shmups.system11.org

Hi All,

As promised I've put up a tester version of Endless FIre, my new vector style abstract shmup. Hope you can all test it out for me!

http://www.nullpointer.co.uk/-/endless.htm

For info and the download link. Let me know how it copes with different machine speeds etc and feel free to suggest and changes..
Endless Fire is a bit of a testground for me to play with bullet patterns and stuff, its kind of filling the gap until i finish bullet eater (my other shmup)

Anyway .. please download it and have a go!

Tom

Ooh, I'm liking it already, but will need to play some more to give you a solid feedback.

Edit: High Score: 41,591 - Generations: 42

What do these 'Generations' mean? Is there a point when you actually switch from levels 1-25 to the next group of levels?

Also, what do these big numbers next to my ship mean? The one above the one that tracks my score.

Joystick support? Other than that, I'm enjoying it very much!

Fun. What do all the numbers mean?

And it should be illegal to make a shmup without joystick support, even in beta. BAD NULLPOINTER!! (j/k) Nice job.

You probably already know how to do this, but I'm guessing you want to avoid DirectInput. So: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/multimed/htm/_win32_multimedia_joystick_functions.asp

WinMM is damned easy to use compared to the DI.

>>What do these 'Generations' mean? Is there a point when you actually switch from levels 1-25 to the next group of levels?

Every 10 enemy deaths increases the generation by one.
As the generation level goes up, so does the amount of energy the enemies have to attack.
They can use the enrgy to improve , bullet speed,accuracy and intervals between bursts.. if you get killed by a pattern it is more likely to re-occur. By generation 200 the enemy have virtually unlimited energy so they will fire pretty much all the time!

>>Also, what do these big numbers next to my ship mean? The one above the one that tracks my score.

Each time you kill an enemy with spread fire (z) it releases green cells.
These increase the big green number (the multiplier)
Each time you kill an enemy with stream fire (x) it releases yellow score stars .. These are then worth the current multiplier(green) value..
This means you need to try and keep your multiplier high but also switch to stream hits frequently (as you get no points directly from your spread hits)

>Joystick support? Other than that, I'm enjoying it very much!

Yeah will maybe move to use directinput so i can support basic game device input.. (havent actually got a joystick! but might be able to fake one)

Glad you are liking it though..
Anyone tried playing on psycho mode? , Jeff minter mode

Edit: Question answered by post above.

And trying out the Psycho mode now.

Edit #2: Seems that I've gotten the hang of the multiplier thing, and I'm liking this game a lot... I just tried out the Psycho mode real quick and this is what I came up with:

1st Attempt: [Psycho Mode] High Score: 115,664 - Generations: 36
2nd Attempt: [Psycho Mode] High Score: 191,144 - Generations: 46

Should we start a High Score thread for this one?

Heh, I like how you don't mention that your proximity to the enemy ships effects the number of gem thingies you get when you kill them.

Seems to be running perfectly fine on my computer here, by the way.

Oh, I got a score of 243,722 on generation 63 or so. Gets kind of hard when you're trying to point blank everything.

for joystick support why not just use joytokey?

WOW


This game is honestly amazing. Its simple yet addictive. Not simple in a bad way though. I give you lots of props. Its kinda like 2d Rez .. ^_^

I got anxious to play it, so i didn't read through the directions enough, and dont think i scored well.

One thing i would want would be either joystick or the option to change the keys. I really dont know how anyone who plays console games uses their right hand to maneuver a ship on a keyboard, i just cant do it (SO I Cross my arms to play lol... !!!!... I always set the keys to W,SA,D for directionals, and my buttons on the key pad.

Awesome!!! Did I hear that this was done in GameMaker as well? If so, you are gonna have to give me a few pointers as to how you created all those sick patterns. (extra code I'm sure)

You should start a High Score table to get people interested in playing your beta to the fullest. The art worked pretty well also.

I kinda wish some of the slower patterns moved a bit quicker, still slow, but they seem to never leave the screen and deaths from getting locked into "rooms" of bullets but me back a couple times. I am gonna try the joykey thing and up my score.

Good Show!!!
-CODY-

Am I missing something here? I just got to generation 60 something but my score was only 4368? I used both fire mode equally. What am I doing wrong?

Awesome! The game runs great here: AthlonXP 2.1ghz, Geforce FX 5200. I love your bullet patterns, especially the one that looks like a coiled snake sidewinding across the screen. The framebuffer effects are really trippy. I don't know if you intend to make this a full game or not, but maybe the ship could move a little faster when not firing at all, and I noticed that missiles aren't destroyable, which makes for interesting dodging. I can't wait to see bullet eater, thanks!

I doubt it was done with gamemaker. OpenGL + C(++) + FMod.

oh and just for the record.. i ran it on.. while running AIM


400mhz computer (your cell phone is prob faster than this thing)
256mb ram
64 MB GEForce Video Card

RUNS Great!!!!!

wow! thanks for all the praise..

Yeah. mrmonkeyman... i forgot to say that the number of gems released is increased depending on how close you are to the enemy..

As for scoring high.. you dont need to use both weapons evenly.. if your multiplier is over about 50-60 then you'll get more points overall from using the stream until it drops too low.. Its your choice as to how low to let it get before you build it up again!

Ok, I will try and build in more joystick/pad support
And psyhco mode is just extra fx. it doesnt change the gameplay (but i might do that too)

Other things Im thinking of changing..

Movement patterns for enemy (at the moment they just drop down and then go back up).

Mid/STage bosses, maybe with new patterns for each..
But I dont want to make it too structured coz that would spoil the fun 'infinite' nature of it.

P.s. have you noticed that the horizontal lines that suck onto the enemy craft can help you to work out when a firing burst is due..
so you can sneak in and point blank!

keep playing and posting!! ta!

WOW!!! Really really nice. Feels like a beautiful follow up to the java version of noiz21 with an added bomb and donpachi like spread/beam option. I could definitely see how it was learning--when I was killed by a laser, it threw out more lasers. When I was killed by a homing missle, it threw out more of those.

Things that would be awesome:

-Already mentioned: Enemies that move in formation. Joystick support
-Scrolling background
-Enemiest that aren't just spinning cubes

Oh hell, its already a really nice and very playable game.

Great!!!! I simply LOVE this game!!!

missing:
-Joystick support
-Scrolling background
-More Music from daniel lindholm

its good.

Agree with all above the suggestions, you should have different variety of enemies with different attack patterns to add more variety to the gameplay. [maybe:)]

BTW, in psycho mode colors/graphics go all kind of blurry, i am assuming this is intended?

I really like the stripped down enemies. no patterns, simple.

If I seem critical, it is because I really dig this game. I only pick on games I like.

I guess I feel it is good enough it does not need to pay so much of a homage to ABA games. I'm just getting tired of shooting spinning cubes when I could be shooting everything else...

My one real gripe (and ABA games is guilty of it too) is when an enemy starts shooting a beam, and you destroy that enemy, the beam still comes out. It would be nice to have the beam stop as soon as the enemy is dead.

Yes, I like the idea of enemies with different attacks looking different. Who knows, maybe even different colors. It could be like 'oh shit, another one of those green dudes that fires homing missles, I better waste him quick!'

Alas, it seems to require 32 bit color and my ancient Voodoo card can only do 16 bit.

I know nothing about graphics programing, but I know some games allow you to choose your color depth. Would that be an easy option to add?

Heh, all my desktops fail to run this. And I was interested in trying it, especially with the screens you've shown.

Hi Zhon..

Could you tell me anything more about your desktops?
Are they recent? Have they got newish gfx cards n drivers
(I use opengl but nothing really fancy)
There might be a debug.txt file in the game directory that could help me work out whats wrong.. Maybe yr card doesnt have enough memeory?

hmm should probably have pmmed this instead but...

Thanks all for the responses..
Definitely will put joystick support in to the nest version (I know how to do it so its just a matter of sticking in the code)
Also I think it would be good to kill the laser streams if you have destroyed the emitter.. it seems a bit wierd for it to be still there, and makes things very confined at later levels..
straight.. i'm pretty sure it works in 16bit.. it might be that yr voodoo card is really old... i might try doing a low res version to see if this might fix some of the issues..
Will also try and update the enemy ship designs a bit to link them to their firetype a bit, I still want to keep it simple in style though..
Might make psycho mode even more psychadelic..

Im gonna update soon, but might wait for a few more comments to come in first..

thanks again!

Haven't tried it yet, I will when I get home though. Just off the bat, though, I don't know whether I like bombing with the spacebar -- I'm more of a Z-X-C kind of guy. Could you possibly add reconfigurable controls in a later version?

Finally found the time to play it a lttle longer. Suggestions:

- get rid of the green lines (vertical and horizontal)
- more variety in enemy movement. The first 50 generations, I´m just moving left and right, killing everything, that´s a little boring. If enemies came from other directions, e.g. lower sides of the screen
- increase minimum bullet velocity. Starting from generation 100, some bullets take so long to leave the screen they get caught up in your own data garbage collection routine and slowly fade out in the middle of the screen. Not very elegant.
- different enemy sizes/bosses would be cool.
- more narrow screen layout. Your average bullet tightness is so high the screen gets overcrowded with bullets in a way I find hard to process. Also, a 3:4 layout would enable you to include a tate mode which I think more PC shmups should have.

The engine is very smooth and solid as it is, and the overall aesthetic also appealing, althoug I´d agree that a little less "ABA-like" look would make it stand out more, as it definitely deserves. It´s basically a Ketsui clone, isn´t it? Any special gameplay features setting it apart from Ketsui?

oh raiden... you dont mess about do you..
say it like it is ey?
anyway thanks for the suggestions,

- get rid of the green lines (vertical and horizontal)

nah.. I like em and they are functional, the vert helps people to target (people with less then l33t skillz and the horizontals give you timings on pattern bursts so you can point blank.

- more variety in enemy movement. The first 50 generations, I´m just moving left and right, killing everything, that´s a little boring. If enemies came from other directions, e.g. lower sides of the screen

yep, i agree will work on this

- increase minimum bullet velocity. Starting from generation 100, some bullets take so long to leave the screen they get caught up in your own data garbage collection routine and slowly fade out in the middle of the screen. Not very elegant.

i quite like it but i see that quite a few people don't so i will try and fix, its partly due to the fact that some patterns are evolved and end up evolving to very slow speeds, its not really a garbage collection.. just that each bullet has a fixed lifespan, to stop them ever getting stuck on screen forever.

- different enemy sizes/bosses would be cool.

Yep, but i'm not gonna get too complex with this, coz i want to save the time/effort for my other shmup stuff, some variation will be made though

- more narrow screen layout. Your average bullet tightness is so high the screen gets overcrowded with bullets in a way I find hard to process. Also, a 3:4 layout would enable you to include a tate mode which I think more PC shmups should have.

not quite sure what you mean.. make the play area smaller or wider?
I was thinking of reducing the play area as the generations increase..
I doubt that i will write a tate mode in though. but if its easy i might,,, hmmm

-althoug I´d agree that a little less "ABA-like" look would make it stand out more, as it definitely deserves. It´s basically a Ketsui clone, isn´t it? Any special gameplay features setting it apart from Ketsui?

yep.. the score system is kind of ketsui-like, not deliberate, but it just ended up that way, not that i want to hide it though. No real extra gameplay features i dont think, as i've said before this proejct is a bit of a plaything/testground so i'm not going to spend too much time refining it..
Probably 1-2 more versions before i let go..
Its been real educating on the feedback front and really valuble so thanks again.. will let you know when i've done the next update which will hopefully solve some of the issues everyone has raised.
ta again[/quote]

I've finally had a chance to really sit down an playtest this for a while. I have naught but four suggestions:

1. Add boss-type enemies. Not necessarily bosses in a "beat me to continue" sense, but just larger, more difficult enemies that only appear every x generations.

2. Make it faster. Not by much, maybe by a factor of 1.3 or so, but it just plays really slowly IMO.

3. Perhaps the score system should take the current generation into account. For example, one possibility would be to have the generations factor into some sort of bonus multiplier (maybe 1 + gen/100 where gen is the current generation or something, of course rounding to the nearest point) or somehow have it factor into the main multiplier (maybe every ten generations allows the multiplier to go one point higher, so at generation 1 it can be 100, at 11 it can be 101, at 101 it can be 110, etc.). Of course, if you start at a higher generation, the game should treat it as generation 1 for scoring purposes.

4. ADD REDEFINABLE KEYS!

i finally got around to putting some time into this. i really like it nullpointer, but my only suggestions are:

-gamepad support
-plz get rid of the seeking bullets, or at least have them die after turning to follow you once. they live way too long as it is.
-make the bomb a power up item rather than a score based reward.

love the art style though. good stuff!

I'm hoping for a new version everyday....I love this game!

I'm also hoping for a new version soon!

As for the suggestion about making the bombs a power-up item rather than a score reward, I say "meh." Making the bombs a score reward gives the game a much more abstract feel and adds to the atmosphere of "dodge everything" that the game presents the player with. Adding grabbable items that you actually have to actively go for introduces an element of "risk your life more than you already are and need to." The game, IMO, is already intense enough, although it is kinda slow.