't read the radar or steer the ship. In the past I would hold the left side of the game pad and steer while he pressed the buttons on the right to shoot and target closest enemy. In a way this project was created to entertain him and automate part of my fatherly responsibilities away. FYI he loves this mode and is very proud that he can shoot down all these enemy fighters.
* This is a hobby project and I don't plan on a commercial release. The aforementioned goals of keeping a 5 year old entertained and feeding my ego is what I aspire to.

Obligatory Screen Shots:

[DarkGran]

Hey man!
I always loved those old spacefighter games, and I still play the new ones - so I was really looking forward to this!
But... could You please add mouse controls? ;D
I don't think I ever played a game that required aiming with keyboard (it was always joystick, then mouse), and I shamefully admit that I am unable to shoot down anything. xD (gj on the Kid Mode btw xD)
Otherwise looks like fun gameplay, and I like your ideas for it (altho I don't know how fun will 'coming back to base' be with Kid Mode on). :)

[jbarrios]

Wilson,

I played your game:

[Wilson Saunders]

@DarkGran

Thanks for your feedback. I will look into mouse input. Honestly I have always been a sim junkie and have never lived in a house without a joystick. The game pad is a destructible toy I gave to my boy.

@jbarrios

That feedback was above and beyond what I expected and I am very grateful you took the time to record your first play session. I will look into a more granular input tool (like the mouse). The game seems to run faster on your PC than it does mine and I suspect some of the difficulty lies in that. The lack of an aim assistance reticule was a conscious choice on my part, I think kills feel more satisfying when you calculate the shot in your head. However I am already doing the calculations for it so the AI can shoot well, I might add it as an option.

Thanks again to the both of you for your feedback.

[JGalecki]

Hey, I gave Space Brawl a playthrough. I played until my second death, and probably got ten or eleven kills myself. I was playing with a gamepad. Here's my thoughts.

I liked the game! It reminded of the days of long-ago, playing XWing. (I think? I don't ever remember playing as a TIE fighter.)

The controls felt good, except when I was trying to line up a long-distance shot. I wasn't able to get enough precision from the joystick to be accurate. I'm guessing that you're already using deadspace in your joystick controls. (If you aren't, you should, because old hardware doesn't stay true to 0.) If you are using a deadspace of, say, 0.2, then you could make things more precise by starting the 'live space' at 0 instead of 0.2 to preserve the whole range of [0,1] (i.e., (joystick - deadspace) / (1 - deadspace))

The AI for this was a little straightfoward. More than once I saw all four enemies going after a single teammate. This made them pretty easy to pick off It shouldn't be too hard to implement a forced separation of targets for the AI.

A cool feature would be giving orders to your teammates - cover me, attack my target, etc.

There wasn't too much tactical variability to the game due to the open battlefield. Adding some obstacles (asteroids, mocked-up capital ships, etc) would be good in terms of making the dogfighting more interesting. Additional moves for the player could also help - torpedoes maybe, or the ability to charge up a laser shot. Giving the player the ability to put all shields to the front or back could also open up some interesting situations.

I initially liked that the boost and the lasers draw from the same power source, but as I played more I just felt like it slowed me down rather than gave me any interesting choices. I would boost into position and then have to wait to fire. That took away some of the momentum from the game, I think.

The ship models looked good. Simple, but readable and functional. The UI needed a little polish, but that can come with more elbow grease.

Good work all in all.

[Wilson Saunders]

Thanks for the feed back JGalecki, I am using the default Unity3D interface with the game pad. I will look into the dead and live space variables. AI commands for team mates is the next item on my to do list. I hope it will break up the 4 on 1 chases I might add some additional AI logic ontop of that to check in on squadron targets and pick new ones if they are too clustered.

As is implied in the Mission screen the player will eventually have the ability to select different missions than the head to head dogfight. Right now I am focusing on the head to head dog fight because it is the core of my game, and I want that to be really solid before expanding.

Your thoughts on the boost and guns drawing from the same power supply are appreciated. You articulated a general unease I have been feeling about that dynamic. I may split them in the next version.