My first shmup- Looking for feedback

[CaptainKraken]

I'm new to making STGs, and I'd like some feedback on a shmup I made.
Although I've made some shooting game-ish stuff in the past, this is the first one that has the basic 'shmup' stuff (like scoring).
It's on scratch, which isn't professional at all and unfortunately means it probably won't run perfectly.

Here is the link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/119173286/
Requires flash player.

So, for feedback, tell me what I did right, what I did wrong, what you thought was ok, and what sucked.
Again, this is my first 'full' shmup, so I'm looking to improve.

Thank you!

[Elunil]

Well that's a good start ! Keep up the good work !

As an artist my feedback will be on visual quality,
But i like the parallaxing effect in the stars, parallax is always good, it gives depth to the game.

The rest of it lacks polish, and look a bit like programmer art :p
Look at Steredenn if you want an exemple of simple effective pixel art, i might give you inspiration for your next one

[CaptainKraken]

As an artist my feedback will be on visual quality,
But i like the parallaxing effect in the stars, parallax is always good, it gives depth to the game.

The rest of it lacks polish, and look a bit like programmer art :p

The art was quickly thrown together; I can definitely do better (Most of it was just ripped from previous stuff I had done).

Thank you for the feedback! As a side note, what art program is best for pixel art?

[Elunil]

I don't do much pixel art as i'm a 3d artist :p

But those three seems pretty cool
https://www.slant.co/topics/1547/~pixel ... te-editors

[Legendre]

Hi CaptainKraken,

I have played through your game a few times and have some feedback to share:

I find that moving with my right hand (on the arrow keys) is miserable. I understand that I can't always have a d-pad, but I would at least like my left hand to be in charge of directional control. How about implementing alternate WASD directional controls (and alternate firing buttons to match)?

Feedback when damaging an enemy is a necessity. In the case of L.F. this is especially necessary because my bullets do not seem to impact enemies, but rather tunnel through them. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but I need some sort of visual feedback (like a flashing hue) especially for the bosses to tell me I am doing damage.

If I want to play again, I have to reload the page. Am I missing a restart button somewhere?

I don't like that I have to hold both "fire" and "focus" to get a focused shot. Seems redundant--holding focus should be sufficient.

A small timeout between losing a life and my next ship spawning into place would be helpful. At first I thought I was getting hit by a teleportation beam. :p

I like the overall consistency of your visual style. The explosions are surprisingly satisfying despite being so simple. Keep at it, I look forward to playing the next iteration!

[CaptainKraken]

I find that moving with my right hand (on the arrow keys) is miserable. I understand that I can't always have a d-pad, but I would at least like my left hand to be in charge of directional control. How about implementing alternate WASD directional controls (and alternate firing buttons to match)?

Feedback when damaging an enemy is a necessity. In the case of L.F. this is especially necessary because my bullets do not seem to impact enemies, but rather tunnel through them. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but I need some sort of visual feedback (like a flashing hue) especially for the bosses to tell me I am doing damage.

If I want to play again, I have to reload the page. Am I missing a restart button somewhere?

I don't like that I have to hold both "fire" and "focus" to get a focused shot. Seems redundant--holding focus should be sufficient.

A small timeout between losing a life and my next ship spawning into place would be helpful. At first I thought I was getting hit by a teleportation beam. :p

I like the overall consistency of your visual style. The explosions are surprisingly satisfying despite being so simple. Keep at it, I look forward to playing the next iteration!

Thank you for the feedback, Legendre!
I don't usually use controllers, and arrow keys are just natural for me to use; I was under the impression that traditional shooters use arrow keys.
I can add an option for wasd.

As for damaging enemies, I could probably do a flashing effect; however, I couldn't figure out a good way to make the bullets collide with the enemies.

I programmed it so the project would just stop when the game ends. Scratch projects can be restarted easily with the green flag icon at the top right, but it's probably a good idea to add a restart button or just have it return to the title screen.

The fire-focus setup seems like it's a preference thing. Crimzon Clover does it the way I do. (I think Touhou does this as well but I've never played that.)

I was a bit lazy with the player dying. As with the art. :P
I'll try to put a player explosion animation and a delay, to make it obvious.
Hey, a teleportation beam would be an interesting thingy I'm sure. XP

Again, thanks!

[Faenrir]

Good points: everything seems to be working. I like the idea of having a default spread shot and having a focus key.
Bad points: it didn't feel very fluid even though i have a good computer. The shots go through enemies and the enemies lack feedback when you hit them.

Good start, i guess...lots of work to turn this into a good fun game
Hope this helps you !

[CaptainKraken]

Good points: everything seems to be working. I like the idea of having a default spread shot and having a focus key.
Bad points: it didn't feel very fluid even though i have a good computer. The shots go through enemies and the enemies lack feedback when you hit them.

Good start, i guess...lots of work to turn this into a good fun game :)
Hope this helps you !

Thank you! The fluidness unfortunately isn't my fault; scratch is designed more for seventh grade intro to computers projects, not shmups. XP

Just added a flashing effect when you hit enemies.