My first shmup, Raving Ones: Maenad Zero

[agustusx]

EDIT
Now on revision 1.07 which addresses many suggestions and a bug.
/EDIT

Here is a pc shmup I want to share. It has some rough edges and violates some rules of shooter design. As a first attempt I think its very playable and has a decent scoring system.

Raving Ones: Maenad Zero
Vertically Scrolling Shooting Game


Game Description
Whats your high score? Raving Ones: Maenad Zero is an arcade styled shooting game where the goal is to have the highest score possible at the end of your play. You must control your character to avoid projectiles and enemies as well as position yourself for the best line of fire. You have two firing modes, straight shot and spread shot as well as a mana bomb. The scoring system is designed to reward practiced players as consecutively killing enemies increases your score multiplier and using bombs or dying resets the multiplier. Three action packed levels and Boss encounters with original graphics and music make this shmup a refreshing challenge. More information can be found in game by pressing F1 or by reading the text file in the zip.

Core Information
Title: Raving Ones: Maenad Zero
Genre/Category: Vertically Scrolling Shooter
Download Size: 38.5MB Full or 18.3MB Lite
Game File-Type: Zip
Suggested Minimum Resolution: 1024x 768
Resolution: No Change, Windowed, Widescreen
Current Version: v1.07

Host: http://www.yoyogames.com
Link Version: v1.07
URL: http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/62416

Mirror Two
Host: http://www.rapidshare.com
Link Version: v1.07
URL: http://rapidshare.com/files/170641527/ravingones107.zip

Mirror Three
Host: http://www.chironinteractive.com
Link Version: v1.07
URL: http://chironinteractive.com/downloads/ ... nes107.zip

FULL version with music 38MB
http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/62034
http://rapidshare.com/files/170644937/r ... 07full.zip
http://chironinteractive.com/downloads/ ... 07full.zip

Videos On My site
Videos On Youtube(lower quality)

The gamemaker community felt the 38MB was too big so I created the stripped down version.

I have learned a lot from it, and want to put my learnings to use on my second, more refined title. Any feedback on Raving Ones is appreciated.

[nimitz]

Simply from watching the video i have a few comments:

This boss fight is too long, if you want to make it that long at least make him change form or something.

The hitbox looks HUGE, this can be good if the game is not a bullet hell, but in this case the difficulty seems to be cramming your ship between easy patterns instead of dodging hard ones.


Sorry if this is a bit harsh, but you really shouldve posted the game here DURING early development.

[Taylor]

I get an assert every few frames, even with nothing pressed:

ERROR in
action number 4
of Step Event
for object obj_myplane:

In extension function gamepad_check_button:
Error in code at line 10:
return gamepad1ButtonState[argument1];

at position 17: Unknown variable gamepad1ButtonState or array index out of bounds

[agustusx]

thanks for the reply nimitz.

the third boss should probably morph after the first two stages, if she's really mad she should show it

The hit box isn't 2/3 of the character, however for the third stage and boss it might still be too large for some. Adjusting the hitbox at this point isn't really out of the question and I think I will play around with that tomorrow.

[agustusx]

I get an assert every few frames, even with nothing pressed:

ERROR in
action number 4
of Step Event
for object obj_myplane:

In extension function gamepad_check_button:
Error in code at line 10:
return gamepad1ButtonState[argument1];

at position 17: Unknown variable gamepad1ButtonState or array index out of bounds

I'm sorry to hear that. Do you have a gamepad hooked up? If you configure your gamepad in the settings this should go away. Let me know if this works but I'll try to see if i can change the defaults so this doesn't happen in the future.

[Udderdude]

My first impressions ..

For the amount of screen you're using up, the sprites are really tiny. I found myself having to travel across the screen to hit stuff. It looks like some sort of widescreen thing. I don't know if you can make it more narrow at this point, but I'd reccomend it.

The backgrounds look kinda neat but they're way too high contrast and it's way too hard to see the player over them.

Your shot is really weak, even at full power. Especially your spread shot seems unable to kill even popcorn enemies easily. At some points in level 2, I literally didn't have enough firepower to kill stuff before it zerged me.

It seems you hand out extends to the player like candy to make up for the lack of shot power - I had something like 7 lives by level 2. Not a good thing!

There are too many moments where nothing is going on between waves of enemies.

[agustusx]

I have updated the original post with a link to the most current build. I am going to tweak this game a tad more before I move on to something new. I think it will help me have a better starting point when I am solidifying the game play concepts for the next title.

i gotta say thanks to all the replies in such a short time. I didn't get solid response on GMC, and the responses i did get didn't speak with detail like you guys.

Taylor -The controller defaults set to null seem to eliminate the error that just came up today. Even if you have gamepad hooked up it and do not configure it should not wig out on you. So ill update the mirrors with this fix. thanks for being a post release beta tester.

the hitbox is smaller as we speak and im trying it out.

Udderdude you have a lot of good comments. I'll marinate on them and if nothing else I'll keep them in mind for the next project. I agree the player can become hard to see, and for this effort maybe that can be addressed with the character design. I'll play with the shot power and see what I can balance.

thanks all

[agustusx]

I made some changes to Raving Ones over the last few days.

Revisions for 1.07
Some warlocks have more health
projectiles no longer disappear when enemy is killed
Extend and Powerup messages display longer and are larger
Many projectiles are larger
Player is larger
Max Multiplier that can be achieved is now 30.

Revisions for 1.06
Smaller Hitbox
Player shot does more damage
Fix error when user had controller plugged in but did not configure.
Changed some enemy placement.
Fewer score ups dropped by most enemies.
Start with 3 lives, Extends given at 500K, 1 million and 2 million points.

In my next project I will

• definitely not use painterly backgrounds as that really conflicted with the action
  Will lower resolution to standard instead of semi HD which bumped up the filesize.
  Not go with the widescreen aspect unless its a horizontal game

i'll be posting when i start on my next game and have something to show