Pythetron - the speed runable shmup

[TjTownsend]

I am developing a new shmup game using Unity. It's about 15 months into development with the first 10 months put into the game engine (I am doing everything from coding to 3d modeling/animation, etc.).



It's less than 2 months away from a free alpha version, complete with online leaderboard, and will be looking for any players willing to play the game.

There is a gameplay demo and lots of screen shots at my website http://www.pythetron.com

Even though it isn't available to play quite yet, I love feedback of any sort!

-TJ

[Ebbo]

Those are some shiny graphics you've got there. I especially liked the boss designs in this trailer. Nice job! Still, there were some busy spots where the player ship seemed to blend with the backgrounds and different effects just a bit too much.

Speaking of the player ship, the movement inertia and the energy bar didn't seem to add much into the game, so I would just recommend you to get rid of them (or atleast in the case of health bar, redesign it a bit). Hampering the controls with inertia feels pretty bad idea for a game that has been designed for speedruning and judging by trailer, precise movements are certainly required.

[TjTownsend]

Thanks for the feedback! I did struggle early on making it so my friends didn't lose the ship in the background while playing it. I made some steps toward making it clearer but will definitely keep working on that aspect.

As far inertia, do you mean the parts where the ship boosts in speed, or the way the ship itself moves?

The speed aspect of the game is the new game mechanic. The screen has a set movement speed, but you can make it go faster. You are given a rank based on your speed and accuracy (1, 2, or 3 stars). As you earn more stars you expand your level options across the map (the game world is open). So essentially, if you are experienced enough, you'll have the ability to earn stars quicker and make it to the last boss sooner (thus competition for people interested in competing for fastest time). But the game can still be played rarely ever using speed boosting if the player would rather play that way. The levels are designed and tested with both play styles in mind (although I think the speed aspect makes for interesting replayability for the levels as the players skill level increases).

The game also allows you to buy upgrades for your ship by collecting coins in the levels. The upgrades vary from weapons (lots of upgrade paths), armor, and speed upgrades (ships handling, acceleration, and fuel efficiency). A player could chose to never upgrade speed based items and invest only in weapons and armor, or a player could maybe skimp on the armor and focus on speed and simply rely on piloting skill to make it through the enemies. You can build a tank that can take a beating, a scout that can outrun and dodge attacks, or whatever in between. It's up to the player.

For the health bar, do you think it is too small?

Again thanks for the feedback!

[Ebbo]

As far inertia, do you mean the parts where the ship boosts in speed, or the way the ship itself moves?

The way ship itself moves. It doesn't seem too bad in the video but then again I just think it's unnecessary. Removing it would simply allow more precise movement.

For the health bar, do you think it is too small?

Quite the contrary. The concept of the health bar itself isn't really the problem but the way you have executed it seems too haphazard. Take this part for an example: the boss rams itself at the player ship, removing a large chunk of player's health. It's hard comprehend whether or not the player has any invincibility frames after taking the hit and there seems to be no visual feedback for taking a hit either. Some stage hazards might turn pretty trivial if player could simply force their way through them, thanks to the large health bar.
Maybe the health bar could be segmented and taking a hit from either enemy bullets and other hazards would always result in one unit of damage per hit, coupled with few seconds of invincibility frames. To counter possible abuse the stage scrolling speed could decrease or either reset to its default speed.

[TjTownsend]

I see, thanks for clarifying! I currently don't have any invincibility frames, if you get hit by a lot of bullets you take the force of every one of them. It may be me personally, but I find it a little to easy with healthbar+invincibility frames. Seems it should be one or the other.

The impact damage is based on the magnitude of the impact which takes into account the mass of the object and the speed of the impact. This does end up allowing you to scrape walls or collide with them as long as the speed is minimal. This is a big departure from the impact=death that is typical of shmups. I like your idea of a speed penalty. I could also be sure my impact damage math is fair but not too easy. That impact you pointed out should have taken away more HP, I see what you mean. I was thinking impacts could drain your shielding. The shielding is behind the scenes, no indicator apart from the physical appearance of the ship that you have shields. I could add a bar, but I already have 4 bars (HP, boost, score multiplier, and progression).

I really appreciate the feedback you've offered and will definitely make revisions based on it.

Thanks!

[suny]

Your game looks great!
I'm also impressed by the amount of work you achieved alone.
Keep up the good work, and I'm looking forward to following your progress!

[TjTownsend]

Your game looks great!
I'm also impressed by the amount of work you achieved alone.
Keep up the good work, and I'm looking forward to following your progress!

Thanks! I hope people like it.

The bad thing about working alone is that I may end up being the only person who likes the game . So I can't wait to get feedback on the actual game from other people. I imagine I'll have my hands full making lots of changes.

[Doctor Butler]

50 stages is extremely excessive. The more content you have, the shittier each individual element becomes, since you can't give each stage the attention it would need. Most people would rather play 5 tight stages in a brief, but satisfying game, than 50 generic stages in an over-bloated, patience-grating monstrosity.

On top of that, most STG players treat their games like running-tracks, that they can go through time and time again, taking note of their improvement every time. Few are willing to play through such a long game multiple times.

5-6 stages, clocking-in at 30-40 minutes would be just about perfect.

[TjTownsend]

50 stages is extremely excessive. The more content you have, the shittier each individual element becomes, since you can't give each stage the attention it would need. Most people would rather play 5 tight stages in a brief, but satisfying game, than 50 generic stages in an over-bloated, patience-grating monstrosity.

On top of that, most STG players treat their games like running-tracks, that they can go through time and time again, taking note of their improvement every time. Few are willing to play through such a long game multiple times.

5-6 stages, clocking-in at 30-40 minutes would be just about perfect.

Thanks for the insight. I definitely don't want the game to feel bloated.

On paper the game is mapped out to be beaten as fast as 12 minutes. But admittedly that would have to be an insanely skilled player. The reasoning is that it is an open world game and a player only needs 72 stars to enter the final stage and up to 3 stars can be earned in any given level. Each level would take 25-35 seconds to complete (at the speeds necessary to enter the final stage after only 24 levels).

Perhaps you can chime in on what you think, but my vision is for people to take routing into consideration, to give the player a sense of freedom, breaking up the game into smaller chunks. (and perhaps getting ahead of myself, but I'd like to have lots of options for people to compete for high score/fastest time so less likely for a few players to dominate every scored aspect of the game)

On the other hand, you're correct that in order to create this freedom, lots of content needs to be created that many players may never see, potentially impacting quality of what they do see.

I think maybe the best approach would be to focus on keeping each level short (shorter than a typical level) so the combined total of content is more in line with your mentioned 30-40 minutes but still segmented in a way that keeps the open world/routing concept.

The good news is I have no deadline. As a hobby project, I'm willing to put in as much time as it takes to make a game everyone can enjoy and was expecting a full year of level releases to get to the 50 level mark (starting with 12 levels later this year).

Again, thanks for the insight. I really appreciate the feedback!