(Beta Testing) 1999: Megallennium 6-in-1 Mega Cart

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Post by Newbie Newtype »

- consider a more animated background, it looks kinda "jerky" and not smooth.
I couldn't go with smooth pixel movement because with the dithering it produces a "flickering" effect on some monitors and just becomes very distracting (something I don't want in a background).
-I died and a line of those green flying things (like, more than 5 of them, in a line and overlapping) flew onto the screen and directly towards me. This might be a problem from running it in WINE, I don't know. I couldn't do anything except die Sad

- speaking of those things (dragons?) sometimes when they fly on the screen, they make a beeline for the player without much warning.
When they come on screen I tend to panic. It would be nice to have some visual distinction between the ones that charge and those that circle. Nice touch though!
The gremlins should all have the same movement arc (except they get faster as the game progresses). Next time you play can you press Ctrl + F12 and make a .gif of the gremlins that supposedly charge straight at the player?

Re: extra features like power-ups and smart bombs. I did have these in mind but they never came to fruition.

Also, PicOHRoss is not feature complete. It's the bare minimum needed for a release (and that includes not having keyboard support yet, which IS coming).
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

I only had a little time to play, some thoughts

* Owlbears - beautiful, polished, fun, hard. I can't last very long, but I did keep coming back to it. It feels like a very small game-- I am assuming there is just the one level, and that It just keeps getting harder until I die, but I am cool with that.

I was a little confused by the controls. I was expecting a fire button, but couldn't find one. Just by luck I realized that pushing the arrow keys in the direction I am already facing fires.

Would there be any downside to auto-firing every time I change directions? Then I could attack with a single tap, rather than almost every attack being a double-tap.

* PicOHRss - I puzzled out the meaning of the numbers pretty quickly, but I haven't figured out a winning strategy yet. I'll just have to wait to play when I can focus on it for a full 15 minutes without distractions, and actually try to logic it out a bit.

* Star Dartle - Love what you have done with this! I haven't even had time to play through the first level yet, but I will when I get time. The planet is a very nice visual addition. I love your vision of what Lord Shiptaur looks like. The bottom status bar looks good, and could use an HP/Weapon bar of some kind. Poke me if you need help making one.

* QQYYZZ - Looks super cool, I die in like 12 seconds no matter what. I'm an old man with old-man-reflexes ;)

* Xoo - I have only dipped my toe, but I am excited about it. More feedback later

* Dr Moonlight - I have olny played through the intro, I'll give more feedback on this later
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

Default fire buttons are either double tapping a direction or Z, and you can change what button fires in the settings.

EDIT: It looks like Owlbears' readme file was never included, which it really should since I give credit to a free font I downloaded in it. Here are the Instructions I included
Instructions


- - - - - Default Controls - - - - -

The arrow keys change the direction Pibi is facing. Pressing the same
direction while Pibi is facing that way will fire a magic shot in that
direction.

The Z key will also fire a magic shot.



You may customize the controls in the options menu.



- - - - - Scoring Points - - - - -

Each Owlbear and their friends give a set amount of points by default.

Owlbear - 100 points

Oozer - 200 points

Gremlin - 300 points

But that's not all they give! If Pibi blasts multiple enemies in a row
in a single lane then a score multiplier will increase, multiplying
these score values by that number (maximum multiplier is 8x)

If Pibi has a multiplier then he has a short amount of time to keep the
multiplier refreshed by defeating more enemies in the same row. If a
multiplier is present, Pibi can still defeat enemies in other lanes
before the multiplier disappears.


Once Pibi has exhausted his extra lives the game is over and the total
amount of points accumulated that game will display. If this score is
high enough to display on the high score table, it will be written to
disk.


Pibi can earn an extra life starting at 15,000 points, and then every
score value multiplied by 3 after that.

As monsters are defeated, they will gradually become faster. Try to
score many points as early as possible!



- - - - - - The Enemies - - - - - -

Owlbears

Owlbears are big, they are fast, but most importantly they are
mean, hungry, and there are a lot of them! They make up the bulk of Dr.
Wartor's monster army and constantly come at every direction.

Owlbears begin moving slowly, but they gain more speed than other
monsters if left unchecked. Blast them quickly!



Oozer
Oozer is an ooze that wears a mask to give itself a cute face.
They move slowly, but they are made of gelatin and can bounce high to
avoid your shots.

Be careful when you defeat Oozers, they have a last trick up their
sleeve when you've thought you've destroyed them!



Gremlin
Gremlins are Dr. Wartor's air force. They will circle around the
battle field until slowly descending on Pibi when he least expects it.
Don't let other enemies distract you! Time a good shot before it is too
late!



- - - - - General Options - - - - - -

You may revert to default controls as described in these instructions in
the options menu.

It is also possible to reset the high score table. A warning will appear
prompting whether you are sure you want to proceed with the action.

Use the left and right arrow keys to adjust the volume of sound and
music. The sound is set to low by default for the protection of players
with loud sound systems or loud headsets, adjust accordingly before
playing.
Last edited by Newbie Newtype on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by TMC »

Huh, wow, a readme.

I had thought the character's name was Plbl, some kind of abbreviation for a strange name to cram every byte into the ROM cartridge.
Pibi can earn an extra life starting at 15,000 points, and then every
score value multiplied by 3 after that.
I suggest rewording that, it's very unclear. I guess you mean 15k, 45k, 135k, etc.
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

Virtuous Sword wrote:Ultra Frontier
- please add some powerup to the level, even if its just a 1up/extra life. It could be cool to collect points on the screen, and would give direction to the players movements, instead of just travelling through empty space (which is also cool, I must admit)
adding rows of points might help the player practice the controls!
You might take the route of filling the screen with these point-items, or having them sparsely strewn. Having more objects on screen would probably reduce eye-strain a little (depends how you do it really)
-to make it hurt the eyes less, why not give the bg some colour and design, and vary it from level to level. A less sharp contrast would ease the harshness
P.S what happened to the textures?
Ultra Frontier has 24 levels. Maybe no one else will ever beat it, but I can beat it consistently so I know it's possible. When I record footage for the multi-cart trailer, I might record a complete play through of Ultra Frontier so people can marvel at how impossible it seems.

Point items aren't a bad idea. I considered adding them several times. I might still do it.

I took the textures and parallax out because my play testers (and myself) thought they were distracting. The parallax background was a really slowly scrolling screen of dark gray stars. However, since it moved at a different scrolling speed (i.e. parallax), it drew the players' eye, when the player should be focus on edge of the screen for any oncoming obstacles.

The same is true of the textured objects. As they fly by, they make the player look toward the textured tiles. In order to be successful, the player must be looking at the right edge of the screen at all times.

I just had an idea though. Maybe if every tile in the game had the same low-key texture (a circle or something), they wouldn't stand out from one another. Then the player could ignore them.

Likewise, maybe if the background scrolled at the same speed of the walls (i.e. was not parallax) it would be less distracting. I'll experiment with this.
TMC wrote:Did the playtesters find the parallax in Ultra Frontier annoying because it gave an inaccurate sense of speed? Or did you really overdo it with a lot of stuff in the background?
In Ultra Frontier, nothing stays on screen for more than a second. The only consistent objects are the "hero" and the background. As a result, they tend to draw people's eye instead of the fast moving objects (that the player should be looking at).

The background was a field of dark gray stars. It tried making it move slowly and quickly. I might try to make it scroll at the same rate as the level (in other words, not scrolling at all). I might also try to make the stars into tiles so they fly by quickly (at the exact same speed as the obstacles). I can't remember if I tried that already.
Newbie Newtype wrote:EDIT: It looks like Owlbears' readme file was never included, which it really should since I give credit to a free font I downloaded in it. Here are the Instructions I included.
Sorry about that. We should probably include a group readme file with instructions for every game. We'll add that before the final release for sure.
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Post by SwordPlay »

Feedback for Dr. Moonlight's Happy World:

It is very scary ;_; maybe some quiet music would be nice?
you might look here and generate/make your own.
http://tones.wolfram.com/generate

Please make bullets more powerful. A bullet does, like, 1.5x the damage of a strike with the hands. It should be at least 3x to 10x as powerful as a melee attack, or more, I reckon. You could make them rarer to compensate.
Is it based on ATK? please make it independent from stats, or make it based on a stat which is the same for all characters, such as CTR or something.

In the Nightly build of CUSTOM, one can add commands to the battle menu based on a tag.
Perhaps you could utilise that in some way?
Now, if you have an item in your inventory, you can add a command to the battle menu.
Assuming that that works in the multicart.
Am I right in thinking that every item has a specific enemy that is weak to it?
I didn't complete it yet.
"Dreamer" doesn't attack? I wailed on that thing for more than 20 turns.
How much health do enemies have? 10s of 1000s? :(
You should make it more clear if enemies cannot be defeated in a conventional way.
I liked the subtle hints, but most of them are only obvious on successive play throughs.

You might also include rooms with no monsters. Just for fun, to expand the mythos, backstory etc. or to give the player character some exposition/character development.
"I'm a small child. I just killed a werewolf. I need a drink."
"I'm a bodybuilder. Those alien space hamsters are ruling the world. When I get out of here I'm going to go on another killing spree."
"I'm a blackbelt. That chick was hot. I wonder if I'll get to have sex with her afterwards?"
And maybe some dialogue lines depending on which monsters they've killed, and with hints on how to kill the others.
Last edited by SwordPlay on Sat Apr 08, 2017 4:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

Owlbears:
Can't seem to replicate this, but if you get hit by a gremlin while another gremlin is on-screen, when you respawn, he can appear in the upper left corner, circling on and off-screen.
Overall, I think its a good game, even if it's not something I'd really want to play too much.

PicOHRoss:
You can kinda cheat, if you aren't sure if a single pic is a good or not and if its on the edge, you can block off the ends and it'll tell you.
Related, sometimes the corner ones don't seem to register.
In all seriousness, are the pictures you get supposed to look like Jackson Pollock art, or am I just missing it? Either way, you might want to let the player linger on them and/or provide a name so they know what they're looking at. That said, it's not a bad game.

UltraFrontier:
Probably something on my end, but columns seem to flicker as they scroll past.
Virtuous Sword wrote:Feedback for Dr. Moonlight's Happy World:

It is very scary ;_; maybe some quiet music would be nice? (I might have a go at making some for you)
Otherwise you might look here and generate/make your own.
http://tones.wolfram.com/generate
I'm good on music. I intended for it to only have the music the player character, not the in-game audience, would hear. I'm more than capable of making my own music, as evidenced by my previous games, its just a question of whether or not its good music to other people.
Please make bullets more powerful. A bullet does, like, 1.5x the damage of a strike with the hands. It should be at least 3x to 10x as powerful as a melee attack, or more, I reckon. You could make them rarer to compensate.
Is it based on ATK? please make it independent from stats, or make it based on a stat which is the same for all characters, such as CTR or something.
Eh, I guess at least the Gravekeeper should have the damage amped up against him. No reason why he should take several bullets outside of sheer badassery. As for the other question, all the bullets have a static rate of damage.
Am I right in thinking that every item has a specific enemy that is weak to it?
Shh...you'll spoil the surprise.
"Dreamer" doesn't attack? I wailed on that thing for more than 20 turns.
He's just so confident that you can't do anything to him that he just forgets to attack.
You should make it more clear if enemies cannot be defeated in a conventional way.
The question is not if they cannot be defeated in a conventional way, the questions is if they can be defeated in a conventional way.
You might also include rooms with no monsters. Just for fun, to expand the mythos, backstory etc. or to give the player character some exposition/character development.
Dr. Moonlight's dialog is what expands the mythos and backstory. As for what it is, well, show, don't tell. Mind you, I've left some important character elements out, surprising ones, largely because I plan on using the character again in other projects.
"I'm a small child. I just killed a werewolf. I need a drink."
"I'm a bodybuilder. Those alien space hamsters are ruling the world. When I get out of here I'm going to go on another killing spree."
"I'm a blackbelt. That chick was hot. I wonder if I'll get to have sex with her afterwards?"
And maybe some dialogue lines depending on which monsters they've killed, and with hints on how to kill the others.
Even though I have no intentional of using this idea, I gotta say it brought a smile to my face.
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

Owlbears:
Can't seem to replicate this, but if you get hit by a gremlin while another gremlin is on-screen, when you respawn, he can appear in the upper left corner, circling on and off-screen.
That does seem odd.
PicOHRoss:
You can kinda cheat, if you aren't sure if a single pic is a good or not and if its on the edge, you can block off the ends and it'll tell you.
Yeah, I know, but I realized that even if I made it more strict it could still be cheated. I plan on having the hint feature a toggleable feature that can be turned off for added challenge.
In all seriousness, are the pictures you get supposed to look like Jackson Pollock art, or am I just missing it? Either way, you might want to let the player linger on them and/or provide a name so they know what they're looking at. That said, it's not a bad game.
The boards are randomized (and will generate easier boards for larger puzzles in the next update).
Last edited by Newbie Newtype on Sat Apr 08, 2017 2:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

Newbie Newtype wrote:That does seem odd.
I literally can't reproduce it at all, so I think there's a good chance it won't be much of a problem.
The boards are randomized (and will generate easier boards for larger puzzles in the next update).
That explains so much. Like how sometimes you're literally forced to make a guess.
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

I know, right? I was actually very happy with the difficulty until RNG generated enough puzzles that were too hard, which was after I sent a release.
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

A new version of the multi-cart was just uploaded.

It has some big changes to Star Dartle and some small changes to Dr. Moonlight's Happy World.
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

More Star Dartle feedback...

This game keeps getting better. I like the level and power-up indicators. I beat the game! Crazy ending sequence!

*1-3 ends while there are still enemies on screen. Change the timing on this.

*After the first set of levels (World 1), the game becomes trivial in difficulty. There are a couple fixes for this that I can think of.

1) Make weapon 7 less powerful. It can pretty much kill every enemy as soon as it comes on screen from the right side.

2) Make more enemies approach from the rear. There are a lot of these in World 1, but they seem to stop on worlds 2 and 3.

*Level 3-7 has a single invisible enemy on it. After you destroy it, Shiptaur asks "Kill them all?" Then the level suddenly jumps to 4-4 where the final boss is. The final boss was fun, by the way.

*The intro text boxes disappear too fast! Likewise, the ending screen text boxes disappear too fast. Is there any reason that all the text boxes and full screens can't just stay indefinitely until the player presses a key? Why try and time them at all?
Last edited by Willy Elektrix on Sat Apr 08, 2017 4:11 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by SwordPlay »

Here's my experience/feedback of Star Dartle *just skip to the end if you don't want to read my rambling/ranting*
edit: Profanity. I can edit it out if you like.

"Lord Shiptaur and his loyal servant fly out to the enemy fleet."
I didn't realise that meant 'I' was going to do ALL the work.
Why are you just watching dude? If you want to see them all destroyed, lend a hand, toss a powerup my way or something.
No sense in blaming me when things go wrong. "YOU LIE" "Yeah? Well f*** you, do it yourself. You think I'm trying to count these c****? I'm trying to KILL these m************. Have you ever watched a man die, Shiptaur? Ever seen a man sucked into the vacuum of space? Pops like a goddamn balloon. Blood spurts out of every orifice... EVERY.... ORIFICE.... Not to mention they're mostly mangled pulps due to the explosion of their ships... but noooooo.... Kill them all Star Dartle.... Don't let any escape Star Dartle... Don't let the Star Dartle get destroyed... How many escaped Star Dartle?....

Well f***, if you were really there, why the f*** didn't YOU count them?
Shiptaur and Star Dartle fly out to the enemy fleet my a**. More like "Star Dartle does all the work and Shiptaur b****** at Star Dartle.
And who are these clowns in the intro? WHO THE F*** ARE THEY? ARE THEY GOING TO HELP? AT ALL? THERE'S LIKE FIVE OF US, LETS JUST GO AND KILL THEM ALL ALREADY, QUIT MOANING AT ME WITH MY TINY PEW PEW LASER GUN I CAN'T SHOOT FAST ENOUGH TO KILL THEM ALL, OKAY? MAYBE IF YOU GUYS LENT A HAND WE COULD STOP THEM FROM ESCAPING.

How many escaped? FORTY SIX. FORTY SIX ESCAPED. Do you know how I know? CUS I WAS COUNTING THEM GOING BY WHILE I WAS TRYING NOT TO GET MY A** BLOWN UP. OKAY?
Frankly, I'm finding it easier to count them than to shoot them.
You want me to do both? I'm not a goddamned math prodigy, I'm a space pilot, Shiptaur.
I press this button and some weird bullets come out. I'm not clear on the details. Sometimes I fly into these weird glowing orbs and the bullets change. I DON'T KNOW HOW. I just fly it up and down and sometimes back and forth. IT CAN'T EVEN TURN AROUND OR ANGLE ITSELF. It literally faces one direction, I am a goddamned MAESTRO at flying this thing, and that's where my usefulness to you ends.
I AM NOT GOOD AT MATHS OKAY? There are just too many enemies. Like, 50 or something in each stage. You want me to kill literally hundreds of enemies, and count the ones that I miss.
If you start asking me to do your taxes, we're going to have a problem. HOW MUCH DO I OWE IN TAXES STAR DARTLE? YOU LIE. GROW IN POWER.
Gee, I missed some enemies. Must be cus I was too busy TRYING TO KILL THEM ALL AND NOT DIE. Excuse me for not keeping a tally. Maybe I'll just whip out my abacus while I'm avoiding meteors and blowing the s*** out of your enemies.
Maybe get an onboard computer that can do stuff. Computers can count, you know. I really don't know why you're asking me to do this menial job. It's an insult to my abilities and role as a spaceship-pilot and s***-blower-upper. I'm really good at those jobs. Not so much at keeping track of hundreds of objects flying past me in space. How the heck do you know if I'm lying? ARE YOU ALSO COUNTING THEM? This is NOT cool.

I killed 100s of men today, Shiptaur, all the while piloting this piece of junk tin can that you call Star Dartle. Is it supposed to be speedy? Because I noticed about a hundred ships whizzing around WAY faster than me. Some of those ships can literally take more than 1 shot before being destroyed. Unlike this piece of crap you stuck me in.
How about you though, how are you, what you been up to? Up to much? Get much done?
What have you really done, except nag, though?
I notice you have plenty of time to look over my shoulder and berate me for doing YOUR job.
God help me, I killed children... I'm a monster... Okay, maybe the next time I won't- GODDAMNIT SHIPTAUR! Is this because I DIDN'T kill them?
God DAMN IT ALL TO HELL.


Hud - a little unclear. Especially the level/player bit. Could use horizontal space a bit better.

How many escaped - Is this cumulative, or for each stage? It saves the number you inputted last time, suggesting cumulative.

Planets are stripy.
Those spaceships have seemingly empty bubbles containing nothing.


P.S. At the end, I chose no, and then it was really anti-climactic, and now do I have to go through 40(?) levels again? :(
I hope not. That was very long, tiring and repetitive. Please just drop me back to the beginning of that level, because I don't want to have to go through that again. The "thingy" was good foreshadowing, but please it make it more obvious that something is horribly, terribly amiss. You don't have to hint at it. You have, like, 40 levels to gradually make it dawn on the player that something is not quite right.

I think the game would be improved immeasurably by the addition of more of those "thingies" but different and more diverse stuff, and maybe some text accompanying. For example. if the player is punished, text should pop up. You could sell the story more, it's very interesting, and even more interesting than the game itself in many regards. The story could carry the game, but not the other way around.

The beginning is quite slow.

I liked the different weapons, but towards the end, most enemies were destroyed before I could see them on screen.
I feel like it's a wasted effort in many regards, and I ended up just sitting behind my keyboard and pressing up/down.
It's a little weird in the beginning, you can't control your shots, and fire sporadically.
Later on, you're literally spewing wave after wave of bullets covering 1/3 of the screen. Waste bullets much, Shiptaur?
wave gun can be abused - enemies should come from behind every so often. Tougher enemies should also come, and in denser formations.

Please for the love of god, add a pause button.
Last edited by SwordPlay on Sat Apr 08, 2017 5:53 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

Willy Elektrix wrote:More Star Dartle feedback...

This game keeps getting better. I like the level and power-up indicators. I beat the game! Crazy ending sequence!
Do let me know if any of the images need improvement. Outside of a certain one some of them were a bit rushed.
*After the first set of levels (World 1), the game becomes trivial in difficulty. There are a couple fixes for this that I can think of.

1) Make weapon 7 less powerful. It can pretty much kill every enemy as soon as it comes on screen from the right side.

2) Make more enemies approach from the rear. There are a lot of these in World 1, but they seem to stop on worlds 2 and 3.
*cough* Have you tried playing it the other way yet? Will increase the difficulty a little bit, but keep in mind I enjoy pulling pretentious and obtuse methods of telling the player they're doing it wrong.
*Level 3-7 has a single invisible enemy on it. After you destroy it, Shiptaur asks "Kill them all?" Then the level suddenly jumps to 4-4 where the final boss is. The final boss was fun, by the way.
Okay, maybe my sudden use of symbolism throws things off a little bit. 4 is death. If it's too obnoxious I can change it.
*The intro text boxes disappear too fast! Likewise, the ending screen text boxes disappear too fast. Is there any reason that all the text boxes and full screens can't just stay indefinitely until the player presses a key? Why try and time them at all?
I increased the timing. It's that way because I like the way it flows. Maybe the ending will be changed if it turns out people keep having a problem with it, but the intro is set in stone.
Virtuous Sword wrote:Shiptaur and Star Dartle fly out to the enemy fleet my a**. More like "Star Dartle does all the work and Shiptaur b****** at Star Dartle.
And who are these clowns in the intro? WHO THE F*** ARE THEY? ARE THEY GOING TO HELP? AT ALL? THERE'S LIKE FIVE OF US, LETS JUST GO AND KILL THEM ALL ALREADY, QUIT MOANING AT ME WITH MY TINY PEW PEW LASER GUN I CAN'T SHOOT FAST ENOUGH TO KILL THEM ALL, OKAY? MAYBE IF YOU GUYS LENT A HAND WE COULD STOP THEM FROM ESCAPING.
I like how your reaction to the Giger-esque creatures I put in there isn't "Hmm, these guys are creepy", but rather, "Why aren't you helping!?"
If you start asking me to do your taxes, we're going to have a problem. HOW MUCH DO I OWE IN TAXES STAR DARTLE? YOU LIE. GROW IN POWER.
Coming 2nd Quarter 2018, Star Dartle 2000: Tax Simulator.
I killed 100s of men today, Shiptaur, all the while piloting this piece of junk tin can that you call Star Dartle. Is it supposed to be speedy? Because I noticed about a hundred ships whizzing around WAY faster than me. Some of those ships can literally take more than 1 shot before being destroyed. Unlike this piece of crap you stuck me in.
I dunno, Jupiter to Earth in the course of a half-hour doesn't seem like such a bad speed.
How many escaped - Is this cumulative, or for each stage? It saves the number you inputted last time, suggesting cumulative.
It's for each stage. Probably a good idea to wipe that afterwards then...
P.S. At the end, I chose no, and then it was really anti-climactic, and now do I have to go through 40(?) levels again? :(
I hope not. That was very long, tiring and repetitive. Please just drop me back to the beginning of that level, because I don't want to have to go through that again. The "thingy" was good foreshadowing, but please it make it more obvious that something is horribly, terribly amiss. You don't have to hint at it. You have, like, 40 levels to gradually make it dawn on the player that something is not quite right.
Hmm, like a giant skull telling you to slaughter your enemies? How about multiple skull shaped ships appearing on your side?
I'm not however, going to let the player automatically skip to the end if they so desire. I could do that in a way that enables all the different endings, but that feels like giving the player an easy way to undo the damage they caused in the previous playthrough.
I think the game would be improved immeasurably by the addition of more of those "thingies" but different and more diverse stuff, and maybe some text accompanying. For example. if the player is punished, text should pop up. You could sell the story more, it's very interesting, and even more interesting than the game itself in many regards. The story could carry the game, but not the other way around.
I'll see about it, but generally it'll lose some impact if bombard the player with anvils about it.
I liked the different weapons, but towards the end, most enemies were destroyed before I could see them on screen.
I feel like it's a wasted effort in many regards, and I ended up just sitting behind my keyboard and pressing up/down.
It's a little weird in the beginning, you can't control your shots, and fire sporadically.
Later on, you're literally spewing wave after wave of bullets covering 1/3 of the screen. Waste bullets much, Shiptaur?
wave gun can be abused - enemies should come from behind every so often. Tougher enemies should also come, and in denser formations.
It's almost like someone was trying to give subtle foreshadowing...
Please for the love of god, add a pause button.
Boom. Done.
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SwordPlay
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Post by SwordPlay »

EDIT: Why not work some mystery/investigation/puzzle elements into Star Dartle, like collecting items, making choices, looking for 'clues' or content via cues etc.
STAR DARTLE
You could subtly hint at the backstory through messages.
For example, scrambled and intercepted transmissions.
I'd also like to see corpses from the blown up thingies. MAKES IT FEEL REAL.
On that note, the explosions for meteors are too small!
I'd also like to see those giger esque creatures floating through the background occasionally, and maybe 1 or 2 levels, they can come along and "help out" or possibly just a level or 2 of watching them do stuff? It gets really boring sometimes, is what I'm saying. There's cool stuff in the game, but it is underused!
It doesn't have to be gameplay. I'm really thinking in a more cinematic way.
I think Star Dartle is great, but repetitive. Mix it up a little with the way that content is delivered.
Stuff in the background, foreground, results of blowing stuff up, level structures, enemy ships, messages from the enemies and from Shiptaur, maybe the thoughts of the pilot, all stream of consciousness sort of stuff.
I think you could reduce the number of levels a little bit too, or change them in some way.
It so far strikes me as really absurd and bleak, and I'd like to see it playing to it's strengths.
One complaint I have is that sometimes there is no room for a rest, especially if you kill all the enemies. It just goes straight on to the next stage. Now that you've added a pause button, should be a little better. I'd also like to see branching events, such as specific messages for completing/not performing an action.
I mentioned it earlier, but the player should be berated with a brief message if they are punished. If the player does what they are asked, one of those creepy horros/Shiptaur should grin creepily in the background, like foreshadowing or symbolism or whatever.
It is a little bit difficult to understand what is going on story-wise. I didn't complete it yet (the "yes" ending) so I don't know what the twist is. I had a look in the files (sorry) and saw there seem to be multiple endings... Not sure, but I doubt players will like getting to the end and having to do it all over. Maybe add a save point half way through or something? I honestly have no idea.
Frankly I'd like to see its creepy themes built up and explored a lot more. I really think it could make a great horror / absurdist game.
I'm going to try it again now with no-kills.

One gameplay element you could add is indestructible blocks that form paths through the level. Navigating stuff like that would be cool!!
You might try getting some ideas from this. Currently the game is 1-dimensional
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayj3-LpLlII
Last edited by SwordPlay on Sun Apr 09, 2017 2:34 am, edited 4 times in total.
"Imagination. Life is your creation."
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