Wiztype
- Thread starter Madman
- Start date
iprice
Certified Guru
Firstly, it works. It's smooth, and the sound and graphics are good (sound is a bit too loud at first for my liking).
Now for the critical bit (sorry, but you did ask and constructive criticism can be more valuable than false praise) -
The game itself is boring. Without any proper enemy formations, you have no real option other than just to move about a bit trying to avoid the miriad of bullets. Shooting the enemies becomes a secondary objective. There is no skill involved. Reducing the number of enemies and bullets could improve the gameplay no end.
The enemy bullets tend to blend into the background and foreground stars, making them difficult to actually see. The foreground stars serve no real purpose other than to add parallax type effects and actually get in the way - they should be smaller than the enemies, but then they'd look like bullets. Hmmm... If you play any bullet-hell shooter you'll notice that the player doesn't have pixel perfect collision either - they have a smaller hit box within the player sprite, so that you can actually scrape enemies and bullets without being harmed - perhaps it might be an idea to use something similar here if you wish to keep the number of bullets and enemies the same.
With just a little spit and polish, this could actually be a nice little shooter. Perhaps if you took more from R-Type than just the "Type" bit, it would be worth playing for more than a minute or two. Honestly, a bit less laziness and you could have a really nice game here.
Also what is the purpose of the thrust - it doesn't seem to speed up the ship at all. Is this something for the future?
Please see my comments as constructive, rather than negative, as I believe this has promise.
Now for the critical bit (sorry, but you did ask and constructive criticism can be more valuable than false praise) -
The game itself is boring. Without any proper enemy formations, you have no real option other than just to move about a bit trying to avoid the miriad of bullets. Shooting the enemies becomes a secondary objective. There is no skill involved. Reducing the number of enemies and bullets could improve the gameplay no end.
The enemy bullets tend to blend into the background and foreground stars, making them difficult to actually see. The foreground stars serve no real purpose other than to add parallax type effects and actually get in the way - they should be smaller than the enemies, but then they'd look like bullets. Hmmm... If you play any bullet-hell shooter you'll notice that the player doesn't have pixel perfect collision either - they have a smaller hit box within the player sprite, so that you can actually scrape enemies and bullets without being harmed - perhaps it might be an idea to use something similar here if you wish to keep the number of bullets and enemies the same.
With just a little spit and polish, this could actually be a nice little shooter. Perhaps if you took more from R-Type than just the "Type" bit, it would be worth playing for more than a minute or two. Honestly, a bit less laziness and you could have a really nice game here.
Also what is the purpose of the thrust - it doesn't seem to speed up the ship at all. Is this something for the future?
Please see my comments as constructive, rather than negative, as I believe this has promise.
I think you are right there. I actually did not play it before uploading it, and its way hard to see the bullets on the screen.
And its way too hard. I will try to add some formations as well.
The thrust does speed you up, but you need to move into some direction. Simply pressing it does not make a difference
And its way too hard. I will try to add some formations as well.
The thrust does speed you up, but you need to move into some direction. Simply pressing it does not make a difference
ok here is beta 2.
- I redid the background GFX to make it less bright and look better
- Redid bullets, now bigger and brighter
- Shield after respawn for some seconds
- Reduced amount of enemies and bullets
- Added random movement and speed to enemies to give you something to chew on.
- Added missing soundeffects for shooting & exploding
More feedback?
- I redid the background GFX to make it less bright and look better
- Redid bullets, now bigger and brighter
- Shield after respawn for some seconds
- Reduced amount of enemies and bullets
- Added random movement and speed to enemies to give you something to chew on.
- Added missing soundeffects for shooting & exploding
More feedback?
iprice
Certified Guru
That's much better
Still too random for my liking, but the game has improved immensely.
Still too random for my liking, but the game has improved immensely.
Yeah i have spent the last hours finetuning it since the last upload.
Its a lot of things to finetune, speed of the player, amount of bullets the player can fire, so he does not feel helpless.
Amount of enemies to spawn, amount of bullets they fire and their possible max speed. Cause its annoying if you cant get away in time.
All this takes some time, but i think its pretty playable by now.
I also added some new things:
I made it more difficult the longer you survive.
I added some type of mine which you need to shoot more often before its killed, so enemies can sneak up behind them
I am also considering to add some smart bomb like thing.
I will upload the new version soon.
Its a lot of things to finetune, speed of the player, amount of bullets the player can fire, so he does not feel helpless.
Amount of enemies to spawn, amount of bullets they fire and their possible max speed. Cause its annoying if you cant get away in time.
All this takes some time, but i think its pretty playable by now.
I also added some new things:
I made it more difficult the longer you survive.
I added some type of mine which you need to shoot more often before its killed, so enemies can sneak up behind them
I am also considering to add some smart bomb like thing.
I will upload the new version soon.
Played it for a few minutes. Not too bad.
Gameplay: Was really nuts at first, but then I discovered all you have to do is hold down the fire button and move up and down, this creates an endless wall of death and pretty much guarantees you to stay alive. Maybe give a few diferent fire types for the enemy as well as give you a limited rapid fire burst or give an overheat function.
Levels, bosses will make it even more fun. Couple different back grounds would all that would be needed but as you progress the enemy gets quicker and shoots faster, each level could have a big boss with waves of destruction coming out of it.
Just another idea, hitting an enemy could release a new fire type for you as well, if not that then scoring points your ship could return to "base" where you can spend points on a full array of options for your ship such as different weapons, maybe better shoulds that can take a couple hits (but being expensive obviously) and possible for a fortune, you could get a small co pilot to fire another gun or fly a smaller ship next to you.
You could also add that to another game mode instead of overwriting what your working on now.
The scrolling marquee at the bottom says L+S+Menu to exit to wiz launcher, it's L+R+Menu. You could also add this to a "help" option in the main menu to put more txt on the screen and get the point across faster rather than sitting there waiting to read it all as it scrolls by.
My 2 cents.
Gameplay: Was really nuts at first, but then I discovered all you have to do is hold down the fire button and move up and down, this creates an endless wall of death and pretty much guarantees you to stay alive. Maybe give a few diferent fire types for the enemy as well as give you a limited rapid fire burst or give an overheat function.
Levels, bosses will make it even more fun. Couple different back grounds would all that would be needed but as you progress the enemy gets quicker and shoots faster, each level could have a big boss with waves of destruction coming out of it.
Just another idea, hitting an enemy could release a new fire type for you as well, if not that then scoring points your ship could return to "base" where you can spend points on a full array of options for your ship such as different weapons, maybe better shoulds that can take a couple hits (but being expensive obviously) and possible for a fortune, you could get a small co pilot to fire another gun or fly a smaller ship next to you.
You could also add that to another game mode instead of overwriting what your working on now.
The scrolling marquee at the bottom says L+S+Menu to exit to wiz launcher, it's L+R+Menu. You could also add this to a "help" option in the main menu to put more txt on the screen and get the point across faster rather than sitting there waiting to read it all as it scrolls by.
My 2 cents.
beavith
Member
Hmmm, maybe i can help you out with some boss's.
frolik
Bass Invader
Hey this is really cool! Has the potential to be a really good shooter I reckon. I think this is the first thing I've seen using Bennu - impressive, might have to look into it myself
Some predefined attack waves mixed in with the random ones would be nice. Have you played Turrican 2? There's shootemup levels in it where you have to avoid scenery, flying through pipes etc. I think this has not been done in many shooters and could be a nice feature of a level. If you care for more ideas I'd be happy to have a think about more features.
Some predefined attack waves mixed in with the random ones would be nice. Have you played Turrican 2? There's shootemup levels in it where you have to avoid scenery, flying through pipes etc. I think this has not been done in many shooters and could be a nice feature of a level. If you care for more ideas I'd be happy to have a think about more features.
Im open for everything, i favor to consider what you people say over having a game that noone plays
But im not good at making graphics, so anyone up to make a fancy background or level bosses can do so.
If the game will only have like 3 levels, the last one can always be the endless type level.
I added some more things last evening and will upload the current progress this evening.
Maybe my first upload was way too early, but its my first game ever, so bear with me i underestimated things
But im not good at making graphics, so anyone up to make a fancy background or level bosses can do so.
If the game will only have like 3 levels, the last one can always be the endless type level.
I added some more things last evening and will upload the current progress this evening.
Maybe my first upload was way too early, but its my first game ever, so bear with me i underestimated things
Madman said:Im open for everything, i favor to consider what you people say over having a game that noone plays
But im not good at making graphics, so anyone up to make a fancy background or level bosses can do so.
If the game will only have like 3 levels, the last one can always be the endless type level.
I added some more things last evening and will upload the current progress this evening.
Maybe my first upload was way too early, but its my first game ever, so bear with me i underestimated things
better early than later, faster you get feedback and input the faster the game becomes.
Last edited by a moderator:
You have a good point there spykez.
Anyway, sorry for not uploading this yesterday as promised, but real life.... you know that story.
I have been working on this though, and here are the news:
- I liked the random endless level and did not want to trash it, so there are 2 modes now:
- Endless and Normal Mode.
- The Endless level was pretty leveled, until i added enemies shoot at the player and not just to the left. Since then this might be too hard again, so please give me some input on the endless mode. It will also get more difficult the longer you survive/shoot enemies.
- The normal mode will make iprice and his kind happy: i added about 10 different enemy waves which will be the normal game mode. I plan to add level bosses here as well, so
we get some nifty shooter. However, tuning the waves and stuff is pretty much trial and error, but in this new test version i'd say Level 1 is about 50% done.
- The Credits thing is not working yet.
If any one here into Bennu likes to add a level, please let me know!
Final note: Due to the size of the archive, this ZIP and the following will not contain the Bennu runtime any more.
Enjoy! (?)
Anyway, sorry for not uploading this yesterday as promised, but real life.... you know that story.
I have been working on this though, and here are the news:
- I liked the random endless level and did not want to trash it, so there are 2 modes now:
- Endless and Normal Mode.
- The Endless level was pretty leveled, until i added enemies shoot at the player and not just to the left. Since then this might be too hard again, so please give me some input on the endless mode. It will also get more difficult the longer you survive/shoot enemies.
- The normal mode will make iprice and his kind happy: i added about 10 different enemy waves which will be the normal game mode. I plan to add level bosses here as well, so
we get some nifty shooter. However, tuning the waves and stuff is pretty much trial and error, but in this new test version i'd say Level 1 is about 50% done.
- The Credits thing is not working yet.
If any one here into Bennu likes to add a level, please let me know!
Final note: Due to the size of the archive, this ZIP and the following will not contain the Bennu runtime any more.
Enjoy! (?)
Spell check - "Mines must be shot often" not shoot.
At main menu you could add an "exit" option so you don't have to do the L+R blah combo.
Gameplay: Still seems a bit empty for some reason, guess I've just been playing way too much Tyrian lately lol. The waves of enemies are definitely better but you can still do the wall of death near perfectly (hold down fire button then move up and down) and with some timing you'll never get killed. I would suggest a heat feature where your gun could over heat for maybe 1 second? too much would be obnoxious and too little could be pointless.
Maybe go a little bit contra with it, have certain enemies carrying a new style of gun or something, spread (slow rate of fire but wide spread) rapid fire (fires rapidly no spread and heats up quicker), bombs (splash damage for maybe .75 seconds very slow rate of fire takes the splash time to recharge)
Waves are too short and not very rewarding with very little in difference between waves other than speed.
Tyrian is open source, maybe you could "borrow" some enemies?
Like I said in the other post, people love spending points/money, maybe have waves per level or make the levels extra long with some courses or something then at the end of the level you get to spend said points/money you earned durning your battle.
Keep up the good work
At main menu you could add an "exit" option so you don't have to do the L+R blah combo.
Gameplay: Still seems a bit empty for some reason, guess I've just been playing way too much Tyrian lately lol. The waves of enemies are definitely better but you can still do the wall of death near perfectly (hold down fire button then move up and down) and with some timing you'll never get killed. I would suggest a heat feature where your gun could over heat for maybe 1 second? too much would be obnoxious and too little could be pointless.
Maybe go a little bit contra with it, have certain enemies carrying a new style of gun or something, spread (slow rate of fire but wide spread) rapid fire (fires rapidly no spread and heats up quicker), bombs (splash damage for maybe .75 seconds very slow rate of fire takes the splash time to recharge)
Waves are too short and not very rewarding with very little in difference between waves other than speed.
Tyrian is open source, maybe you could "borrow" some enemies?
Like I said in the other post, people love spending points/money, maybe have waves per level or make the levels extra long with some courses or something then at the end of the level you get to spend said points/money you earned durning your battle.
Keep up the good work
