AuthorTopic: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...  (Read 182243 times)

Offline sculptedpixel

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #240 on: February 24, 2010, 10:37:10 am
steller howard.  that's much better.  It's nearly impossible to read 'critical' when it's going critical but the meter conveys the situation fine ;) 

How are you rigging (biped?) him and what kind of animation style do you want to use?  Is he like kong, or just a large silverback with blasters (heh)?   I'd love to see a melee attack - like in metal slug how you'll knife someone immediately in front, it would be awesome to see him toss enemies up for his guns or squash them with his giant hands. 

Will the main weapon will be upgradeable? 
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Offline Mike

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #241 on: February 26, 2010, 11:26:48 am
I feel like the main mechanic of the gun overheating is really limiting what seems to be the core gampeplay and thats shooting.  This is a similar idea to what Vanillaware did with their game Odin's sphere.  In the game there was a power meter that would limit you to how much you could attack at one time.  So lets say you are just furiously attacking an enemy each time you hit them with your sword your power bar meter will go down by 1 or sometimes more and you only have like 10 bars and when it reaches zero you can't attack until it cools off.  I imagine it was for eliminating button mashing and trying to increase the strategic element of combat.   However for me it just kinda made the game feel like it was taking away control pointlessly because if you used all the Power you couldn't attack and it would have a cool down phase which would make you wait until you could attack again and your only option is to run away.  Basically they were punishing you for attacking consecutively which is weird because you have a 3-4 hit combo on some characters built right in. 

Thankfully in their next game Muramasa Demon blade the power meter made more sense.  Instead of being some arbitrary number/bar it was linked to the swords actual health so if you were blocking a lot then the sword itself takes damage and if it takes too much damage it breaks and while you can still use it to fight it will only do meager damage and the way to heal it is by switching to another sword.  Fortunately you don't just carry one sword you carry three.  Three swords which you can switch between in real time with one press of a button.  While you are using one sword the other 2 swords are healing themselves over time.  It's a lot like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2's Allie system.

I'm not suggesting you do anything like that but that is one way to do it and make it feel more apart of the game.

The way I feel about your game right now is this. 

1.I'm blown away by the prerendered graphics, takes me back to FFVII, Abe's Odyssey/Exodus, Skull Monkeys, Heart of Darkness etc basically it takes me back to the PS1 days.
2.The controls themselves are pretty decent.  Immediately I felt connecting to the shooting...once I figured out you use the mouse.  When I knew that it was pretty smooth sailing
3.Awesome I'm shooting things, killing stuff shooting, shooting, shooting and I'm dead...
4.Oooooh the gun overheated and blew me to hell and back.  I see.
5.Awesome I'm shooting things, shooting, shooting, dodging stuff and waiting for gun to cool down...waiting...waiting.  Ok I'm shooting, shooting, shooting, dodging stuff and waiting...etc  While I'm waiting I'm itching to shoot some stuff.  I feel like it's unnecessary downtime.
6.And demo over, not bad overall

Please stop me if I am way off base.  I don't have a clue as to what you will do with this game lol but I just want to point it out.  Also even if you include things to refill the gauge like for example after you kill bugs a powerup will pop out that will cool down your gun I feel like you might as well not have a heat up gauge at all.  Reason being you are always going to be killing things thus always refilling your heat gauge.

Wow that was a lot to type hope I didn't offend or anything.  Good luck and great work!  I aspire to have your drive, passion, focus and ability to get things done.

Offline PypeBros

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #242 on: February 26, 2010, 12:55:28 pm
I feel like the main mechanic of the gun overheating is really limiting what seems to be the core gampeplay and thats shooting. 
(...)
5.Awesome I'm shooting things, shooting, shooting, dodging stuff and waiting for gun to cool down...waiting...waiting.  Ok I'm shooting, shooting, shooting, dodging stuff and waiting...etc  While I'm waiting I'm itching to shoot some stuff.  I feel like it's unnecessary downtime.
6.And demo over, not bad overall

Which I'm reading as a pray for a "quick cooldown bonus dropped by some shot monsters", personnally.

Offline Mike

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #243 on: February 26, 2010, 11:09:15 pm
I already went over that.

Quote
Also even if you include things to refill the gauge like for example after you kill bugs a powerup will pop out that will cool down your gun I feel like you might as well not have a heat up gauge at all.  Reason being you are always going to be killing things thus always refilling your heat gauge.

Offline Jon

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #244 on: March 02, 2010, 10:18:01 pm
First I want to say, this looks really awesome. I'm really loving the HUD. :y:

But... I don't know what engine you are using, so it may be too hard, but is it possible to make a mac version?

Offline ndchristie

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #245 on: March 02, 2010, 11:54:10 pm
I already went over that.

It's not a contest, dude.

Anyway, the game looks nice, but I find a few things a bit off :

1 - choppy, low-res 3D means I can't fullscreen without it looking like shite and if I can't fullscreen I at least have rouble seeing the playfield.  I have to blow it up to what I'd call pixel-level detail, and since you're not giving this pixel-level attention, the results of the zoom are lackluster at best.  An HD version would be a good start...as currently a lot of your work goes to waste on being too far zoomed or too small to see.
2 - doubleshot action looks great but it's slow, confusing (as it follows the cursor), and is just another hiccough in the gameplay, which makes my gun feel both jumpy and unresponsive (neither is a great feeling).
3 - heat gauge remains ugly and unreadable.  It needs to move in one direction and one direction only, because I don't intend to spend my game watching the HUD, i plan to spend it shooting.
4 - character is massive for the playfield and slow; the jump in particular is like hopping on the moon.  result is that dodging is nearly impossible and in this level it means you die or play parthian.  I think you would benefit from having more aggressive/nimble movements (I'm thinking specifically a forward charge to get out from under bullets).  Even if more nimble I think you need a smaller main guy unless he can take way more punishment than you're offering, or have tactics (such as power/heat/movement-based shields) that eneable him to.
5 - We need animation for the unreachable angles or to CLEARLY not make them shootable (change cursor color, some kind of "warning")

I think that's about it...

Edit - no wait, why do i lose a quarter of my health before I'm giving control of my character? that's crap!
« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 12:06:32 am by ndchristie »
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Offline Mike

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #246 on: March 03, 2010, 08:18:06 am
oh so you can give him advice but I can't.

Did you happen to miss the large amount of praise I gave him as well?

(edit) sorry, I was a bit too passionate about my critique.  Carry on  :y:
« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 04:57:17 pm by Mike »

Offline Howard Day

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #247 on: March 03, 2010, 08:34:42 am
Yikes. Let's keep it civil, folks - It's been nothing but quality criticism so far, let's try and keep it at that high level of awesomeness. So, I'll address the individual points in more detail with my next full update, but for a quicky status check, here goes:
I've been working on adding sound effects to the game, and also been playing with the HUD design and "feel". As many have pointed out, having the hud in the same style as the level itself, while kinda cool looking, does make it hard to differentiate what exactly is going on.  It's a valid concern, and one I am striving to fix. Something else I've found - adding a progressively more insistent warning klaxon as the heat level increase helps greatly in adding to your awareness of that hud element. If I could pipe the smell of burning rhesus monkeys into your computer's smell 'o vision, I would. Mmmm. Burning Monkey.
So that's pretty much where I'm at, the implementation of some of these sound effects is a bit, wonky...but I'm slowly figuring out a solid method of getting the results I want. Sorta.
And I'm using MMF2 DEV for the PC. I have no idea if it can build a Mac program. I sort of doubt it. :/
 

Offline alspal

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #248 on: March 03, 2010, 12:18:32 pm
It can build a Mac application using the java runtime, however Clickteam are working on an iphone/OSX version too.

Offline Mike

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Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #249 on: March 03, 2010, 04:55:23 pm
Soon clickteam will release the flash compiler which should maximize your audience. ;)