Infinity Squadron + Star Assault

[monkeyman]

So I was looking at ways of putting in some kind of dynamic difficulty system in the game so that the same enemy waves pose more of a threat the longer you survive, and also to test out some ideas about tracking wave destroyed bonuses.

The upshot is that I built a basic shooter engine to test out some of the ideas i had for achieving this. The basic game seems to show some promise and I found I had a few ideas blossoming i coudn't really incorporate into Infinity Squadron so I'm developing this as a side project and thought I'd share a video i posted of it.

See it here!

To make a change this game is a hori shooter (though it doesn't have some of the elements you'd associate with horis like scenery collisions). I've purposefully kept things simple and thought i'd see what i can achieve with 2 enemy types per level (though there is some variation in the formations they come in). I've kept almost exclusively to popcorn enemies as it fits in with the focus on destroying enemy waves (though there is an end game boss).

Since I lack imagination, I've themed the enemies of each level on various other hori shooters and a few other sources so have fun guessing what i've ripped off (or paid homage to).

There are 10 levels including the boss stage, though each level is about 1 min long so it shouldn't drag on.

I'll release a playable version in th next few weeks.

[monkeyman]

Star Assault Demo

I've plucked out 5 of the 9 levels and put them into the demo along with the final boss.
3 Levels of difficulty are selectable, and if you finish one difficulty it will loop to the next. Each difficulty has it's own ending (though don't hold your breath for a poignant end to a beautiful story or anything)

Some info on the game:

Controls are Arrows move and Z fires - that's it!
Destory an entire enemy wave for bonus points and to fill up the power meter. When the power meter is full you get a firepower upgrade.
Extend every 100,000 points.

Any feedback, criticism or bug reports welcome!

[ShmupSamurai]

I like the retro c64 feel.

[monkeyman]

Well I've tied up Star Assault and called it finished.

It's not designed to be terribly original but for the 1st time I've created an adaptable engine that I can use for future projects. That there's a full game made with it is a bonus.

Link is here for anyone who fancies trying it out:
Star Assault

Let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions or bugs to report.

Thanks

[Rozyrg]

Good to see you back, MM!

I really like the simplicity of this one, congrats on finishing it.

[monkeyman]

Thanks -the idea was to keep this as simple as possible so I'd wouldn't get overwhelmed by the project and would actually get it finished. Seems that aspect of the idea worked out all right.

Now that I've got the basic game in place I can work on developing some of the ideas and work them into a followup / sequel. Next step is to make a more traditional horizontal shooter with walls you can crash into and proper power ups.

I've already had an idea of how an option / outrider would work and am looking at how to change level design so that the new tactical options available to a player are used.

I put together a test level showing the new collidable scenery and the options, and have posted a vid HERE.

(if it looks a bit I mean a lot like R Type then that's intentional, more original ideas are still brewing)
Also Star Assault 2 is a working title, I'm just using that because the early build is using many of the same assets as Star Assault for now.

I'm still thinking about how power up will work and what should be available. Was thinking about keeping the basic weapon unchanged and just having upgradable options. Any thoughts on what different things weapons could do would be welcome. So far my weapon ideas are short of original.

[Rozyrg]

Yeah, you can definitely see the influence (which is never a bad thing in the case of R-Type); but it certainly looks amazing so far!

The snakes look great, I might add. How did you make them? The best solution I came up with was to create the segments x amount steps after the one before and give them all the same movement sequence so that the slight delay would create the illusion of them 'following' one another. (The obvious drawback being that any sudden change in movement would be somewhat difficult.)

As for powerups, different weapons and such... my feeling is you can't go wrong with the basics, ie. :

1. Straight
2. Spread
3. Homing

Functionality often beats originality in these circumstances as far as I'm concerned. I think the options would be fine how they are with other weapons equipped. If they didn't change with your current weapon, maybe they could be powered up separately?

[monkeyman]

Snakes were done as you said. I just had a spawn object create each segment then set it off on it's path (decided to be extra lazy and use the path function of GM).

The only radically different approach I have used wqas when I made a snake like object with small tail segments, it just created a stationary segments which destroyed themselves after a certain time, this allowed dynamic movements for the snake you can't do using the above method, but would look ridiculous with larger segments.

Think you're probably right with the weapons, I won't worry about anything to wierd, right now I have :

Regular (360 fire from options)
Laser (forward fire only)
Bomb (goes up and down and sends a trail accross the ground / ceiling - had fun making that one work)
Homing missile

Just need to mess about till they're balanced.

Question now is about how the player gets the weapons and if they can be powered up. Would be grateful for anyone's preference as I can see pro's an cons for all methods.

-Thunder force style where weapons can be selected at any point (whether they would need to be picked up or could be upgraded somehow is another factor)
-Weapons pre selected at stage start. Again, not sure if weapons could be swapped out at certain points within a level (like if a certain weapon is particularly badly suited to a stage)
-Raiden style where an item cycles colours meaning the player can effectively chose which e=weapon they want at regular intervals, main issue there is that it's annoying when it changes colour as you pick it up.
-Or the style many other games have where a power up for each weapon and appear in sequence.

Of course if I do make each weapon upgradable (the issue here is that the player can be over powered / under powered at certain points) how would I go about that:
- Consecutive pickups of the same colour.
- A power up icon seperate to obtaining different weapon types.
- 'Level up' as you destroy enemies with a weapon (this was done in EDF off the top of my head)]

So much to think about!

[Rozyrg]

I'm personally fond of the Thunderforce style (preferably with every weapon when you start), especially if you're not quite sure what to do with the system yet. That way, you can try out every weapon in different circumstances throughout each level, and if you decide on a better means of distributing them later, you'll already have some of the general 'where and when' down.

I like the Raiden system; but I agree it's annoying at best. At least it's easy to see how you could improve on it. Ideally you'd want:

- No 'come and get me, sucker' movement pattern that just gets you killed. I UTTERLY DESPISE THIS.
- No leaving them on the screen forever so you get big clusters of powerups you don't want (I'm looking at you, Raiden 3)
- No powerups changing at the last split second

[BPzeBanshee]

On the subject of powerup systems, one could always do it the Raizing way. Just have a simple upgrade that corresponds to a weapon that raises and drops quickly. If you want it you get if not it leaves quickly.