inunui wrote:Hey! Well first off, let me sorta congratulate you, your game was the breaking point for me to finally make an account here! I found this post on the shmups.com Twitter, and thought that since no one has replied yet, I'd try my best to help you out!
I wasn't aware there was a Twitter account for the website. That's really cool! Thank you to the people organising that Twitter for the shout-out.
inunui wrote:First off, let me say I really love the visual design! It's simple, but eye-catching. Same goes for the menus and the title screen! I like that you allow the painting effect to work outside of the game, it helps give it a special feel, right out of the gate. The boss felt almost 4th wall breaking, and it gave a fairly intimidating feeling since it stuck out. It was really cool!
I'm thankful to hear the menus and title helped you get a grasp on the mechanics of the game. I didn't want them to be plain point-and-click menus, especially in the context of the game itself - it would seem like a wasted opportunity NOT to let the player mess around with them.
inunui wrote:I really enjoy the painting idea, far more than I expected to. It's simple enough that it won't confuse someone who isn't totally familiar with shmups. That being said, it took me awhile to figure out that you did special damage by clicking both the right and left mouse buttons at the same time. Maybe it's in the tutorial, but if it was, the tutorial wasn't functioning right on my end. The tutorial is a still screen for me.
I'm glad you brought up that point about the tutorial, I'm going to look into it - it hasn't happened on my end yet, but it's better to know about these issues sooner rather than later. As you suggest, the tutorial does discuss using the right and left buttons - the third screen introduces red enemies/bullets/items and also displays the progress bar from the title screen underneath the enemy instance. Perhaps it would be more intuitive if there were a red enemy on the title screen as well.
inunui wrote:The real doozy here, however, is the two ship set up. I really like the idea of commandeering two ships, but as is, the controls don't service it very well. I'd go for a button to change which ship you control, separate from the painting buttons, as it would allow you to do more complex things in the long run.
Do you know how I could manage a change-ship button while keeping the WASD/arrow keys and mouse? I don't want to add too many buttons to the player's control scheme; ideally they'll have the keys in one hand and the mouse in the other - but I'm open to suggestions! Maybe something like using the mouse to drag the ships around? I'd like to hear some ideas. Control is paramount to the player's experience and I don't want the player to be fighting to enjoy the game.
inunui wrote:I would also suggest making a single ship mode, maybe as sort of a Beginner difficulty, just to allow everyone a a way in to your game. Normally I'd say going for a two ship play-style would be a mistake, especially with a keyboard, but I played through the first level in its entirety (and beat the Boss!) and felt that it helps what's already a unique game stand out even more.
The irony is that I'm thinking of putting a single ship mode in as an unlockable mode after the main campaign is beaten - it would be a harder-difficulty mode and would make sense in the context of the story. I've also got a great design for a different single ship story where you hijack enemy ships, so you're firing bullets in different patterns instead of using the paintbrush.
inunui wrote:As it stands though, I found it made more sense to not move the ships at all, and just make sure to paint a path for them, which probably isn't what you are aiming for!
I tried to mitigate ship idling in the main level - with the rotating circle of red enemies, and several hidden items that need to be flown over and picked up - but if that's the player's style then I'd feel churlish trying to force them to play the 'right' way I want them to. Like square pegs and round holes. Perhaps the game needs some more hidden items and red obstacles like walls, spikes and firebars [Super Mario Bros] so the game has a touch of R-Type/Gradius to it.
inunui wrote:I'd love to see a little bit of a story mode in, but that's probably just because I'm a sucker for shmups with cool settings and cool characters! With a title like Ghost Police, a cool Sci-Fi thing like Snatcher or Terminator comes to mind! If you've got an idea for little story in your back pocket, don't be afraid to use it!
The final game is going to have a story spread over three consecutive modes. The protagonists are private investigators (one alive, one recently blown up) who want to stop the mafia bringing their boss back from the dead. The boss wants control of all the world, even if he has to turn it all into ghostspace to do so, and that's part of his henchmens' motivation - bring him back to life to stop him, or find a way to expunge him beyond ghostspace. Then they find out that some ghosts can possess people permanently to re-enter earthspace and things go pear-shaped. Though this is all talk for the time being -- what I'd like to do is produce the levels first, and worry about the cutscenes/dialogue later on. A score-attack mode would remove those elements so you wouldn't have to sit through it if you wanted to marathon the game.
inunui wrote:Last little bit, I think I recognized those songs? I know there was at least a GameBoy-esque chirp. It's probably just stand in music, which is totally fine at this point, but I'd absolutely love to buy this game when it's finished! I hope you can get some cool original tunes! And if it already is original, I have no clue what exactly I'm confusing it with!
The songs were produced by
Wally Chantek who recently did a fantastic Famicom arrangement album for Gradius 3 - you should really listen to his work! I've also been in talks with several chiptune musicians in the hopes of paying them to produce original music for the game. For that purpose, I'd like to set up a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign later on in the year.
