Lightning - vert scroller with a twist

[Better With Lasers]

Hey guys, first time poster but long time fan of the genre - especially RSG, DoDonPachi and Raiden 2 of the blow-everything-away style:)

Lightning's been an on and off thing for the past 6 months or so (solo), mainly to learn game programming, but also as a homage to those awesome games. The gameplay twist is kind of like Tumiki fighters in that you have to capture enemies, except with no default gun at all - only a magnet which attracts both enemies and their bullets towards you!



As a single level it turned out a fair bit better than I expected, and to my eye it looks about finished - except for the boss which is in the cards one day - but now im dying to know what the hardcore community thinks: balance, scoring, fun factor?

Here's the link (executable java download, no install): http://betterwithlasers.com.au/games/li ... -released/ Enjoy!

EDIT: made in JAVA with Slick2d library, graphics from scratch and sound with SFXR and freesound

[BareKnuckleRoo]

kind of like Tumiki fighters in that you have to capture enemies, except with no default gun at all - only a magnet which attracts both enemies and their bullets towards you!

Unfortunately, the game's mechanics simply aren't well thought out compared to Tumiki Fighters. In Tumiki Fighters, the default gun combined with the ability to 'hide' your captured enemies allows you to build up a large collection, even in tight waves. You're never screwed if for some reason you lose all your captured enemies as you always have some means of backup (and scoring consists of exposing your captured enemies when it's safe in order to rack up points so long as they're exposed).

Lightning on the other hand seems designed to screw you. The hitbox is massive by comparison, you have no default weapon, no way to prevent captured enemies from getting destroyed, there's no visible color change or anything to tell when an enemy's been actually captured (important since you need to drag living enemies close to you) and worst, the bullets get sucked in as well. I've reached the point where those shielded enemies appear and without any captured enemies to shoot back at them, you basically just have to dodge through the waves of shots. Of course, there's huge waves of enemies that just fly down at you without shooting, which seem designed just to give you a massive cluster of enemies to shoot with, but then things seem to die alarmingly quickly.

It's also a bit annoying to be dragging an enemy close to you, only for your bar to run out just before the grab point and then smack into them. Coupled with the large hitbox, it feels very unforgiving compared to Tumiki's simpler 'kill enemies and grab their corpses before they fall offscreen'.

Things I'd recommend addressing:

* Hitbox is way too big (the entire ship, ick). If you want bullets to be sucked in too, it's way too easy to try and get close to a group of enemies for a grab only to suck a bullet they just fired. Hitbox shouldn't encompass the entire ship size.

* Bullets probably shouldn't be sucked in. I think you could have a fun game on your hands if it were more about navigating dense bullet patterns to get close enough to suck in enemies. Maybe in conjunction with limiting the grabber to a radius around the ship, denoted by a visible circle? Another option is to have to attack enemies at close range with the special weapon for long enough to grab them, somewhat how Triggerheart Exelica's grabbing works, with the grabber only working on enemies in range or 'locked-on' with a shot designed just to do that.

*When you tap Z, captured enemies don't seem to always fire immediately, you have to hold shoot and there's a bit of a delay. It makes precisely grabbing larger, shielded enemies trickier than it ought to be, not that large enemies are worth it as they are easily kiilled by being shot at or rammed into.

* It's hard to tell when you can grab or not - I have to always look way up at the top right to see how much meter is left. Consider having the bar change colour when it's recharging (and you can't use it) or have a meter around the ship or under the ship similar to Espgaluda or how hypers show up under the ship in DoJ. Even a smaller, identical bar under the ship would work, or have aura at the front of the ship change/disappear to indicate the grab function is recharging. There's also the option of indicating it audibly, Giga Wing style.

[Ixmucane2]

BareKnuckleRoo stole almost all of my comments. I only have small ones left:

• Cooldown and duration of the capture beam are inconsistent. Sometimes the bar becomes blue fast, sometimes it stops in the middle; and at the same distance with a full blue bar, sometimes I grab enemies and sometimes they snap off.
• Maybe you could highlight enemies that can be captured, and have the rays capture them instantaneously, starting from the closest one and consuming a charge proportional to the distance, until not enough charge remains. This way there would be no guesswork: capture ray charge would be wasted deliberately by paying too much to capture far enemies, not randomly with complete failure to capture.
• Not controlling the arrangement of captured enemies is ugly: the small fry need to form a good shield and the major craft that represent your most important firepower need at least to point forward. You should make captured enemies go to satisfactory locations instead of sticking wherever they touch the ship or another captured enemy: for example, a square grid in which the player's ship occupies the center, the small craft fill the closest empty place (forming approximate balls) and the large craft also fill the closest empty cluster of multiple spaces, displacing the small craft.
• Glitch: I captured some "laser" enemies, I died, and I respawned with continuous laser beams coming from their former positions.
• Balance: the large green shots pass through captured enemies, which makes them seriously overpowered (since dodging is not a serious option).
• Balance: the star-shaped large enemies don't shoot nearly enough to justify the effort of capturing them.

[Better With Lasers]

awesome, i wasn't expecting the feedback to be so in-depth and informative but its definately appreciated

Roo: I disagree with you on the firing speed issue - considering that the green splash weapon must shoot a lot slower that the other types I had to make it hold to shoot, so that you dont have to worry about the various weapon timers.

Ixm: are you sure the cooldown is inconsistent? So that the player cant abuse the magnet against long formations, it is designed not to refill unless entirely empty, or when there's less than 25% left and the player doesnt use it for 10 seconds. The speed of this refill is very fast, and would be the turning blue you described.

Similarly if you approach (popcorn) enemies from the side as in the tutorial you are guaranteed to capture them and not eat their bullets, only you cant spam it or you get punished by it running out. I'm not 100% where the randomness is coming from so thats worrying...

I'm glad you mentioned a grid-like solution for mapping enemies around you, its very interesting and i was considering something similar during design but I didnt want that orbiting drone thing that a lot of shooters have. I wanted it to be more organic i.e. you can become the size of the screen, obviously i didnt quite get there but its still really appealing to me, maybe further away from the strict STG genre in future.


Aside from that, really helpful stuff - better A/V player feedback and an overall firmer grasp on balance are top priorities with my next game. Thanks

EDIT: Ixm i didnt really get your idea before but that instantaneous capture/fail thing is sick - would really fit Lightning better going forward (which is uncertain). Is that from any other game lol?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Is that from any other game lol?

And from your website:

Lightning is a passion project to see if fresh ideas can give new life to a genre that’s literally existed since the dawn of gaming

Comments like that suggest you might be focusing too hard on creating something you feel is 'unique' in order to stand out when really, shmups can be awesome without having to reinvent the genre. The key is having a core of solid gameplay, even if it's only a "shoot + bombs" type game. There's some very unique shmups out there that are frankly not much fun, and really, fun is the most important thing.

You should make captured enemies go to satisfactory locations instead of sticking wherever they touch the ship or another captured enemy

This is a really good point that's worth emphasizing. Tumiki Fighters and another shmup I can think of (whose name I can't remember for the life of me) allow you to attach your powerups wherever you touch them, so you have some means of controlling where captured enemies appear on your ship. It's much more difficult to do so in Lightning, so you're pretty much at the mercy of the beam's whims (that and it's usually suicidal to be directly in front of an enemy and risk eating a bullet.

Balance: the star-shaped large enemies don't shoot nearly enough to justify the effort of capturing them.

Yeah, this applies to any large enemies in general. Without any way to hide your larger, captured enemies from damage, smaller enemies that won't be automatic bullet sponges are inevitably better to suck in (usually safer too).

[Ixmucane2]

So that the player cant abuse the magnet against long formations, it is designed not to refill unless entirely empty, or when there's less than 25% left and the player doesnt use it for 10 seconds. The speed of this refill is very fast, and would be the turning blue you described.

Thanks for clarifying the rules. They seem really bad ones: 10 seconds is an unreasonably long time, and you punish players who conserve charge instead of rewarding them.
Recharge should happen at a fixed rate and possibly accelerate as the player does something meaningful, for example an extra bit of recharge whenever he shoots (encouraging alternate use of capture and attack).
You can also put in negative feedback from the number of attachments: reduced but nonzero recharge with more than the expected number, extremely accelerated recharge with few attachments to help recovery after dying, maybe a small bonus recharge whenever an attachment is lost.

EDIT: Ixm i didnt really get your idea before but that instantaneous capture/fail thing is sick - would really fit Lightning better going forward (which is uncertain). Is that from any other game lol?

Precedents like the beam in Galaga, which simply captures what you manage to nail, without distance-based behaviour or worries about charge, or maybe even closer ones, aren't very important; as BareKnuckleRoo observes, novelty isn't important.
Instantaneous capture is just common sense: players want to be in control, and continuously displaying what they would capture should they press the capture button offers control through a meaningful informed choice.

[Ixmucane2]

Roo: I disagree with you on the firing speed issue - considering that the green splash weapon must shoot a lot slower that the other types I had to make it hold to shoot, so that you dont have to worry about the various weapon timers.

That's because, as I mentioned, it's overpowered. If you nerf the "laser" and the "green splash" you can fire them at decent rates; you should also cut timers drastically for the humble cannons (shooting, say, five times as many bullets that deal one fifth of the current damage). The lag problem is caused by the maximum firing delay among ship weapons: with much shorter delays the current system could become acceptable.
Reducing bullet damage would have another benefit: it would become possible to shoot briefly in order to soften armored enemies for the capture weapon, instead of waiting and waiting and waiting until a massive salvo obliterates the whole screen without leaving wounded enemies.

Similarly if you approach (popcorn) enemies from the side as in the tutorial you are guaranteed to capture them and not eat their bullets, only you cant spam it or you get punished by it running out. I'm not 100% where the randomness is coming from so thats worrying...

Enemies approaching "safely" from the sides are only a small minority. As BareknuckleRoo explained in detail, all others are inappropriately dangerous.

I'm glad you mentioned a grid-like solution for mapping enemies around you, its very interesting and i was considering something similar during design but I didnt want that orbiting drone thing that a lot of shooters have.

What orbiting drone? I suggested fixed attachments which move only to make room for higher priority ones.

Aside from that, really helpful stuff - better A/V player feedback and an overall firmer grasp on balance are top priorities with my next game. Thanks

Your next game? Aren't you going to fix Lightning???

[Lord Satori]

I guess not