Death From Above a steampunk shmup

[princeofmars]

PLAY IT NOW
https://www.scirra.com/arcade/action-ga ... demo-18080

[omegaman]

Your art looks interesting. The fact that you presented the gameplay on a touchscreen may have contributed to the uncanny silence, it seems people here loathe these
Two things: I would rethink the enemies dropping down. Takes up a lot of screen real estate and might hinder gameplay, when it gets hectic. Your choice of engine may come to bite you in the ass later on. Having dealt with C2 and steam it's... not pretty. Besides the opinionated folk who will never accept wrapped web tech there's a serious issue with NW.js and its random blacklisting/banning of graphics drivers. Indie buyers seem to have a liking for that exact hardware.

[princeofmars]

Right, well the demo is done, but keep in mind this is my first shmup and I am a total amateur
https://www.scirra.com/arcade/action-ga ... demo-18080

[MommysBestGames]

Hi @princeofmars!
Okay, so you put it up for feedback presumably? I know you said you are a "total amateur" but if you put it up here, people will play it and give you constructive criticisms. I don't cut slack for "beginner" or "expert dev" I just give my feedback the same across the board. (seem my crits on Sine Mora)
So here's some thoughts on your game.

1. The art is good! I like it a lot, it has a good style... but...
2. The art is frequently unreadable. Meaning it's tough to distinguish background from enemies from bullets. This is bad!
But the good news is this is also fixeable. For starters, I'd put a thin dark outline (not black) but dark around your bright bullets as they are lost in the clouds (the blue bullets and some orange ones).
Basically check all art for readability. Can you easily tell what will kill the player? Can you tell what to dodge? Can you tell what to shoot? You may need to take screens and check with other players for some help.
Also a lot of enemies are dark and your pretty background buildings are dark too, and it's hard to see things.
3. I couldn't play with my xbox 360 controller or with keyboard controls. I'd like those options and I believe Construct 2 makes that pretty easy. Ask me if you need help.
4. Your player shots should show a graphical 'hit' or flash or small sparks or something when they are doing damage/hitting things. Some feedback when the player shots hits things is good. I know the enemies flash, but more than that would help.
5. Your 'popcorn' enemies take probably too much damage. It makes the game feel like a slog and your player feels underpowered.
6. Like someone on the game page-comments mentioned, a checkpoint for the second section would be good.
7. The shield controls are confusing. Sometimes it says press "Ctrl" to use. Sometimes I have to use my mouse to click the 'S'. Seems like a bug.
8. The music does not pause when you pause the game, but it should.
9. You player ship is rather large and makes the game feel claustrophobic. Maybe drop the scale down by half? Or so?

Keep up the good work!

[Ixmucane2]

I agree with MommysBestGames on all points except dealing with player ship size.
Doubling resolution, keeping the same sprites and adjusting player and enemy speeds (respectively slightly faster and much slower) might be a better approach than shrinking small sprites: no art degradation, increased room for interesting movements and formations, increased fighting range (now mostly very short).

The shield powerup allows ramming enemy formations, so it is a strong offensive "bomb". Are you considering other kinds of single use powerups, including traditional bombs? Are you going to increase the rather low number of powerups?

Little details:

• Make the shield last indefinitely until hit enough times rather than timed, rewarding good dodging
• Make more enemies shoot, and bullets significantly slower. Currently the game combines the worst aspects of sparse fast bullets (e.g. Raiden) and thick slow bullets (e.g. Donpachi), with simple, not very good looking bullet patterns that need to be dodged quickly but cannot be dodged precisely and neither require nor allow memorization or improvised planning.

[princeofmars]

sorry for my delayed response everyone been flooded with work anyway lets go over your responses ok first this is exactly the sort of feedback I wanted MommysBestGames so thank you


1 and 2) right first of the art I will try to darken the background art and raise the contrast of some enemies and bullets and see if that helps
3) right I will include gamepad support in my next update I have already implemented keyboard controls in last update which I posted last night
4) right ok, some sort of little explosion when the player bullets hit I can do that
5) lower enemy health ok can do
6) I have already included mulitble lives
7) yeah the press Ctrl button should only appear if played on a PC I will try to fix that
8 ) pause music right, it will be fixed by next update
9) I am thinking of increasing the size the whole screen, it will be a lot of work since I will have to reprogram the start and end points of every enemy wave

Ixmucane2 yeah, I am def going to have to increase screen size I originally left it that small because I wanted to make it playable on a small phone screen. I can add other types of bombs I am making this up as I go along:) and of course I will add tons of new weapon powerups
and yes I need to work on my bullet patterns
I have got alot of work ahead of me