itch.io

That's completely fair. I'd like to have some additional animations for the player's mech, but it requires swapping out the entire sprite for each frame due to the drawing method. I'll still see what I can do to add those details though.

By the way — I know you said you only have a laptop touchpad, but the game should be pretty friendly to play even without a mouse. I've actually played it quite extensively with my own laptop's touchpad for testing.

It's opened now. Thanks!

I don't want to spoil too much, but a select few of these I've already had plans to implement for awhile now. Without being too specific, you can expect some of the features in section 3, 4.1, and 5!

Some of these you've come up with are very interesting - in particular having visible equipment strapped to the mech and the optical mast, but the scale is unfortunately quite small, so showing them in-game might be difficult. Instead of ammunition, I could see a pickup you need to return back to base with being visible on the rear of the turret though, that'd be cool to see.

Thank you for the ideas; unfortunately it seems your Google doc is restricted.

My apologies. Do you recall if there was an error message displayed before it closed?

Tutorial going over all the controls and systems is planned, thanks for playing!

Cheers! It's just Game Maker. Hangar art was made slowly, pixel by pixel!

Thanks for playing and the ideas! I could see some DLC taking place on different moons with some new characters. I'm working on adding anti-tank mines as a secondary weapon as well.

Nice to see another Gungriffon fan! There was definitely some inspiration with the UI and other design elements from that classic series.

thank you for making this game!

Thank you for playing!

Thank you for making a video! I chuckled whenever you did the voice saying the name of the game and mission complete, haha

Much appreciated for sharing it too!

Thank you for playing!

Cheers for playing and the ideas!

- Missile options that fire vertically to come straight down on intended targets, more direct (reduced splash damage) and over buildings, but you do not have the benefit of hitting multiple targets lined up (no line of fire).

Interesting idea. I'll see what I can do.

- Hostiles appear on the map with the intent of destroying buildings and you're tasked with killing the enemies with the least amount of hostile and collateral damage.

This has been planned for awhile, but I have yet to implement a mission where it happens. I think I'll need to have a meter on screen telling the player how much collateral damage they can cause before it's game over.

- Certain missions in a campaign come during times of attrition, if you ever progress to subcomponent destruction or replacements (maintaining inventory, repairs and battle damage), repairs must be conducted using the remains of enemy hulks. If you cause too much outright damage or continue to damage destroyed mechs, there is less to salvage or replacement parts.

That's a very novel idea. I've been working on adding wrecks to enemy tanks that the player can use as cover, but being able to salvage armor from them might be more interesting. I had also thought about the player's currency in the game being equipment salvaged from wrecks that you could sell as scrap to arms dealers in order to buy the weapons, but I'm not fully decided on that yet.

I still play games like Ultima Online now and since release, and I can easily see myself playing something like this for as long as I have something that can run it. Keep up the work! If you ever get tired of it, please find a dedicated steward or open source or license it in the future. I'd love to see this with some kind of way for people to create campaigns/missions etc. 

Thank you! I hope to finish it myself, but if there ever comes a point where I really can't, I'll consider releasing the source code and some of the systems that I used for the engine.

Nicely done with the S ranks! Sorry about the AI getting stuck. I know their pathfinding can be quite poor depending on the level. It's one of the highest priority things right now to fix and improve.

Thank you for your kind words and support!

It will definitely be a late or even post game weapon since it's so excessively powerful. That said, I chose to include it in the demo anyway since it's too much fun not to play with. Maybe I'll cut the magazine down to just 20 shots.

<3

Thank you for the kind words and feedback!

I saw that at the moment level score is determined by time and hits taken. I wonder if public damage will sometimes be a factor too? I don't know what your intention is yet with overall lore etc. but maybe depending on whether you'll go down a different factions path, and whether the missions become something akin to contracts one takes, and money won in order to buy equipment, where a fight is held could determine whether you need to be more careful with the collateral damage or will actually earn more the more damage you cause.

I don't want to punish the player too hard for collateral damage since I find it fun to shoot through buildings, but there could definitely be a few missions where you're specifically instructed to keep below a certain threshold of collateral damage and not destroy some historical buildings.

I saw that you intended to make the railgun a late game weapon because it's very powerful, which makes sense. I quite liked the need for perfect accuracy the gun required, maybe a heavy sniper rifle could be cool, one which fires instantly but has a slower reload. Maybe more semi-automatics or single shot weapons.

That'd be a nice inbetween and way to balance another weapon like it, thanks for the suggestion.

I'm not sure what else you've got planned but maybe a bit more intel going in regarding units could help you make the equipment choice.

Noted. Maybe I'll put on the mission description a specific slot indicating whether or not there'll be things like enemy air support or heavy armor.

I wonder if it would be cool to have different forms of boost. Like one where if you double tap a direction you do a sort of small power slide or shunt. Maybe there could be a slot for different evasive modules/equipment (when that helicopter's coming for me I'm terrified - love it). 

A lot of people have asked for a boost that damages enemies by charging. I like the idea of a dash-boost that goes through buildings, it could be a lot of fun. I plan on eventually adding an APS module you can select which will defend the player from incoming missiles and tank rounds.

The smoke grenade is excellent, also the spread and visualisation of the trajectory is just superb. I used it a lot to get the jump on a bunch of static heavy units often. That turret that shoots them out the sky is a pain in the ass, I love it, it forces different approaches, well done!

Nice! Glad to hear another smoke grenade user is happy with them. Those CIWS / C-RAM turrets are there specifically to stop players from always being able to snipe tanks with grenades, haha.

I really liked this one moment where I was caught amongst some parked cars, and I had full health so I can only imagine that that little grunt had hit the cars which blow me sky high. Great stuff.  

Happened to me a few times as well!

Can't wait to see what you do, you've done excellent work so far. You're very talented.

You're too kind! Thank you.

Hotline Mech-ami!

Cheers, I'm glad you like it!

Thank you! It'll be some time, but a Steam release is planned.

Eventually there will also be some supporting material illustrating things like the mechs and characters, hopefully.

Eventually!

Thank you for playing and the kind words!

-the font is a bit small and thin (maybe it's just for me) so if it could be bolder and if we had the ability to change it by ourselves would be a cool thing

I assume you mean the description text for the items in the hangar? I'm working on some new fonts to replace that, I realize it can be hard to read on a smaller display too.

-some ammo boxes can glitch into buildings but they glitch out again, it doesn't bother me at all i just thought you might want to know 

This is a problem that I have yet to solve with the faux-3D physics of the game, so for now they just find the nearest building they're stuck in and eject by pushing away. I simply didn't have enough time to come up with a solution in this build.

-if we could collect stuff and get some lore would be pretty cool

You will!

-one idea i had was that buildings serve little purpose even though there's urban warfare, so if there were some kind of anti-tank weapons hidden in them that would target you stealthily would make it more challenging

That's a cool idea. I could see some enemies having urban camo which would just be straight up a roof or walls of a house put onto their vehicle.

-the addition of stealth capabilities or going slower and night missions would be perfect

I'm working on adding more stealth elements right now, I realize that aspect is quite lacking in the game despite it being in the description. Night missions are planned as well, there's just some optimization needed to be done with the drawing systems first.

This is one of the most fun games I've ever played, keep cooking

Thanks! I'm trying, haha.

Thanks for playing! Each of those things are being slowly worked on.

(why is the pilot a baddie 😭)

A heavy dose of gene-editing and a healthy diet!

Glad you like the smoke grenades, they seem to be hit or miss for some people. The railgun is probably going to be a late game weapon since it's so over-powered, but it really is fun to vaporize anything standing in your way.

Thank you!

I'd like to ask for advice on Mission 2. It is by far the hardest mission for me since the worms are homing on to me T-T what's the strategy there?

Typically I finish that mission with either the autocannon or thermal projector. You need to keep moving at all times and watch your surroundings so you don't get boxed-in. It's best to wait until there's a large amount of them swarming together so you can take them out with minimal ammo usage. Smoke grenades are also handy for slowing them down and making an escape when you're in a tight spot.

Also, what's the highest score possible? I've only ever got A+.

The highest score you can get is an S rank. For now the score is calculated by number of hits taken and your mission time. If you finish it under 2 minutes with just one hit taken you should be able to get an S, once you go over five or sustain more than a couple hits it will start to detract from your end score. Eventually the mission objectives will vary from just destroying all enemies so there'll be other things affecting the score result, but for now it's just those two things.

In any case, this was a really fun game, and all the little details like sound and destruction animations are *chef's kiss*. Hope to see more of this!

Thank you! More to come.

Thanks for playing and making a video!

I'll see what I can do to improve the contrast. Thanks for playing and the kind words!

Thank you kindly! There is still a lot of things that I want to add in addition to just new missions and music, particularly fleshing out a story similar to the likes of AC3 as you said as well as some more game mechanics; but for now I'm happy to see people find the core gameplay fun.

Try chucking some grenades in the water, you should see some fish come flying out too.

Fantastic, really happy to hear that. I've heard from a few people it might not even be necessary to make a Linux build since Proton is so good at emulating Windows, but I'll still see if I can squeeze out a build at some point via a VM, at least to compare if there's any performance boost.

Thanks! There'll be a lot of ways to see the designs up close including the player's mech!

Please try downloading the DirectX9 patch from the Microsoft website, it should work on any Windows version. If you're using Linux, please use Winetricks to install it. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=35

Any chance this could work with Game Maker: Studio 1.4.9999?

Awesome! Glad to hear that it can stand with that classic.

Railgun and smartgun are my go-to weapons as well!

Cheers!

Thanks! Expect more of it, some overhauled UI elements should be coming soon.

Glad you like it!

Please note, I'm using DeepL to translate this text. I apologize if your tone or translation is inaccurate.

Зверніть увагу, що для перекладу цього тексту я використовую DeepL. Я перепрошую, якщо ваш тон або переклад неточний.

Не бачу змін в порівнянні з тим що було два роки тому і що є зараз.
I don't see any changes compared to two years ago and now.
Так як два роки тому було всьго дві мапи. 
Because two years ago there were only two maps. 

You played the entire game without ever once visiting the hangar to change your weapons. Click the button labelled "Hangar" next to deploy before starting.

Ви пройшли всю гру, жодного разу не відвідавши ангар, щоб змінити зброю. Перед початком гри натисніть кнопку з написом «HANGAR» поруч з пунктом розгортання.

This game has been in development for just short of a year, not two. You played the very first version which had far worse readability, only the first two maps, two weapons, and just the two kinds of enemies. This is a solo project, so slow development time should be expected. A lot was changed and added that is not immediately visible, but if you read through my development logs you can see a list of all the progress that has been made between builds.

Ця гра була в розробці трохи менше року, а не двох. Ви грали в найпершу версію, яка мала набагато гіршу читабельність, лише перші дві карти, дві зброї і лише два види ворогів. Це соло-проект, тому слід очікувати повільної розробки. Багато чого було змінено і додано, що не одразу помітно, але якщо ви захочете почитати мої журнали розробки, то зможете побачити список всього прогресу, який був досягнутий між білдами.

Але це мало за два роки і насправді нові мапи в плані дизайну жахливі та схожі одна на одну.
But it's not enough for two years and in fact, the new maps are terrible in terms of design and look similar to each other.

Again - it has not been two years.

Знову ж таки, минуло менше двох років.

I admit for now the game maps are loosely put together. I'd like them to be more varied, but making new assets takes a lot of time. For now I'm still focusing on getting down some core game systems and trying to improve things like the enemy AI before I begin to work on improving the maps. Most of them in the game right now are placeholders and will likely not make it into the final product.

Я визнаю, що поки що карти гри не дуже добре складені. Мені б хотілося, щоб вони були більш різноманітними, але створення нових ресурсів займає багато часу. Наразі я все ще зосереджений на створенні деяких основних ігрових систем і намагаюся покращити такі речі, як ворожий ШІ, перш ніж почну працювати над покращенням мап. Більшість з них у грі зараз є лише заповнювачами і, скоріш за все, не потраплять до фінального продукту.

Як на мене краще орієнтуйтесь в плані будування мап на таку серію як "Urban Strike"
As for me, it is better to focus on such a series as “Urban Strike” in terms of map building.

It's great, but it's not exactly what I want to do with my game.

Це чудово, але це не зовсім те, що я хочу зробити зі своєю грою.

Glad you like it! The railgun is a favorite of mine as well.

Thanks for the offer, I'll let you know.

Cheers for playing!

- Keybinds. Probably been said by other people.

They should've been added by now, but due to some unplanned delays I wasn't able to get them in this build. Next one should have the menus redone finally with rebinding functions implemented.

- Numbers in the menu as an option in settings?

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

- Turret direction vs reticle position indicator. Maybe a line?

Someone else requested an aim assist/laser line awhile ago. I'll see if I can have that as an option in the settings once they're redone.

- Maybe make it a bit clearer what environmentals will explode and damage you? Or give a list and images somewhere..

Noted.

It'd be nice to have something between Death By A Thousand Small Cuts Of 20mm, and Postal Code Killing Cannon. Maybe a nice 50mm stutter, or resurrect the HSTVL's cannon from the dead....and perhaps, a straight up 105mm Cannon? :P

I felt a basic tank gun might be boring but other people have asked for it too, so it's definitely going to make it in. Some intermediate burst fire weapons will probably be needed to space out the more heavy hitters too.

An unfortunately realistic plasma cannon? Exceptional against soft targets. Worthless against armor. The plasma superheats things with water in them to the point of exploding.

I like the idea of seeing the enemies burst into steam and smoke instead of just burning with the flamethrower. Sounds like it would have some pretty satisfying sound design.

Thanks again!