Finished a shmup! Negative SpaceCraft: looking for feedback

[Montoli]

Hello gents!

Well, I finally finished a shmup(?) I was working on, found a sponsor for it, and have released it to the public. And I'm pretty happy with it. It came out mostly how I envisioned, and I love the music that my musician came up with.

It's called Negative SpaceCraft, and I like to describe it as what might happen if "Ikaruga" and "Shoot the Bullet" got drunk at a party and had a love-child. It came from an observation I had while playing some Touhou, where I said "this is silly - so many bullets! It would be easier to just dodge the places there AREN'T any bullets, since they represent a far smaller portion of the screen..." It probably also helped that I had been watching that touhou "Bad Apple!!" video around that time as well.

Anyway, whatever the direct cause, several months later, pow! I have a game! And I'm interested to hear what serious shmup players think of it! It is unabashedly difficult, (well, by my standards, at least) and while I've tried to structure the level progression such that it is difficult to get "stuck", it will still require a bit of danmaku skill to see all of the levels. (Let me know if anyone beats it though!)

Anyway, you can play it here:

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks -

-Montoli

[drei :3]

After several years of lurking, I felt compelled to post.

Your game is the 100th time I've had a very specific problem.

I want you to take a look at your keyboard and while you look at it I want you to think about the fact that there are several countries in the world, and that some countries do some things differently, for example there are places where the keyboard layout is named QWERTZ instead of QWERTY, because among other things such keyboards have the Z where QWERTY has its Y and their Y where QWERTY has its Z.

AAAAAAAAAAH!

No matter how brilliant a concept is, people aren't remotely as patient with learning the basic mechanisms of flash games as they are with games they buy. You can't expect the average user to concentrate as much as with a console game, some might play it while having a conversation or listening to music. Of course the game should offer a challenge to those who want to score high, but getting the gist of it quickly should be really, really, really trivial.

I would never make a flash game that requires the player to use more than directional keys plus 2 others or mouse and 1 mouse button and 1 key on the keyboard. Simplify, simplify.

Concept could be very interesting with faster attacks and your ship moving like a mouse pointer, though that would be very unshmuppy. Hope you do a sequel.

[BPzeBanshee]

The QWERTZ situation is unfortunate but in this case the game actually says that WSAD for controls and >? keys will also work as well.

I'm quite liking this game so far, it's gotta be one of the more better flash shmups out there.

[Montoli]

Yeah, sorry about the controls. You're the second person to bring that up now. I really should put in rebindable controls, but it's one of those things that I always put off because it's a chore to implement (I hate writing UI )

As for control complexity, I kind of agree - it would be nice if there were fewer controls, but ultimately, I couldn't figure out a way to fit the gameplay elements that I wanted to fewer than 3 buttons + dpad. I figure, most shmups have move, bomb, fire, and sometimes "move slow", so I went with that. Oh well.

(Also, the lack of "move ship via mouse pointer" was deliberate - I don't like what mouse controls do to shmups, really, and I felt they would muddle my already complex control scheme further. Good call? Bad call? Dunno, but there it is.)

Anyway, thanks for the feedback! Always appreciated, and the things that people don't like are usually the most valuable things for me to hear, so this is good stuff!

[Udderdude]

Cool game idea, I like it.

[drei :3]

The QWERTZ situation is unfortunate but in this case the game actually says that WSAD for controls and >? keys will also work as well.

You may want to take a look at this. >:[

Anybody who ever wants to make a computer game should look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

Despite my hand cramps, I have to say that it's more interesting than 95% of the flash games I've seen.

I figure, most shmups have move, bomb, fire, and sometimes "move slow", so I went with that. Oh well.

The most "omittable" button for the given concept is moving slow/charging faster, though if you did that you would still have to rework everything to make the game fit the controls of course. You could also combine moving slower with using the drain thing when you have it, though that would rob the player of the ability to go slower without activating the drain thing when he has it.

If you want to do another shmup and be as skimpy on the buttons as possible, here are some ideas:

A not uncommon design in shmups is to use the same button for firing and for moving slow — tapping (you don't need to tap ultrafast) is a spread shot and holding down makes you do a more concentrated shot and also move slower.

Another way to be skimpy with buttons is to have the ship automatically shoot all the time (as done in the Gridrunner games).

You could even just use 1 button to manage shooting + bomb + pause: You automatically shoot as long as you hold down the button, letting go activates a bomb that clears the screen of all enemy bullets (or turns them into bonus items if that's more your thing) and pauses the game, the game continues when you start holding down the button again. See what is possible?

Mars Matrix uses only directions and 1 button for 4 different attacks and is a classic.

[Dave_K.]

Also, the lack of "move ship via mouse pointer" was deliberate - I don't like what mouse controls do to shmups, really, and I felt they would muddle my already complex control scheme further. Good call? Bad call? Dunno, but there it is.

Since this isn't really a shmup, I have to say a mouse and mouse button would make navigating and firing your bubble thing a lot easier, thus allowing the user to pickup the game faster and move onto more interesting complex pos/neg switching patterns - which is the goal to get the user hooked.

As for the keyboard issue, I feel sorry for drei :3 as pretty much all doujin's use the standard zxc keys for action buttons...so it shouldn't be any real surprise to him, but interesting to learn about, and surely fixable although some extra programming.

Overall a very cool original idea for a game.

[BPzeBanshee]

I personally find 3 buttons and a directional pad of some description to not be a problem at all. Considering the majority of this forum consists of Cave fans where in some cases 3 buttons is standard with 4 being an extended option, I'm surprised anyone complained at all.

For your next project, to avoid the issue of problematic layout on German Keyboards, I recommend some sort of a configurable button menu. Most games have it, but then most of the good games aren't flash programs either, so I can't really say whether that would be trivial to do or not.

[Montoli]

Yeah... To be honest, LAST project, I told myself "ok, THIS time I will get around to making customizable controls, for sure!"

But.... they're a pain, and I never got to them.

Next time, for sure though!

(Actually next project is looking like it will be in XNA instead of flash, which gives me a lot more options with controls in general, up to and including fine things such as gamepads...)

[BPzeBanshee]

Yeah... To be honest, LAST project, I told myself "ok, THIS time I will get around to making customizable controls, for sure!"

But.... they're a pain, and I never got to them.

Next time, for sure though!

(Actually next project is looking like it will be in XNA instead of flash, which gives me a lot more options with controls in general, up to and including fine things such as gamepads...)

XNA coding eh? Sounds good.
If it were a good game under 800 MS points (because Im 100 short ) I'd probably buy it providing it was at least as good as the flash program.
Another consideration you may want for a PC-based game project is Game Maker. It's very good for shmups providing you know how to code and make it run efficiently. See my GMOSSE project for a basic idea of what it can do.

[Blackbird]

Ugh, I have mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, this is a really interesting concept and a fun game, but on the other, I was going to create a game with a similar title, and you beat me to it >_<. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[renardqueenston]

but on the other, I was going to create a game with a similar title, and you beat me to it >_<. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

just puttin' that out there :]