Band of Ace(DEMO)

[Sakiyurai]

Im releasing my game. Still demo version though.

Title screen


Character Select


Lobby (something like a main menu)


Garage (where you buy or sell something)


Gameplay


Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?mkymmjjc0dd

If you want to know what my work, Im the programmer, scriptwriter, artist, and composer (yep, an one-man project T_T)

If you like this game, you can help finish it by donating, sponsoring, or give me a job! (currently unemployed T_T)

Any comment, suggestion, critics, insult, praise, or even love letter can be send via email to:

rieaz.alster@yahoo.com

[Ixranin]

Well, I played it and here's my critique:

• - Everything has a lot of HP. The player ship is durable enough that it can pass a level without even bothering to dodge the enemy bullets. (Until you fight a boss.)
  - The "Inventory" and "Shop" tags in the garage look a lot like buttons. (Makes it hard to tell what's selected when you enter the garage, since "Back" is selected by default.) Could either change them to look less like buttons, or animate buttons that are highlighted.
  - It's not clear that you can only have one of each weapon, and that you can't have both missile launchers. There are various ways you could show this, such as graying out items in the shop that you already have, or having a label in the center window saying something like "You already have this weapon."
  - I think the game would benefit from revising the interface in general. I know it's adding more to your plate, but it doesn't have to be a huge priority either. Just keep an eye out for things that you think work in other games' interfaces.

The actual gameplay though, I leave that to the more experienced shmuppers. Good luck with your project.

[Ixmucane2]

The mashup of crayon drawings, 3D graphics and standard anti-aliased text and UI elements that can be seen in the screenshots makes me cringe. Individual elements aren't particularly bad, but the lack of artistic coherence makes the whole rather repulsive.

You could choose crayons and hand-draw text panels, buttons, sprites and backgrounds. The game can look like animated cutouts, maybe even with curled and torn paper.
Or you could stick to mainstream style and replace the crayon illustrations (with abstract shapes or panels, starfields etc.) and the 3D models (with pixel art sprites). The UI elements need only fonts with some personality to look really good.
Or you could embrace 3D, removing the nice but too "organic" scanned drawings and improving in-game graphics quality. You need at least per-face shading and less stretched textures; projected shadows and alpha-blended particles would be even better.