Dark Stars - my first commercial game, WIP, gimme feedback!

[ahiatt14]

Hey y'all,

I'm a solo developer neck deep in development of my first commercial game, Dark Stars. There's a bunch of media below if you want a quick look. I've also released a short teaser demo, and I want feedback!

I wish I'd found this community sooner in development. For the most part, I have been developing Dark Stars in a vacuum up to this point, away from the scrutiny of other real shmup fans/devs. Dark Stars is the synthesis of some broader game ideas I have that happens to be expressed through a shmup lens. It's very much not a game by a purist for a purist. With that in mind, I'd love to discuss those more philosophical ideas with others who understand the genre (something I haven't been able to do yet), but I'll refrain from that here for now, and instead I'll just explain some of the finer details.

Dark Stars is a vertical-scrolling, narrative-driven "anti-shmup," so-called because the player has no weapons that fire directly. This design choice is basically the logical conclusion of my initial concept, a disempowering shmup: no screen wipes, no score chains, no popcorn enemies, etc. So why not go all the way. Instead of shooting, combat is more "passive" (I hesitate to use this word). By removing guns, the player must utilize the whole field, weaving around enemy ships, bullet patterns, environmental geometry, and traps.

You incapacitate ships and gather resources (souls) by simply being near the ships. These souls power your shield - getting hit empties your souls and leaves you vulnerable to a one-hit-kill, a similar system to Sonic The Hedgehog's health. They also power the centerpiece player ability, the Maw. This is a circular trap the player lays down at any time that has a bunch of properties, including nullifying bullets and sapping enemy ships that move into it (and more I want players to discover). Feeding souls to the Maw by dragging them in increases the player's own offensive properties, creating a feedback loop of offensive power. But using these souls again leaves the player vulnerable. I am trying to create a tension between these two incentives: resource-guzzling offensive play and resource-reserving cautious play. I hope this comes through in the demo!

So, with that cumbersome explanation out of the way, here's some media!



Here's the second of two gameplay trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKHNEdmIHyk

I'm most interested in getting feedback on my little demo, linked at the top of the post. It currently only runs on PCs with Windows 7 or later (probably XP too but I haven't tested this). The game is coming to PC and smartphones, but is native to PC, and this version has the most options, etc. Right now it controls with WASD/arrow keys and supports the Xbox 360 gamepad. I'm proud of the gamepad movement in particular, but I've tried to make the controls smooth and responsive on the keyboard too. (To this end, I've added a "brake" key; holding down Shift slows your movement considerably, making it much easier to weave through tight spaces and chaotic sprays of bullets.) The demo has a barebones installer, and comes with .NET Framework and XNA if you don't have those prerequisites installed.

I would appreciate constructive criticism immensely. Mostly regarding the mechanics - all the art is my own and I am well aware of my limitations . Does the game control satisfyingly? Is the Maw fun to use? Are there any specific situations where the collision detection is not up to snuff? Despite the game's abundant experimentation, I am going for fun here, that is the goal. I am dead set on getting the game to move as sweetly as I can.

Thanks a million!

Also, I'm not here to plug, but just FYI: the game is in its last few hours of a modest but successful Kickstarter campaign. I also uploaded it to Greenlight as well. If you're especially interested, give us a vote!

[Shadolf]

That looks quiet interessiting to me. I like the shooting aspect of shmups, but your concept also could be fun.
I love new gaming concepts and am looking forward to try that out by myself. Will you release a playable Demo for us to test?

[ahiatt14]

That looks quiet interessiting to me. I like the shooting aspect of shmups, but your concept also could be fun.
I love new gaming concepts and am looking forward to try that out by myself. Will you release a playable Demo for us to test?

Thanks!

There is a short demo, built mostly to just show off the mechanics and provide a few opportunities for the player to experiment with tactics. You can download it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5xo9iu8g5vkh1 ... mo.7z?dl=0

[BulletMagnet]

A few thoughts after a short time with the demo:

- The unusual shapes of both enemies and your own ship (looks kinda like the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them) makes hitboxes somewhat hard to discern, so enabling a visible hitbox might be a good option to add, at least in some kind of "practice" mode.

- You get very little invincibility after taking a hit, and this coupled with the loss of both your shield and your "bomb" at the same time makes it very easy to lose your one and only life in one shot, especially if you get trapped. I understand that you're trying to keep things tense, but some means of easing players into things might be warranted.

- I also understand that you're attempting to keep the Maw "mysterious" by not revealing everything about how it works, but hopefully you give some hints along the way during the full game, just so players aren't left completely out in the cold.

- You might consider differentiating "souls" from enemy bullets a bit more, as they're sometimes easy to mix up when the screen gets crowded. I'd also make the "Maw ready" signal more obvious in some way.

An interesting concept overall, and it would appear that you've had some exposure to Skonec and/or Milestone in terms of the "stay in close and keep the streak going" gameplay style you've implemented; I'd suggest trying to make it a little bit more user-friendly, which I think you can do without losing the "threatening" air you're going for.

[ahiatt14]

Thanks a bunch! Just the kind of feedback I need.

A few thoughts after a short time with the demo:

- The unusual shapes of both enemies and your own ship (looks kinda like the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them) makes hitboxes somewhat hard to discern, so enabling a visible hitbox might be a good option to add, at least in some kind of "practice" mode.

I've been struggling in my head with this issue for a while. The first version of my ship had a dot at the center that was the only collidable part, but I just don't like that aesthetically or mechanically. I made the player ship mostly flat white so that the shape and edges are easily read. The collision bounds on the ships conform to their shapes fairly well, but not perfectly, and even if it were perfectly I'm not sure that would be the answer. I'm thinking of making the player hitbox the same shape as the player ship, but maybe 75% of the sprite's scale, so that you still have to pay attention to its shape when moving around other ships, but nicking an edge by a hair doesn't damage you. I'll give a shot to adding a brighter, harder outline to the player's hitbox.

- You get very little invincibility after taking a hit, and this coupled with the loss of both your shield and your "bomb" at the same time makes it very easy to lose your one and only life in one shot, especially if you get trapped. I understand that you're trying to keep things tense, but some means of easing players into things might be warranted.

I do want to keep the draining upon collision, just because I really like the Sonic model I'm aping. I don't want the player to answer getting hit with retreat, but with renewed aggression, since getting new souls is the only way to maintain your security. (e.g. Sonic does this by spreading out your rings when you get hit, enticing you to collect them again, and Bloodborne does this by allowing you to regain some lost health by quickly counterattacking enemies that have just hit you.) I think keeping this system fair will come down to level design more than anything, something I could have put more effort into in the demo. Future versions will have fewer situations that leave the player actually trapped after getting hit.

- I also understand that you're attempting to keep the Maw "mysterious" by not revealing everything about how it works, but hopefully you give some hints along the way during the full game, just so players aren't left completely out in the cold.

Yeah, definitely. Most of that talk is for flavor more than anything. There are easter egg-y little details that will show up once in a while, and one-off mechanical gimmicks here and there that the player doesn't need to learn or master. All the core functions I'll be making clear (or will direct the player toward discovering) in the first level or two.

- You might consider differentiating "souls" from enemy bullets a bit more, as they're sometimes easy to mix up when the screen gets crowded. I'd also make the "Maw ready" signal more obvious in some way.

This is another tough issue. I'm afraid making the souls bigger/more colorful will make them look even more like bullets , but this is another thing I'll be tweaking as I go.

An interesting concept overall, and it would appear that you've had some exposure to Skonec and/or Milestone in terms of the "stay in close and keep the streak going" gameplay style you've implemented; I'd suggest trying to make it a little bit more user-friendly, which I think you can do without losing the "threatening" air you're going for.

Thanks! I have in fact played neither of those, but I will. I know there must be other games that go after this kind of flow, shooting or not, and I'd like to see how others tackle it.

[BulletMagnet]

I do want to keep the draining upon collision, just because I really like the Sonic model I'm aping. I don't want the player to answer getting hit with retreat, but with renewed aggression, since getting new souls is the only way to maintain your security.

If this is the case then I'd definitely increase the invincibility window a bit, to allow players to get themselves into an advantageous position to recover without being immediately blindsided.

This is another tough issue. I'm afraid making the souls bigger/more colorful will make them look even more like bullets , but this is another thing I'll be tweaking as I go.

I was thinking more along the lines of making them translucent or something like that, so they don't distract from the most important elements (i.e. bullets).

Thanks! I have in fact played neither of those, but I will. I know there must be other games that go after this kind of flow, shooting or not, and I'd like to see how others tackle it.

Skonec and Milestone are not actually games, but developers (both of whom unfortunately shut down within the last few years); I'm rather surprised that you haven't tried their stuff before, but I'd suggest looking up the Psyvariar and Radirgy series, respectively, to get a taste of their output, and why your stuff reminded me of them.

[ahiatt14]

If this is the case then I'd definitely increase the invincibility window a bit, to allow players to get themselves into an advantageous position to recover without being immediately blindsided.

That makes sense. I'll give it a second or two longer.

I was thinking more along the lines of making them translucent or something like that, so they don't distract from the most important elements (i.e. bullets).

Yeh I'll see what I can come up with.

Skonec and Milestone are not actually games, but developers (both of whom unfortunately shut down within the last few years); I'm rather surprised that you haven't tried their stuff before, but I'd suggest looking up the Psyvariar and Radirgy series, respectively, to get a taste of their output, and why your stuff reminded me of them.

Haha yeah, just betrayed my ignorance there. My experience with shmups basically includes the 16-bit era, and then Ikaruga (because of course). I will hunt these series down though. Thanks for the recs.

[Faenrir]

Cool, very interesting (and refreshing) concept and the game looks very good !
Voted for you on greenlight, hope you will succeed !