Thank youuu. I wrote down a bunch of things you said. Also, you approached quite the game differently from other people, so it was interesting to watch you play.
Regarding inertia, you're probably right, but movement would visually look worse without it. Like more retro, it isn't exactly what I'm going for. There's no inertia while shooting, so I'm kind of relying on the fact that you can hold the shooting button whenever you need precision.
Sure, but you also move too slowly for some situations while doing so. I don't know of any traditional shmup that is taken seriously that has inertia. While "other games do it" isn't necessarily a reason to do something, the reasoning for it in this context is very solid. Honestly, I consider inertia in a shmup a cardinal sin. Your game has unique mechanics, but the bullet dodging is fundamentally the same. Avoiding damage with precise movement is life and death. I really like the mechanics but I couldn't really enjoy the game if I end up dying due to imprecise controls. That's my point of view.
I liked it a lot, the gameplay was nice and fast-paced, and dashing around was very fun. Observations:
- The fact that you can't disengage enemies is a bit unintuitive in my opinion. It was pretty easy to get used to in the end, but it still felt like an artificial restriction. I think it might have been fine if you were allowed to fly out of it but you had to be inside to shoot. Also you can probably get a similar result if you make enemies follow you more closely once they've engaged you.
- Some enemies were spawning pretty far from me and I had to run to them a lot
- The blue laser hit me about every time when it shot directly at me instead of rotating. Maybe I'm just bad though
The disengaging ban is a last-minute change. I tried many things to avoid the player just 'running away' and I couldn't quite get it to work. Like, if you could run away, making the enemies shoot you while chasing you made the bullets look really goofy. It's hard to explain without showing it, but it comes from the fact that bullets are slow compared to the characters, that the bullets are shot relative to the velocity of the enemies, and that the player can instantly accelerate in all directions. But if I make the enemies chase first, then shoot, then you can always disengage/engage/disengage/engage. So yeah, this is what I ended up coming up with. I might be missing a simple solution, though, idk.
I was hoping to 'give back' freedom to the player with the fact that could disengage with a burst. Did you end up using?
I played this on linux and it seemed to work fine, but I didn't have sound. I'm not sure if that's because you didn't add sound yet or the linux release for godot didn't work right. In any case I liked your shmup. As far as the abilities, I think it would be good to have a visual in the hud for the cooldowns on the dash and ghost abilities as well.
Hmmm I don't know if it's such a good idea to have those cooldowns in the HUD. I mean, like, the ghost ability has less than a second of cooldown, yeah? That's definitely something you wouldn't be checking. Rather, I was thinking players would eventually learn it by heart. Like at what pace you can press buttons and have them actually come out. Did you still feel uneasy about your inputs after a little while playing?
I was thinking showing the cooldowns in the tutorial, would that have helped?
could be visual or something like a diagetic sound like ca-chunk or whoosh when you can do a particular ability again. I would say take a day and look at how twinstick shooters like binding of isaac or nuclear throne handle the hud for ability cooldowns. I envision something like risk of rain's cooldown counters. If you want something closer to home in bullet hells I would say check out the UI in xbla dodonpachi series. I thought the game felt just fine to play. Initially I felt that the dodge and the dash seemed to overlap in functionality, but I used the dash as a gap closer to hit gundams that run away.
Comments
Thank youuu. I wrote down a bunch of things you said. Also, you approached quite the game differently from other people, so it was interesting to watch you play.
Regarding inertia, you're probably right, but movement would visually look worse without it. Like more retro, it isn't exactly what I'm going for. There's no inertia while shooting, so I'm kind of relying on the fact that you can hold the shooting button whenever you need precision.
Sure, but you also move too slowly for some situations while doing so.
I don't know of any traditional shmup that is taken seriously that has inertia. While "other games do it" isn't necessarily a reason to do something, the reasoning for it in this context is very solid. Honestly, I consider inertia in a shmup a cardinal sin. Your game has unique mechanics, but the bullet dodging is fundamentally the same. Avoiding damage with precise movement is life and death. I really like the mechanics but I couldn't really enjoy the game if I end up dying due to imprecise controls. That's my point of view.
I liked it a lot, the gameplay was nice and fast-paced, and dashing around was very fun. Observations:
- The fact that you can't disengage enemies is a bit unintuitive in my opinion. It was pretty easy to get used to in the end, but it still felt like an artificial restriction. I think it might have been fine if you were allowed to fly out of it but you had to be inside to shoot. Also you can probably get a similar result if you make enemies follow you more closely once they've engaged you.
- Some enemies were spawning pretty far from me and I had to run to them a lot
- The blue laser hit me about every time when it shot directly at me instead of rotating. Maybe I'm just bad though
God tier feedback. Thank you very much!!
The disengaging ban is a last-minute change. I tried many things to avoid the player just 'running away' and I couldn't quite get it to work. Like, if you could run away, making the enemies shoot you while chasing you made the bullets look really goofy. It's hard to explain without showing it, but it comes from the fact that bullets are slow compared to the characters, that the bullets are shot relative to the velocity of the enemies, and that the player can instantly accelerate in all directions. But if I make the enemies chase first, then shoot, then you can always disengage/engage/disengage/engage. So yeah, this is what I ended up coming up with. I might be missing a simple solution, though, idk.
I was hoping to 'give back' freedom to the player with the fact that could disengage with a burst. Did you end up using?
yo this is pretty fun, i dig it
somehow even with those tiny ass sprites my /m/ friend managed to name all those gundams, i dont get robot people
thx.
Don't tell him, but I actually don't know anything about gundam, I just stole the sprites from a game I remembered.
I played this on linux and it seemed to work fine, but I didn't have sound. I'm not sure if that's because you didn't add sound yet or the linux release for godot didn't work right. In any case I liked your shmup. As far as the abilities, I think it would be good to have a visual in the hud for the cooldowns on the dash and ghost abilities as well.
Thanks for playing! No sound yet.
Hmmm I don't know if it's such a good idea to have those cooldowns in the HUD. I mean, like, the ghost ability has less than a second of cooldown, yeah? That's definitely something you wouldn't be checking. Rather, I was thinking players would eventually learn it by heart. Like at what pace you can press buttons and have them actually come out. Did you still feel uneasy about your inputs after a little while playing?
I was thinking showing the cooldowns in the tutorial, would that have helped?
could be visual or something like a diagetic sound like ca-chunk or whoosh when you can do a particular ability again. I would say take a day and look at how twinstick shooters like binding of isaac or nuclear throne handle the hud for ability cooldowns. I envision something like risk of rain's cooldown counters. If you want something closer to home in bullet hells I would say check out the UI in xbla dodonpachi series. I thought the game felt just fine to play. Initially I felt that the dodge and the dash seemed to overlap in functionality, but I used the dash as a gap closer to hit gundams that run away.
Will check out. Thank you!