next »

[bencelot]

Hey all,
Long time listener, first time caller.. my name's Ben and let me start by saying hello..

HELLO!
I'm posting here because I've spent the last 20 months or so making a little PC game called Subvein and I'd like to share it with you. It's a hobby of mine and I just released a new version (version 0.53) and I'm pretty excited to play it with new people and get some feedback on it. As there are many developers here I'd greatly appreciate your opinion on the game, how it can be improved, what you'd like to see next.. anyway it's really fun and if nothing else I think you'll enjoy yourself.


ABOUT THE GAME:
 Subvein is a top-down multiplayer shooter with guns, skills, missions and more. Imagine the top-down view of GTA2, mixed with the intense online action of CS, mixed with the strategic character building and skill selection of Diablo. Basically I've merged all my favorite games into one SUPER game. The next thing I'm going to code in will be vehicles, just like in GTA2.

It's online, free to download and only about 14MB so you can start playing in minutes. If you've played many popular shooters like CS then you should get the hang of it pretty quickly.. WASD to move, Y to chat, E to pickup weapons, etc.. You log in and start off fresh at level 1. You press B to buy your gun and then you start killing people! As you kill people you'll gain experience points and mutate, which allows you to invest skill points. You simply press N to open the skill selection screen and you're presented with a wide range of skills to choose from. Invisibility, Bullet Time, Self Repair, Venom Shot, Blade Fury.. the list goes on. As of v0.53 there are a total of 33 skills in the game and over 20 weapons. You unlock whatever skill seems best to you and then Right Click to use it. With you gorgeous guns and your sexy skills you'll become a dominant force in no time.. the cycle continues, pwning noobs all the way. Subvein has a number of game modes including popular favorites like DM and CTF, and a built in map editor so there are countless map to choose from.

Go to http://subvein.net to download it now!


VIDEO:
Check out this gameplay video to see some hot Subvein action:





SCREEN SHOTS:
And here are a few screenshots to show you what it's all about:


Here you can see I'm using a skill called Bullet Time. You guessed it, it slows your bullets down.. matrix style. Quite a good defensive skill. You can also see I'm shooting at a couple of guys, one of which has cast the Blade Fury skill. You don't want to get near him when he has that on because it'll rip you to shreds.



In this picture we see one of the game modes called Extraction. It's basically the same as Capture the Flag, good fun.



See my sweet bazooka shot?? He thought he could escape me.. hah!



Another Extraction shot, this time extracting the Radio. Radio's are like flags but they're really heavy and slow you down.


Anyway, that should do it. Go check it out if you think you might like this. Remember it's 100% free and downloads in minutes. As mentioned before I'd really appreciate your feedback and hope to play with some of you soon!

Get it here: http://subvein.net

Enjoy!!
Ben.

[AuthenticKaizen]

really cool game. 
i played an earlier version of it (i think it was 0.51) and then saw it recently featured on rock, paper, shotgun. congrats! 

im gonna give it a more indepth look on the weekend...
lets see what has been improved since 0.51

[droqen]

From what I played - and this is probably just my own opinion, not shared by too many -

"building up" your skills in this way, in a game where players can join freely at any time, doesn't work terribly well. In addition, there's no way to avoid feeling helpless if you start at a disadvantage -- or if you fall behind, at which point you are likely both out-skilled and out-mutated.

I'd like to see some kind of mode where you pick 30 points of abilities and that's it. Obviously this would be severely altering things.

--------------------------------------

In terms of actual feedback on what's there: It's very enjoyable
I think it looks nice, too - the shadows and line of sight work well (though I'm still slightly confused as to some objects allowing you to see through but not shoot through?). I prefer when there are two teams to when there are mercenaries spawning everywhere, annoying invincible people that can position themselves perfectly and always get the first shot in unless you start wasting ammo (or just run). With fewer people on teams, the game loses its sense of direction and everything just kind of ends up dying.
The skills are varied and interesting; I might like to see some more obvious indications of when someone uses a rather drastic ability like the one that heals a huge bunch of hitpoints, but otherwise they seem very cool. Maybe the level 20 ones are a bit far off too, people rarely reach them =/ (why are there no L15 abilities?)

Um~ weapon choice is good, and actually quite interesting although not really realistically so in terms of bullet speed (uzi has fast-ish bullets, but AK has really fast bullets).

[bencelot]

Thanks Droqen, great feedback!

I think the two most important things that'll go into the next version are:

1) Longer spawn invulnerability time (from 10s up to 30s).. giving you a full 30s to buy you gun without being spawn killed.

and 2) Making new players to the server join with average mutation instead of starting at level 1. This will not only give you a chance to compete for the remainder of the round, but make more people eager to join existing games knowing that they're about to receive 10 or so free levels allowing them to customize their builds more creatively.

I'm glad you enjoyed the game though, hope to play with you again sometime!

Ben.

[Dom2D]

I see this game has great potential, keep working on it!
Controls are tight, gunfights are intense... good stuff!

Upgrading my skills always end up with me getting killed, I hope you can find a way to make this easier or more streamlined. Or maybe even only before respawn? I dunno.

[tim_the_tam]

the game feels unbalanced. theres a negative feedback loop where once a player kills a few other player in a row they can keep upgrading skills, earn so much more money and keep killing.

[bencelot]

Thanks Dom

I'm hoping that the 30s of invulnerability every time you respawn will give players plenty of time to buy guns and unlock skills (though you can already unlock skills safely when you're dead). You can also queue up skills so you really only have to do it once at the start of the round.

And tim_the_tam, I'm aware of this feedback loop and am trying to counter it. New players joining at the average level(rather than at level 1) will have a much better chance on the battlefield. Also the weapons and skills will continually need to be tweaked and balanced as new versions are released.

[bencelot]

Good news!

I just released a new version and it's a LOT more balanced and noob friendly. The negative feedback loop has been fixed by penalizing high level players upon death and rewarding newer ones. The weapons and skills have all been drastically balanced as well.

There are also heaps of cool new features including new skills, new maps, a new teambased ability and cool new graphical improvements.

Overall the game is much better and I reckon you'll like it. Come play!

[HybridMind]

Video of the game looks pretty darn cool.  Tech question for ya:  How did you implement 'bullet time' in a multiplayer game against other live opponents?  Do you just slow everyone's perception down when anyone nearby the player uses that powerup or what?  Don't need mega specifics just the general gist of what you're doing.

[bencelot]

Bullet Time doesn't work as you're imagining it. It doesn't slow players down, it slows bullets down.

So you right click to cast it and then a circular field surrounds you where any bullets that travel through it move slower. It's a good defensive skill because bullets around you move slower, allowing you to dodge them.

Technically this is obviously done very easily:

movementSpeed = 1;
if(InBulletTime()) movementSpeed = 0.1;

That kinda thing.

[HybridMind]

Bullet Time doesn't work as you're imagining it. It doesn't slow players down, it slows bullets down.

So you right click to cast it and then a circular field surrounds you where any bullets that travel through it move slower. It's a good defensive skill because bullets around you move slower, allowing you to dodge them.

Technically this is obviously done very easily:

movementSpeed = 1;
if(InBulletTime()) movementSpeed = 0.1;

That kinda thing.

Ah ok!  That makes much more sense.    Thanks for clarifying.

It still did get me wondering if it wouldn't be an interesting experiment to do as I was imagining initially and have like all the players speeds and bullets slow down in an area because someone cast a 'spell' that affected the time domain.