hello guys! eaerlier this year i made a post about our greenlight campaign, well, we succeeded!
and now we bring you our first public demo! you can download and withlist it on the steam page
http://store.steampowered.com/app/723130/Railgunners/
feel free to give your feedback!
https://imgur.com/v9Hqgdl
Railgunners steam page is up! [DEMO AVAIABLE]
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Filiperama
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BulletMagnet
- Posts: 13899
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Re: Railgunners steam page is up! [DEMO AVAIABLE]
Gave this a quick try -
- The game only runs about 20-25 FPS despite opening in a small window; my laptop isn't the greatest, but I don't think the framerate is entirely its fault in this case. Definitely look into this first and foremost, as it makes the game feel choppy and imprecise.
- Since keeping your energy charged determines how far you get, it feels weird to only have random enemies give up energy, especially since the ships' limited attack range makes it easy for one to sneak past your shots and barrel into you; going out of your way to risk taking enemies on should feel worth it, as of now it's basically a gamble.
- It seems special attacks haven't been implemented yet, but I'm also unclear as to how powering up your shot works; I haven't looked terribly closely, but it just kind of seems to pop up out of nowhere in the middle of a run.
Let me know if you want anything else clarified.
- BM
- The game only runs about 20-25 FPS despite opening in a small window; my laptop isn't the greatest, but I don't think the framerate is entirely its fault in this case. Definitely look into this first and foremost, as it makes the game feel choppy and imprecise.
- Since keeping your energy charged determines how far you get, it feels weird to only have random enemies give up energy, especially since the ships' limited attack range makes it easy for one to sneak past your shots and barrel into you; going out of your way to risk taking enemies on should feel worth it, as of now it's basically a gamble.
- It seems special attacks haven't been implemented yet, but I'm also unclear as to how powering up your shot works; I haven't looked terribly closely, but it just kind of seems to pop up out of nowhere in the middle of a run.
Let me know if you want anything else clarified.
- BM
Re: Railgunners steam page is up! [DEMO AVAIABLE]
It's capped at 30fps anyway, I wouldn't worry too much.BulletMagnet wrote:- The game only runs about 20-25 FPS despite opening in a small window
Re: Railgunners steam page is up! [DEMO AVAIABLE]
Hi !
I managed to clear your demo, and here are my comments :
-I didn't find a way to rebind controls. At least, the game only uses X, so I am not stuck with having to use both A and X on my AZERTY keyboard. However, I prefer putting pause on Spacebar rather than the harder to reach Esc key, so it was slightly bothersome. I suppose key rebinding is in the pipeline but you focused on the game mechanics and level first and foremost.
-Hey, there's a small intro! Nice! Shouldn't it be played when starting the game rather than starting a run, though?
-The character select screen has a yellow outline over the character you have chosen, but this outline hides the cursor you actually move.
-You can't select the "Database" and "Destination" tabs, but nothing in the tabs' visuals suggests that they are locked. Unless those tabs are supposed to be available at all times in the full game, you should find a way to convey that tab availability difference
-The screen shaking for every enemy you kill is baaaaaaaaaaad. Not only it is distracting, it also makes dodging bullets artificially harder. I would remove it altogether or at least put an toggle on it.
-The player shot is too slow. I can almost race against it.
-You have a movement issue where diagonals are much faster than uni-directionnal movements, most likely due to you making the player move in both directions at once. Actually, you would have to apply a
coefficient of sqrt 2 * speed or something, I can't really remember. In any case, look up the concept of normalized diagonals! If you use a framework, it's possible that there already is a dedicated method or function for that.
-The launch animation is a nice touch, but i wouldn't have it replay every single time you restart.
-It isn't immediatly obvious that the "Upgrade" option in the menu is going to restart the level. The wording makes it look like you can apply upgrades on the fly.
-The pause menu cursor does not roll over when you press up while on the top-most option or down on the lower-most option. As a result, you have to go through all the options just to get to "Back" to resume playing.
-The big purple enemies are too strong. At first, I mostly used the girl character and it's difficult if not impossible to defeat the two of them with your default shot.
-There are invisible walls near the edges of the screen, which can lead to us getting killed because we thought we had much more space than what is actually available. This is prett egregious during one of the boss' patterns with the red bullets. There are two possibilities to fix that. Remove those boundaries and give the player the freedom to move all over the screen while putting transparency on the HUD elements (or moving the elements on the other side) whenever the player approaches the HUD. The other way would be to have black bars on the top and bottom to clearly delimit your play area, as in Darius Burst CS for example. This solution cuts a bit of your background though.
-I didn't immediatly realize there was a constantly depleting energy bar that acts as a lifebar. That explained why I sometimes died in two hits and sometimes in three, and also why I sometimes randomly exploded for seemingly no reason.
-The energy system is pretty frustrating and I would ditch it altogether but if you really want to keep it, why not make it so that the bar never completely depletes on its own and will leave you with 1HP. This way, there are no random game overs anymore, yet there still is the tension of fearing enemy attacks and the desire to replenish the bar to get some safety.
-The art style is cute!
-With the upgrade system and the lifebar, the game is clearly a euroshmup, though it fortunately features no inertia. Be very careful with the balance, because the early game feels like a grind where you don't have the necessary lifebar and energy collection upgrades to progress and are forced to die over and over again just to get enough resources to get those upgrades. Make sure the game can be cleared with the default set-up.
-The characters are kinda funny! I like the way the group leader and the scientist girl are eager to send the pilots to the battlefield with barely hidden lack of care for their feelings and safety.
-The music is nothing to write home about. It doesn't get grating but it isn't really remarkable either. The loop duration for the menu track could be a bit longer though
-The big purple enemy doesn't look like it is still alive when you remove its armor. Instead, it seems like it is starting a death animation. That makes it all the more surprising when it in fact rushes forward, usually in your face as you had to be in front of it to put it in this state.
-Is there any score indicator? I thought the number on the upper right corner was that, and thought it was odd that it didn't reset when you restart the game, but it's actually your currency level. Does that mean there's no proper score?
-The way the enemies randomly give you energy or not can be a major source of frustration. With the energy system you have, you are basically fucked if the RNG decides to not give you any energy items from the enemies you killed. With the default upgrades, the average amount you get is far from enough to let you survive. IMO, every single enemy should drop energy. It's less frustrating for the player and also easier to balance for the developer.
-It is unfair to have the bar deplete at the beginning of the level or after section transitions while no enemies are spawned before a few seconds.
-The hitboxes seem a bit big. Positionning yourself between the big purple enemies' bullets to try to take them out both feels like a gamble (and the screen shaking does not help at all)
-The shot improves a bit when collecting enough energy items, but reverts to its default power if you get hit, even though that's exactly when you'll need firepower to kill enemies and replenish the energy bar. That's a double penalty and it is a bit too punishing IMO. If the energy bar can't deplete to 0 on its own, though, maybe it can work.
-I played as the girl for self-explanatory reasons but after trying the others out, it seem the black guy is undoubtedly superior to the others due to its better vertical range. His shot is kinda tricky to use, but the other guy is way too slow and the girl lacks firepower. Big purple enemies are still too tough to reliably kill them even with the black guy but at least, I can position the modules on them without putting myself in danger.
-The level transition hides the player ship and seems like its own disconnected sequence. Why not have the player visible on screen ?
-The "initial impulse" upgrade had me puzzled for a bit. I thought that it only gave you invincibility for the early game so it seemed useless in comparison to the other upgrades that act in the long term and cost the same. However, after I maxed out the green ugrade bars for the other two upgrades, I spent much more currency on this upgrade than before and noticed it actually fast-forwards you through the early parts of your level. With the green bar maxed out, I was even able to instantly reach the boss. That means you have an upgrade that basically says "Hey, I know the level is a slog. Wanna skip it?" which is something you don't want the player to feel or think.
-Speaking of the levels and their design, I have to say the level design feels random, procedurally generated and lacks identity and construction. You have three or four enemy waves that you send against the player over and over again, without any progression in the way the enemy placement teaches you things about them and the strategies you should use to defeat them. That means the tension is pretty stagnant, with nothing memorable about each part of the level.
Shmup level-design is more complicated than it appears, so if you need pointers or resources on it, I would suggest reading this thread that has some useful feedback on the topic from experienced shmuppers.
-The post-hit invincibility duration is too low. Getting hit twice in a row without having the time to properly reposition yourself is not too uncommon.
-The player shots are too small. That makes killing even popcorn enemies a difficult task. You have to aim properly and even then, you often have a few slipping away.
-The black guy's shots' improved version do not seem any different, aside from the sound they make.
-If I die and the background changes during the death animation, the transition plays and I resume exploding immediatly after. I think the transition simply shouldn't play in that case.
-The laser enemies fire their laser when they are at the very left of the screen, inevitably damaging any player that went on the left side to stay safe. I don't know it is on purpose or not, just throwing that out there. I guess that wouldn't have been significant if the player shots were stronger and could more easily kill the popcorn enemies.
-The boss has way too much health for its amount of patterns, as it has to cycle through them quite a bit.
-The shot's short range forces you to stay very close to the boss. That means you can't have a boss with only patterns that force the player to stay far away from it, as it would have no way whatsoever to damage it
-The boss laser lock-on indicators behave in odd ways, wandering around and goofing off for a while before rushing on to the player's position.
-One of the boss laser attacks has no warnings aside from a shining eye that's very easily missable. Besides, the laser hitbox is already active when that small forewarning plays, even though the laser is not actually there yet.
-With the black guy, the boss has a very exploitable safespot right behind it. As long as you don't touch the turrets and avoid the easily dodgable aimed lasers, you can position yourself behind the boss and let the options damage it. Maybe it also works with the other characters, but is looks less safe to me.
-I love the ending picture! It's so sweet.
Here are the typos I found :
-"get to through" => "get through"
-"seem like the teleporter" => "Seems like the teleporter"
-"I thought i" => "I thought I"
-"and it's pilot" => "and save its pilot"
-"use the DATA" => Not a hard typo, but I suggest "use the DATA tab" instead
-"when you are ready, Head" => "When you are ready, head"
-"prepare for the launch" => It is valid, but I think "prepare for launch" is better.
-"i lost the signal" => "I lost the signal"
-"lets blast" => "Let's blast"
-"more to theirs defenses systems" => "more to their defense systems"
-"something i don't know" => "something I don't know
-"proceeeding with the mission" => "Proceeding with the mission"
I am not very familiar nor fond of the runner genre, so that may explain why some of the design choices escape me; however from a shmup standpoint I think there's still a lot of work to do on the level design and the player's weaponry. The art style and general atmosphere is pretty good with nice colorful visuals, but the game mechanics themselves need polish to have a complete and fun package. Look up the usual flaws of euroshmups and make sure to avoid them all because your upgrade system can easily fall into one of those if poorly balanced.
Anyways, hope the feedback is useful and good luck!
I managed to clear your demo, and here are my comments :
-I didn't find a way to rebind controls. At least, the game only uses X, so I am not stuck with having to use both A and X on my AZERTY keyboard. However, I prefer putting pause on Spacebar rather than the harder to reach Esc key, so it was slightly bothersome. I suppose key rebinding is in the pipeline but you focused on the game mechanics and level first and foremost.
-Hey, there's a small intro! Nice! Shouldn't it be played when starting the game rather than starting a run, though?
-The character select screen has a yellow outline over the character you have chosen, but this outline hides the cursor you actually move.
-You can't select the "Database" and "Destination" tabs, but nothing in the tabs' visuals suggests that they are locked. Unless those tabs are supposed to be available at all times in the full game, you should find a way to convey that tab availability difference
-The screen shaking for every enemy you kill is baaaaaaaaaaad. Not only it is distracting, it also makes dodging bullets artificially harder. I would remove it altogether or at least put an toggle on it.
-The player shot is too slow. I can almost race against it.
-You have a movement issue where diagonals are much faster than uni-directionnal movements, most likely due to you making the player move in both directions at once. Actually, you would have to apply a
coefficient of sqrt 2 * speed or something, I can't really remember. In any case, look up the concept of normalized diagonals! If you use a framework, it's possible that there already is a dedicated method or function for that.
-The launch animation is a nice touch, but i wouldn't have it replay every single time you restart.
-It isn't immediatly obvious that the "Upgrade" option in the menu is going to restart the level. The wording makes it look like you can apply upgrades on the fly.
-The pause menu cursor does not roll over when you press up while on the top-most option or down on the lower-most option. As a result, you have to go through all the options just to get to "Back" to resume playing.
-The big purple enemies are too strong. At first, I mostly used the girl character and it's difficult if not impossible to defeat the two of them with your default shot.
-There are invisible walls near the edges of the screen, which can lead to us getting killed because we thought we had much more space than what is actually available. This is prett egregious during one of the boss' patterns with the red bullets. There are two possibilities to fix that. Remove those boundaries and give the player the freedom to move all over the screen while putting transparency on the HUD elements (or moving the elements on the other side) whenever the player approaches the HUD. The other way would be to have black bars on the top and bottom to clearly delimit your play area, as in Darius Burst CS for example. This solution cuts a bit of your background though.
-I didn't immediatly realize there was a constantly depleting energy bar that acts as a lifebar. That explained why I sometimes died in two hits and sometimes in three, and also why I sometimes randomly exploded for seemingly no reason.
-The energy system is pretty frustrating and I would ditch it altogether but if you really want to keep it, why not make it so that the bar never completely depletes on its own and will leave you with 1HP. This way, there are no random game overs anymore, yet there still is the tension of fearing enemy attacks and the desire to replenish the bar to get some safety.
-The art style is cute!
-With the upgrade system and the lifebar, the game is clearly a euroshmup, though it fortunately features no inertia. Be very careful with the balance, because the early game feels like a grind where you don't have the necessary lifebar and energy collection upgrades to progress and are forced to die over and over again just to get enough resources to get those upgrades. Make sure the game can be cleared with the default set-up.
-The characters are kinda funny! I like the way the group leader and the scientist girl are eager to send the pilots to the battlefield with barely hidden lack of care for their feelings and safety.
-The music is nothing to write home about. It doesn't get grating but it isn't really remarkable either. The loop duration for the menu track could be a bit longer though
-The big purple enemy doesn't look like it is still alive when you remove its armor. Instead, it seems like it is starting a death animation. That makes it all the more surprising when it in fact rushes forward, usually in your face as you had to be in front of it to put it in this state.
-Is there any score indicator? I thought the number on the upper right corner was that, and thought it was odd that it didn't reset when you restart the game, but it's actually your currency level. Does that mean there's no proper score?
-The way the enemies randomly give you energy or not can be a major source of frustration. With the energy system you have, you are basically fucked if the RNG decides to not give you any energy items from the enemies you killed. With the default upgrades, the average amount you get is far from enough to let you survive. IMO, every single enemy should drop energy. It's less frustrating for the player and also easier to balance for the developer.
-It is unfair to have the bar deplete at the beginning of the level or after section transitions while no enemies are spawned before a few seconds.
-The hitboxes seem a bit big. Positionning yourself between the big purple enemies' bullets to try to take them out both feels like a gamble (and the screen shaking does not help at all)
-The shot improves a bit when collecting enough energy items, but reverts to its default power if you get hit, even though that's exactly when you'll need firepower to kill enemies and replenish the energy bar. That's a double penalty and it is a bit too punishing IMO. If the energy bar can't deplete to 0 on its own, though, maybe it can work.
-I played as the girl for self-explanatory reasons but after trying the others out, it seem the black guy is undoubtedly superior to the others due to its better vertical range. His shot is kinda tricky to use, but the other guy is way too slow and the girl lacks firepower. Big purple enemies are still too tough to reliably kill them even with the black guy but at least, I can position the modules on them without putting myself in danger.
-The level transition hides the player ship and seems like its own disconnected sequence. Why not have the player visible on screen ?
-The "initial impulse" upgrade had me puzzled for a bit. I thought that it only gave you invincibility for the early game so it seemed useless in comparison to the other upgrades that act in the long term and cost the same. However, after I maxed out the green ugrade bars for the other two upgrades, I spent much more currency on this upgrade than before and noticed it actually fast-forwards you through the early parts of your level. With the green bar maxed out, I was even able to instantly reach the boss. That means you have an upgrade that basically says "Hey, I know the level is a slog. Wanna skip it?" which is something you don't want the player to feel or think.
-Speaking of the levels and their design, I have to say the level design feels random, procedurally generated and lacks identity and construction. You have three or four enemy waves that you send against the player over and over again, without any progression in the way the enemy placement teaches you things about them and the strategies you should use to defeat them. That means the tension is pretty stagnant, with nothing memorable about each part of the level.
Shmup level-design is more complicated than it appears, so if you need pointers or resources on it, I would suggest reading this thread that has some useful feedback on the topic from experienced shmuppers.
-The post-hit invincibility duration is too low. Getting hit twice in a row without having the time to properly reposition yourself is not too uncommon.
-The player shots are too small. That makes killing even popcorn enemies a difficult task. You have to aim properly and even then, you often have a few slipping away.
-The black guy's shots' improved version do not seem any different, aside from the sound they make.
-If I die and the background changes during the death animation, the transition plays and I resume exploding immediatly after. I think the transition simply shouldn't play in that case.
-The laser enemies fire their laser when they are at the very left of the screen, inevitably damaging any player that went on the left side to stay safe. I don't know it is on purpose or not, just throwing that out there. I guess that wouldn't have been significant if the player shots were stronger and could more easily kill the popcorn enemies.
-The boss has way too much health for its amount of patterns, as it has to cycle through them quite a bit.
-The shot's short range forces you to stay very close to the boss. That means you can't have a boss with only patterns that force the player to stay far away from it, as it would have no way whatsoever to damage it
-The boss laser lock-on indicators behave in odd ways, wandering around and goofing off for a while before rushing on to the player's position.
-One of the boss laser attacks has no warnings aside from a shining eye that's very easily missable. Besides, the laser hitbox is already active when that small forewarning plays, even though the laser is not actually there yet.
-With the black guy, the boss has a very exploitable safespot right behind it. As long as you don't touch the turrets and avoid the easily dodgable aimed lasers, you can position yourself behind the boss and let the options damage it. Maybe it also works with the other characters, but is looks less safe to me.
-I love the ending picture! It's so sweet.
Here are the typos I found :
-"get to through" => "get through"
-"seem like the teleporter" => "Seems like the teleporter"
-"I thought i" => "I thought I"
-"and it's pilot" => "and save its pilot"
-"use the DATA" => Not a hard typo, but I suggest "use the DATA tab" instead
-"when you are ready, Head" => "When you are ready, head"
-"prepare for the launch" => It is valid, but I think "prepare for launch" is better.
-"i lost the signal" => "I lost the signal"
-"lets blast" => "Let's blast"
-"more to theirs defenses systems" => "more to their defense systems"
-"something i don't know" => "something I don't know
-"proceeeding with the mission" => "Proceeding with the mission"
I am not very familiar nor fond of the runner genre, so that may explain why some of the design choices escape me; however from a shmup standpoint I think there's still a lot of work to do on the level design and the player's weaponry. The art style and general atmosphere is pretty good with nice colorful visuals, but the game mechanics themselves need polish to have a complete and fun package. Look up the usual flaws of euroshmups and make sure to avoid them all because your upgrade system can easily fall into one of those if poorly balanced.
Anyways, hope the feedback is useful and good luck!
Remote Weapon GunFencer - My shmup projectRegalSin wrote: I think I have downloaded so much I am bored with downloading. No really I bored with downloading stuff I might consider moving to Canada or the pacific.