Planetest

[Legendary Hoamaru]

Play Planetest at Kongregate

Gameplay video

Description

Eliminate aliens or avoid capture in this arcade style shooter!

Inspired by the old classics Tempest and Space Invaders. I created this over a weekend with Stencyl (Flixel) for a game jam contest about a year ago. Not the best game I've done, but I still enjoy playing it from time to time and want to share it here.

Online leaderboard support for users signed up on Kongregate.

Difficulty really starts rising beginning at Wave 6.

Instructions

Right Arrow or D – Move clockwise
Left Arrow or A – Move counterclockwise
Mouse – Aim
Left Mouse Button – Fire in the direction of the mouse

Scoring/Other Info

Kill all enemies in a wave: (300 x Wave Number) points
Otherwise: (50 x Wave Number) points

Escape with time remaining: (Time Remaining x Wave Number x 10) points

Spring: 10 points
Swirl: 40 points
Driller: 30 points
Spiker: 50 points
Spikes: 5 points
Bat: 60 points
UFO: 80 points
Square Bonus: 400 points
Circle Bonus: 600 points

The enemies that spawn in a wave is fixed, but their order, position, and rotation direction are random. All waves after 20 are the same, but their speed steadily increases.

Although I consider this mostly finish, I'd still like suggestions in case I want to remake it later on or just to keep in mind for other shooters I decide to create.

[Ixmucane2]

Aiming shots at the mouse cursor is just wrong: you can aim perfectly by rotating around, since there's no point in hitting enemies sideways rather than from the bottom. Moreover, you control what's obviously a cannon pointing up/outwards, and it should shoot straight.

Using the mouse at all is even more wrong: a simple firing trigger can and should be a keyboard key. Since shots are very slow and enemies are very fast, tracking enemies with the mouse is useless: all shots need to be aimed by leading, with the speed allowed by keyboard keys.

Shooting in bursts with a long reloading delay is annoying, since there's no feedback about when you'll stop and start shooting; but obvious tunneling of shots through enemies is even more annoying.

[BPzeBanshee]

Aiming shots at the mouse cursor is just wrong: you can aim perfectly by rotating around, since there's no point in hitting enemies sideways rather than from the bottom. Moreover, you control what's obviously a cannon pointing up/outwards, and it should shoot straight.

Using the mouse at all is even more wrong: a simple firing trigger can and should be a keyboard key. Since shots are very slow and enemies are very fast, tracking enemies with the mouse is useless: all shots need to be aimed by leading, with the speed allowed by keyboard keys.

Shooting in bursts with a long reloading delay is annoying, since there's no feedback about when you'll stop and start shooting; but obvious tunneling of shots through enemies is even more annoying.

There's nothing wrong with mouse-controlled shooting if done correctly, and the "cannon" you describe looked more like the person out of Shotgun Ninja to me.

Due to the broken object-based timer for its shots however, and along with the speed and inability to aim at enemies past certain angles relative to its position, it's not done correctly in this game.

Some suggestions to improve on this should the game be remade:
- firing of the player bullets should not be colliding with the 'planet' when aimed at an angle less than 90 degrees from its head.
- player bullets should be timed more consistently and faster
- possibly make the enemies larger in size or add additional weapons to compensate for difficulty aiming at small targets (I'd use a penetrative laser of sorts personally on top of optional weapons that can be obtained later on, how this is done is up to you)

Overall, for an online-based game of sorts it's not too bad. There's room for improvement in terms of perfecting ideas here, and I'd certainly be interested in seeing a remake of sorts of this provided the existing issues are solved.

[Legendary Hoamaru]

Thanks for the feedback you two! It is great to finally get some details on what needs to be improved. Numbers alone don't do this unfortunately .