Patch 1.5 for Mactabilis is going to be released in a day or two. Here are some changes that you might find interesting:
* Improved compatibility and performance with older video cards.
* Only the pause button can now close tips.
* Fixed memory leak when changing resolution.
* Changing resolution is now a smoother experience.
* New background enemy color option for color blind gamers.
* New option to toggle pixelization effect on and off.
* New option to enable or disable the story sequences.
* New option to switch between the blur and color depth effects.
* Improved visibility in two player mode.
We're also looking for a 2D artist to improve the graphics in the game. We don't want pixel art. You'll be paid.
If interested, try the demo and contact us at contact@blazingbitgames.com
Demo and website: http://www.blazingbitgames.com/en/mactabilis
Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
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Re: Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
Oh dear. I've played the game. My next few paragraphs will be harsh, but please take them into consideration. I'm no Udderdude because I'm only a semi-old fogey. But I have a few words of my own. I just hope they're not personally offensive.
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Good grief. There's so much going on in a single screen that I can't tell what's happening. The multi-layered function doesn't work as well as I had thought it would, and there are too many functions like bombs and bullet time that I ended up confusing my controls.
The story and tips are obtrusive, ESPECIALLY the tips. I hate having a game force-pausing just to tell me something. I keep seeing this mistake again and again and again. It doesn't matter whether you're in the professional or indie game development circles, this whole "let's pause the game and give the players tips so we can hand-hold them" thing is far too prevalent. I've worked on enough point-and-click adventure games and everyone working in that genre keeps trying to do this.
Listen carefully please. It does not matter whether your player is a "hardcore" or a "casual" (oh, that term!). Both types hate being interrupted. I know, there's an option to turn the tips and story off. But it doesn't matter! The whole issue is a domino effect stemming from the foundational design, and what I see here is connected with my first paragraph. The game is too complex, far too much like a PC game instead of an arcade game. And because of that complexity you have to stop the game and tell the player A, B, C up to X, Y and Z just to get them to understand things. I don't even remember Raptor doing this.
The shmup is at its core an arcade genre, a pick-up-and-play game. Look at the tutorials for Aero Fighters, Giga Wing or even run-n'-guns like Metal Slug and Cyber-Lip. They all take place BEFORE the game begins. And what do they tell the player? "Move around using the joystick. Press Button 1 to fire. Press button 2 to bomb. Pick up powerups to increase strength and add bombs. Dodge bullets. If you get hit, you lose a life." That's all there is to it. And the entire tutorial is skippable.
On the aesthetic side, the game makes far too much use of blur and alpha effects that objects would often blend into each other. And the things that matter like enemy ships and environmental hazards are too dark-colored. I was wondering what was going on during the first wave of enemy ships since they were all dark red and there were particle effects all over the place. I switched depths only to collide into something. Not good.
Then there was the first boss. What kind of a laser is that? I can hardly even see it. I moved to the background only for me to run right into the beam and die.
The story...please, please, please don't overcomplicate it. The last thing a shmup needs is an overcomplicated story. Even Cave suffers from this. I don't even half care about how special their player characters are and yet they keep throwing their makeshift Greek tragedies at me. Note, this is not against stories in shmups. What I am against is stories that interrupt whatever it is I'm doing and break the suspension of disbelief that I am the one sitting in the cockpit of the fighter and not some character that looks and acts like Light Yagami with a katana.
Let's go back into history again. Link worked. Mario worked. Gordon Freeman worked. The original Samus Aran worked. Why? Because they're silent enough protagonists to the point of effectively functioning as player avatars. But the moment they gave Mario a "personality" and "voice acting" they ended up with the worst-selling Mario game ever in the entire history of Nintendo.
Long story short (no pun intended): please get rid of Jack. I'm the one flying the plane, not him. And restrict the cutscenes to the beginning and the end of the game. The background info about AI machines destroying a planet and threatening a solar system, that's OK. What I don't need is the game telling me how the pilot's day went and who his drinking buddy at the bar was. The whole Narratology movement in game development is doing far more harm than good. I really, really wish game developers would wise up and realize this before it's too late and the industry takes on a has-been status.
-----------
Good grief. There's so much going on in a single screen that I can't tell what's happening. The multi-layered function doesn't work as well as I had thought it would, and there are too many functions like bombs and bullet time that I ended up confusing my controls.
The story and tips are obtrusive, ESPECIALLY the tips. I hate having a game force-pausing just to tell me something. I keep seeing this mistake again and again and again. It doesn't matter whether you're in the professional or indie game development circles, this whole "let's pause the game and give the players tips so we can hand-hold them" thing is far too prevalent. I've worked on enough point-and-click adventure games and everyone working in that genre keeps trying to do this.
Listen carefully please. It does not matter whether your player is a "hardcore" or a "casual" (oh, that term!). Both types hate being interrupted. I know, there's an option to turn the tips and story off. But it doesn't matter! The whole issue is a domino effect stemming from the foundational design, and what I see here is connected with my first paragraph. The game is too complex, far too much like a PC game instead of an arcade game. And because of that complexity you have to stop the game and tell the player A, B, C up to X, Y and Z just to get them to understand things. I don't even remember Raptor doing this.
The shmup is at its core an arcade genre, a pick-up-and-play game. Look at the tutorials for Aero Fighters, Giga Wing or even run-n'-guns like Metal Slug and Cyber-Lip. They all take place BEFORE the game begins. And what do they tell the player? "Move around using the joystick. Press Button 1 to fire. Press button 2 to bomb. Pick up powerups to increase strength and add bombs. Dodge bullets. If you get hit, you lose a life." That's all there is to it. And the entire tutorial is skippable.
On the aesthetic side, the game makes far too much use of blur and alpha effects that objects would often blend into each other. And the things that matter like enemy ships and environmental hazards are too dark-colored. I was wondering what was going on during the first wave of enemy ships since they were all dark red and there were particle effects all over the place. I switched depths only to collide into something. Not good.
Then there was the first boss. What kind of a laser is that? I can hardly even see it. I moved to the background only for me to run right into the beam and die.
The story...please, please, please don't overcomplicate it. The last thing a shmup needs is an overcomplicated story. Even Cave suffers from this. I don't even half care about how special their player characters are and yet they keep throwing their makeshift Greek tragedies at me. Note, this is not against stories in shmups. What I am against is stories that interrupt whatever it is I'm doing and break the suspension of disbelief that I am the one sitting in the cockpit of the fighter and not some character that looks and acts like Light Yagami with a katana.
Let's go back into history again. Link worked. Mario worked. Gordon Freeman worked. The original Samus Aran worked. Why? Because they're silent enough protagonists to the point of effectively functioning as player avatars. But the moment they gave Mario a "personality" and "voice acting" they ended up with the worst-selling Mario game ever in the entire history of Nintendo.
Long story short (no pun intended): please get rid of Jack. I'm the one flying the plane, not him. And restrict the cutscenes to the beginning and the end of the game. The background info about AI machines destroying a planet and threatening a solar system, that's OK. What I don't need is the game telling me how the pilot's day went and who his drinking buddy at the bar was. The whole Narratology movement in game development is doing far more harm than good. I really, really wish game developers would wise up and realize this before it's too late and the industry takes on a has-been status.
Re: Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
That wasn't so harsh :p
It's normal for you to struggle on your first try, but now that you know how the game works, I'm sure most of those issues will disappear.
The tips were a grave concern for me also, I might make a "controls" splash screen in the future. But like you said, just disable them.
Honestly, the game isn't so complicated. You don't NEED to use slow motion or switch weapons. All you have to do is dodge and fire. We had hundreds of people try the game at PAX East and people got the hang of it really fast. Again, this was your first try, so obviously, you're going to die
As for the story, everyone has a different opinion. I patch 1.5, I added an option that completely disables the story. This includes messages from "Jack" from within the mission.
The blur and alpha. The game does look crazy at all times. You'll die a couple of times in every level, but every time, you'll memorize this dangerous part and you'll overcome it on your next try. This is mostly a question of taste I think. In patch 1.5, you can remove the blur completely. Background objects will have a different color instead.
My question to you is: did you have fun?
It's normal for you to struggle on your first try, but now that you know how the game works, I'm sure most of those issues will disappear.
The tips were a grave concern for me also, I might make a "controls" splash screen in the future. But like you said, just disable them.
Honestly, the game isn't so complicated. You don't NEED to use slow motion or switch weapons. All you have to do is dodge and fire. We had hundreds of people try the game at PAX East and people got the hang of it really fast. Again, this was your first try, so obviously, you're going to die
As for the story, everyone has a different opinion. I patch 1.5, I added an option that completely disables the story. This includes messages from "Jack" from within the mission.
The blur and alpha. The game does look crazy at all times. You'll die a couple of times in every level, but every time, you'll memorize this dangerous part and you'll overcome it on your next try. This is mostly a question of taste I think. In patch 1.5, you can remove the blur completely. Background objects will have a different color instead.
My question to you is: did you have fun?
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Re: Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
ItBurn, it's good that you're taking these things into consideration, but as for your question about whether I had fun or not, no. I didn't. It's important that a game hook the player on the first level. Sadly, there were too many obstacles to my enjoyment of the game on the first three playthroughs alone. Things were too hard to see because of all the fancy special effects. Tips kept popping up when I didn't want them to. I saw cutscenes and dialog. It is poor defensive reasoning on the part of a developer to tell a disgruntled prospective customer that it's OK to fail on my first few tries when my issue was not about failing to play the game but failing to enjoy it. There is a major difference between getting frustrated over the difficulty of Zelda and getting frustrated over the difficulty of Battletoads. The one still presents you with a fair fight. The other suffers from poor design.
Do you know what all those things I listed above constitute? Bloat. A shmup could lack all those things, focus on the fundamentals and still be a great shmup. It could do away with the cutscenes and fancy special effects and still be great. In fact, it would come out much better.
For example, the story. I'll be frank with you. When I saw the bar scene intro to level two and watched Mark claim his cigar was probably the last in the universe before commiserating that he wanted his ashes to be left on a planet if he died, I facepalmed. If I wanted drama between a couple of pilots I'd go watch Top Gun and cry over Goose. But I wouldn't play a shmup for it.
About the tips, I did acknowledge in my first response that you could turn off the tips and story, but that it didn't matter. Why? Because they were still fundamentally there. What of the unsuspecting player who doesn't know you could turn off tips and story and just wanted to jump into the game? Would you blame him for not looking in the manual? If you really want to keep the tips, why don't you just display them in real time and simplify them? "WARNING! Incoming Asteroid Field! Switch Depths Immediately!" It's that simple. No need to stop everything and tell me I can slow down time or use a bomb or something. Like I pointed out, all of those things can be taught to the player BEFORE the first level even begins, and arcade games have been doing that for a little under two decades.
On the special effects, whether or not I used blur or color desaturation effects for depth switching, the problems are still there. I can't see my ship because of its size. I can't see the enemy ships because they had these weird alpha blending effects on them (and so did my ship when it fired). The particle effects simply got in my face. And the color-desat effect was horrible on the bottom asteroids in level 1. They were so high-contrast I thought for a moment I was still on their plane and could collide with a rock at any moment. Level 2 was just terrible. All that white snow on the ground was practically blinding me to enemy fire. Add the particle effects on top of that, and I eventually ran into another of those transparent beams and died. My major suggestion: please fix the background colors, get rid of most of the particle effects, don't give the enemies transparent lasers and make your sprites bigger.
I'll be really honest here and tell you what this game reminds me of. It reminds me of the Flash shooter "Enigmata" on Kongregate, right down to the visuals, gameplay concept and even the tips that popped up out of nowhere. The thing that should disturb anyone, though, is that I'm comparing Mactabilis to a free-to-play Flash game that is actually dated. Your competitor has already been out there for a couple of years now.
Do you know what all those things I listed above constitute? Bloat. A shmup could lack all those things, focus on the fundamentals and still be a great shmup. It could do away with the cutscenes and fancy special effects and still be great. In fact, it would come out much better.
For example, the story. I'll be frank with you. When I saw the bar scene intro to level two and watched Mark claim his cigar was probably the last in the universe before commiserating that he wanted his ashes to be left on a planet if he died, I facepalmed. If I wanted drama between a couple of pilots I'd go watch Top Gun and cry over Goose. But I wouldn't play a shmup for it.
About the tips, I did acknowledge in my first response that you could turn off the tips and story, but that it didn't matter. Why? Because they were still fundamentally there. What of the unsuspecting player who doesn't know you could turn off tips and story and just wanted to jump into the game? Would you blame him for not looking in the manual? If you really want to keep the tips, why don't you just display them in real time and simplify them? "WARNING! Incoming Asteroid Field! Switch Depths Immediately!" It's that simple. No need to stop everything and tell me I can slow down time or use a bomb or something. Like I pointed out, all of those things can be taught to the player BEFORE the first level even begins, and arcade games have been doing that for a little under two decades.
On the special effects, whether or not I used blur or color desaturation effects for depth switching, the problems are still there. I can't see my ship because of its size. I can't see the enemy ships because they had these weird alpha blending effects on them (and so did my ship when it fired). The particle effects simply got in my face. And the color-desat effect was horrible on the bottom asteroids in level 1. They were so high-contrast I thought for a moment I was still on their plane and could collide with a rock at any moment. Level 2 was just terrible. All that white snow on the ground was practically blinding me to enemy fire. Add the particle effects on top of that, and I eventually ran into another of those transparent beams and died. My major suggestion: please fix the background colors, get rid of most of the particle effects, don't give the enemies transparent lasers and make your sprites bigger.
I'll be really honest here and tell you what this game reminds me of. It reminds me of the Flash shooter "Enigmata" on Kongregate, right down to the visuals, gameplay concept and even the tips that popped up out of nowhere. The thing that should disturb anyone, though, is that I'm comparing Mactabilis to a free-to-play Flash game that is actually dated. Your competitor has already been out there for a couple of years now.
Re: Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
I understand all of your complaints. The thing is that while you might hate some features, others love them. I do take your concerns into consideration tho.
The only similarity between that flash game and Mactabilis is the fact that they're both shmups :p
The only similarity between that flash game and Mactabilis is the fact that they're both shmups :p
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Re: Mactabilis patch 1.5 and 2D artist wanted
Well, if that's the case then, I have nothing more I could say. I've voiced my concerns over what I sincerely believe are fundamental problems with the core game, and they are here on record if you need to look them up.
You've been a fair sport though, I admire that.
I do want to apologize since some of the things I said were a bit too harsh.
You've been a fair sport though, I admire that.
I do want to apologize since some of the things I said were a bit too harsh.