New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc.

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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

I've changed the background for the buttons, I think it looks a bit better now.


Image
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

It's been a little while but here's an updated version of the demo:

LINK REMOVED - project updated.


Here's a list of the most recent changes :
Features :

- enemy bullets now have a black outline in an attempt to make them more visible.

- player invincibility period after being hit increased from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds.

- removed some of the unneccessary options from control setup menu.

- added new mesh for the life powerup.

- added a restart button to the pause menu.

- reduced physical length of level(s) by approximately 20%.

- moved several enemy groups closer together.

- removed a handful of somewhat unneccessary enemy groups.

- changed speed display to use arrows instead of numbers.

- more updates to the scenery.

- altered boss warning text to make it more visually appealing.

- redesigned side panels and added other new gui elements.



Fixes :

- Slightly reduced the length of the main hitbox for the player ship.

- turrets on enemy bosses are now destroyed when the boss dies to prevent them from firing after the boss is dead.

As always the full list is included in the Changelog.txt file.

I've tried to address as many of the recently raised issues as possible. The only thing I haven't had a chance to work on is the main boss, I'm still not too sure what I'm going to do with him yet so it may be a while before I get to making any changes there.

I'm not sure if I'll have time to update the demo again before the new year but please keep the feedback coming. Unless you good folks find any issues that really need addressing I'm thinking that this would be a good opportunity to start work on the second level, I feel that the first level is getting fairly polished now but as always please feel free to point out anything you think I'm missing.
Last edited by TheDogCatcher on Tue Dec 19, 2017 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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M.Knight
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by M.Knight »

Here are my impressions on the newest build after 3-4 credits :

-The black outline makes the orange bullets much more visible. :)

-Even though the side turrets are disabled, the boss can still fire the forward laser when dying. I don't know it can hit you though. If the boss script has access to its health points and/or its alive/dead status, a simple boolean condition evaluated before it fires its main laser can fix this I think.

-The speed arrows are more informative and cooler than the numbers from before. I suggest also adding transparent arrows or outlines of arrows to indicate the maximum speed because it is not immediatly obvious with the current interface. Your current arrow icons would simply overlap them.

-The new warning text looks pretty good, I like it! There was one instance though where I managed not to have it displayed before the mid-boss. I was playing a run, game overed and restarted, but I can't reproduce the bug even by doing this again so there may be other parameters. I think I was near the screen's upper boundary but that's all I remember.
RegalSin 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.
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

Again some good feedback there. :)
M.Knight wrote:Here are my impressions on the newest build after 3-4 credits :

-Even though the side turrets are disabled, the boss can still fire the forward laser when dying. I don't know it can hit you though. If the boss script has access to its health points and/or its alive/dead status, a simple boolean condition evaluated before it fires its main laser can fix this I think.

That shouldn't be happening but I've noticed this bug myself, I'll see if I can figure out what's going on there.
-The speed arrows are more informative and cooler than the numbers from before. I suggest also adding transparent arrows or outlines of arrows to indicate the maximum speed because it is not immediatly obvious with the current interface. Your current arrow icons would simply overlap them.

Nice suggestion and not too hard to add in, I'll get that sorted straight away.

-The new warning text looks pretty good, I like it! There was one instance though where I managed not to have it displayed before the mid-boss. I was playing a run, game overed and restarted, but I can't reproduce the bug even by doing this again so there may be other parameters. I think I was near the screen's upper boundary but that's all I remember.
That's a bit of an annoying bug, I've never seen that happen myself, if you can figure out what causes it that will be great. Unless someone is able to reproduce it consistently there's probably not much I can do to fix it.
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M.Knight
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by M.Knight »

There's another comment I had about the pacing that I forgot to mention : Cutting down on some dead moments makes the game feel tighter and faster. That's a step in the right direction I think, but the wave with small ennemies coming from a side is still repeated a bit too often IMO. I think it would be better if you have it not more than once or twice to make the player learn the wave itself then mix it up with other enemies whenever you re-use it. Near the end of the stage there are some interesting and challenging mixes of waves but I believe you can do that even earlier.
TheDogCatcher wrote:
M.Knight wrote:Here are my impressions on the newest build after 3-4 credits :

-Even though the side turrets are disabled, the boss can still fire the forward laser when dying. I don't know it can hit you though. If the boss script has access to its health points and/or its alive/dead status, a simple boolean condition evaluated before it fires its main laser can fix this I think.
That shouldn't be happening but I've noticed this bug myself, I'll see if I can figure out what's going on there.
I haven't played enough times and haven't triggered the bug again to pinpoint the exact cause, but I suppose it might be related to timing issues if the pattern starts when the boss is doing its death animation. For example, if you trigger the laser in a coroutine then even if you put a check before actually calling it, you could have the boss die during the frames between the coroutine's beginning and the moment within it where the laser is actually called if there is a delay and no additional check within the coroutine.
RegalSin 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.
Remote Weapon GunFencer - My shmup project
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

I haven't played enough times and haven't triggered the bug again to pinpoint the exact cause, but I suppose it might be related to timing issues if the pattern starts when the boss is doing its death animation. For example, if you trigger the laser in a coroutine then even if you put a check before actually calling it, you could have the boss die during the frames between the coroutine's beginning and the moment within it where the laser is actually called if there is a delay and no additional check within the coroutine.
Ok, I think I may have fixed this issue now, the bosses firing routine is triggered at certain points during it's movement animation. I already had code in place to turn off the bosses fire routine if it was firing when it died. However I hadn't stopped the animation, so it was possible for the enemy to still move to the firing position after it had died and thus trigger the firing routine, I've now disabled the bosses movement animation upon death which should in theory fix the problem. It'll still need some more testing to ensure the fix works properly, but it seems to have done the trick in the few tests that I've carried out.

There's another comment I had about the pacing that I forgot to mention : Cutting down on some dead moments makes the game feel tighter and faster. That's a step in the right direction I think, but the wave with small ennemies coming from a side is still repeated a bit too often IMO. I think it would be better if you have it not more than once or twice to make the player learn the wave itself then mix it up with other enemies whenever you re-use it. Near the end of the stage there are some interesting and challenging mixes of waves but I believe you can do that even earlier.

I'll give that some thought, I agree that it's a bit repetetive so maybe I'll throw in a few of the less used enemy types during these waves to help mix things up a little. My only slight concern is that I don't want to end up making the level too challenging as it is only the first one and should be reletively easy to beat.
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

Ok, I think I may have fixed this issue now, the bosses firing routine is triggered at certain points during it's movement animation. I already had code in place to turn off the bosses fire routine if it was firing when it died. However I hadn't stopped the animation, so it was possible for the enemy to still move to the firing position after it had died and thus trigger the firing routine, I've now disabled the bosses movement animation upon death which should in theory fix the problem. It'll still need some more testing to ensure the fix works properly, but it seems to have done the trick in the few tests that I've carried out.
Well that didn't work. :(

I'm trying something else now, the main problem is that this is a bit of a tricky issue to nail down as it's not easy to get it to happen consistently, so it's kinda hard to know if I've fixed it or not.

If my latest attempt to fix it doesn't work I've still got a couple of other things I can try.
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

I've updated the demo again, there's only a handful of changes this time round as I've mainly been concentrating on creating assets for level 2.

There were however a few outstanding issues that I've tried to address before fully commiting to level 2 development.

I'm not sure if I've fixed the issue of the bosses firing their main weapons after dying but I haven't been able to reproduce it in any of my more recent tests, so I'm hoping I might have solved that one now, let me know if it still exists.

here's the link to the latest download :


Operation Erebus Demo 7


here's a list of changes :
Features :

- added splash screen.

- changed speed display.

- added a few more details to scenery.

- added in a few more enemy waves in an attempt to mix things up a bit.



Fixes :

- potentially fixed an issue that would allow enemy bosses to continue firing their main weapon after death (needs more testing to be certain).

As you can see it's quite a short list but I'd like to think that's because there are now fewer issues that need addressing. I probably won't release another new build now until level 2 is ready which will probably be sometime in January.

Happy holidays folks, see you all in the new year.


-mark
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mamboFoxtrot
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

The game is definitely improving! It's nice to see you've trimmed stage 1 some and tried to make it a bit more lively in places, but I feel like you're kinda just spawning in enemies and hoping for the best. I hadn't said much about the level design up until this point b/c you were still doing basic engine stuff like balancing the weapons and such, but I think I should say now that I don't feel you can continue designing levels as you are. There's a lot of places in the level design where you can just kinda hang out at some part of the screen and watch enemies go by, or only need to nudge a little bit every once in a while, punctuated by the occasional spat of enemy spam. The thing is, the enemies are being used in a way that feels detached from each other. Their shot patterns aren't really coordinating with each other in any way. Not helping matters is how you seem to be overly-reusing the spawning patterns for each enemy type. Like, with the guys that fly in from the left or the right, or the space-invaders-rush guys, try at some spots just using one or two of them instead of the whole set pattern again.



e: oh yeah, the boot-up logo is nice, but the duration is a bit much. Shmuppers are impatient people, yanno!
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TheDogCatcher
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by TheDogCatcher »

mamboFoxtrot wrote:The game is definitely improving! It's nice to see you've trimmed stage 1 some and tried to make it a bit more lively in places, but I feel like you're kinda just spawning in enemies and hoping for the best. I hadn't said much about the level design up until this point b/c you were still doing basic engine stuff like balancing the weapons and such, but I think I should say now that I don't feel you can continue designing levels as you are. There's a lot of places in the level design where you can just kinda hang out at some part of the screen and watch enemies go by, or only need to nudge a little bit every once in a while, punctuated by the occasional spat of enemy spam. The thing is, the enemies are being used in a way that feels detached from each other. Their shot patterns aren't really coordinating with each other in any way. Not helping matters is how you seem to be overly-reusing the spawning patterns for each enemy type. Like, with the guys that fly in from the left or the right, or the space-invaders-rush guys, try at some spots just using one or two of them instead of the whole set pattern again.
That's a fair point, I think I've kind of lost my way a bit as I've made more and more changes to the enemy waves. I started off with a vision of how I wanted things to be but it's kind of been diluted as I've been making changes to the point where things seem to be a bit random now.

I was simply reacting to feedback rather than thinking about how things should play out and as a result it's all become a bit of a mess and I'm not quite too sure about how I should proceed from here.

TBH when I think about it I start to feel a little bit out of my depth with all of this, I thought a shmup would be a reletively easy type of game to make but there's obviously a lot more to this than meets the eye.
e: oh yeah, the boot-up logo is nice, but the duration is a bit much. Shmuppers are impatient people, yanno!
yeah, you're right there, I noticed that myself after I played this build for the first time - I'll make it shorter in future .
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

TheDogCatcher wrote:I think I've kind of lost my way a bit as I've made more and more changes to the enemy waves. I started off with a vision of how I wanted things to be but it's kind of been diluted as I've been making changes to the point where things seem to be a bit random now.

I was simply reacting to feedback rather than thinking about how things should play out and as a result it's all become a bit of a mess and I'm not quite too sure about how I should proceed from here.
Huh, when you say it like that it does make sense. That you have the presence of mind to realize that about yourself is a good thing, though.
TBH when I think about it I start to feel a little bit out of my depth with all of this, I thought a shmup would be a reletively easy type of game to make but there's obviously a lot more to this than meets the eye
Haha, I don't think this is the first time I've seen a dev around here say that. :P Though really, depending on what kind of standard you want to hold yourself to, that could be the case with any genre.
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M.Knight
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Re: New shooter in early development, looking for advice etc

Post by M.Knight »

After playing the newest demo, I have to say the pacing is definetely getting better. If you need resources on level-design, there is this handy thread where various shmupsfarm players explain in detail what they think makes for good or bad level design. Don't necessarily take it as gospel, but the insight is pretty useful IMO and there are lots of interesting design ideas in it.

If I can give some advice on how to get a feel for designing ennemy waves, it is to play the games that inspire you and your game and analyze how their own level-design works. Try to see in what ways the game's designers crafted their enemy waves and patterns and how they intended to make you behave. If you can extract the design philosophy behind a game and the dynamic between a wave and the following ones, you could be able to define your own philosophy, set-up some design guidelines for your own game's waves (Are my enemies moving quickly or slowly? Are the bullet patterns mostly aimed at the player and fast, or rather spread out and slower? Do I want the players to move a lot or not? etc.) and always think about the intentions behind your enemy placements.

Making a shmup is rather easy from a mechanical and programming point of view and there is a reason it is a genre game programmers-in-training tackle as a learning experience, so your initial impression is still correct. However, the difficulty lies in making a good, engaging and replayable shmup. Good luck on that journey! :)
RegalSin 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.
Remote Weapon GunFencer - My shmup project
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