-= MP3 Shooter =- (Frequency based shmup)

[MaNaR]

Hi all,

Past couple of months I've been working now and then on my latest game project called 'MP3-SHOOTER'.
This shoot-em-up uses the frequency of sound in mp3s to spawn enemies and trigger visual fx.

The game is by no means finished, it's all work in progress. But it would be great to receive some early feedback!
Please have a look and let me know what you think can be improved!!

You can download the latest version from here
http://www.zieners-hosting.nl/hailstone ... esoverview

Oh, and after extracting the files, you have to copy some mp3s into the MyMusic subfolder. There you also find a .txt document that lists suggested (read: that I tried so far) MP3's.

Movie on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS45YQJSYgA

[emphatic]

Looks very interesting. So you control the character with your mouse?

[Sasupoika]

I actually once had this kind of idea, but instead of spawning enemies it created bullet-patterns.

It's a very cool game.
The game was quite simple and didn't lag. Of course, sometimes the background annoyed a little.
And to be honest, I'm not fan of the mouse-controlled ships.
It is a very good concept that you should keep developing. Add different kind of modes and such.
Also, making different kind of backgrounds as unlockables would be cool too.

[MaNaR]

Yes the ship is controlled via the mouse, I use my Wacom tablet pen actually. Sort of had the idea that this concept could also work on touchscreen devices with a stylus.

I started out with keyboard controls but the mouse felt so much faster and more precise. But maybe I should look into it again.

Thanks for the feedback!

[MaNaR]

Update for whoever is interested!

- You can now have 200 MP3's in your folder AND scroll up and down the list.
- Enemies spawn more accurately as the Stage number increases (read: spawns MORE enemies)
- Total amount of coins is displayed in-game
- Game crash when selecting a non existing track is fixed.
- Trophies didn't pop-up correctly, or at all. That's fixed as well.
- 'Now playing' added in Main menu to highlight which track is playing.

You can download build #2 from here
http://www.zieners-hosting.nl/hailstone ... esoverview

Next I'll be looking into
- Patterns based on music
- Enemies that grow bigger (perhaps some arms?) based on music
- Joypad controls (not sure about keyboard)
- Player can get killed
- More weapons to purchase
- New background effects

Feedback is still welcome!

[emphatic]

Cool. I'll wait for Joypad control until I playtest though.

[genecyst]

very nice concept,but i think it needs more graphic appeal...

[lilmanjs]

delerium as a recomended artist/song? you have good tastes.

[Rozyrg]

I think this has potential, although I'm not quite grasping how the music fits into it (maybe I'm picking the wrong kind of music?) Still, I find it quite fun to just mash down the right mouse button and annihilate big clusters of enemies at point blank.

I think the mouse works pretty well for this, too... you kinda need to zip around to nab all the coins.

[null1024]

Couple of bugs:

Countdown loads incorrectly.
Random slowdown, appears to only happen when there are a lot of things on screen, but the thing is, sometimes, it will just spike back up to 60fps. EDIT: appears when the background is least active -- it doesn't look like there's a visualizer going on, but once it switches back to the bright and colorful ones, speed goes back up to normal
Hitbox is huge.
Crashed once on startup for no apparent reason. Crashed on clicking exit to menu once too.


Good things:

Neat concept.
Mouse movement didn't feel too weird, with my trackpad, it felt like playing rRootage on an iPhone.
It looked cool.


Also, these 2 songs produced a fuckton of enemies [and the best part is, I made the songs!].:
http://forthesystem.com/media/node/449 [click download audio file to get the mp3 for this]
http://forthesystem.com/media/node/452 [same here]

[MaNaR]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Really helps me moving on with this game. Actually I've just put a new build online.

Last week I've done general improvements based on what was reported, like the slow downs.
Those should be more or less gone now.

Other than that this is what's new:

- Added new Shop item : Heavy Bullets
- Rudimentary joypad support (it's a start)
- The Trophy system is now really fixed
- New Enemy graphics
- New front/end menu graphics

download link is still the same : http://www.kaisertal.com

[shawnwilliams]

Hi
Yes I download your game from the link above It is awesome but you need to do more work on your project to make it nice.

[Sasupoika]

The enemy-graphics are very nice in my opinion.
Anyway, the player's bullets need tweaking in general. With some upgrades I could stand in top of the screen and fire constantly getting high amounts of points.

Anyway, it's getting better. Keep up good work.