Blast Pulser [Twin Stick Shooter with Procedural Bosses]

[WarpZone32]

Hey guys. I'm working on a Twin Stick Shooter with procedural bosses called Blast Pulser. It's still very early in development, but here's some of the features already implemented:

-Advanced Controller Support: You can rebind the controls at runtime, you can change between controller and mousey-keyboard at any time without doing anything, and you can even steer with a thumbstick while you aim with the mouse if you feel like it.

-AI-driven popcorn: They chase you down, they swarm around their bases, they travel back and forth between bases, they try to bait you into chasing them into the boss's shots.

-Signposting and tells galore: Everything that can hurt you is a glowing red blast of some sort. Every enemy weapon in the game charges up with a glowing red orb at the end of the barrel before firing.

-Procedurally generated, multi-part bosses: Right now, these are the star of the show, even though they're very unfinished. I need to make more parts, weapons, movement styles, and assembly patterns before I'm done.



I'm using Factorio's business model, where I gradually increase the price point as I keep releasing updates. So if you like what you see, the sooner you grab it, the cheaper it'll be. Grab an early version now at itch.io.

[MommysBestGames]

Looks pretty cool! A few things popped into my mind while looking at it.

-Make sure you reference "Warning Forever" so we at least know you know of the game, have played it, and see what you'd carefully like to change. Since this one is very similar, but different, it's always good to hear why you changed the things you did!
-I'm glad you're supporting controller remapping and hot-binding! That should be a common feature in 2018, but sadly a lot of games still don't regularly support it.
-The distance player shots travel seems short. Seems a little odd. Could be interesting, but it did pop out as strange.
-The enemy ships are okay looking, but it's a lots of grey.

Good luck!

[WarpZone32]

Interesting. I was worried about referencing Warning Forever because I didn't want to remind everybody of a much better classic game. As for the player shots, I wanted to force the player to get inside the enemies' firing range. I suppose I could increase the range of player and enemy shots by equal amounts. I worry it'll kill what tension the boss fights have right now. More colorful enemies are a planned feature, currently on the back-burner but probably coming soon.

[MommysBestGames]

It's good then that you have a reason for the short player fire range. That's good.

It's clearly, clearly aping Warning Forever, might as well point it out, but explain what's different.

I mean, look at WF.. they use the screen to create the tension right? You can't escape the bosses. That was really cool! You have it more free flying I guess? So it's different.. is it good or better? I dunno.. I'd have to play it. Maybe just work off of WF more and decide exactly when to change things? I like the idea though of why player shots are shorter.. I think they could travel twice as fast but die twice as quickly.. they just look a little sluggish (the player shots). I'm fine with them having a short range, as per your reasoning. But they do look sluggish.

[WarpZone32]

I like that idea in concept, but then I'd also have to spawn shots twice as often (and do half as much damage) to make those cool smooth trails like you see in the screenshots. Which would be fine except I'm already pushing the limits of how precise of timing you can have with Unity's physics engine...

[WarpZone32]

Actually, here's a thought... is it the shot travel speed, or is it possible what you actually don't like is the turret rotation speed?

Also, were you using mouse or controller?

[WarpZone32]

they just look a little sluggish (the player shots). I'm fine with them having a short range, as per your reasoning. But they do look sluggish.

Here, try out this build and let me know if it feels less sluggish.

https://warpzone.itch.io/blast-pulser/d ... ental-beta

[MommysBestGames]

I downloaded the beta around noon today and the 'final' around 9pm.
I honestly could not tell a difference in player firing rate, or anything really, just FYI.

Once I understood that you can't crash into the boss ship, it didn't bother me as much. But the fact that boss moves really fast, and you have to stop shooting to keep up.. I dunno, I personally would just rather shoot all the time.

The fact that the boss constantly "hovers" around you, and circles you, means its pretty tough to decide what to shoot, since it necessarily comes at you in a circle fashion and you naturally just shoot all it sides off.

I didn't get some really lop-sided boss ships and that was pretty interesting!
But what wasn't exciting, was not being able to shoot of whole branches like in WF. That feels really satisfying in WF and feels lacking here.
There's not enough here to feel like I'm doing anything with much of a strategy other than "shoot a lot". Not a bad thing, but it feels like you could get a strategy going, but it doesn't seem to matter-at least as far as I could tell. Maybe it does in the background numbers but it wasn't presented.

Maybe a thing in between each boss, like WF, but better, where it shows why the new boss is the way it is.

[WarpZone32]

Thanks, I'll think about it. The plan is to work more on the base-busting that happens in the levels between the bosses next. (You weren't just binging Boss Rush mode all this time were you? )

I had three general movement patterns, "Bull," "Drifter," and "Sniper." The Bull pattern is like in WF, and you fight it like you'd fight a bull. You wait for it to charge at you, dodge around it and shoot it in the side. The Dirfter hovers near you, and the Sniper is just a Drifter with a wider tolerance for overshooting the mark. I'll probably revisit these later since they're still kinda awkward.

I'm delighted you found the Asymmetrical bosses to be a fun challenge and not annoying.

[WarpZone32]

All right, all right, how about this?

https://warpzone.itch.io/blast-pulser/d ... gine-again

[Sai'ke]

I gave it a spin. Controller worked right off the bat, so +1 for that.

I think what hurts you is pretty clear, so another +1 for that.

I think it would be really nice if the boss was animated a bit somehow. The second boss reminded me of a shuriken. Might look cool to make that one spin.

I wasn't sure what made these bosses procedural? I only tried the first two levels twice, but the bosses looked the same to me on both playthroughs? Coincidence?

For me it was also quite unexpected that the boss does not collide. It makes the bull pattern a bit less menacing.

Are you planning to replace the sound effects at some point? They sounded a bit timid. I couldn't help but think that I was giving the boss a shave

Would be great if you'd add something to traverse the long stretches of playing field somehow, because going from one base to another kinda killed the momentum a bit.

Overall, it was pretty fun tho

[MommysBestGames]

I downloaded the recent build. I'm still confused how it makes the bosses, seems like not procedural? I played two shuriken bosses in a row, then one very lop-sided boss who flew so fast I couldn't keep up, even without shooting.
But yeah, I'm only playing the boss rush modes. The other mode was not interesting too me.

[Sai'ke]

Hm, strange.

I played campaign twice and boss rush once. I did quit and restart the game in the middle of the two campaign runs though. Maybe the RNG gets reset? Or maybe I was just 'lucky' to get the same lookin' bosses on both runs? I will retry tonight to confirm.