PRO-R, Entering the Genre

[tedgaming]

The game can be played here:

http://tedgaming.com/pro-r/

I'm just starting out in this genre so I hope I'm doing okay. Hopefully, I can make more, better games for this genre. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it.

[Ixmucane2]

A nice effort, with somewhat refined graphics and some problems to address:

• The normal designs for a long game with powerups and inflation of threat levels let the player become progressively more powerful, matching the challenges, either by buying upgrades between levels (e.g. Tyrian) or by dispensing with the stores and letting the player accumulate powerups (e.g. Gunhed, which is particularly similar to Tyrian in other aspects; Raiden series).
  Letting the player access the store only after losing, in order to purchase the increased weapon level limits he would have needed to progress further, and letting him reach such limits very quickly is the worst choice: you give the player too much firepower in the first half of the game (boring) and then too little firepower in the latter half (frustrating).
• Levels are too repetitive for their length and too random. You should create interesting formations of enemies that move in different ways and shoot meaningful bullet patterns, to combine them in enough ways to fill a whole level. For example, Deathsmiles (just to mention what I'm playing currently) has relatively long levels with relatively few enemy types, but with the almost constant interplay between shooting something fixed, something that enters from the left and something that enters from the right and the different enemy counts, formations and obstacles every wave of the same enemies feels different.
  Repetition and regular patterns are good in difficult games with very short levels like Galaga or Space Invaders, where the player is going to introduce more than enough chaos and variety while playing.
• Why do you alter the handling of the player's ship, ruining what has been learned so far? Without asking, even, in case of experience awards? Pick one good speed and balance the game for that.
• There is no reason to shoot anything but all weapons with autofire: simplify in-game controls to arrows and 1 button to use a bomb.
• The randomly appearing disks in level 1 don't offer any warning. Maybe you "cheat" to avoid making them appear on top of the player, but the theoretical possibility is still unnerving.
  Usually, shmup enemies that materialize in the middle of the playfield do so after puffs of smoke, flashing signs, ghostly appearances, early harmless boss states and other special effects have given the player a good idea of what to expect and of the exact location of the threat.
  For relatively minor enemies like your disks, you might avoid this deluxe treatment and just let them enter from the safe far portion of the top or sides of the screen (quickly reaching their random hovering places).
• The player's hitbox is quite large. I'd expect the ship to be able to cross the lines of small "peas" in level 1 through the far left and right gutters and through 1-pea gaps.
• Traditionally, excess powerups give bonus points instead of being simply wasted.
• The score display is incredibly small. On the other hand, there are no score items or score-related tricks, so it isn't actually important.
• The two Mochi popups after finishing a game are seriously annoying. Remove one, or preferably both (you have more than enough screen space to insert large buttons, or even whole panels of Mochi stuff).

[Udderdude]

Read this plz.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36231

[Ghegs]

Moved to Development.

[tedgaming]

Thanks Ixmucane2 and Udderdude. I'm very happy to receive constructive feedback without unnecessary bashing.

Ixmucane2, I agree with most of your points and it's amazing how insightful they are. I've already read tons of feedback from various sources so I thought I've seen it all but your offer many new points that have not yet been pointed out to me.

For the third point, how do you feel about mouse control? I think I'm going to cater towards mouse controlling the ship since it allows for more precision and the increased speed will only be beneficial. I will be keeping keyboard control but mouse should perform significantly better.

For autofire, some later weapons can benefit from timing but yes, the early weapons pose no reason to fire anything but all weapons. Do you think the default state should be autofire on instead of off?

Excess power-ups do give 1000 points but I can totally see how that's not obvious at all. There are actually a few tricks to get more scores, something I call multiplier farming, but that comes more later on in the game.

The 2 mochi pop-ups actually serve a purpose and not for advertising although again, I should probably have made it more obvious. There's one that just asks you to log in and the reason for that is because the save data can be saved to the logged in account instead of the fragile state of a browser cookie. The 2nd pop-up is for score submission.

[Ixmucane2]

how do you feel about mouse control? I think I'm going to cater towards mouse controlling the ship since it allows for more precision and the increased speed will only be beneficial. I will be keeping keyboard control but mouse should perform significantly better.

Don't do it! Mouse control in a shmup is annoying and imprecise; in fact it is one of the major signs that a Flash game developer doesn't get it. Pressing keys with a certain duration is a precision input that can be controlled and repeated; moving the mouse is always approximate.
Mouse input might be appropriate to target attacks, because there is a visual feedback (where the crosshair is vs. where you want to shoot), but you are already using one hands for the arrows and one for the bombs and other buttons; you'd need a second player that acts as a gunner.
With increased speed, a larger portion of slight piloting errors become fatal crashes instead of being corrected; I don't see how this would be beneficial.

For autofire, some later weapons can benefit from timing but yes, the early weapons pose no reason to fire anything but all weapons. Do you think the default state should be autofire on instead of off?

Yes, fire all "basic" weapons with always-on autofire (not even a toggle button) and special single-shot weapons with a dedicated button (exactly like bombs).

The 2 mochi pop-ups actually serve a purpose and not for advertising although again, I should probably have made it more obvious. There's one that just asks you to log in and the reason for that is because the save data can be saved to the logged in account instead of the fragile state of a browser cookie. The 2nd pop-up is for score submission.

Score saving is a nice feature and a login is an acceptable price for it, but putting them in popups that appear after every run is annoying for players who don't have an account or don't want to save their score.
Can you put the score saving system in a panel and show it side by side with the shop/weapons panel? Interested players would have easy access to Mochi features, and uninterested players wouldn't be blocked by modal popups.
Alternatively, you could show the login popup only once, after loading, and skip the score saving popup in case they haven't logged in.