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with the love studios6 years ago(+1)

The cascading explosions are definitely fun! 
My two cents:

the cascading explosions should be triggered by the player's shots.   This would give the player more agency over the explosions.  They feel pretty random as is.   It would also create a nice dynamic where you want to shoot the asteroids when they are far away but dodge them when they are closer (or risk getting caught in the ensuing explosion).

I would add a secondary objective, like collecting gems that are released by the cascading explosions or something similar.   This would give the player reason to weave into the asteroids instead of just avoiding them all.   Or you could add points and score extra points for triggering longer and longer explosion cascades.   This would give the player a reason to hold out for that perfectly timed shot that would cause a massive cascade of explosions.

Minor points:

The asteroids should effectively die as soon as the leave the screen.  I got killed several times by explosions that happened off screen which never feels good for the player.

As cool as the explosions are, they are maybe a hair too big right now.  Ok maybe several hairs.   You could probably cut their size in half and they'd still be super cool to watch and yet the game would be much more playable.   Perhaps consider adding asteroids of varying sizes that in turn produce explosions of various sizes.

Random thoughts:

Maybe try making the player bounce off of asteroids and only die if they are caught in an explosion.  That would make the explosions more central, and getting bounced off an asteroid and sent into an explosion would make for a great 'oh no!' moment for the player. 

Consider dropping scrolling motion and going straight asteroids: single screen, asteroids wrap around the edges, player spins and moves all around the screen.  Although I'd be amazed if 'Asteroids with Cascading Explosions' hadn't been done already.

Question:

what do the little blue and yellow icons that fly by do?  I couldn't seem to interact with them.

Well as others have said, you have a good concept here it'd be great to see you take it further.  Great job! :)

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Saliv6 years ago

I guess I should write a quick write up as to how to play the game.

The game assumes a large scale destruction event behind the player of "totally natural" causes. The player is piloting the Hydro Jet to clear a path for the rescue team behind him as everyone is trying to escape. The meteors are very explosive and will explode if they hit the ground or are shook by each others shock waves. (If they leave the screen they are assumed to have hit the ground.) However, the Hydro Jet is equipped with a powerful beam that can not only destroy the meteors in a single shot, but also safely get rid of most of the energy.

This is great and all, but the Hydro Jet is not limited to just blowing up rocks. It can also help with the rescue! As you are playing you will see little faces and warning signs.

  • The faces are pretend rescue targets. The Hydro Jet is equipped with a near range teleportation device that it can use to move them to safety. The device is activated by pressing the rescue button (by default: 'J' on keyboard or 'Y' on Xbox controller). While active your ship will glow and any rescue targets you come close enough to (right on top of) will be saved. If you can't reach them remember the rescue team proper is behind you.
  • The orange warning signs are pretend obstructions. In an real run these would be things like down trees, flooded roads, and broken bridges that would make it harder for civilians to get to the rescue zones. The Hydro Jet is not equipped to handle these problems. Instead you use your GPS Beacon to report any problems you find to the rescue team. The GPS Beacon is placed for you. All you have to do is press the beacon button and get into scanning range. By default the beacon button is 'K' on the keyboard or 'RB' on an Xbox controller.

Scoring:

Max Round Length: 300 ish seconds (5 minutes), it always goes a tiny bit over.

  • Shooting a meteor: ................ 1 point
  • Reporting an obstruction: 30 points
  • Rescuing a target: ............... 50 points

Tips:

  • You have limited control over where the chain explosions happen and they are predictable. (Set it to hard if you want a crash course.)
  • Don't hide on the bottom. (Seriously, the meteors will get you eventually. Move up a little.)
  • The game is funner trying to clear the secondary objectives.

==================================================

Okay, now on to a direct reply.

Thank you for your feed back! I would like to actually complete this game, but I need to rethink a lot of the design choices and a lot of the code needs rewritten. The game play seen here is pretty far off base of the story and I would like to fix that, but at the same time I stumbled on something that is pretty fun and I do not want to throw that away just because I have more time now. I plan to use your review during the redesign of the game. However, it is largely leaning away from what I have in mind. The players goal is to reduce the impact of the meteors and escape.

Re: Question:

Answer:

Read the bullet points in my explanation of how to play the game above and try to do all the rescues and place all the beacons. I think that will change your thoughts on the game a little.


PS I don't know how to reply to posts like yours so sorry if it came out awkward. Thank you for your post!

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with the love studios6 years ago

Gotcha.   I tried again this time understanding about the rescue and GPS beacons and it does indeed add a nice extra layer to the gameplay.  Personally, I would jettison the idea of having to press a button to activate the beacon or rescue the person.  It seems entirely redundant and a bit confusing.  Made doubly so by the fact that there are two different buttons to press.  A better mechanic might be if the button activated a tractor beam that pulled the survivor towards you.   Then the player would /want/ to press the button.

I had simply assumed that the explosions were triggered by the asteroids colliding with each other, I didn't get at all that they were exploding as they went off the bottom of the screen.   Although I did notice a lot of explosions going off on the bottom of the screen, so I guess maybe I should have put two and two together....

> Don't hide on the bottom.

Some real talk.  It's a top down shmup, no matter what you do or say, the player will always hang out at the bottom of the screen.  It's human nature.  ;)

I understand what you mean about having the player explode the asteroids being a step away from your original design.

It would definitely shift the emphasis away from avoiding the asteroids and towards shooting them.

If you want to stick to avoiding them, I'd recommend shrinking the explosions and slowing them down a good bit.   The fun in the cascading explosions is watching them unfold while desperately trying to get out of there way.   Shrinking the explosions will reduce the danger of any one explosion, putting the emphasis on the cascade as a deadly threat to the player.   Slowing the explosions down will draw out the sequence of the cascade, giving the player more time to react to them and also extending the period of suspense as you wait for the explosions to stop.

Alternately, if you really want the game to be about dodging the asteroids, you might consider the hard decision of yanking the cascades and banking them for a future project.  It might be that the cascades will always work against a 'dodge'em' play style because the once the player sees one of those cool cascades, there going to want to see another, and another... 

I can't really advise you about what do as far as the code base is concerned.  I will say, you have a working prototype here, you might twiddle with it as much as you can to flesh out your design before moving to the 'total re-write' phase.

ps

You did a great job responding.   I'm glad you took comments in the way they were given, which is as constructive feedback and not at all an attack on your or your work.   Also do understand that these are just my thoughts on the game, others might see it differently and it is ultimately your game so your totally cool to try and thread your own path around the issues I've raised, or even stick to your current solutions.  I can tell you I've had it happen to me plenty of times that I thought X was wrong with a game and somebody changed Y and suddenly I realized X was never really the issue at all  :)

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