Frequent Flyer, a small shoot-em-up game (WIP)

[comrad_gremlin]

Heya!

My name is Vladimir, I'm a developer from Latvia. I wanted to share my current project, small shoot-em-up Frequent Flyer, and occasionally post updates here. The aim of the game is simple: fly your plane around, eliminate enemies.

Even though I've soft-launched the game on android market, it's still work in progress and I'm constantly trying to update it. I plan to release it to desktop machines, as well as android / iOS. It took me 45 days to make, and now I'm constantly updating it. Right now there's 7 enemies and 10 different unlockable planes. The progression is also there: as player gets more score, new unlocks become available.


Small Gameplay Part:


Death Ray:


Invulnerability on hit:


Smaller lasers:


Web (fully functional, but lags on some browsers): http://coldwild.com/flyer
Android (best functionality): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coldwild.frequentflyer&referrer=utm_source%3Dshmup
Greenlight (in case you want to see it on Steam): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=744697163

Any feedback is appreciated and definitely taken into account (in fact, last updates with animation and bullet sizes were user-submitted). I'll be trying to post updates here every other day.
Cheers!
Vladimir

[comrad_gremlin]

Heya! Made a quite a big update today gameplay-wise and wanted to share what I have:
- Implemented the Dive function (in browser: can press shift);
- Camera now goes towards the flight direction, can see more in front of you
- Improved background (player and enemies can be seen much easier)
- Added cool effects to star pickups

Here are some screens:
Cooler star pickups!

Same effects on health [:)]

Dive function, plane is invulnerable

[comrad_gremlin]

Decided to make a better "shmupish" feel: changed the projectiles again, made them and explosions much brighter. The second plane is now automatically unlocked too + some weapons have spread now, making their behavior a bit more unpredictable (but also making it easier to hit rockets).

Here are the screenshots:

[comrad_gremlin]

Some more graphical changes for today and first big news for me!

- explosions/effects are now drawn beneath the player and enemies, will improve gameplay experience
- awesome muzzle flash added!
- rockets have smoke tails now!
- small clouds effect fixed and returned
- text is much more readable on background

Pics:

Muzzle flash:


Clouds and rocket tails!




The game actually got featured on gamejolt, got me pretty happy about that

Also, here's a small video of new effects!

[comrad_gremlin]

Made a big update, added two new weapons:
- small lasers added (but I think the way I implemented them makes them look more like lightsabers)
- death ray follows enemy plane now: https://gfycat.com/AggravatingDelectableLadybug
- 3 second invulnerability after being hit
- small rockets have trails
- minelayer issue fixed: mines are spawned properly now
- creates give more ammo for 2+ cannon planes now
- organized mode: changed the 'approaching enemy indicator' color to cyan, will be harder to confuse with hearts now
- web version: resolution change!

Going to update main post images, really like how game is progressing!

Death Ray:


Invulnerability on hit:


Smaller lasers:

[comrad_gremlin]

Hey!

For the past two days I made plenty of changes:
- Gameplay: all plane lives increased by one
- Gameplay: slow rocket rework: start very slow, gain speed as time progresses
- Gameplay: death ray no longer slows your plane on use
- Gameplay: large gray zeppelin: scatters bullets on death now
- Gameplay: large gray zeppelin has 8 lives now
- Gameplay: weapon spread: your own bullets do not overlap
- Gameplay: secondary weapon, bomb remake: projectiles are more slow, fly much further, 4x times bigger
- Gameplay: enemy bomb explosion projectiles fly more slowly (and speed up as time passes by)
- Graphics: bubble around plane (after dive / hit): dimensions fixed
- Graphics: fixed large screen infinite mode texture problem: the backgrounds will appear in a timely manner now (no blue blank spaces)
- UI: background gets darker after pause button has been pressed (for consistency)
- UI: added clarification for plane price (stars)
- UI: main menu resulotion changed
- UI: main menu, credits button replaced to be a bit prettier
- UI: showing exp bar instead of "NEXT UNLOCK: SCORE" at the end of level
- sound: engine sound turns off after player dies
- android: will attempt to login to google play once per launch only. to retry, special connection button will appear in the settings screen
- android: no more toast messages when user cancels connection to google play

Zeppelin explosion intented to make you use dive more often. Here's the bullet scatter screens:



Cheers!

[comrad_gremlin]

I've made a mostly-UI update today:
- notifications when you have enough stars for new plane after the game ends
- settings screen rework: easier to press buttons
- time attack: time from bonuses changed to 3 seconds (up from 2)
- reverse gun: made it a bit more useful (4 bullets instead of 2, 90 degrees difference)
- "close" button added to all dialogs
- dialog that asks to vote for us on steam greenlight (only once and only if you've played for some time already)

[comrad_gremlin]

Spent the last 2 days working on a mission mode: small tasks which will gradually introduce the player into the game and will reward by giving stars (which can be spent on purchasing planes).

Here's the full changelist:
- mission mode! Complete tasks & earn stars, gradually getting into the game.
- mode selection screen rework: less annoying popups
- bugfix: reseting controls after the game (sometimes plane turned/started shooting by itself after game restart)
- time bonus: new sound
- time bonus: animation on pickup

[comrad_gremlin]

Another day, another patch!

Here's the full list of fixes:
- New enemy plane: seeker, follows the player around
- Five new missions
- Fixed jittering in touch follow / joystick mode
- Bonuses are going to spawn closer to you (and mostly in your way)
- Guaranteed to drop health bonus for every 1000 score now

Latest Version Here: http://coldwild.com/flyer

[S20-TBL]

Downloading this, it reminds me of that shootemup by Sprite that I forgot the title of. Will test in a bit.

EDIT: Tested. While I like the overall simplicity of the game, the controls felt a bit awkward. WASD to move and Spacebar to shoot feels very unintuitive on a Desktop machine. Would be better if we could use mouse to shoot, or at least have customizable controls on desktop (for example, being able to remap movement to arrow keys and shoot/dodge to Z and X).

Also, perhaps an option to toggle flight speed would be nice, e.g. being able to switch between low, medium and high speed on the fly in order to control the automatic movement better.

[comrad_gremlin]

Thanks for your feedback The arrows can actually be used for movement now, shoot/dodge to Z/X is actually a good idea, going to add it to my to-do list.

I do believe that remapping is necessary and I'm definitely going to add it on desktop version once it's out. (Including the Joystick support).

Cheers!

[comrad_gremlin]

Also, v1.1.2 is out today! Lots of changes, actually.

Added new enemies that made game harder (and more interesting in my opinion to play) as you progress.

- new enemy: toxic plane, drags a cloud of toxins behind, slowing player by 10%/second
- new enemy: follow plane (flies in front of you and fires bullets)
- new enemy: booster rocket: speeds up, then slows down, then turns towards the player, then the cycle repeats. Happy dodging!
- adding 6 new missions
- spread3 cannon bullet damage reduced to 1 (down from 2)
- seeker plane changes: 2 lives, becomes invulnerable for 0.6 seconds after being hit
- changed spawns in infinite / organized / timed attack modes: new enemy types can spawn instead of the old enemy types. Replacements: scout -> toxic plane, seeker plane -> zeppelin, flying bomb -> booster rocket, minelayer -> following plane
- shooting enemies will delay their shots if enemy hits them (if you shoot at an enemy - he won't shoot back)
- fixed bug when flying bombs kept exploding after respawn
- fixed a bug when settings would not get saved after exiting the application