itch.io

Excellent patch! The force trim and rudder trim are greatly appreciated. If there could be an option for force trim to also trigger the rudder trim, it'd be perfect! The rudder trim right now is its own separate system, which is good for people with pedals, but it's very comfortable to have it tied into force trim since you can trim your cyclic/pedals for a specific flight, press a button, and now everything is set up.

So far all I've done is fly around a bit and after getting my controls configured this is really fun to fly around in! I love the VTOL VR simplified cockpit systems and startup, and the physics feel like a fantastic "just realistic enough to be interesting and require skill, but not so realistic that it's unflyable without a ton of practice."

It took me a couple flights to realize how easy it is to overload the helicopter. Flying with much less than full fuel made a huge difference. Maybe the default fuel could be lower, or maybe a warning to let players using the "default" flight model know they're going to have a hard time could be nice.

I haven't done any combat, just flown around a bit, but the only thing I think it needs with regards to the flight model is more trim options. Some way to apply rudder trim, since I don't have pedals, would be fantastic. I think my ideal trim setup mirrors DCS' with the push button force trim (that also applies to pedals) and then a return to center before you get authority again.

The foundation here for the flight model is rock solid though, and just throwing the little helicopter around is a blast.

The FPS counter logic was completely wrong, so I honestly am not even sure what an indicated low FPS actually means. There's no frustum culling or anything like that either. I don't know if you've tried it since the patch but there really was a massive performance problem from a really really terrible loop I wrote while half-asleep at 5AM, and I wonder if it's the cause of the FPS problems some people were having.

This seems super early so there's not much to say aside from talking about the basics. My notes while playing:

• Love the sort of Crimson Skies-ish setting and designs. This kind of setting is sorely under-done.
• Target indicators didn't seem to line up with the targets when they were off-center
• Exposure is weird and sometimes snaps between values?
• I set up a plane in the hangar with cannons and bombs. It's neat to see it react and that this stuff matters.
• The physics feel really stiff. There's such a sharp transition between the yawing for small movements and then a sharp 90 degree bank when you go just tiny bit past that.
• The guns are really loud.
• Takeoff was easy but I found landing really difficult because of the stiff controls.

Good stuff, thanks! I'm curious what you mean about the framerate though. I don't understand what you mean.

Hell yeah enginedev planedeving! For reference, I played with a gamepad.

Some notes:

• Physics are a lot more sluggish than I would expect, especially in roll. The real jet would actually be way more responsive in a roll, especially at speed.
• The SARH style missiles are a pretty cool idea and make it feel kinda like using guns but with missiles.
• Speaking of guns, sometimes it felt like I would sweep a target with bullets but to no effect.
• I love love love the way planes are visible in the distance.
• The demo starts with cure girls in a hangar between missions. This is a good idea.
• I like that the blackout mechanic is there, but also not overbearing and kinda just for flavor.
• There's a bunch of issues with the UI with where buttons gets placed when changing resolutions and sometimes disappearing buttons.
• I'm not sure if the gamepad controls can be rebound, but it was hell on me having the triggers be throttle, and the bumpers be yaw. 
• Runs perfectly smooth!

Lots of cute art, but the UI's art style is all over the place, and it's what's grabbing my attention the most.

• Escape menu has a very smooth sci-fi look (looks great, just doesn't look like anything else)
• Loading screen + all the character art is another style
• Main menu has a "modern indie game" look for its buttons
• Detention has clean pixel art for the rooms and characters
• Sortie screen has a kinda "Unity game" look to it.
• The mission complete screen uses a pixel font that I don't think is used anywhere else?

While having multiple styles in the same game isn't necessarily bad (and to be honest, there are very pragmatic reasons to do so), it really should be kept to 2, maybe 3, and they should all be internally consistent with each other. While I'm not a huge fan of what to me feels like clashing styles, the Celeste artist wrote a good article on the subject that I think is worth considering.

Other notes

• I love the main menu scrolling around the base.
• Ability to rebind controls would be nice, though I assume is planned since there's a space for it in the escape menu. I prefer to play a shmup with arrow keys and Z/X/C.
• The actual in-stage gameplay/graphics is pretty good!
• The (starter?) character is faster and twitchier than I was expecting. She feels like the speedier version of the main character.
• In the cutscene with the big wooden platform, they started shooting and I got hurt before the camera scrolled back. Might have had something to do with my having paused in the middle of it?
• If there are multiple weapons, having a faster way to get to them versus cycling between them might be useful.
• The hitbox was kinda confusing when your "stand" is out. My brain knows it didn't change, but when I have to make intuitive split second dodges, it confused me.
• I liked purple green boss a lot.
• I never got any points to unlock stuff on the database (maybe I missed something) but I think that's a fun idea and love "codexes" like that. Making it unlockable also gives a fun meta-progression to the game.

It's Marmo. It's Real.

Thanks! I'm starting to think the FPS counter is broken because on the occasional frame drops the FPS actually goes up!

Weird 🤷‍♀️

That's pretty amazing. What are your system specs? There's definitely something going wrong somewhere. It's a custom engine so who knows what I missed up, especially when I can only test on my machine.

This shouldn't be the case if aspect ratio doesn't change. I've tested with changing resolution (e.g. 1366x768 vs 2560x1440) and the view is the same. If you made the aspect ratio narrow/wider though, you will see less/more, and that's just inevitable unless I force an aspect ratio on the game.

Windows Defender might complain about this being a trojan virus. I've contacted Microsoft about this, but there's not much I can do about it on my end until they do something.

Edit: This might be fixed now?

Honestly I've thought about it, but I'd have to strip a lot of stuff out because of assets and plugins. It wouldn't be something that just builds and runs right away. Work would need to be done on it.

There is no further development planned.

This is really good! I love the style, the cannon mechanic and the way you can't shoot behind you add just enough depth to keep it interesting. And on top of all that, the fact that it's actually built on a 90s engine is 😙👌 You can't rate 90s any more than that.

This is really good! I love the style, the cannon mechanic and the way you can't shoot behind you add just enough depth to keep it interesting. And on top of all that, the fact that it's actually built on a 90s engine is 😙👌

Bevy is way too Rustbrained for me. I don't even understand the Hello World.

Ha, that's really cool! Thanks for sharing.

That was neat!

No. That's all there is.

Oops, I forgot to set the build to Windows for the itch.io app. It should download correctly in the app now.

Tiny Combat Arena is coming to Steam. This is a different game.

Thanks! It's so nice not thinking about textures 😂

As per the FAQ

There is no demo of the game available at this time. If any early access or playtest periods come to be, they will be announced beforehand. If you've come across footage of people playing a "demo", you've probably seen an old version of the game that used to be available on itch.io. That version of the game is a different game and not representative of Tiny Combat Arena in its current state.

And the sticky

For the time being, I've unlisted the download since the version that was previously available is so far removed from the current incarnation that I'd rather it not cause confusion. I plan on making it available again at a later time, or if I can figure out some better way to distribute it while still making it very clear that it's not the same thing as the game on Steam. 

The Steam version of the game isn't the "full version" it's a different game.

I'm sorry, but you're making a big deal out of nothing. Nobody is claiming they made anything they didn't. I've seen the dev post numerous times that some of the code in the game is stuff I've written (or specifically contributed, such as some AI code), or where X or Y asset came from.

Plagiarism is a strong word here. Ever since the very beginning of Underspace I've been in touch with the dev saying, "Hey I already wrote that, you should use my code!" since I want to see a Freelancer-like succeed as much as anyone else. I'm pretty sure there's more code beyond just the various things I've put on my GitHub that are being used in the game, and I still regularly talk with them. My name's going to be in the credits and all that, so there's really no issue here.

This game is no longer under development.

At the moment, there's no plans for that. The game will be available only through Steam.

However, I do plan on making the old itch.io version that used to be on here available again. It's a completely different game, and I'll probably rename it to something else to help make that clear, but it's a cool piece of the game's history nonetheless and I want to preserve it.

Vehicles will not be controllable. Please see the FAQ for more information.

https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena/devlog/272147/tiny-combat-arena-faq

It'll only be for Windows. Please read the FAQ.

https://why485.itch.io/tiny-combat-arena/devlog/272147/tiny-combat-arena-faq

Please read the sticky

https://itch.io/t/1483667/where-is-the-demo-download

Please read the sticky 

https://itch.io/t/1483667/where-is-the-demo-download

It's Unity all the way down.

As with the original Tiny Combat Arena, this little mini-game has been unlisted for the time being. I keep seeing chatter around this demo as if it is representative of the final game and it simply isn't at all. They are quite literally different games.

That said, I do plan on making this available again at a later time, or if I can figure out some better way to distribute it while still making it very clear that it's not the same thing as the game on Steam.