Post by supersmo in Protecc Squad comments

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Wow what an interesting game! Very cool concept and I really like the tug of war gameplay. The solo gameplay is very addictive but also very hard. I often got to Solo Level 1 but struggled to reach Solo Level 2.

I can confirm that the game works with 8 XBox One controllers and 2 PS4 controllers, but I have only played by myself.

Some suggestions:

Clearer visualization of win conditions:

I'm often surprised by who won and why. If the win conditions were visualized more clearly it would make the game more frantic near the end because you know someone is about to win. My suggestion is to:

Visualize the number of humans with a bar (and a number).
Visualize the bases with a bar in order to visualize if one team is close to getting all of the bases.

Less button mashing:

My fingers got tired when having to press a button for every shot. Consider making it so you can hold a shoot button to shoot several shots.

Make it easier to save a humanoid:

Consider making it easier to save humanoids. Having to both shoot the Lander and catch the humanoid in order to complete a save makes it very hard to save a humanoid. Only having to shoot the Lander would make this easier.

Clearer visualization of which team the bombers belong to: I can see by the outline which team the Bombers belong to but most of the body of the bomber is a random color so it's not as easy as the other types of ships to see which team they are on.

Some ideas:

Right thumbstick aiming (with autofire when the thumbstick is pulled in a direction) could make it feel like you are more in control of the bullets. If this is added, maybe the bullets need to be slowed down so the players feel like they stand a chance to dodge the bullets.
Modifiers to tweak the gameplay. e.g. options to change: number of players on screen, speed of the game, speed of bullets, etc.

I think you have created something really cool, I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with my suggestions and ideas.

(I'm not able to install the game via the Itch client. Consider fixing this so it's more convenient for people to try out the game.)

Guitartheist1 year ago

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!

I didn't know about making the game installable via the Itch client, that seems like a priority especially since it helps people get updates automatically so I bookmarked the guide and will work on that.

I like your ideas regarding win condition tracking, I think I'll add progress bars top center for each condition. There is already a humanoid tracking number in top left and top right corner for each team but it's very low key.

Auto-fire sounds like a good feature, I think I'll make it 6 shots per second (assuming fighter has not reached its active bullet limit and is waiting for a bullet to hit or expire) while holding any fire button.

I'm glad it's difficult (but possible) to save humanoids, the challenge is something I took from classic William's Defender and it should feel like an accomplishment.

Good point about the bombers, I'll shrink the random colored section.

Aim is currently part of ship movement - while moving up the bullets keep upward moment, vice versa for down, they fly straight when you fly straight. Was this clear or did it seem like the bullets were firing randomly? I think I can fit this info on the join screen.

It would be fairly straight forward to make number of fighter ships, game speed, and bullet speed user configurable but I have to decide if I want to do that or to have a standard speed the game plays at. I am definitely adding a control to disable particle explosions for slower computers, and an in game volume control for the sound effects.

The game starts fairly slow and then picks up every 30 seconds until it's frantic and doesn't get any faster at the 2:30 mark but I am considering lowering the top speed a bit.

I am also planning to make the bomber and swarmer waves spawn faster. They currently start at 20 and 30 seconds, new speed will be 15 and 20 because I feel like the lander factories are way more valuable at 10 seconds per wave (6 seconds at max game speed). What do you think?

I greatly appreciate the suggestions and ideas and hope you continue to play and provide feedback as I update! I am aiming for an update Thursdayish.

supersmo1 year ago (1 edit)

Great! I haven't played William's Defender so I looked it up to see where the inspiration came from. Looks like an interesting game. I like how you took inspiration from a single player game and tweaked it into it's own game with a multiplayer experience, bases and tug-of-war gameplay. Well done!

"Aim is currently part of ship movement - while moving up the bullets keep upward moment, vice versa for down, they fly straight when you fly straight. Was this clear or did it seem like the bullets were firing randomly? I think I can fit this info on the join screen."

It took a while to figure out and later I read about it in the HowToPlay. I think it would be good to have an instruction in-game or make it intuitive by tilting the ships in the shooting angle when going up or down.

"The game starts fairly slow and then picks up every 30 seconds until it's frantic and doesn't get any faster at the 2:30 mark but I am considering lowering the top speed a bit."

Ah, so that's what was happening! I noticed the game was slower in the beginning but I wasn't sure if it was a game speed glitch or something intentional. I suggest to add a line about it in the HowToPlay.

"I am also planning to make the bomber and swarmer waves spawn faster. They currently start at 20 and 30 seconds, new speed will be 15 and 20 because I feel like the lander factories are way more valuable at 10 seconds per wave (6 seconds at max game speed). What do you think?"

Not sure what to suggest here. If the spawn time is lower then the bases will be more valuable but also harder to steal with more enemies close to the bases. I guess it's something that needs to be iterated on. Game balance is often a tricky thing to "get right". Maybe find a good setting that is fun to play and then additionally expose the values in a property file or modifiers so people can adjust them if they want to tweak something.

BTW how is the difficulty increased from level to level in solo play? I feel like it ramps up quite quickly for me but I'm not sure how it's done. Do the computer controlled ships get better?

Good stuff! Keep up the good work!

Guitartheist1 year ago

Thanks! I have added controllable game speed and balanced factory production speed after some in person play testing.

In solo and coop the difficult is increased by adding an additional fighter ship to the AI team after each human win until the humans lose, then it resets to 5v5. I added a line to the join screen about this.

Also added info about angling shots up and down to join screen. And a few other fun and cool features!

Deleted post1 year ago

Deleted 1 year ago

supersmo1 year ago

I played it now. The itch installation worked perfectly. Solo play is very addictive. I once made it to Solo Level 3 and I've also managed to pull off a few saves. It's easier to see who's about to win now and being able to hold the shoot button is much more comfortable.

I've tried chill speed and casual speed both were very enjoyable.

I found one bug. I now have to hold the start button on the gamepad in order for the game to pause.

Also the game crashed once, not sure what happened and I couldn't find a log file.

Finding your player in local multiplayer:

One concern for 10 local players is the flashing box. It works well for 1 player, but maybe 10 flashing boxes will lead to too much flashing and it might still be hard to find your player, I haven't tested yet, so I'm just picturing what it would be like.

One idea for multiplayer:

Some small detail on the ship can be in the player's color and the player's number can be displayed under (or over) the ship.
The flashing box only appears when a "ping button" is held.

This way you have a way of keeping track of your player and if you lose track you can use the ping button to find your player, which will be easier if not everyone has a flashing box all the time.

Good stuff! Keep up the good work!

Guitartheist1 year ago

Thanks for the bug reports! I fixed the pause bug and hunted down as many potential memory issues as possible to solve the crashing problem. I liked your idea about player numbers and less flashing box but want to keep things as simple as possible, so the box is enabled when the player is motionless or invulnerable and goes away when the player is moving.

supersmo351 days ago

Thanks for the update! I played it again. Good fun. It still crashes occasionally but I don’t know what triggers the crash.

itch.io

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