I've got a barebones work-of-concept up and running, and I'm planning on a more concrete demo with graphics, bosses, placeholder sound, etc by Christmas Eve.
Here's that work-of-concept file. It's basically three barebones boss fights asking the question, "What kind of offense can you use for a SHMUP if you restrict yourself from programming in conventional firearms?". You all know good games like Gradius, Dodonpachi, Battle Garegga, Jamestown, Ikaruga - each with their own different subweapons and systems of scoring but all still mainly relying on "shoot up/right, stupid" to tear down the opposition. I wanted to see if I could pull off something different and still make it fun and easy to learn within the game itself. So, featured in the demo are:
Repel the Bullet, where you can only use the enemy's fire against them - bullets caught in the radius of your effect are projected away from you and your health bar is replaced with the boost gauge
Punch the Bullet, where you have two giant robot claws to punch projectiles away or just smack enemies around directly and your health drains automatically, necessitating refills
Be the Bullet, where you warp across the stage to tear down enemies, neatly bypassing obstacles such as walls, pits and bullets to pick up items for health
I'd like feedback on possible bugs, glitches, etc as well as the learning curve of each game mode - in other words, are you able to adapt to the chosen style of play given the sparse control notes and boss attacks. I'm not concerned about the placeholder graphics and sound for the time being, I just want to get the control down Ok before moving onto refining scoring systems.
This post has been edited by Steven M: 26 November 2011 - 05:59 PM
Repel the Bullet: I had to play this one three times before I felt I really understood how the system worked. Wasted a lot of time thinking I had to click on bullets directly to reflect them and wondered why nothing I did seemed to reflect anything. Took me about 5 minutes to realize that there was a green meter at left. Wasn't anywhere near as intuitive as Ray-Hound, where you have a visible influence on bullets and you can see exactly how many projectiles you have in tow. Kept putting myself in danger thinking I'd shoot more bullets by having more bullets in my field when I really only needed one! Also managed to crash the game once when I had way too many bullets on-screen. Still had more fun with this mode than any of the others at this stage, I really like the later patterns.
Punch the Bullet: You really succeeded in easing me into the mechanics with this one, punching shit just sort of comes naturally. I felt a bit claustrophobic with the two claws annexing my hitbox and mostly spammed both fists to keep me safe- not a lot of thought or fun in that, but I think there's potential for a great boxing dynamic here if you can coax the player into pulling their punches. Maybe you could punish us for hitting certain objects, like electrified surfaces? Or encourage blocking by having the inert fists rotate to face the cursor's location and putting the player into positions where such a thing would even be useful.
I'd definitely recommend having the fists fly until they hit a solid object or level boundary instead of sending them to the cursor's position. I can't see much use for a ranged punch, and having to move my cursor around all over the place threw off my coordination and led to me clicking outside the game window and fucking myself about four times. Actually, I think this would work best with dual analog sticks, where I could just indicate the direction of a punch with the right stick. Oh, and I figured out I could totally cheese the boss by letting him have it with both fists the second time around. Might not want to compound damage like that!
Be the Bullet: Now, this is the concept I love most on paper, but you can cheese this game so hard just by alternating mouse clicks to keep yourself invincible and centered on the enemy. Simple solution, keep the player from changing direction mid-warp. Also, I highly suggest taking Radiant Silvergun's macro approach to things with this- use big, big projectiles that amble around the screen instead of tiny little bullets the player is never going to land on. I've got some great ideas for this game.
Overall, pretty novel stuff. You're subverting some major SHMUP conventions here and they're not adding much to the formula as it is, but there's potential here if you can get everything balanced. I question whether or not you really need the mouse for any of these games!
EDIT: RtB had me so confused, I went back and figured more shit out even after posting this. Also, four mockups, three game modes- what's the first picture supposed to be?
This post has been edited by Ritz: 27 November 2011 - 04:02 PM
Repel the Bullet: I had to play this one three times before I felt I really understood how the system worked. Wasted a lot of time thinking I had to click on bullets directly to reflect them and wondered why nothing I did seemed to reflect anything. Took me about 5 minutes to realize that there was a green meter at left. Wasn't anywhere near as intuitive as Ray-Hound, where you have a visible influence on bullets and you can see exactly how many projectiles you have in tow. Kept putting myself in danger thinking I'd shoot more bullets by having more bullets in my field when I really only needed one! Also managed to crash the game once when I had way too many bullets on-screen. Still had more fun with this mode than any of the others at this stage, I really like the later patterns.
WALL OF TEXT
Spoiler
Repel basically lets you charge and deflect enemy bullets away from yourself. The green circle is the base grazing radius, the black circle being the avatar stand-in, the white dot being the hitbox. Grazing builds up your boost gauge (black circle gives faster boost), getting hit depletes it. Charging boosts the repel multiplier, indicated by the number over your head. When you stop charging, any enemy bullets in your range (green circle) are blown outward and bounce around the screen, lethal to enemy targets. If your cursor was dragged onto empty space while the repel kicked in then the bullets just bounce around - if you highlighted an enemy object the cursor sticks and the bullets home in on it.
And just summarising the playing style makes me realise why it seems so confusing and convoluted.
Yeah, I'm probably more used to the mechanic since I've been debugging the demo over and over to test the boss patterns - basically I really need to optimise the playstyle. I believe the first step should be to disable manual targeting (at the moment clicking on the screen lets the bullets just bounce around, whereas clicking on a target while successfully repelling directs the payload to lock onto that target), which seems rather counter-intuitive at the moment. Maybe just allow the missiles to home in on all on-screen targets. After that I need to either remove the radius graphic (since it seems to confuse people) or make it clearer that close contact/grazing bullets builds up more energy to use up. Make it more clear (without being patronising) that bullets can be useful and how to game the system - flashing/color-changing when close to the player? Ray Hound I haven't played - I have played Bangai-O - so I'll take a good look at that.
Quote
Punch the Bullet: You really succeeded in easing me into the mechanics with this one, punching shit just sort of comes naturally. I felt a bit claustrophobic with the two claws annexing my hitbox and mostly spammed both fists to keep me safe- not a lot of thought or fun in that, but I think there's potential for a great boxing dynamic here if you can coax the player into pulling their punches. Maybe you could punish us for hitting certain objects, like electrified surfaces? Or encourage blocking by having the inert fists rotate to face the cursor's location and putting the player into positions where such a thing would even be useful.
Sounds like a plan. The current course of action is that the player very gradually loses health, more so when using attacks (particularly dragging the claws around the screen rather than just aiming). Unpunchable obstacles are a valid idea, as are obstacles with a punching penalty (like the shield in the boss fight) and maybe being able to parry stronger enemy attacks instead of punching them away. Charged attacks also. As for the claw clutter - they're meant to be large, heavy objects that the player has to drag around. The mockup makes better sense of the idea. I'll mix it up more for the Christmas demo, maybe take inspiration from Punch Out.
Quote
I'd definitely recommend having the fists fly until they hit a solid object or level boundary instead of sending them to the cursor's position. I can't see much use for a ranged punch, and having to move my cursor around all over the place threw off my coordination and led to me clicking outside the game window and fucking myself about four times. Actually, I think this would work best with dual analog sticks, where I could just indicate the direction of a punch with the right stick.
The fist-aiming sounds like a good idea, though it would require some pretty complicated mathematics to arrange it. I'll see what I can sort out. As for the joypad idea, no dice I'm afraid - don't have any controllers to spare or the appropriate USB dongles, so I couldn't test it properly.
Quote
Oh, and I figured out I could totally cheese the boss by letting him have it with both fists the second time around. Might not want to compound damage like that!
That's actually the point for Punch bosses. They're going to be like fights from a comic - lull the player into a false sense of security, figure out the boss' strategy, eventually find their weak point, spam punches for a cathartic finish. "Goddamn finally I figured it out ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA"
Quote
Be the Bullet: Now, this is the concept I love most on paper, but you can cheese this game so hard just by alternating mouse clicks to keep yourself invincible and centered on the enemy. Simple solution, keep the player from changing direction mid-warp. Also, I highly suggest taking Radiant Silvergun's macro approach to things with this- use big, big projectiles that amble around the screen instead of tiny little bullets the player is never going to land on. I've got some great ideas for this game.
I assumed the mid-warp warp would be useful in situations like spike-lined tunnels (like switching gravity in VVVVVV or Metal Storm)... probably much too useful in boss fights. If there are certain obstacles that penalise the player for warping towards them, not being able to backtrack could be frustrating, but I can see how a player could make boss fights quick and boring with that tactic. Variety in projectiles/obstacles (like the claws) is a good idea also. It depends on giving the player more obstacles and more freedom to overcome them.
Quote
Overall, pretty novel stuff. You're subverting some major SHMUP conventions here and they're not adding much to the formula as it is, but there's potential here if you can get everything balanced. I question whether or not you really need the mouse for any of these games!
Some of the later playstyles planned have use of the mouse and the Punch mode really wouldn't work as well without it in my opinion. I guess the use of the mouse seems superfluous for some modes but I'd rather have a universal control scheme than 'Ok, four of these modes use the keyboard, the other four use the keyboard and mouse' - I don't want to underestimate potential player confusion. We'll see how it goes.
Spoiler
Punch - self-explanatory
Repel - needs to be more self-explanatory
Be - self-explanatory
Bomb - lay down mines with left mouse, detonate with right mouse - autobomb on enemy impact but your max bomb count decreases (min. 1, max.8), impact on 1 results in death
Shunt - nudge or slam enemies into enemies/background/oncoming traffic, sort of like Burnout - left click to shunt in one direction, right click to throw area-of-effect paralysis items
Command - capture enemies with the left mouse, make them attack with the right mouse, drag characters to swap them around or throw them out the party - use mooks to protect the player
Conserve - one bullet per fire, multiplier and bullet size/power builds up on chaining enemies shot down - left mouse fires, right mouse throws flashbang
Write - targets have letters/words/phrases/sentences over their heads, type the right letters in to take them down
Quote
EDIT: RtB had me so confused, I went back and figured more shit out even after posting this. Also, four mockups, three game modes- what's the first picture supposed to be?
In order: Repel, Punch, Bomb [not featured yet], Be
Reflect mode: HUD and control change (yellow meter on left), bullets in range of player are highlighted, charged bullets automatically home in on target. I tried a counter underneath the player that counted the boost as you collected it, but the counter obscured on-screen bullet display and actually made it harder to play.
Punch mode: punches can be charged up (yellow meter on left), punches extend automatically in/beyond direction of mouse (no more accidentally clicking outside the window).
Be mode: mid-warp direction change removed since it made the boss too easy.
Ghost mode: a sneak peak of a new mode being implemented for the Christmas demo
Punch mode: parrying and blocking, bosses [Shield Robo/Bubbleghost].
Be mode: sprite implementation/collision detection, dicking around with level/environment hazards, bosses [Imitation Crab Robo/Hazel].
Ghost mode: implement health system, bosses [G. Roger/D. Master].
Question for potential playtesters: would you prefer the game to have a conventional level layout (2-or-so minutes of fighting through waves of enemies and the level design, followed by a boss), to be a boss rush game, or to be a mixed-type (e.g. basically go nuts with the presentation/format of each style, something like Live-a-Live)?
This post has been edited by Steven M: 04 December 2011 - 05:30 PM
Oh shit sorry, I forgot all about this! No complaints here, you did pretty much everything I asked. The highlighting and auto-homing in Repel definitely helps, and I actually have to watch what I'm doing in Be now. Just one thing, don't map anything to any keys below WASD. Ghost is weird, I'll reserve judgement on that one for the next demo because I'm not at all sure where this is going to go. I managed to glitch the game out so I could only shoot white squares- I think I had both ships on the same panel or something, it resolved itself once I started moving around.
Steven M, on 04 December 2011 - 05:29 PM, said:
Question for potential playtesters: would you prefer the game to have a conventional level layout (2-or-so minutes of fighting through waves of enemies and the level design, followed by a boss), to be a boss rush game, or to be a mixed-type (e.g. basically go nuts with the presentation/format of each style, something like Live-a-Live)?
Depends, but conventional is probably the best choice. I love boss rushes, but I'd only go with that if your bosses are going as cool and/or varied as Treasure's are. Even then, you'd still want to have some bite-sized level layouts in there to give the player a chance to breathe. Mixed could be interesting, but it's generally a bad idea to be switching core game mechanics constantly between rounds. Is there going to be some sort of narrative tying all these games together?
This post has been edited by Ritz: 14 December 2011 - 04:22 PM
Just one thing, don't map anything to any keys below WASD.
I can't make any promises, sorry - I'm trying to find a control layout that'll work for left-handed gamers to go with the conventional right-hand setup.
Ritz, on 14 December 2011 - 04:11 PM, said:
Ghost is weird, I'll reserve judgement on that one for the next demo because I'm not at all sure where this is going to go. I managed to glitch the game out so I could only shoot white squares- I think I had both ships on the same panel or something, it resolved itself once I started moving around.
Weird? Good to know. And about the glitch, also good to know.
Ritz, on 14 December 2011 - 04:11 PM, said:
Depends, but conventional is probably the best choice. I love boss rushes, but I'd only go with that if your bosses are going as cool and/or varied as Treasure's are. Even then, you'd still want to have some bite-sized level layouts in there to give the player a chance to breathe. Mixed could be interesting, but it's generally a bad idea to be switching core game mechanics constantly between rounds. Is there going to be some sort of narrative tying all these games together?
Here's the proposed setup: the player starts the game with Repel mode, working through a few mini-bosses to get the hang of the controls, then the game will present the player with a Megaman-style opponent select screen. You can replay the previous level for practice, or dive right into a new boss fight with one of the other characters (Be, Ghost, Punch, etc). As boss fights they use the same moves you would if you were playing them; since you're effectively immortal when fighting them you'll basically given free reign to study their moves and patterns; in other words the boss fights are glorified tutorials. Beating a boss lets you unlock their scenario, and the format changes depending on the character - some characters get a mixture of puzzles and fighting (Ghost), others get more conventional level layouts (Shoot, Be) or boss rush scenarios (Punch) or specialised scenarios (Shunt, which is a revised Pac-Man Attack). It's a lot like Live-A-Live.
The narrative justification is that a man gets brought back from the dead and can't seem to kill himself permanently afterwards. Our hero tries to take advantage of that by learning the condemned art of Amon (a practice few students survive since the training involves, you know, dodging bullets), and then picking fights with people across the globe. There's more to it than that (actually a shitload more) but I don't want to spoil too much.
I can't make any promises, sorry - I'm trying to find a control layout that'll work for left-handed gamers to go with the conventional right-hand setup.
Would lefties really want that, though? The problem with having keys in that area is that lifting a finger keeps you from moving in one or more directions, which is pretty fatal for any duration in a SHMUP. If you really need to map an action key over there, I'd stick with Q and E- making the downward motion for ZXC feels really unnatural to me, mostly because I'm a hunt-and-peck scrub and never needed to, but then my palm obscures the keys and I wind up hitting the wrong key, multiple keys, etc. etc. Made me avoid warping backwards in Be altogether. I mean, I'm just picking nits here, I could just use joy2key or something if I can't configure the controls in later builds.
Ritz, on 14 December 2011 - 04:11 PM, said:
Here's the proposed setup: the player starts the game with Repel mode, working through a few mini-bosses to get the hang of the controls, then the game will present the player with a Megaman-style opponent select screen. You can replay the previous level for practice, or dive right into a new boss fight with one of the other characters (Be, Ghost, Punch, etc). As boss fights they use the same moves you would if you were playing them; since you're effectively immortal when fighting them you'll basically given free reign to study their moves and patterns; in other words the boss fights are glorified tutorials. Beating a boss lets you unlock their scenario, and the format changes depending on the character - some characters get a mixture of puzzles and fighting (Ghost), others get more conventional level layouts (Shoot, Be) or boss rush scenarios (Punch) or specialised scenarios (Shunt, which is a revised Pac-Man Attack). It's a lot like Live-A-Live.
The narrative justification is that a man gets brought back from the dead and can't seem to kill himself permanently afterwards. Our hero tries to take advantage of that by learning the condemned art of Amon (a practice few students survive since the training involves, you know, dodging bullets), and then picking fights with people across the globe. There's more to it than that (actually a shitload more) but I don't want to spoil too much.
All of this sounds good. Excellent, perhaps. Carry on!
EDIT: Wait, if you can't die, what's the major deterrent for not getting hit here?
This post has been edited by Ritz: 15 December 2011 - 12:39 AM
EDIT: Wait, if you can't die, what's the major deterrent for not getting hit here?
Losing any energy you've stored so far, also annoying sound effects.
UPDATE!
So I've pretty much finished the main layout of the first level for this demo. There's 17 rooms, 2 of which are boss-related and 3 of which contain puzzles (though only one cleared puzzle is mandatory to beat the level, the others just unlock a weapon upgrade). Basically what I need to do now is set up the 'boss creation' routine (enter room, doors locked, spawn boss, beat him to advance) and finish the animation for the active sprites. The torches need revamping, the fireball needs animation, the player needs charging/slashing/hurt/waiting/win animations, those skeletons are static sprites and there are other placeholder monsters that need new sprites and walking/firing/dying animations.
I've set up a website. It contains development materials for the game and other prototypes (sprites, concept art, etc), as well as unfinished comics and designs and shit.
00
