Thank you for playing. A story and characters is planned, but I still need to get more of the gameplay systems working first. Gamepad support would also be great, but I'll need to overhaul the settings before I can do that.
MezzSoft
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A member registered Sep 10, 2016 · View creator page →
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Tactical stealth meets top-down mecha combat and excessive destruction
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Thanks for playing again! Glad you liked the railgun weapon, it's a favorite.
The gunships have more health than tanks actually, but you can hit them from anywhere as long as your crosshairs are directly over them. I figured it was a fair tradeoff. I think using only missiles it takes around 6-7 to take one down. Also happy to hear the automatic fullscreen is working, a lot of people asked for that!
Thank you for playing.
Its difficult to see where my crosshair is sometimes. The color of the crosshair blends too well with the background which make it hard to make out, so I tend to lose it, which becomes a bit annoying especially when I need to quickly snap to a different target. So in the, end, im using my tracers to figure out where my crosshair is (which is not really viable when i need to switch to missiles).
I'll have an option to show an extra outline over the cursor and also draw a laser from the player to where it is, a few other people seem to be having similar issues.
The shotgun is also kinda busted. Its easy to intercept missiles with it (or maybe that could remain a feature?) and I feel like it shouldn't destroy/go through buildings as easily as any other gun.
It's supposed to be much more powerful than the other weapons at the cost of lower ammo. I think for the slower firing rate it also makes up for it by punching through buildings more.
There should also probably be a limit to how many buildings the railgun can go through, unless its supposed to be an OP endgame weapon (although it is so much fun to use).
Indeed, it'll probably be an endgame weapon since it's sort of broken with how OP it is. I might have a weaker gun that goes through buildings with a single shot, but does far less damage.
But the new scenario is great. Its a nice break from the claustrophobic (in a good way) urban maps.
Glad to hear it, there'll be more variety to come!
Appreciate the in depth explanation and each point of feedback, that's exactly what I'm looking for! I know some of the levels at the moment leave much to be desired — they're pretty much all placeholders for now since I haven't implemented the main overworld map which will eventually help coordinate locations and missions more. Soundtrack is also being thrown together slowly, but nothing good enough to include in the game yet.
There is also so much space for various setpieces which are nowhere to be seen.
I'll try to make sure there's more to see in each level. I can't promise a Valve level minute to minute gameplay maximization, but I understand some more variety would be nice, even for ~3 minute levels.
As for worldbuilding and a proper story — I've been putting most of my work into making the actual game fun before I spend months drawing cutscenes and developing a plot as I'd hate for it all to be wasted on something that ultimately turns out to be an annoyance to play. But I agree that without those elements the actual combat sort of feels pointless.
I've beaten all the levels using all the weapons. I loved the inclusion of flying enemies which interact with environment in a completely different way and it makes me wonder if there could be any water only enemies.
I had enemy gunboats planned for the fourth level, but I simply ran out of time to make them. Some water turrets that pop in and out are also planned.
All in all I want to see more and I think you are steering the game in the right direction. I've shared the game to my friends and can't wait for the next update.
Much appreciated, thank you once again for playing and the feedback! I always take note of critical comments and try to improve the game using what was said.
Thanks for playing!
The only thing that annoyed me was hitting cars with rockets and hurting my mech. It's definitely a mistake on my end but it kind of feels weird that the mech can't shoot over them.
I can understand that being frustrating. I'll update it so the missiles check a minimum distance before activating collisions like they do with the trees.
I more than trust your creative vision so I won't make any suggestions.
I'm still interested in hearing any and all feedback you have since it's in an early state. Any others reasons for the 4 out of 5 stars? Always happy to hear what needs to be improved!
Thank you for playing once again!
It seems like AI improved and became more challenging
Indeed, I have updated them to be more responsive to things like explosions and getting stuck less on terrain.
Probably you'll implement some point system where you should unlock new weapons and systems depending on your sum highscore on all levels (you can find an example of such system in Jets and Guns 2 and Bot Vice - although here it is a timer for all missions but idea is the same)
I actually hadn't thought of using the score to give the player new weapons. That's an interesting idea and I'll consider trying to implement it.
I like new helicopter enemy very much since I'm a fan of Strike series (I was wondering how the game would look like if you had a helicopter instead of a mecha... probably an idea for some mission or couple of them?).
Those are classic games, I used to play some spinoffs called Air Strike 3D way back in the day. I'm sure it'd be cool to play as an attack helicopter for a mission or two, but it would probably change the gameplay dynamics too much. Who knows though, maybe I'll try it.
Remarks from the heroine looks cool but I'd increase the time before they vanishes at least twice since it's not always possible to pay an attention to them immediately in battle.
I may put an adjustable timer in the settings menu for it. I don't want the quips and comments to be too distracting when tons of stuff is happening, so I try to keep them mostly infrequent and fast when they happen.
Also I'd change default grenade button to F, Q or E but I guess you'll implement key bindings at some point so it's fine for now.
Indeed, a reworked settings menu with full key rebinding is planned, it may be a while though.
Funny thing BTW - the only mission that I couldn't complete is... the first one. Others feel a bit easier with grenades, especially the second one. New mission looks very nice BTW. It has that Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach vibe in it. ^_^
Interesting. The first mission has randomized enemy spawners and timers so it plays differently almost every time. Sometimes it can be really hard and everything comes at the player at once, so I understand. Glad you like the new level! I thought it was a nice change of pace too.
Completed the first mission with auto-cannon today from the first try. Little sneaky bastard tactics also helped.
Nice job! Enemies do have directional armor now, so sneaking around is encouraged.
Also helicopter felt near me and and damaged my armor. That is a really nice touch here. And I noticed at last that buildings are not just sprites - the perspective changes a little when the camera moves so you can see they have a volume. Really cool.
Got to watch where they fall! If you're low on health, those helicopters can kill you if they fall on top of you. Glad you noticed the buildings shift their perspective too, I'm thinking of adding additional perspective effects so it's more noticeable.
P.S. BTW - tested the game both on my pretty powerful gaming PC with Windows 10 and on my old laptop (ASUS N53TK). Runs fine on both of them.
Glad to hear that. If you still have any of the old builds - when you play it, does the newest one seem noticeably faster now that it has the FPS fixing .dll?
Thanks for playing again!
and I have a suggestions about Soft-kill APS(Like someone said it below). If I can choose the type of grenades like HE / Smoke / Napalm, Smoke grenade could be used as a Countermeasure against enemy missile and detection. I can't imagine how this can be tricky in game development, but I hope this idea might could help save your time and resources, as this is using a current weapon system.
There will be different types of grenades as well as different APS systems to act as a shield.
Now I'm gonna test that Alternative V-sync part. I didn't realize Until I saw a comment below. Keep up the great work!
I'm about to release a hotfix for the FPS. I've just identified the issue yesterday and sent it to two testers who've confirmed the fix. Really sorry that people on Windows 10/11 have been experiencing it at about 80% speed, it's an OS issue not a game/hardware one.
Excellent piloting, very skillful. From what I can tell it simply untethers an FPS limit with the engine and the game starts running at twice the speed. I've read on different forums the v-sync in Game Maker isn't "true" v-sync, and is just the engine slowing the game down by a few milliseconds to stitch together inbetween frames.
It's a shame since from what I can tell looking at different videos, the autocannon shoots much slower than it should. It should fire at just below the firing rate of the minigun. Not much I can do on my end to fix it sadly. I might end up porting the game to GMS2 if there's more compatibility options from there, but it'll be awhile until it's finished.
Nice! I knew something felt off in the recordings. I guess it's just an OS compatibility thing since on my end I don't see an FPS boost, instead the cursor movement just becomes smoothed out a lot.
Hope it's not playing at twice the speed it should be though, seen a few people early on have the game seemingly running at 2x speed on certain setups.
Thanks for playing again!
I don't know if it's the bigger window or design change but I think stuff is more visible.
If you only played since V.0.1, I've since added a lot to help increase visibility by changing the sprites, adding outlines, and indicators to show the player where they are.
New guns are chunky, railgun is fun but I keep shooting at point blank range and killing myself, scatter gun is okay same for the flamer but mine heart still belong to the ammo hog that is the BRRRRT minigun. Grenades seem superfluous until I noticed I can lob stuff over building without wasting rockets and it distracts the enemies like the AA tower.
The minigun is definitely my favorite as well. The grenades can be quite useful too - I'm glad to see you noticed it distracts the CIWS turrets. You can also do the same with missiles as well.
Wonder why the team on level 3 went rogue.Boster speed could maybe be increased a bit more, same with it's costs
Upgrades for the boost will come eventually. As for the unit on level 3 going rogue - hopefully I'll be able to add a proper plot eventually and have things make more sense.
Are you still running this game on a 32-bit machine by the way?
Thank you for playing. The railgun is indeed way more powerful than any of the other weapons, it's going to be most likely an end game weapon since I don't think there's many ways to balance it.
Movement felt a bit... slow(?) for the control scheme. I'm not sure what the exact adjective is but it felt a little off in some way. Maybe the boost wasn't doing enough for my taste?
I've been somewhat torn on the normal movement speed. For more open levels I can understand it feeling slow, but for tighter maps like the third mission, the slower speed makes it easier to maneuver through buildings/terrain. The boost will be upgradeable eventually, so you'll have a longer and faster overdrive.
Extremely promising and I hope to see more!
Thank you!
This is all very fair and useful feedback, thank you.
I originally did intend to have set objects/installations that you'd have to destroy for the fourth mission, but I simply ran out of time for this DD. I'm going to be redoing a bunch of levels and the mission's structure since all of them are honestly placeholders right now. There's going to be different missions other than search and destroy/shooting of course - defending and escorting missions will be included as well.
I'm not too keen on adding indestructible terrain since I feel it takes a lot of the oomph out of the gunplay and weapons if they hit objects and don't react, but I understand that this can make the levels feel maybe too open. I'll see if I can include enemies that also demolish terrain when the player is close and don't hold back firing even if they're behind cover. I realize now the player maybe has too much advantage by being the only one doing that.
Thank you for the feedback. Could you please elaborate on what you mean by the environments not feeling relevant?
I can mostly just sit in place and shoot, and sitting in place elsewhere in a level doesn’t make a difference.
That's fair. Maybe I have made the enemies too easy. May I ask if you tried any of the different weapons out, or was it all the same regardless?
Maybe have some sort of a loadout points to limit too OP builds? Or maybe even giving the player some disadvantages like slower movement speeds...
Not a bad idea, will definitely try this once I have a proper hangar/loadout screen implemented. Some different engine types might help balance very heavy loadouts too. Current mission menu is just a placeholder for now.
Interesting, i like hearing about the technical side of people's projects. Your stuff kind of reminded me of the 2nd generation Command and Conquer games where they used a hybrid system of sprites and voxel models, so i figured you had something similar.
Totally, I think they used a similar method of converting voxels too!
This is easily a banger. I wanna emphasize how good the menu looks and sounds, like seriously. Everything just works visually and audibly. Sorry for the excessive rambling, but for some reason, it reminds me of a strange combat flight simulator game i played on the PS1(???) a decade and a maybe half ago. I barely remember anything about it except that it had some striking 3D flat-shaded visuals and similar music. Anyway, Good job.
Interesting. Would love to know what game it was if you ever find or remember it, it might just be up my alley, haha. Thank you again!
Thank you for playing!
The railgun ammo is a bit too scarce. I suggest to add a secondary weapon slot, and leave the rockets to be a tertiary option with a different keybind (maybe R? makes sense...)
I could start the player with more ammo loaded into the weapon. I ended up cutting the amount of ammo provided by crates so they give 1/8th to 1/12th the max ammo amount, but maybe it's too little now. I've been quite torn on whether or not the player should have two weapons - the missions are very short and the game's playstyle tends to change dramatically with certain weapons, so having more than one might be too much firepower. That said, I can see how being able to switch on the fly to a second weapon would still be nice.
The menu music is a banger, and the sound design is really good... except for the rotary cannon spin up sound, i didn't really enjoy the high pitch of it.
Interesting. I'll try lowering the pitch of it - maybe it is too high. It's actually the classic sound of the Splinter Cell night vision goggles going off combined with a sped up minigun spinning without ammo.
The visuals are amazing. I like the pixel(? (voxel(?)) style environment destruction a lot. Might be my unconfirmed autism ringing, but I equally enjoy the warm and comfortable color pallette, especially the amber-light grey UI of the menu. I really like the mech design as well.
Glad to hear you liked the visuals. Technically the models are both! I make everything in voxels and then convert them to pixel art sprite sheets which are then stacked up in "slices". Sprite-stacking is the term for it - it's kind of uncommon since it tends to be hard to optimize, but I've developed some methods to keep things going smooth.
I think this is pretty cool, and i'm not even really into these type of games. Good work.
Thanks again for playing and the feedback, it's very appreciated!
Thanks for playing again!
Really love the EM Railgun, it just feels so powerful, like it should. The Scattergun is also nice but the Railgun just overshadows it in terms of pure joy. The new FX for the missiles also look really good, definitely an improvement over the last version.
Happy to hear the new particles look good. I felt the missiles were pretty lacking last time. I'd like to rewrite the debris smoke particles in the next build, it'd be nice if they were more realistic and stuck around longer I think.
The new mission is really fun to play. The new attack helicopter provides a fun challenge, and the WW1 looking tank thing is a really nice addition as well. To me it also feels like the AI of the old enemies has changed. Could just be me though.
The AI has had an update. They should be smarter now and react to explosions near them, and I also put a system in place to level out their aggression in big groups so when you're fighting them 1 v 1 they're more aggressive. The WW1 looking tank is a hovercraft - depending on which weapon you have equipped they can be quite a challenge to fight.
I guess the only thing that annoys me about the new enemies is that you can't see the helicopter when you're running away from it while it's shooting at you.
That's a fair point. I could put a check in so it has to be on screen at least one time before it starts shooting, though it might make it a lot easier to survive.
Another thing is, I really love how OP the Railgun is, but currently it's just that, OP. It takes makes the game really easy, if I'm being honest, though maybe I'm just playing the game wrong.
You're not playing the game wrong - it really is just highly OP. I thought it was too much fun though, so I left it in as is. It'll probably be a late game weapon.
Maybe reducing the ammo further would help? I'm not sure. Using the Railgun also makes the viewport seem really small, since you'd want to use it from as far away as possible, but that's not very far. But increasing the viewport size for just the Railgun would make it OP again. I don't really know how to fix it, I'd just like to express what I thought while playing it.
I don't think I'll be zooming the viewport out at any point since it'll probably look a bit noisy with all of the pixel art resizing even at twice the resolution. I think I'm just going to keep it as a stupidly OP end game weapon.
Apart from that, I'd like to play the game in windowed mode even at 1080p (I mean, you can use Alt + Enter, but that looks really janky),
Sorry about that. Some people asked for automatic fullscreen and resizing a few times so I felt the need to implement it. I prefer playing in windowed mode myself, so next time I'll hopefully have a fully revamped settings menu implemented.
but apart from that, this update seems really high quality. It makes me really excited for what the future holds for this game.
Thank you. It still has long ways to go and I have a lot more planned, so expect more in the future.
Pretty solid start I'd say! I don't have much experience playing auto-battlers, but I had fun with it nonetheless. Can't say much about graphics or UI since things are very early, but a few more indications that units are taking damage would be nice. I could see a character in the corner like a goblin who offers advice for each round also being a fun touch.
Been watching this with great interest in the GIFs you've been sharing the past month, happy to say the gameplay didn't disappoint! Love the amount of visual effects and the high speed pace of the gameplay.
I felt the sound effects were a bit lacking for the environment you're in. Like you could have much stronger echo and reverb on some of the impact sounds since you're in these long corridors and hallways, it would help add some more kick to the bat hits and killing enemies. It'd also be nice to have the cursor just slightly larger - I lost track of it a few times. Really promising game all around, going to keep an eye on it!
Hey, thanks for playing and recording a video, I appreciate it a lot!
Really impressed to see you blaze through the whole demo in one sitting, some people had a lot of trouble previously finishing the second and third mission. Your feedback on the settings, UI, text, and controls is all valid and I'll be updating them soon. The mission and main menu screen is eventually going to be redone from scratch; right now I'm just focusing on getting gameplay done which I think is the most important part.
Thank goodness you didn't go for an S score by the way; you were right to not trust the end screen since the A+ score is always shown. I haven't decided yet what a good score should represent, but I suppose it really should just be a mix of good time + least amount of hits taken.
Thanks for playing and the feedback!
With this kind of game, the absolute most important thing is that the game feels satisfying and this game absolutely nails it-- The movement, the shooting, the explosions. All wonderful. Really fun variety with the weapons and scoring system too.
Glad to hear that, I'm glad it checks out since that's been my focus all along!
My only issues are aesthetic (and one mechanical)-- I found myself often losing track of my player character because the main mech has very drab colors that blend in with the environment-- Particularly in the first map (it's not as big of an issue with the enemies because they get outlined in red).
Admittedly, in the previous build the orange filter for that level was turned off, but this DD I turned it back on. It makes the tones warmer and more appealing in my opinion, but it does affect the contrast of things and make it less readable. I might have to add a setting where you can just turn it off for levels if it's too distracting.
In mecha anime the main robot usually has very flashy colors, like the Gundam's white and blue, and the tone in this game doesn't seem to be super gritty, so I don't see why the main robot can't have colors that make it stand out more.
This is true, and a few people before have asked to be able to color the player's mechs. To be honest, I'm just not a fan of flashy hero paint jobs, prefer more subdued "grunt" liveries with just decals. That said, I have a few ideas to improve the player's readability like making the outline glow perhaps when there's a lot of smoke or the aiming reticule is far away.
On that note, I'm not sure if the lack of music during stages is meant to be just a demo thing or an intentional choice. If it's an intentional choice I respect it, but I do think some beats would elevate the experience.
Music is planned but I have yet to fully decide on what the game's soundtrack will sound like. I composed the main menu theme and the end mission jingle, but full on level music I just haven't been able to nail. I'll probably need to find a composer.
My final nitpick is that, unless I missed something, I didn't really notice any kind of progress indicator for how close you are to completing a mission. I understand something like an enemy count might feel tacky and "too videogamey", but I think it would make things more exciting if you actually felt how close you were to the end at any given time-- Could be something as simple as one of those Pilot cut-ins making a comment like "Just a bit more!" or something once you're near the end.
That's a cool idea and I think it's a smart use of the pilot windows/quips seeing as she already informs the player when ammo is out and health is low. Your radar does display an enemy count under "TGT:" by the way.
Like I said at the beginning, this game is one I'm going to keep an eye out and root for going forward. Especially the fact that it's in Game Maker-- Studio 1, too?? Astonishing. Keep up the good work!
Thank you! It's indeed Game Maker: Studio 1.4. Honestly still a pretty powerful piece of software in the right hands, it's not that outdated from GMS2. I'm only using it since I just can't stand the UI of GMS2, lol.
Oh! I'm a fucking idiot-- I forgot I also had a suggestion. I don't think this is something the game NEEDS but I think it would be badass if you could hold right click and do the multitarget thing but keep it held over a single enemy to unleash a barrage of missiles onto that single enemy. Might have some OP risk but it'd be a huge resource hog and I can imagine it being fairly difficult to do (if the enemy keeps moving and you're also dodging at the same time) so I think it could work. Frankly though I just think it'd look awesome.
That's a mechanic straight out of Warhawk on the PS3, haha. I'd love to have that added, I'll probably have a weaker "swarm" missiles that does less damage than the current ones but can be stacked as you said.
Thank you for playing it again and your kind words!
railgun ammo is very scarce, and considering that it takes a while to charge it to pierce through buildings decently, it honestly does not feel reliable enough for a primary weapon during a mission long term. it's so powerful that it almost feels like a secondary weapon to deal with powerful enemies, not something you would use against tons of minions and weaker enemies.
That's completely fair, I felt by limiting the ammo it would be a way to balance it since it's basically a 1-hit kill weapon, but without a secondary primary weapon it's probably not going to work.
it also happens VERY often that i mistakenly press LMB not long enough, and waste a cartridge with nothing to show for it.
You only need to hold it for about a third of a second to not waste a cartridge, the timer for it is actually just about ~10 frames in game. The cartridge dumping is kind of just to prevent players from mashing LMB and encourage them to wait and line up their shots more, but I realize an indicator for when its ready aside from the maximum would be nice. Sorry about that.
the grenade is kind of situational. i can see it being useful in some circumstances, but most of the time i would rather just destroy the obstacle between me and the target with whatever machine gun i currently have equipped rather than having to press x, press it again and then wait for the grenade to finish its arc and reach the target
I realize I kind of need a tutorial and maybe a non-lethal grenade for this, but you can use it to bait enemies with explosions and also hit them when it's at a really convenient time. As you said, it's situational and I think it's best used when enemies are near explosive containers or way behind dozens of buildings since it can hit them from anywhere. Eventually I'll have different types like EMPs and smoke grenades so hopefully it'll be more useful then.
the scatter gun felt pretty wimpy. the scatter itself is pretty small, and by having to wait between each shot it feels like another inferior alternative to the machine guns, and the increased damage does not make up for it.
Gotcha. It's best for wiping out groups/formations of enemies like in the fourth and second level, but I can see why it's not as useful as the MGs. I'll see if I can improve it.
Thanks again!
Thanks for playing!
The scattergun is okay, but I think it should be able to one-shot the smaller mechs up close.
Agreed. I'll see if I can have the bullets double their damage for maybe half a second after they're fired.
The railgun is amazing. It's a bit overpowered because enemies can't really do anything when you one-shot them from behind cover, but damn is it satisfying.
It's definitely a weapon that will probably come late game since it's so OP, but it's also so much fun I might have to put it earlier.
The new level looks great and I like that the new enemies have a mobility edge on the player, but with all the weapons and ammo you have no lone enemy is ever going to feel threatening.
This is true, I'll probably have to come up with some heavier enemies now to counteract that. Maybe I should have more buildings as well since in an open space it's way easier to dodge the enemy's shots.
I'd consider pulling a uno-reverse on the player and adding an indirect enemy that fires at you from behind cover.
Good idea. It's going to be tricky to code, but I would like to see that too.
The hovercraft is so much louder than anything else.
I think I forgot to lower their maximum audio gain, oops. Thanks for pointing that out!
This game has a lot of promise and I'm glad you're leaning more into the simulator angle with it, I think that differentiates it from the other AC-likes out there. I love that you actually have visible hardpoints and loadouts like with an aircraft, that alone makes it pretty unique.
It's a bit hard to control, and as others have said the inertia is really intense, it kind of makes it feel like there's low gravity. Regaining control after accelerating forward for awhile is hard, but it's also slow enough that I find it enjoyable.
Combat is difficult and it's hard to hit things from so far away, but that's to be expected with the less arcade-y gunplay. It'd be nice to have a few more indicators that my shots are landing though.
also the death screen being just "It's over..." made me laugh