My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

[Rozyrg]

Wow, I see what you mean. I'll give it a shot.

I work on at least two different monitors over the course of a week, so it's kinda hard to tell which is really 'right.' On one, everything tends to be really bright and saturated (my laptop's external LCD) and the other the color is fairly understated (traditional CRT on my work pc.) It did cross my mind that it might've been too bubblegum pink, though. >_>

As for the bomb, the way it works now will get you more medals on some of the stronger enemies. Basically, every one starts with a set amount that ticks down the longer it lives, so nuking them right away will, in theory, give you the maximum amount. I didn't quite get all the kinks out yet; but it works well enough (I think.)

The main thing is I don't want to give too much punishment or reward for using them... one thing I never liked is 'bomb fear.' If you need them, you shouldn't be afraid to use them, IMO.
-------------
Picture time!

Here's what would've been the second boss; but now he's just a mid-point goon. The background is actually the beginning of level 4's.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Adding more dark red and shadow to the background with white tinted veins maybe?
Don't want to make them too human-like but its easier on the eyes.

So bomb use is proportional to the risk of not using them? If continuing still restarts the level, its a good idea.
Though you could take cues from (dare I say it) Touhou and introduce bombs on death having an far bigger bonus but takes half the meter away.

[Rozyrg]

Can't say I have any experience with those. <_<

Like I said, that's how it works in theory. I can't remember if that's just how I wanted to do it and forgot to actually to code it in or if I actually tried to do it and it didn't quite work how I wanted.. I'll have to do some digging through the code. Worst case, they might just spawn medals indefinitely as long as their death sequence lasts (or they end up off screen) and it really doesn't matter how fast you kill them.

Beyond that, the only benefit of not using your bar the way it is now is pretty much:

A: Having it when you might need it later (no brainer)
B: racking up some extra points at the end stage ticker.

Like I said, I don't want *too* much to hinge on it; but I do appreciate the input... especially being that I'm not exactly a score player to begin with.

Here's the new beam, by the way....it's actually a beam now (yay):

Alternate beam (plasma bolt):

Bomb:

[Rozyrg]

First few images of the second level boss:



I've also been fiddling with ideas for a new level:

(Also based on another old Blast Works level)

[S20-TBL]

Finally. Looks like you've been hard at work on this. Great job on the new visuals, can't wait to use the new MAX Mode weapons (and I'm still trying to wrap my head around your beam code logic in the other thread, I'm actually forced to use a beam in my own project after I thought I could forego it). And those bosses are stinking ginormous, do they have multiple targets each?

I see the new character is a mecha lady. When can we expect the next build release BTW?

[Rozyrg]

"Soon" good enough?

The main things are the boss music (haven't heard from Raigon in awhile), the bosses need some work themselves and there's a few enemies I want to add, too. So yeah, should be soon.

The first boss (GOR-X) doesn't have multiple targets yet; but that might change when I go back and tweak him. The second one (Goblin King), you can mess up either or both of his arms and he'll change what he does depending on how damaged he is.


As for the beam code, it's hardly perfect. Like most of my code, it just works "well enough"..lol. You could always just do a normal shot with a shorter firing delay too, that's what I had for a little bit.

Anyways, I can't remember how much detail I went into in the other thread; but I'll try to break it down anyways. (Keep in mind this is for a horizontally oriented game):
--------------------------------------
var1: x position of the ship
var2: pixel width of the first section of the beam (flash)
var3: pixel width of the main section of the beam
var4: x position of the projectile (which moves very fast)
var5: the distance between the position of the ship and that of the projectile, taking into account the width of the flash image. Absolute value of var4-(var1+var2)
var6: The amount the main beam section will need to be scaled horizontally to fit the difference in var5, with a scale of 1 being the same as var3. Basically, var5/var3

So ,what I do each step after the beam is fired is:
- draw the first section of the beam at var1
- draw the main section of the beam at var1 + var2 + (var5/2) (so it's precisely in the middle) with a horizontal scale of var6
- if a collision is made, draw the 'hit' section at var5

Other things of note: the projectile itself cannot be seen, it uses a blank sprite that has the same height as the beam images (used for collision). I did it this way because of how GM handles drawing an object's sprite, so it might be a moot point if you're working in something else.
-----------------------------------------
Sorry if that was a bit overkill. I think I'm having coding withdrawal...lol.

Still, it does do some stuff it's not supposed to; but as long as the main part of the beam is just horizontal rows of color that won't warp as the image is stretched, you won't be able to see it. If you don't, it does some funky stuff.

(Just throwing this out there for anyone who might have a clue what to do about it.)
Basically, it draws the different iterations of the beam at different scales (where they would be in progressing steps) all overlapped rather than one solid, smooth beam every step. It seems to be dependent on the speed the projectile is going, too. If I had it move at, say, (current room's width)/5 pixels per step, the number of 'breaks' there would be in the beam would be 5 or fewer depending on where the ship is. It only comes out completely smooth if it's moving all the way across the screen or faster each step.

It really makes me wonder if it's a limitation of what GM can do/draw per step or something (hopefully I'm wrong there and it's just my shitty code at fault.) The only way I could get the lightning/plasma to look good is by waiting for it to detect a collision or go offscreen before it actually draws the beam.

[S20-TBL]

Basically, it draws the different iterations of the beam at different scales (where they would be in progressing steps) all overlapped rather than one solid, smooth beam every step. It seems to be dependent on the speed the projectile is going, too. If I had it move at, say, (current room's width)/5 pixels per step, the number of 'breaks' there would be in the beam would be 5 or fewer depending on where the ship is. It only comes out completely smooth if it's moving all the way across the screen or faster each step.

Oh, OK, makes sense then. So it's a shortcut. Given that my beam isn't too complicated either, I'll give this a shot. Thanks!

[raigon50]

The main things are the boss music (haven't heard from Raigon in awhile),

Sorry. I got the song uploaded, I just haven't sent it yet. I'll do that right now.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks! It's very cool. I know you said you thought Beekiller might be a bit better for bosses; but this one has a nice dark undertone that makes it work well for that I think. Think you could do a really jacked up one, too (say for a final boss/TLB or just a particularly nasty regular one)? (Obviously no rush on that.)

@ S20_TBL : Yeah, I kinda went overboard in that post...lol. Hey, it was early. >_>

Also, SenpaiSamaKun was kind enough to post another video so yall can see some of the new stuff. Thanks, man!

[Rozyrg]

New demo is pretty close... I just gave the first boss a nice overhaul and level one has less dead spots now (you can actually combo through most of it now.)

I finally poked around in the medal creation stuff and made some changes, too. The way it is now, there are three ways this is handled depending on the enemy:

1. Creates only one medal (popcorns)
2. Creates a set number (mid sized)
- they now produce double this number if you destroy them before a set time (default is ~2 seconds)
3. Continually creates medals as long as their cache is greater than one. (large/sub-boss/boss)
- cache continually counts down every few steps as they stay alive past a set time (default is ~2 seconds)

The thing is, though, it seems that your combo is still the biggest factor when it comes to score. On one run, I got a 700+ hit on level 2 and managed to get a score of over 20 million (!) Not sure if I like it hinging that much on it.

[S20-TBL]

The thing is, though, it seems that your combo is still the biggest factor when it comes to score. On one run, I got a 700+ hit on level 2 and managed to get a score of over 20 million (!) Not sure if I like it hinging that much on it.

Personally I think you should ease up on the combos a bit and try to put slightly more weight into medals. The difficulty here is that medal creation and value are tied into combos, but I don't think it should be too much of an issue balancing it out since it lies with the numbers and not the mechanics. I might be wrong here, but at least this way a better player's score jumps exponentially over a worse player, and this would actually encourage chaining more to get medals to appear.

Either that, or you could try getting rid of combos altogether and just use Medals for score, GigaWing-style. Medal value would be determined not by chaining shots on enemies, but either by the number of medals you've collected per value (in essence leveling up the medals by collecting them), the type of enemy killed, or also by using your MAX shot/bomb. A medal system would at least provide (IMHO) more freedom for the player.

Here's an example of how the first method would (in theory) work out.

• 1) Kill the first few waves of enemies, releasing small medals per enemy. After collecting 25 small medals, mid-sized ones would appear.
  
  2) Kill more enemies to get the mid-sized medals. After collecting 50, they get upgraded to large medals.
  
  3) However, fail to collect a large medal within, say, 3 seconds or so, and you get downgraded to mid-sized medals, after which you would need to collect 50 mid-sized ones again. Wait for too long--say 5-6 seconds--and it resets to small ones. You could make this more evident by placing a medal counter or something on the HUD.

Given that medal counts are reset after each death, and that medal collection is also affected by whether or not you are shooting your main weapon, this makes survival all the more crucial to success. It would also tie in more naturally to your enemy medal cache system. In essence it would simply be the game as-is, except the medals aren't affected by the combos anymore.

I noticed you sort of increased the value of each remaining MAX Mode point during the end-of-level tally from 100 to 500. Is this correct?

Also, will using a MAX Bomb in the current build affect the combo counter somehow?

EDIT: Clarified the suggested medal-only system above. Whew!

[Rozyrg]

I do like the idea of them not necessarily being interdependent like they are now, might just give these a shot... thanks for the input.

As it is now, bombing/beaming only affects your combo about how you would expect. The beam hits many more times per second than any normal weapon, so you'll get more hits sooner. They'll also both kill enemies faster; but in either case, you might not be able to use a stronger baddie to 'bridge' to the next wave and you run the risk of your combo going down to zero.

And yeah, I've tinkered with the values for that stuff a bunch of times, at one point I (at least) doubled the values of all medals for the endstage countdown. Here's what the current ones are:

Code: Select all

medal1_value=5000
medal2_value=10000
medal3_value=15000
maxpower_value=125
perfect_value=100000

It probably feels like more for the MAX because I increased the maximum amount you could carry by almost 1/2 when I added the beam in.

edit: I tried your idea ...and so far I like it. It's not %100 the same as what you described, though. The main differences:

1. Destroying enemies is the main thing that advances the upgrades, with a set value that has to be reached for each level. The number required for this increases as the medals level up. Small enemies add less to this value, large enemies add more etc.

2. Since medals don't stay on the screen very long anyways (a little more than before at least,though), I made it so that them going off screen causes the downgrade. It takes 10 or so for small medals, 5 for medium etc.

Sound like an improvement at least?

[S20-TBL]

edit: I tried your idea ...and so far I like it. It's not %100 the same as what you described, though. The main differences:

1. Destroying enemies is the main thing that advances the upgrades, with a set value that has to be reached for each level. The number required for this increases as the medals level up. Small enemies add less to this value, large enemies add more etc.

2. Since medals don't stay on the screen very long anyways (a little more than before at least,though), I made it so that them going off screen causes the downgrade. It takes 10 or so for small medals, 5 for medium etc.

I think this is more natural, having to destroy enemies constantly to upgrade the medals. You might need to run tests to make sure the downgrade variables are balanced, but IMHO this setup appears to have much promise to it. You could also make it so that not destroying enemies for an extended period of time will cause the value to reset.

Anyway, glad I could be of help

[SenpaiSamaKun]

So basically a combo system with proration for excessive force like modern fighting games do with the combo invalidation mechanic?
Only instead of wasting meter, its attacking everything without collecting coins.

I thought Roz was making it that already, but he's not a score player so yeah.

....Man I haven't visited for a while.

[Rozyrg]

@S20-TBL: Yeah, it's going to take a little work to get it right. What immediately started happening with some mid/large size enemies was that clusters of medals would spawn just off the screen, meaning it would immediately count these as lost and rank down before you had a chance to do anything about it.

I fixed that (hopefully); but as an added measure, I made it so ones that are collected count against the 'lost' tally. Maybe that's too lax; but for now it alleviates some of the frustration and the feeling you're losing medals and rank without being able to act against it.

Also, not hitting enemies will rank you down after 3 seconds now. I decided do to it this way so you can keep your rank while fighting larger enemies and bosses.

@SSK: *whoooosshh* Welcome back anyways.
Almost forgot to ask, do you prefer this handle to your devart one? I credited you under that one; but I can change it if you like.

edit: I'm adding one or two more enemies to level 3 (*maybe* a new HUD for Ko, too) and then the demo will be good to go. I'm mostly happy with 1 & 2 for now.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Haha, yeah I didn't leave much of an impression for anyone to care.
SSK is cool.
DA one is just named after a character, and my common one (Raymoo) is already taken on Youtube, so that just leads to a lot of confusion.

Oh and just doing the simple thing of just increasing the score bonus and lessening the amount of coins work for large enemies.
Quality:Quantity ratios and things like that.

And a 3 second penalty for not shooting?
Well there goes pacifist (outside bosses) runs in the future, but oh well.

[Rozyrg]

Hmm... well, if yall want to be able to play it in pacifist mode, I'd need to give the bosses an 'escape' timer or something anyways (which is easy enough.)

Come to think of it, how would scoring work for that anyways? I can definitely think of a few things (like, awarding a set amount per enemy if none are killed); but I dunno how scores would vary between plays other than if you simply didn't die.

Maybe there could be a certain time in each level where special non-attracting medals/powerups start appearing... sort of like Raiden's wandering fairy. Guess it just depends on how important yall think it is. :3

[ZacharyB]

Enemies left alive are free to shoot at the player. If you want to do a pacifism mode, you might want to consider scoring having something to do with the bullets. Something else to think about is that in the arcade game Hyper Duel, the player's score would continually increase when staying still.

[Rozyrg]

New demo!
edit: 1/8/11 - made some changes on level 3 (mostly just backgrounds, though.)

DOWNLOAD instead of Instant Play, please. My guess is it'll give you the year+ old version if you don't.

Also, if any of yall are curious about some of the timers and stuff with the medals:
- open and exit the game once so it can create an ini file
- open it in notepad and change the "?" value to equal one. This lets you access a third menu on the game's options screen.
- open the game again and set 'debug display' to 'on' in the options menu.

As for what the numbers mean,
- One counts up. As long as you kill the enemy before it stops, you will get 2x medals.
- One stays the same number for a bit, then counts down. As long as you kill the enemy before it starts counting, you will get the maximum amount of medals. Also notice that dying halves the available cache for that enemy.

[S20-TBL]

Wow, lots of additions here. I've played it a lot, got up to the red vehicle on Stage 3 and died.

I love the new MAX weapons! The problem is that Bomb Fear (as you put it) has been ingrained into me, so I sometimes find myself wasting it by not shooting and subsequently getting killed. But they're quite satisfying when I use them.

The new stage transitions and backgrounds are also nice-looking, though I noticed the old full screen mode is gone. Did you restrict the size at 800x600 it for graphical reasons?.

The new characters are great too, though I suggest you try to give them unique traits to help each ship stand out more. For example, Sword Knight can probably use a temporary Shield ability when he's not firing (but which gets depleted after a number of hits and would need to recharge), Ko's MAX beam can be a spread shot, and Gladius' MAX shot could pierce through enemies.

I noticed that the new score tally screen has a right half which is completely empty. What are your plans for that portion? Will you move the Medal tally into that area?

Some extra critiques:

* Stage 1 seems to be fraught with a lot of cheap deaths. A lot of times I died by getting shot point blank, and other times I died by colliding with the small enemies, made hard to see because of their relatively dark colors. Again, this level is still substantially more difficult than level 2, primarily because of the bullet speed and the dark-colored enemies.

* It seems there's some discrepancy with which enemies you can ride and which ones you can collide with. For example I can ride the large enemies, but then a bunch of (really tough) popcorns appear and either ram into me or pointblank me with a bullet. What if there was a way to distinguish the enemy types?

* The first miniboss has a really cheap way of killing me. If I try to avoid its mass by slipping under it, the lower turret has a chance of point-blanking me so fast I wouldn't even notice it fired.

* The first boss needs to be balanced out more. I find I usually have to weave in large curving paths to avoid the first and second form patterns, and yet a bit of luck is needed--sometimes the turrets fire a burst at the one safe gap I manage to squeeze through. When it switches to the third form, however, it tends to create fast, nigh-unavoidable patterns that require some amount of luck and LOTS of concentration to dodge, in part due to the small turrets that fire aimed 3-way shots. A suggestion would be to play around with the bullet speeds to give the patterns some variety, as well as regularizing the pattern in which the smaller turrets on all forms shoot.

* The second boss takes up more than half the screen AND fires both large waves and fast bullets, often trapping my ship in the extreme left third of the screen and killing me as soon as it pops onscreen...you might want to try and push him towards the right side a bit more. One suggestion is to keep him at the right, then have him use a ramming attack every now and then to take advantage of his sawblade arms.

* A general suggestion on all the bosses is to give them a short grace period right after they appear, before they start firing bullets, in order to give the player ample warning.

* You might want to cover up the statue at the beginning of level 2...you know, keep things PG-13 so it's work-safe and more people can play it...

Nothing much on level 3 since it's unfinished. Still, keep up the good work, you guys are doing great here. If you want I'll try to get more people to play the game and get their feedback.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks for all the feedback/suggestions... you always give me a lot to chew on.

First boss - I agree. I thought I might've made him too hard towards the end of the fight; but I couldn't tell if I was just getting mad at him for consistently robbing me of all my hard earned medals.
Second boss - I'll definitely look into it. I got so used to taking out his gun right when the fight starts that I might not have noticed problems later on. He is meant to get in your face; but maybe I got carried away a bit.

Both bosses have a (brief) time they wait before they start firing... maybe I should extend that?

Character uniqueness - This was definitely a 'do this later' thing. There's still some weapon gfx I need to redraw, too (ie. max level Sword for Gladius and Gold, Bat might get it's own set later.)

I like the idea for the Knight having a shield, though. I think it could be there in place of the beam. Something like it would cover a good radius around him and you'd get the bullet nullifying effect; but it won't do quite as much damage to enemies as the beam would. Looks like I have some brainstorming to do for the rest of the characters.

As for the statue... so you think I should axe my idea for an Arabian Nights style level taking place in a huge harem?
(kidding of course)

[Udderdude]

ZPF has much the same problem as your other games. Sprites are too big, screen/background is way too cluttered and visually the stuff that needs to stand out doesn't, enemies shoot you right in the face, etc.

I don't really know what else to say, since I already posted most of these issues in a post on the 2nd page, last year.

Maybe you should send me all the art resources and let me make something with it :D

[raigon50]

The game is coming together really nice (also love my logo. lol) I've been using Ko a lot.
I do think the bullet speed for the enemies is to high. Maybe consider adding an option in the option menu that lets you change how fast they are. possibly experiment with different bullet colors too. I liked the purple bullets from the first demo cause they were easy to see.

[monkeyman]

All these comments are making me feel a bit better about dying all the time!

1st up, while I love your artwork (particularly like the dead astronaughts at the start - great touch!) I sometimes wish you would slow your games down a bit so i could take the time to appreciate the sprite work. I also second the sentiments about the background being a bit cluttered, I think even slowing down the scroll speed a little may held there, it just seems a little too much is going on.

Not sure if the bio swarm stage was intended to be an opening level or whether it's jst there because it's finished but the bullet speeds are way too fast for an opening stage, I think I can only dodge the spread shot of the large 'rolling' enemies if I start moving before they've fired. Not that the game needs to be toned down too much - I do like the fact that it kind of throws you into the deep end.

I felt the player should start with some power bar, give them a chance to get out of a scrape, just enough for a beam, not maxed out completely. Then I hit upon an idea, what if the power bar recharged slowly or inched up as you shot down enemies, and having different levels gave access to better powers, you could still have items to max it out etc but I think that would make an interesting risk /reward mechanic, do you use a quick bit of beam power to take down those large enemies or hold out for a better power later on? - just a thought, not sure if that would completely change the dynamics you're going for.

That said, despite the game punishing me, I do keep going back for more so you're doing something right!

[Rozyrg]

@Udderdude

Yeah, no need to repeat the specifics... thanks for trying the game anyways. I can fix something like the point blanking fairly easily (although I've consistently forgotten to address it) ; but the background/visibility issue has taken bit more figuring out... not there by a long shot, I'll admit. Good to have a reminder nonetheless.

I'd be happy to give you some *unused* assets; but there aren't quite enough of them to make anything...yet. All I've got is some leftovers from a few collaborations that didn't go anywhere.

@Raigon

Thanks. I'll tinker with those some more... a little more certainly won't hurt.

Also, if you have time to do any more music, I was thinking about having something short and simple for the continue screen and maybe a little game over jingle (which could be just a few seconds long.)

[emphatic]

@Udderdude

Yeah, no need to repeat the specifics... thanks for trying the game anyways. I can fix something like the point blanking fairly easily (although I've consistently forgotten to address it) ; but the background/visibility issue has taken bit more figuring out... not there by a long shot, I'll admit. Good to have a reminder nonetheless.

I'd be happy to give you some *unused* assets; but there aren't quite enough of them to make anything...yet. All I've got is some leftovers from a few collaborations that didn't go anywhere.

Udderdude can do Black Label versions of your games.

[S20-TBL]

My bad, I only discovered just now that I can alter the screen size by pressing S...

I forgot to mention, if you manage to destroy the first midboss before it loops back to the right side of the screen, you'll get a medal downgrade right before the next two rolling aliens show up, due to the lack of enemies.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks for all the input, guys!

@MM: I've been thinking about giving you some power starting out... might just have to do that now. I really like the idea of getting some back as you fight and not being reliant on the powerups...especially with some of the changes I've been making. Definitely need to tinker with that.

As for the scrolling speed... I tend to nudge it down every once in awhile, might be time for that again.

@S20: Lol, no worries... I wasn't sure what you meant about that, honestly. Yeah, there's a few 'dead spots' that need to be ironed out. Additional enemies *will* spawn if you kill Mr. Skull early; but it always seems a tad too early or late. -_-

@emphatic: Hahahaha... if it only were that easy. Somehow I doubt he has a registered copy of Game Maker.... and digging through my shitty code sounds nightmarish enough to me.

I'll add to that previous offer, though. Any unused sprite assets and any vector assets (earlier ones at least - ie. ZpUltra) are up for grabs.

-----------
Updates:

Backgrounds -

In lieu of making extensive changes to the actual background graphics (at least right now), I've added some simple flat color gradients over portions of it. It looks a tad cheesy; but it at least improves general visibility somewhat.

MAX Mode -

Shield: Short radius, 'freezes' bullets then destroys them after a few moments of continued contact. Each one destroyed gives a set amount of points plus a bonus, which increases with the more you destroy. Does not damage enemies.

Sword: Short-medium radius. Three swords stab outward from your ship, heavily damaging enemies on contact. Releasing the button sends them flying.

Homing Beam: Shoots two smaller beams that independently seek enemies. Bits/options use straight aiming lasers rather than than seeking ones.

[Udderdude]

@emphatic[/b]: Hahahaha... if it only were that easy. Somehow I doubt he has a registered copy of Game Maker.... and digging through my shitty code sounds nightmarish enough to me.

I'll add to that previous offer, though. Any unused sprite assets and any vector assets (earlier ones at least - ie. ZpUltra) are up for grabs.

Feel free to PM me whatever you've got. Also, if I was going to make some sort of remake of your games I'd likely re-do them from scratch with XOP's game engine. I wouldn't touch Gamemaker with a ten foot pole .. no offense :P

[Rozyrg]

LOL... somehow I thought not.

Anyways..cool, I'll toss something together for ya. Illustrator stuff ok? Rasterizing everything beforehand is no problem, though (just a bit worried about 'fuzzies' from anti-aliasing.)