Making a shmup

[hi19hi19]

Re: Making a shmup

You have a lot of good ideas. I tried programming something like this once, but I got really bored of it. I like how this is coming, though. Will play.

EDIT- was looking through the res, lol'd seriously at the error graphic


EDIt 2- You want a full review? I'm bored this evening; here's a full review.

The Main Menu header looked like a selectable option, rofl.
When I whipped out my level 3 blue laser (I think it was that way for all levels) as the defense ship I got the WTFWTF, and when the tank boss's laser hit me I also got a WTFWTF

It seems really hard to die in this game, with those HALO-eque recharagble shields. I know balancing is coming soon, but just thought I'd point that out. Even though you go down (I realize that "crash landing" is the death mechanism you have as the shield guy), your shields recharge too quickly to complete the decent to the ground.

As the power ship, everything was way too easy to kill lmao
The speed ship was pretty useless.

Overall, there's a huge balanceing problem (which I'm sure you're aware of, hehe)
But I like where this is going, a lot. If there's something specific you want me to test, just tell me or PM me. I'm really interested in seeing where this goes, and I'd love to test things any time you want. Who knows, I've got a few good ideas of my own if you're interested.


Best of luck.

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Speed ship is useless? I haven't actually timed it, but it kills the boss faster than either of the other ships. It's my favorite ship. O__O

Also, the game is supposed to be easy right now. I want people to see the whole level, and some of the people playing the demo really suck at these games and tell me it's really hard. Probably next version I will make the difficulty selection have an effect on everything. I've been holding off on that until I finish the editor (which is coming along nicely) because when building levels, you'll be able to select whether or not an enemy appears on certain difficulties. Easy will be VERY different from Hard, trust me.

As for the crashing thing, its just an indicator of your ship's HP (notice, there's no HP bar). It moves you up/down randomly, it doesn't pull you down to try and kill you (though maybe it should). In the current easy state of the game you can ram enemies and take huge chunks of damage and not die, but on Hard you'll only be able to take a few shots before going down. Combine that with the fact that the first couple shots will send your ship shaking around uncontrollably and I'm sure you can imagine the difficulty. It won't be as bad as 1-shot-and-you-die but it'll be close, and knowing you can take more hits will give me more reason to send even more bullets at you on Hard. ;D

As for the WTF image, that's just something I added so the game wouldn't crash when images aren't found. Prior to version 3, if the game tried to load a graphic that didn't exist, the game would close. If you shoot the blue laser at an enemy with shields, you'll notice there's a special graphic of the laser "exploding", since shields absorb lasers. I, forgetting that the boss uses a laser type weapon, forgot to make a set of graphics for the boss laser's "exploding" state. Hence, you get a wtf image. It can only happen as the defense ship if you're silly enough to let the cannon hit you, so I wasn't too concerned with fixing it right away. Consider it an easter egg for now. =P

And please, ideas are always welcome. I have a really solid idea of what the finalized game will be like, but if there is room for your ideas and they'd make a good impact on the game, I'll add them. =P

[hi19hi19]

Re: Making a shmup

Well, I like the idea that when you take damage, your ship loses lift. (similar to a real airplane: bullet holes in wings creates drag, reducing lift)
When your "heath" reaches zero, you can't go up anymore and plummet into the ground, killing you. That's much more realistic and a really cool death mechanism I haven't seen often before.

EDIT- If you want a kick ass storyline, I've got a bunch of cool names you can use...

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

The storyline is very solid and damn near set in stone. This is actually the first in a series of games with intertwining and involved story.

And when I get around to implementing lives, the player's ship will crash just like any of the enemy ships.

[banditcom]

Re: Making a shmup

Power ship is cool.
Shield ship sucks.
Speed ship is overpowered. xD!!

Green homing on anything but power ship blows.

[MarisaKirisame]

Re: Making a shmup



EDIT: No options ingame. You can't hit esc and restart the level, go back to the main menu, etc.

I know it's in the making, just saying what I'd like to see.

EDIT2: Either your game froze at the space part, or it was one stage long.

EDIT3: Game crashed when I spawned too many enemies. Has nothing to do with my comp, as my FPS was staying perfect.

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

rofl east how the hell did I miss that

and uh, yeah, space is the end of the game thus far. Sorry. =P

As for the game crashing, how many enemies did you spawn? Cuz I've spawned a ****ton and had no problems. I have had the game crash for "unknown reasons" because of problems with the Java runtime that I have no control over, but other than that my game is pretty stable. See if you can get it to crash again and tell me what exactly you did to make it happen. Maybe there is a serious problem with something that I haven't run into. O__O

Finally, things I plan to have in demo version 4 (to address some concerns):

• Implement lives. Right now you die and it says Game Over then returns to the menu. I want you to have crash and then come back, using your next life. I'm not sure how easy it will be to do this, but I need to get it done.
• Pausing and in-game menu. This will also be a good lil experiment in my ability to pause the game, which will come in handy in...
• Framework for cutscenes. They may only be still images with accompanying voiceovers, but I will have some cutscenes, even if only just for the very beginning/end of the game. I may not actually have any cutscenes in version 4, but I wanna have the functionality pretty solid by then.
• Difficulty having an effect. Right now it's pointless, but I want the difficulty selection to have several effects. First and most obvious will be drastic changes to player and enemy stats (as difficulty goes up, enemies get stronger and you get weaker). Secondly, I want the specific enemies that spawn in to differ with level. So maybe on Easy you'll be confronted with a wave of one type of (easy) enemy while on Hard there will be completely different enemies. There would also be fewer enemies on Easy that come from behind, etc etc. And lastly, I want the game to give you hints on lower difficulties. If you're playing on Easy you'll get instructions on how to fly the ship, and they'll warn you about certain strengths and weaknesses of things. On Hard they'll assume you know what you're doing and not help you at all. =P
• Settings.ini file that keeps track of menu options when you close the game. That way if you ALWAYS use one ship or ALWAYS play on Hard the game will remember it for you and you won't have to change it every time you play.
• Groundspeed having an effect. Right now, things aren't moving with the ground, they go the same speed left and right. Really though, if you were REALLY flying east constantly, things going west would seem to go really fast and things going east with you would seem slow. I plan on making damn near everything move with the ground, which should make the movements look a lot more real.
• Level Editor. You won't see it, but it'll mean that making levels will be easier and doable by anybody. I may eventually release a version and let you play your own levels in Free Mode, but I'm not sure. So far I'm about, oh I dunno, 25% done doing it. But that 25% was a bitch, so I'm not sure when it'll be finished. Right now you can add enemies and level pieces, but I still need to do events and triggers, both of which are a bit more complicated. Then I have to make it write the lists of things into files, which shouldn't be too hard. Only thing I'm not entirely sure how to do is make sure you don't accidentally overwrite old files. But yeah, once it's done I will start adding more levels. Btw, if you wanna see what it takes to write a level by hand, open up the .dat files that come with the game in notepad. Mainly the trigger one is a pain in the ass to deal with. =\

My main focus right now is the level editor, because the sooner I make it the sooner my friend can help me make levels. We can at least start seriously mapping out the exact details of the levels once we know that making them won't be a pain in the ass. Some levels especially, where there will be intertwined triggers and such, would be a pain in the ass to do by hand.

Also, I'm not sure on the name. The name of the series is Delta Sector (which is the name of the place you're invading in this game), but I want all of the games to have a subtitle. For this one I want it to be the name of the human military operation to investigate Delta Sector. So the title will be Delta Sector: Operation __________. If you have any good ideas for what to stick in that blank, do tell.

Maybe something with the word "strike" in it. I dunno.

[MarisaKirisame]

Re: Making a shmup

The blue weapon is underpowered. That or it needs spread, but spread would ruin the point.
The red weapon is overpowered. It hits for way too much damage over time and and hits a lot of enemies all over the screen.
The green weapon is so inconvenient that it doesn't matter how powerful it is.

Bombs move way too slowly and don't do anywhere near enough damage.
Cluster missiles could do a little more damage.
Homing missiles have a really bad and slow angle of turning and they do way too little damage. Maybe make the angle smaller and make them lock on quicker. I've seriously had a homing missle circle around an enemy repeatedly because it turned way too slowly.

Shield ship is MASSIVELY overpowered.
Speed ship is okay.
Power ship could use a little extra power boost.

Points of freezing due to low FPS





Has nothing to do with my comp. My comp wasn't lagging at all. The thing you used just can't handle this much stuff on the screen.

Also, when those things hit the ground, I would gain EXP without even doing anything. You might want to fix that and make them not hit the ground. Also, they never shoot at the upper part of the screen.

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Thing about weapon balance is that all the weapons are situationally good/bad. There will be enemies and bosses and situations where one weapon will prevail and others will suck hardcore. If an enemy is behind you, Green is the only thing you can use, so there will be some enemies that purposely get on your ass and shoot at you from behind. Blue is great for big things and can penetrate hard armor to hit weak spots, so some enemies will take nearly 0 damage in the front but have a core or other weakpoint in the back. Red is great for groups of weak things because of how it fragments upon death, but against large things with lots of armor it's damn near useless. Red seems overpowered in the demo because the level is filled with really weak enemies that Red is great against. Trust me, there will be times when Red is not all that great.

And what do you mean Green is inconvenient? If you've never gotten to level 3 or more then I can see why you might think it sucks, but once it gains better tracking ability Green is pretty awesome. What don't you like about it?

I've already changed cluster missiles a bit. They go from dropping to flying forward a lil bit faster now, but I think their damage is fine. I was thinking about making homing missiles turn a lil faster, too. Most annoying thing is when they go after ground enemies and end up hitting the ground before they turn all the way and hit things.

As for the balance between ships, it seems like everybody says a different ship is way overpowered. If you judge them by how quickly they kill the boss, Speed ship is by far the strongest and Defense is the weakest by a bit. I can see why you'd think Defense is overpowered, but personally I can't stand using it because it's too damn slow. The seeker enemies catch up to me and ram me, and in later levels when enemies/bullets are even faster and the shield pulse can only bail you out so often, the Defense ship will be an even bigger pain in my ass. There are times, yes, when the Defense ship seems to be way too good, but you have to know what you're doing to be able to fully exploit its power. I honestly think the ships are pretty well balanced right now, especially since I haven't tweaked them much at all. I know the primary weapons aren't perfectly balanced, though. =\

And uh, the freezing is gonna happen like that in any game. I don't think I've ever played a game with even half that many objects onscreen at once before (at least not in normal gameplay). There will be never be times where that happens, so it slowing down at that point isn't really a problem, haha. As for them crashing and giving you exp...I'll never put those enemies in levels with ground. Same way if you spawn guard towers at that point they (should) crash into the buildings and die instantly. I won't be completely dumb while making levels and I won't have enemies kill themselves (except seekers you lead into the ground, but that's different). =P

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Reuploaded since the old download link expired. Here's v3 again: http://download.yousendit.com/4988D71A3F0A1AFB

Been working on v4. So far, changes include (these are things I have finished):

• Everything moves with the ground. Basically, things going left always go faster than things going right. It's not very apparent normally, but when you go fast (like right after killing the boss) it's VERY apparent.
• In-game menu when you pause. In-game menu also comes up when you die (as opposed to Game Over being displayed for hardly any time at all.
• Lives implemented. Now when you die you'll crash like any other ship then be respawned, using your next life. You're given a lil bit of "ghost" time where you can't be hurt.
• Difficulty implemented. Not entirely, since part of the difficulty is based in what enemies spawn or don't spawn, but the base stat changes to the ship are there now. On Easy you're stronger, on Hard you're weaker, Medium is what you're used to from version 3. Also, the ghost time when you respawn is shorter at higher difficulties.
• I'm in the middle of adding Allies. In v3, there were enemies, level pieces (the ground and buildings) and the player, that's it. From now on, you will also have allies that fight alongside you. Many of the levels will revolve around doing things for those allies, whether it's defending a base or leading an attack. You'll never be required to keep them all alive, but doing so will help you a lot, since allies will attack the enemy on their own for as long as they're alive. Right now there's only one type and it doesn't do much, but like enemies, making new types of allies is pretty easy.
• Still partly done with the level editor. I'll need to add a place in it to edit the list of allies, now. Getting the editor started was easier than I had thought, but I've been distracted from it with all these cool things I've been adding into the game itself. =\
• Looking into graphical changes so that bullets are more visible on all backgrounds. The current yellow bullets are hard to see on the light background, but I can't just make them dark because they'd be impossible to see in space. We'll see what I come up with.

I may not actually add allies into the level yet, but in V4 you'll be able to spawn and preview various allies with 1-9 (not numpad, that'll still spawn enemies), just so you can see the kinds of things I've added. Allies will really add to the chaos of the game, cuz they'll almost always be there fighting things. While you're taking out bombers in the air they'll be duking it out with the enemies on the ground. Plus, what other shmup has allies fighting alongside you? None, I'm pretty sure.

I am still planning to add cutscenes into V4. I figure the first time you run the game it'll play a cutscene (which you can watch again if you want) and then there will be cutscenes before levels. If I add them in V4, they won't be REAL cutscenes, they'll just be placeholders (like just some images of "This is a test cutscene" with voiceover saying the same thing). The fact that I can make new ones whenever will be the important thing.

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Forget that re-upload of V3, HERE'S VERSION FOUR FOR YA BITCHES:

http://download.yousendit.com/732AE0EC1416846A

Changes:
-Everything listed in my previous post.
-Blinking warning lights when you're hurt.
-Minor image tweaks for slightly better visibility. I will edit them more later.
-Shields now have a death animation.
-Minor tweaks to cluster missiles. They go from dropping to firing a lil faster now.
-Green is a bit stronger.
-There is now an intro cutscene. It's just a placeholder, but probably in v5 we'll have some storyline for you in there. =)
-Warp Drive now has a tiny animation.
-1, 2, and 3 on the keyboard (not numpad, the ones above QWERTY) now spawn in allies. Just a few test allies for now. =)

There may be more that I've forgotten. This was a lot of small tweaks and behind-the-scenes additions. It paves the way for bigger and better things, and I thought you all might want to have a look. =)

[vvav]

Re: Making a shmup

I'll just list what I think you can improve:

#1 The opening plays really, really slowly.
#2 The enemies take an obscene amount of hits to kill, especially in the beginning when you have all level 1 weapons. The green squares followed me through the whole game and through part of the boss battle.
#3 The actual level took half as long to beat as the boss.
#4 The missiles on the power ship should level as well.
#5 The ship moves really slowly. I understand that the power ship isn't going to be as fast as the speed ship, but if we're going to be dodging hoards of bullets, the ship can't be THAT slow.

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

#1 It intentionally plays that slow so that you can ready everything. Once I start putting storyline into the game and those cutscenes get much longer, you'll be able to skip them by hitting Esc or turn them off in the menu.
#2 Were you playing on Hard? I'm able to kill everything just fine on every difficulty but Hard. Hard is really more about strategy and survival, though. For the green squares, for instance, fly low and have them follow you into the ground. =P
#3 I've said this time and time again, but this is just a tech demo. The final level won't resemble the current one much at all. The demo at this point is basically just to show you what the game is capable of and give you an idea of the sorts of gameplay elements that will be important in the final game. Until I get the level editor done, the first level isn't going to change much in appearance. But hopefully I get the editor done soon. D=
#4 The missiles DO level. All of the secondary weapons level up. o_O
#5 I may speed the ships up across the board, but you have to remember that Speed always has to be faster than Power and Power always has to be faster than Defense. If I make Power/Defense fly at a comfortable speed it makes Speed go way too fast. Besides, that's part of the drawbacks of playing as certain ships that balances the 3.

Just so you get the wrong idea, I respond like this not to be like "Psh I don't care about your opinion, my game is fine!" but more to let you see why I've done things the way I have. Even if I respond with something like this that seems to make excuses for myself, I do listen to these suggestions. The balance of the game (both between the 3 primary weapons and between the 3 ships) is really important to me, but tweaking it will be easy. Game mechanics and other things I've been working on take a lot more work. To change a weapon's power I just open its file and change a few numbers, no big deal. Writing the level editor, adding cutscenes, even creating new enemy and ally types (which I often say is pretty easy) are all a lot more time consuming than balancing the weapons.

So really, please keep suggesting things, and don't get discouraged if it seems like I'm not balancing the game. Balance is just a backburner thing until the framework of the game is finished. =\

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Big things coming in Version 5. Ground objects reacting to the terrain, better cutscenes, new level, more enemy types.

Not quite ready yet, but expect it before too long. ;D

[evilbutterfly]

Re: Making a shmup

Version 5: http://download.yousendit.com/472740F724394753

Changes:

Visible changes:
-Enemies are not so accurate now.  Previously, they aimed exactly for the middle of
	the player.  Now they aim randomly at a point within a box surrounding the player.
	The size of this "box" is affected by current speed and a special cushion variable.
	This variable will later be used for an unlockable ship type.  ;)
-Reworked cutscenes.  They're now synched based on system time rather than frames.
	They also pre-load all sounds and images, to make sure they sync up right.
-Cutscenes can be skipped.  I planned to do this last version but there was a slight problem
	with how I made cutscenes in v4.  This is fixed and you can skip them with Z/Esc.
-Speaking of cutscenes, the first one is completely redone.  Still not the final thing,
	but now you should have an idea of the story and why you're fighting.
-Being on the ground now means something.  Previously, enemies and allies simply floated
	above the ground, their movement being identical to flying things.  This was very
	obvious when you spawned ground enemies, cuz they'd be up in the air for no reason.
	Now, however, they are affected by gravity and will travel along the ground.  =)
-The game now tells you that it's loading rather than simply looking like it's frozen up.
	This is especially an issue when loading the cutscenes, so be patient.  =P
-Green shots now fall to the ground if they don't have a target.  This should prevent
	those annoying shots that happen to be going nearly 0 speed when their target dies
	and end up just floating in one spot for hours on end.
-Green's shots are now exactly as powerful as red's shots.  They're still a bit weaker,
	though, considering red always fires faster and green bullets don't fragment when
	killing an enemy.  This should make green a bit more useful.  =)
-New enemy type: Artillery Shell.  Just moves in a straight line, but has a HUGE explosion.
-New enemy type: Big Arty Gun.  Fires artillery shells.
-New enemy type: Laser Turret.  Similar to the one on the first boss.
-Added a mockup of level 2.  No boss yet, but parts of this level are just to show off
	the ability of things to walk along the ground.  =P
-Menu Items can now be hidden and locked.  In fact, there's a hidden menu item you guys
	can't see now.  If you want to see some locked ones, try selecting ships in Free Mode.

Note so visible changes:
-Level editor done.  This means easier level-making, which means more levels faster.
-The way levels are handled is very different now.  Namely, levels are mostly numbers
	now, rather than a mesh of text and numbers.  Should make for faster loading.
-There is now a dev version that allows test-loading of levels.
-Revamped some triggers.  Kills of a type can now be used as a trigger, which replaces
	the old (crappy) way of detecting the boss's death.  This also has other cool uses,
	like rewarding you for killing certain enemies before they hurt your teammates or
	punishing you for hurting civilians.  ;)
-Homing missiles now get removed if they're too far off-screen.  Previously they'd never
	disappear, which eventually would lead to poor performance (due to so many missiles
	doing so many calculations every frame).
-I think I may have fixed the bug that causes the game to run at 100 FPS (instead of 50-60)
	on some systems.  This should make the game much more playable for some of you.

Enjoy. =)