Spark | Released on Steam

[EckyYakov]

Get it now on Steam



Spark is a creative, combo-centric, Shoot 'em up game. It's a 3-in-1 old-school arcade game fueled by the competitive urge to climb the leaderboards. The unique shooting system hooks the player as they discover more and more ways to create beautiful and effective combos.

Everything in Spark is rooted in the player's arsenal of destruction-- four bullets that vary in power and speed.

Whether you are testing your precision and cunning in the Puzzles, your destructive skills in Conquest or your resilience in Survival; mastering the multitude of combos at your disposal is crucial.

Blast, Dodge, and Solve your way to the top of the leaderboards to crown yourself the king of Spark.

Conquest

Did you ever dream about a world in perfect harmony, with no conflicts or power-hungry tyrants??? Yeah, me neither. That would be way too boring.

Time to step up! Crush your foes, and their fearless leaders in Conquest. Elaborate bullet patterns, coordinated enemy movements, and... BOSS BATTLES.

Rack up points by blasting everything that shows its ugly mug. Bonus points if you can defeat the final boss. I have to warn you though; he is a little bit... crabby.

Survival

Surviving is all the rage right now... It's been trendy since the inception of this beautiful blue planet. Even if trends aren't your thing, hop aboard the hype train in Survival.

Your objective is simple: Stay alive as long as possible. Think about it... you've been 100% effective so far IRL. Time to transition that effectiveness in game.

Craft combos to clear enemies, collect powerups to help when times get tough, and don't forget your dancing shoes because you are going to need some fancy footwork to dodge all those bullets.

Puzzles

Okay... so killing everything isn't your style? Maybe you're more of an intellectual? Don't fret, Ruler of the Riddles... these Puzzles were made just for you!

Flex your brain, show off that surgeon-like timing and precision, and solve your way through as many as you can, you Emperor of Enigma.

If you want to be the Captain of Conundrum, you're going to have to be fast. It is a race against time.And, I can assure you, time didn't skip leg day.

I can't thank you guys in the forums enough for help shaping the game to be what it is today by play testing and giving feedback while it was in development!

Let me know if you have any comments/questions/concerns. Planning on making fixes/improvements/updates every couple weeks after launch.

[EckyYakov]

Now that something is shooting bullets, maybe you guys will have a better idea of what I am kind of going for. Honestly, the demo is super broken right now so I don't really even recommend checking that out. But i am going to keep posting gifs of enemies as i get them done. Let me know if you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns,

Cheers.

[EckyYakov]

Gave the turtle a mini gun. You also get a little more look into the main character and the general aesthetic if you haven't checked out the itch page. Still just plugging away. Hoping for a good playable demo in about a month! I'll be updating here every few days though. Comments, questions, suggestions are welcome. I should prolly edit the main post with a little more detail on the game... so be on the lookout for that.

[EckyYakov]

Added in some new gifs up top to give you guys a better idea of the game play. For some reason a couple of them do not seem to be up to the proper quality so i only displayed the one that is.

So.... I got the initial 7 basic enemies in and behaving the way i want them to. I updated the tutorial. Added powerups into survival mode, and starting working on stat tracking but still have a decent chunk of work to go there. The demo should be pretty playable now on the Windows side (survival mode)... so let me know if anyone plays it or has any comments, questions, or concerns.

Cheers.

Edit: Also i am worried a bit about the firework-like particle effect on combos being a little to distracting, so any thoughts on that is appreciated!

[wgogh]

Edit: Also i am worried a bit about the firework-like particle effect on combos being a little to distracting, so any thoughts on that is appreciated!

I believe the worst thing about the particles is that it has too many colors. In shmups, the colors helps our brain to get through the patterns. That's why they are usually vivid, and when the color is different, represents a different pattern.

Spoiler

That way you can focus on the bullets. So, yeah, you can trust your judgment.

Nice dolphins! Keep it up with the creative stuff!

[Maran]

I would highly recommend you release a prototype as soon as possible with just a few seconds of gameplay. What you are trying to do seems very unique but you will have to know that it's actually a fun mechanic before adding more content.

[EckyYakov]

Edit: Also i am worried a bit about the firework-like particle effect on combos being a little to distracting, so any thoughts on that is appreciated!

I believe the worst thing about the particles is that it has too many colors. In shmups, the colors helps our brain to get through the patterns. That's why they are usually vivid, and when the color is different, represents a different pattern.

Spoiler

That way you can focus on the bullets. So, yeah, you can trust your judgment.

Nice dolphins! Keep it up with the creative stuff!

Okay valid point with the colors. Hmm. So right now the enemy bullets are all white, of varrying sizes, I was thinking about changing shape based on different patterns and allowing the enemies and the player to create all the color in the environment? So it is kind of like the opposite of what players are used to. Thoughts on that? I really like the idea and look of the 'fireworks' that the player can create with big colorful explosions, and the enemies all colored with varying neons. Do you think I have enough distinction with this thought process or i need to consider a different avenue??

Tl;Dr White enemy bullets, different shapes to distinguish patterns. Player has colorful bullets.

Thanks for the kind words and reply!

I would highly recommend you release a prototype as soon as possible with just a few seconds of gameplay. What you are trying to do seems very unique but you will have to know that it's actually a fun mechanic before adding more content.

Hey, I have a link up in the first post I think. But i actually have a pretty decent demo up. and playable. Here the link is agian:
https://knightmaregames.itch.io/spark

Download the windows demo at the bottom of the page. Tutorial works if you want it, you can customize controls, and to get a feel for the game i suggest playing Survival mode.
You can even play with a gamepad. I highly recommend it. I update the demo once every couple of days. Play it and let me know your thoughts!! =]

[Maran]

Thanks I must have missed that.

I'm on OS X so I tried to download the build however it could not be opened once downloaded.

[EckyYakov]

Thanks I must have missed that.

I'm on OS X so I tried to download the build however it could not be opened once downloaded.

Okay cool, so there are a couple things. First, I need to update the mac demo. So I will do that in like 8 or 9 hours, and i'll commit the latest demo to mac, so you can move the file you have now to the trash. You'll have to download a new one.

For whatever reason apple doesn't trust when i build a just a demo application (without going through the apple id/apple store process). So you have to unquarantine the file to run it. There are instructions on the demo page on how to do it, but i'll put them here as well.

Install instructions
MAC

After you download the zip, you will need to unzip it by double clicking the folder. If you did this correctly, you should know see a Spark_Knightmare_Games application. Now go into your terminal.

enter this command:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/Spark_Knightmare_Games.app/

Go back to your downloads folder and double click on the app! It should come up now. Leave a comment if you can't get this working.

The Mac demo is WAY behind the windows right now, so please wait for me to update it. I'm thinking it should be updated within 10 hours of this post!
Cheers!

[Maran]

That will be midnight for me but I will check back in the morning!

[EckyYakov]

That will be midnight for me but I will check back in the morning!

Okay cool! I'll just post in here when the mac demo is updated and if you are still up you can check it out. If not no worries!

[EckyYakov]

Okay the mac demo is updated. But you still have to run that unquarantine command. Controls are fully customizable in the options menu, tutorial, puzzle and survival are both pretty close to done. Survival is just a procedural game mode, but should give you a good feel for the mechanics i'll implement into the actual game. Let me know your thoughts if you play!
Thanks in advance!

[wgogh]

Something's wrong. Just when I tried Survival Mode

Spoiler

[Maran]

Okay the mac demo is updated. But you still have to run that unquarantine command. Controls are fully customizable in the options menu, tutorial, puzzle and survival are both pretty close to done. Survival is just a procedural game mode, but should give you a good feel for the mechanics i'll implement into the actual game. Let me know your thoughts if you play!
Thanks in advance!

Followed the instructions and getting a new error now: "Unable to find game!"

Sounds like GM might not be ideal for OS X yet

[EckyYakov]

Okay the mac demo is updated. But you still have to run that unquarantine command. Controls are fully customizable in the options menu, tutorial, puzzle and survival are both pretty close to done. Survival is just a procedural game mode, but should give you a good feel for the mechanics i'll implement into the actual game. Let me know your thoughts if you play!
Thanks in advance!

Followed the instructions and getting a new error now: "Unable to find game!"

Sounds like GM might not be ideal for OS X yet

There are many things GM is not ideal for lol. But i have got it working on my laptop, and i even put it on my girlfriends iMac. I got the same error as you before i ran the unquarantine command, but after that i just double click and it opens up easy peasy. It is important that you unquarantine the path to the actually application, not the zip. If you don't move anything that path should be in downloads, but if you do move something you'll have to specifcy the path to where the application actually is. I am guessing that is the issue. IM EMBARRASSED you guys are trying to play my game and there are errors everywhere.
There are instructions for getting shit working on mac in this video, although it is a different file, same thing applies.
https://youtu.be/fnjd38YpU5A
Please don't give up haha. I'll even like coach you through it on discord or something. Let me know.
Make sure to delete any other instances of the game of your computer and download a fresh one.

Something's wrong. Just when I tried Survival Mode

Spoiler

I am just a sad panda bear watching all these issues happen. When did you download the game? Unfortunately the artist on the game injected that bug into the game and i didn't notice, but that was a couple days ago. If you download the latest zip from the page that error should be gone. I swear i have had people from my stream download and play the game with no issues as of yesterday. If you still are curious and this hasn't turned you off completely, please remove any version you have on your computer, and download the latest one from the page and give that a shot.
Thanks for the patients, apparently i really suck at distributing a demo haha.

[Maran]

I figured out what happened, I know it was not a quarantine problem since I typed it correctly. The problem, yet again, is that Gamemaker is dumb. I had my old build still in my downloads folder (I use /tmp which I can highly recommend so it gets cleared out every time you reboot) and so the new download was affixed with "2". This forced game maker to load the wrong path and things went sour. I removed the old build and renamed the new and we were in action!

Now I quickly ran into a new problem. I can't really play the game as I have no numpad keys I can only fire the blue bullet, with just the blue things are quite boring

Is there any way you could add a few other keybindings to the game? Btw I assumed the controls would be arrow keys + z,x,c,v since that is usally the default for shmups on personal computers.

I must say I loved the dolphin really awesome enemy! I will play some more once I can enjoy the game like it was meant to be played

[wgogh]

Its ok, man, I just downloaded the updated version and its just fine. I got say, the enemies are the best thing, visually, at least for now. As it's still a demo, I didnt paid much attention to the art. Wasnt expecting much, to be honest, but the idea seems to be surprisinly addictive to play.
Actually, your game reminds me of some other project posted on the forum, some time ago. Red Shift, i think. In fact, he promised some kind of "random" shmup. Are you going for that direction on the story mode or do you plan to project waves?

I enjoyed playing


So yeah, you have a interesting concept. It looks like you don't have anyone to help with art and music, right? I hope you can get around that.

[EckyYakov]

Its ok, man, I just downloaded the updated version and its just fine. I got say, the enemies are the best thing, visually, at least for now. As it's still a demo, I didnt paid much attention to the art. Wasnt expecting much, to be honest, but the idea seems to be surprisinly addictive to play.
Actually, your game reminds me of some other project posted on the forum, some time ago. Red Shift, i think. In fact, he promised some kind of "random" shmup. Are you going for that direction on the story mode or do you plan to project waves?

I enjoyed playing


So yeah, you have a interesting concept. It looks like you don't have anyone to help with art and music, right? I hope you can get around that.

Hey thats a good start! So, yeah i actually do have a friend helping with the art, and the art has always been the biggest complaint of the game tbh, but unfortunately i just can't afford to hire an artist for this project. If you want to go back and criticize the art, and give some feedback on what you dont like and a way to make it better then let i think that would be helpful! We really are trying to make the best game possible, but we also are trying to release on my birthday which is November 11th, so we can't do a full art rework, it seems like you are mostly disatisfied with the player which in my mind shouldn't be too much work if we had another direction to go in. The story art, the intro art, at the beginning is garbage and i need to get rid of that and replace it with just the text and a programmatic typing, so i'll do that. but i think the menus and such look pretty okay. As for music, we actually have a kickass soundtrack being made, i just havent copywritten the music yet so i don't want to put it out there yet. Expect that very soon!

So, now onto the stuff i am in control of. Story mode is going to be much more structured, very limited randomness. Survival is kinda like a horde mode i built just for fun, it was the plan to just have that be the game but i want to give the player more gameplay, and i have a personal preference for structured levels. So its gonna be coordinated waves, mini boss, coordinated waves mini boss, coordinated waves, Final boss. I am gonna start coding that into the game this week I think unless there is anything more glaring i need to fix. So keep an eye on here if you want to help me test that out! I'm so glad you like the concept, and honestly it means a ton. I appreciate the time and effort. If you have any more specific feedback/suggestions on the game, do not hesitate to let me know, just trying to make a good game ,won't hurt our feelings much!
P.S. 9mil. fuck lol. my best recently has been like 5.4mil i think.

I figured out what happened, I know it was not a quarantine problem since I typed it correctly. The problem, yet again, is that Gamemaker is dumb. I had my old build still in my downloads folder (I use /tmp which I can highly recommend so it gets cleared out every time you reboot) and so the new download was affixed with "2". This forced game maker to load the wrong path and things went sour. I removed the old build and renamed the new and we were in action!

Now I quickly ran into a new problem. I can't really play the game as I have no numpad keys I can only fire the blue bullet, with just the blue things are quite boring

Is there any way you could add a few other keybindings to the game? Btw I assumed the controls would be arrow keys + z,x,c,v since that is usally the default for shmups on personal computers.

I must say I loved the dolphin really awesome enemy! I will play some more once I can enjoy the game like it was meant to be played

Hey Maran! The we are almost there hahaha. So all you need to do is go into the options menu and click on the green, yellow, and red spark, probably the powerup as well and bind those keys to whatever you want! I just tried it on my mac with arrow keys and zxcv and it works so you should have no problem! In the future i will have presets avaiable so you wont have to do this manually, but for now it works. Okay hopefully this is the last step and you finally get to play! Let me know how it goes.

Thanks again guys
Cheers

[Maran]

Its ok, man, I just downloaded the updated version and its just fine. I got say, the enemies are the best thing, visually,
Hey Maran! The we are almost there hahaha. So all you need to do is go into the options menu and click on the green, yellow, and red spark, probably the powerup as well and bind those keys to whatever you want! I just tried it on my mac with arrow keys and zxcv and it works so you should have no problem!

Oh I see what I did. So I pressed options to look for the rebinds but when it just said: "Work in Progress" I figured the code was not in yet. I was just being impatient and the screen showed after 4 seconds, perhaps speed that up somehow?

So a bit of my braindumps

- When typing no name in the highscore screen I get a GM show_message dialog with -4 in it.
- The bounding box of the player is that the big yellow circle? Does it include the tentacles?
- Tutorial crashed for me with this GM error.
- I love the bullet combing however I sometimes feel a simple blue bullet might be the most effective way to play
- Does survival mode get harder the longer you live?

[EckyYakov]

Its ok, man, I just downloaded the updated version and its just fine. I got say, the enemies are the best thing, visually,
Hey Maran! The we are almost there hahaha. So all you need to do is go into the options menu and click on the green, yellow, and red spark, probably the powerup as well and bind those keys to whatever you want! I just tried it on my mac with arrow keys and zxcv and it works so you should have no problem!

Oh I see what I did. So I pressed options to look for the rebinds but when it just said: "Work in Progress" I figured the code was not in yet. I was just being impatient and the screen showed after 4 seconds, perhaps speed that up somehow?

So a bit of my braindumps

- When typing no name in the highscore screen I get a GM show_message dialog with -4 in it.
- The bounding box of the player is that the big yellow circle? Does it include the tentacles?
- Tutorial crashed for me with this GM error.
- I love the bullet combing however I sometimes feel a simple blue bullet might be the most effective way to play
- Does survival mode get harder the longer you live?

- Oh yeah, that means it can't connect to the internet I think. I'll look into that.
- Bounding box is the circle, not the tentacles. In the tutorial it tells you that, i think you may be able to press shift to highlight the hitbox too. Can't remember.
- I will go and fix that. Thanks. EDIT: just noticed you can't exit the tutorial either so i'll add that in as well.
- The bullet combining is the main focus of the game, there are so many ways to create really powerful combos and they can be pretty fast, maybe i need to teach the player that in the tutorial so that way they can see the effectiveness of combos over just the blue spam? thoughts on that?
- Yes it does get more difficult but i haven't changed the algorithm for upping difficulty since i added in the most recent enemies so i need to look into that again. Expect it will scale harder come like next weekend.

I'll go fix the tutorial as that is pretty important and then commit in a new demo. Hope it was fun! keep experiementing around with trying to build up large combos, stacking alot of red bullets, stuff like that. See if you like the combo system better!
thanks for playing =]

EDIT: Okay i fixed the tutorial bug. And committed a new demo. I'd love to know more thoughts on the gameplay too if you get into the swing of the combos! im gonna work on the story next.. and fix anything else that comes up while i am working on it, i already see a few small things i need to change. Then im gonna polish it up as best i can and then use that as the Demo. That's the plan at least. Wish me luck lol

[wgogh]

Im happy to know about the structured levels.

but we also are trying to release on my birthday which is November 11th

Think well about that...

[EckyYakov]

Im happy to know about the structured levels.

but we also are trying to release on my birthday which is November 11th

Think well about that...

The project is likely to be release 'Unfinished' meaning that it won't be the full vision, the masterplan of what I wanted it to be, but will still be a really good game with a lot of content... The plan right now is to release with 1 full campaign mission (15 minutes of gameplay probably without deaths) 2 mini bosses 1 big boss. 20 puzzles (About an hour), and survival (um procedural, so technically as much as you want to play until you get bored) mode. Survival mode is complete, puzzle mode is close but needs some tweaks, and then i am only about 1 minute into story mode, but have alot of the enemies built for it so that shouldn't take much more than a few weeks. I think November 11th is realistic. This is my first game and I am getting pretty burnt out on it, although I think there could be SOOO much more in this game I think it is most important for me to complete the project and release it even if it isn't 100% my vision for it. There is always the option of adding more campaign missions in later after release! I hope you guys understand.

That being said, I've made some good progress, check out the updated art style, and some music =]. The music may be the highlight of the game honestly. It's really good. If you are on mac, I haven't updated it yet, but I will soon so bear with me. Windows though is updated, so use the installer. GMS2 won't let me do .exes anymore sorry =///

EDIT: Forgot to mention i ramped up the difficulty curve in survival, you veteran shmuppers should be much more challenged now as time goes on. I also reset the high scores so that way they are accurately reflecting the new difficulties. If any of you get #1, i promise I will beat it lol ;]

I appreciate the time and effort as always guys.
Cheers

[wgogh]

I think November 11th is realistic. This is my first game and I am getting pretty burnt out on it, although I think there could be SOOO much more in this game I think it is most important for me to complete the project and release it even if it isn't 100% my vision for it. There is always the option of adding more campaign missions in later after release! I hope you guys understand.

I do understand, of course. I'm sure you have x reasons to not have all the time and disposal in the world. I was just afraid that you wanted to release that day only for being your birthday, but indeed it is a realistic deadline. I just meant that, if needed and possible, you could delay the release a little (i dont know, maybe for xmas). That, if you feel that you have to. I know nothing about making games, but usually my self judgment is on the right place when I have a project, and still, part of me wants to overlook for being so tired. So yeah, beware of that, since I can only imagine that making a game by yourself is tiring and time consuming...

I'll soon download and try the new version! The updated gifs looks great! As for the "veteran shmuppers", honestly, I dont think your game will be much popular with these guys. But dont worry about it, I'm sure Spark can be fun in a different way.

[EckyYakov]

Yeah I think we are on the same page. I think realistically I will get this 'done' by the end of the month, so that gives me a month to polish and market a little more, and then still some time after to make any more final additions/changes. If anything I think i am delaying it a little bit by waiting for my birthday haha. besides 11/11 is a fun date to tell people for a release date haha.

I'll soon download and try the new version! The updated gifs looks great! As for the "veteran shmuppers", honestly, I dont think your game will be much popular with these guys. But dont worry about it, I'm sure Spark can be fun in a different way.

Awesome, glad you like the new look. I am very happy with it so far. I hope although it is not a traditional shmup it can bring some fun/entertainment to someone other than me!
If not, it was worth the shot.

I'll be excited to hear what you think of the new look, and a little more gameplay.

EDIT^2: Mac demo is updated! Download and play away

[EckyYakov]

• Changed the Speed powerup to Timewarp... now slows down all enemy bullets rather than speeding up the ship. Makes it feel more controlled and useful.

• Change the firepower powerup to create two clones that fire as you fire, but random bullet types.

• Decreased the spawn probability of powerups in survival

• Added in score multiplier into survival

• Added another two minutes or so of gameplay in the story

• Updated main popcorn enemy, now a mini crab

And even more to come, I'll update the mac demo in 5 or 6 hours, and per usual let me know if any of you play it!

Cheers

[wgogh]

The visuals are great right now. Honestly, I wish you could do something about the character and/or the some of the letters though, specially when all the rest is very well done (nice touch with the new enemy bullets and the new background). The font you used for the story, for example, is much better. Agree about the 'timewarp', it is ideed more useful. Anyway, fun as always and keeping getting better.
Looking foward to see how the bosses will turn out to be!

[EckyYakov]

Hey thanks again for playing and the encouraging words!

The visuals are great right now. Honestly, I wish you could do something about the character and/or the some of the letters though

Can you be more specific here?? I have time to make small changes, so if there is something really specific that bothers you maybe i can get it changed/fixed. If you are just talking about the discontinuity between the player and the enemies, it would get explained in the story. I think the general look of the main character will stay similar to how it is now for the end game.... In the case of 'letters' which letters and where? I feel like those things can definitely be changed!

Cheers

[wgogh]

Well, for the character, it gave me the impresion that something is off. Not in the story context, as I understood that he's something else, but off with the style of the game. One thing is to have different designs based on what the characters represents, another is to have completly distant graphics. Actually, the character's animation is really good, and I believe the specific thing that bothers me is the little cartoony guy inside the sphere sticking his tongue out. Wouldnt keep anyone for playing, just talking my impressions.

My english is not perfect, but the letters I am talking about are the general font for the game, the menu (Play, Options, Puzzles) and the itens (Tripple shot, Timewarp). I does have that cheap look of a mobile or browsergame, and I guess you wouldnt want that.

The stages reminds me of Rez for the ps2, where you can see how all the design come together.

Spoiler

[EckyYakov]

@wgogh... Yeah i appreciate the feedback on the visual style, I think we are going to leave it how it is though. Hopefully it's not so bad that it keeps people from playing the game. It's coming along nicely gameplay wise.

Accomplished since last update:

• Added in two mini boss battles into story mode, we are about at 10 minutes of gameplay, that's about two thirds done now.
  Added multiplier into survival
  Added multiplier into story
  Added game start countdown to give player preptime for going into game
  Fixed music looping
  Created effects for increasing your multilpier
  Update background with colors in both story and survival
  Extended time to read the introduction text for slower readers, faster readers can press any button to skip

Next on the list:

• Track down bug regarding overheat bar not calculating heat properly after use of some powerups in survival
  Track down bug regarding invulnerability when shield powerups are overlapped
  Finish story mode by adding last section and final boss
  Add in ability to store 3 powerups and cycle through them for more precise usage
  Steam leaderboard integration

Steam doesnt allow for release on weekends so new release date is November 10th at 11am. The idea is to release survival as the base game, and then allow the player to buy the other portions of the game they want (story or puzzles) seperately. That way you only pay for what parts of this great (but super disconnected 3-in-1 style) game you want. Release will have discounted bundle for all of them. I'm thinking price point will be around 5$ for the bundle of everything which will include 20 puzzles, 1 story episode, survival mode (prolly 2-3 hours of gameplay). Let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns.

[EckyYakov]

Only been a few days, but I wanted to throw another gif for you guys in here


Accomplished since last update:

• Tracked down bug regarding invulnerability when shield powerups are overlapped
  Tracked down bug regarding overheat bar not calculating heat properly after use of some powerups in survival (pretty sure but still needs more testing)
  Optimized super combo system
  Replaced super combo system detection with dial-in combos (like in mortal kombat)
  Added particle effects and juice to super combos

Next on the list:

• Steam leaderboard integration
  Finish story mode by adding last section and final boss
  Update tutorial
  Add Credits page