My new game - Stationary Shooter - Feedback would be amazing

[jeffo]

Hi all,

Just working on my first game in unity, a stationary shmup dubbed 'Starship Turret Operator Guy'. The idea is you play a mid-level employee running a single turret on a starship. You have to destroy stuff before it damages your ship. Use the cash to upgrade your turret. Live as long as possible!

You can play it here: http://www.tinytitanstudios.com/builds/ ... 7_web.html

Still a bit of work to go on it, mostly art at this point. But any feedback is most welcomed.


[Updated: June 17 -> v0.97]
Almost there, just a few more bugs/balancing issues to go.

Here's a screenshot:


Thanks all and hope you enjoy!
Jeff

[Laurel_McFang]

The graphics are nice. On iPad, but will give it a go when I get a chance.

[buko-studios]

Nice simple concept! The 3d Graphics are great!!!

[6es_clinton]

Hi! I played up to Wave 14 of your game. I played on PC. Here are my first impressions:

- The graphics are very nicely done

- Are the cats placeholders? I actually like them but yes, you'll need a different cat for each character.

- The concept is pretty solid. I'm not the biggest fan of tower defense but I like how you combined it with shmup. The hybrid design really works. My major issue - as it is with a lot of tower defense games - is that you end up going through the motions for the first several rounds before the game really gets interesting or challenging. I also like the nod to classic Asteroids.

- Speaking of challenge, I noticed the weird difficulty spike going from Wave 2 to Wave 3. I went from shooting down 9/9 enemy objects in the initial 2 waves to having to blast 20+ objects that spawned in much faster and with two different move patterns in Wave 3.

- Turret feels overly gimped at the start. I quickly realized this was in service to your Shop/Upgrade system. I am torn about this since the feel of powering up the turret over a dozen rounds was quite nice. But it is awfully pathetic at the start, especially in how short the range of your bullets is before buying some upgrades. An area that definitely deserves a lot of tuning and testing with more players.

- Mouse-wheel scrolling through the Shop didn't feel very responsive.

- The Upgrades are quite granular. I didn't mind it too much but I wonder if you could cut out 30-40% of them, or combine similar ones together, and get a tighter, simpler to read Shop interface. To compensate, you would have to inflate the costs of the upgrades and perhaps widen the cost gap between upgrade levels. Fewer upgrades, slower progression = more meaningful impact of player's choices and greater anticipation for the next upgrade. Again, this is just a quick idea thrown out there. Of course the implementation is going to be some rewrites and a bunch of additional tuning!

Overall: a solid as hell game! Great work!

[Tafia Tchagata]

Hey there,

Amazing fun time with your game. Love the cats (I would love to see a small story there between cat captain, cat gunner or cat lieutenant...)

All the progression system is really nicely implemented. I loved to discover little by little how I was able to transform my turret and what would be the best decision.

You have some great gameplay here and I would really like to see this game be polished furthermore.

My main critic would concern the title screen art and also the interface visuals, too generic to be noticed.

Thanks for sharing, had a great time

[jeffo]

Thanks everyone so much for the positive feedback, really happy to hear it!

A lot of the art (cat included ) is still placeholder. I'm hoping to push the humor more in the direction of that 'mid-tier generic starship turret guy' approach.

I'm hoping to have it finalized by the end of the month so I'll keep this thread posted with updates as they come.

Thanks again and keep the feedback coming please. I love hearing suggestions!

[Cagar]

I think the game is great fun.
As I'm mainly a proper bullet hell player, my approach was "oh my god this doesn't seem good", I smiled at the soundtrack a little but after a few minutes of playing I actually got addicted.
So yeah, the game is fun.
Suggestions:
I've always thought that these upgrade-driven games should be made with a mindset that the game has to always feel just a little 'overwhelming', and that the player feels like he REALLY needs to update. I think that you could add this feeling to the game without increasing difficulty, by just adding some meteors to the beginning waves of the game that don't actually come straight down, but just pass by like this http://i.gyazo.com/96ca1b1a03779d8286a7c9f5e0528148.png

Another thing that I found weird was that you could purchase score multiplier from the shop (?). Sure, you will have less money to spend on other upgrades, but I find the mechanic kinda too.. 'scripty'? It just feels a pointless risk at least for a first timer. I would make the multiplier just increase and decrease according to how well you're doing (missing shots decreases, shooting things increases). The multiplier upgrade doesn't feel.. rewarding? It's just like "add point here to get more score"

Also, what does turret expansion slot upgrade do?

So yeah.. I can't think of other ways to improve right now. Of course it needs polishing here and there (mostly special effects) but the base game is extremely good and I could imagine that most people will get addicted pretty easily.

EDIT: Ok I found out what the expansion slots do, extremely cool..
If you're really going to keep the purchasable score multiplier, at least move it to the bottom of the store or something, because i'm afraid that I click it by a mistake
EDIT2: I'd also add glow around the small meteors especially, maybe even make them blink/flicker when they spawn.. because now that I played it for the 2nd time, I actually didn't even notice some of the first meteors at the beginning, hahah

[jeffo]

Interesting comment about the Point Multiplier max upgrade. I'm wondering if it should just be a bonus or found within the game. Maybe each time you get a perfect wave you increase it. hmmmm food for thought!

And glad you found what the expansion slots do. The button is a little inconspicuous right now. I need to make it more obvious.

What do you guys think about only being able to shop at the end of a wave? I've heard that comment a few times.

[jeffo]

I figure I'll just keep a changelog going here for those interested. Mostly art this update

5/24/2013 - v0.93
- Added custom dialog icons
- Added money generator model
- Added mine deployer model
- Added mine model
- Added firing effect to missile
- Added hit fx to homing missile
- Added homing missile turret art
- Updated side cannon, turret and starship textures
- Updated the buttons
- Added custom loading for the web player version.

[jeffo]

Game has been updated! Lots of graphic adjustments, and a few gameplay tweaks.

Would love feedback on the following:
- Do you like the idea of dialog popups or does it slow the action down too much?
- How does the balance progression feel (too easy, too hard)?
- What is your favorite/least favorite part of the game?


Changelog:
6/4/2014 - v0.95
- Updated the Expansion Shop UI
- Darkened clickshield
- Bunch of little UI nudges
- Updated the HUD UI with the new look
- Fixed bug with bombs properly subtracting when used
- Increased life on special ship
- Fixed bug with stats popup z-depth **NOTE: Prefabs for popups should have a Panel as a base
- Updated the options popup
- Added icons to the social/options button
- Updated buttons
- Finished dialog UI
- Updated dialog icons
- Added a bunch of statistics
- Added statistics UI on game over screen
- Added an extra bonus for number of upgrades achieved
- Added tips to the game over screen
- Game over screen layout revamped

5/28/2014 - v0.94
- Put in a new shop UI
- Added Mega Spread, Hyper Blasters, Kill Shot and Explosive Rounds upgrades
- Added a Secret shop with super upgrades
- Certain attributes unlock after specific waves now
- Increased shop scroll speed
- Added an instruction screen
- Updated waves 6-11
- Updated descriptions for turrets
- Money Generator now mulitplies your end of wave bonus if its been upgraded
- Balanced Money Generator turret
- Lowered damage from pirate ships
- Balanced mine deployer turret
- Shooting an item will no longer destroy your bullet, so it can hit an enemy behind it
- Items will now auto collect if they reach the bottom of the screen
- Balanced the Homing Missile turret
- Homing Missiles will now explode if they hit another enemy before target
- Added a death explosion effect to the starship
- Added support for the wave to override the shatter effect
- Revamped the first 5 waves and dialog

[sandrinus]

Simple concept and good fun! Congrats!

Some comments:
- I agree with what some people said about buying score multipliers...should be something tied to skill and not bought.
- I reached wave 10 two times and passed it...but wave 11 never started :/
- Bomb could have a hotkey...like right-click or mouse wheel. (I understand that won't be a problem on a touch screen..but for PC it might help)

[jeffo]

Thanks for the feedback!

Bug with wave 10 finishing has been fixed and link should properly reflect that.

For now the bomb hotkey is B

Link: http://www.tinytitanstudios.com/builds/ ... 6_web.html

Cheers!

[Cagar]

It's nice to see how much this game has improved

[jeffo]

HUGE update to the game today. We would love it if you could take the time to play it and provide us with some feedback on the following:

- Overall, did you find the game fun?
- Would you play this on your phone/tablet?
- What upgrades were your favorite?
- What expansion turrets did you prefer? Do any seem more powerful than the rest?
- Do you like the story elements? or do you feel they interrupt the action?
- How do you find the difficulty?
- For your best play session, what wave did you get to and what was your final score?

Game can be played here: http://www.tinytitanstudios.com/builds/ ... 7_web.html

Thanks all!

6/17/2014 - v0.97
- Decreased power of the Mine Deployer at max level
- Added Challenge Wave 25
- Added wave 24
- Added Autofire back in as an upgradeable attribute in the secret shop
- Added wave 23
- Fixed bug where you would repair during a wave pause
- Increased amounts on max health upgrade
- Added random scaling to the asteroids
- Added Dark Matteroid enemy
- Added wave 22
- Added wave 21
- Damage warning no longer shows up on low gfx quality
- Added wave 20
- Added wave 19
- Lowered bossteroids health
- Increased difficulty after wave 10
- Increased cost of upgrades
- Removed the secret shop ships
- Added final model for charge beam turret and projectile