WIP project - Dual joystick shooter game

Thought i´d start a development thread to keep track of the progress, and maybe the feedback here can keep me motivated so i can actually finish this project :smile:

The game is a dual joystick shooter game. Left joystick moves the ship and the right one aims and shoots. It´s in very early stages of development, but i´m making good progress.

I´m thinking of having an endless mode, where you just try to get a high score, and a "campaign"-mode with missions, different levels, boss fights, etc...

Here´s a little video showing the game so far.
(The recording software caused a little lag on the video, and i forgot to turn on full quality. Also, i´m not playing so well because my kid kept poking me :smiley: )

Some of the graphics, spawning of enemies, enemy AI, game difficulty etc. is still temporary, but enough to show a little how the game plays.

What next?
-The green hexes are energy you can collect to charge your special weapons. Special weapons are activated by pressing a button on the bottom of the screen. I need to re-think this, as it´s very distracting to activate them in the middle of a battle. Maybe i just get rid of the energy system and replace it with a simple pick-up item for each weapon/ability...
-Enemy AI needs to be re-done.
-Level design needs tweaking.

Any feedback and possible suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

Mental Donkey Games
Website - Facebook - Twitter

Comments

  • AdrenalineAdrenaline Member Posts: 523

    This looks really cool. Gameplay looks smooth

  • GreenfroggGamesGreenfroggGames Member Posts: 224

    Lots of potential here, looks great!

  • BigDaveBigDave Member Posts: 2,239
    edited May 2016

    seeing potential there buddy.
    would try to play around creating an atmosphere around it.
    Like having the arrow locked up in a small room first and having some enemies outside patrolling. Also play with visibility radius. trying to deliver lose narrative context though play, no cutscenes, which leaves room for interpretation by the player.
    All in the bigger purpose of creating a meaning of why you should shoot them, play the game.

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    Thank you @Adrenaline @GreenfroggGames and @timolapre1998

    @BigDave Great idea! Some kind of story would really give meaning to the game. I need to give that some thought. I should maybe make the enemies be some kind of ships, or weird creatures...

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    Great start, lots of nice little details, I like that the green energy hexes get sucked towards the player when close, be good to see how this develops.

  • BigDaveBigDave Member Posts: 2,239
    edited May 2016

    @MentalDonkeyGames
    you can also do it without re-designing them. It will be even better I think.
    As its a abstract style simulating narrative situation and surprise your players.

    you can design wise treat them as they are on enemy spaces ship or something without actually changing a thing on what you already have.

    Just use it as the tool to deliver some light narrative experience without text just through play.

    But hey it can be anything else that just what I right now prefer to do so I automaticaly also see it in your work.

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    @Socks said:
    Great start, lots of nice little details, I like that the green energy hexes get sucked towards the player when close, be good to see how this develops.

    Thanks. The energy was a little hard to collect with just colliding with them, so i made them move towards the ship when it's close enough. Works very well now.

    @BigDave said:
    @MentalDonkeyGames
    you can also do it without re-designing them. It will be even better I think.
    As its a abstract style simulating narrative situation and surprise your players.

    you can design wise treat them as they are on enemy spaces ship or something without actually changing a thing on what you already have.

    Just use it as the tool to deliver some light narrative experience without text just through play.

    But hey it can be anything else that just what I right now prefer to do so I automaticaly also see it in your work.

    That could work. I do like the abstract enemies, so i would like to keep those, and i have a few awesome game name ideas that would really fit the game as it currently is.

    I have not really done a game with any kind of story before, so this is a new kind of challenge to me. Even if the story is not deep, it still needs to make some kind of sense and fit the game.

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

  • DuesDues Member Posts: 1,159

    This looks intense! :)
    Will follow this one.

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    Thanks @Dues

    Quick update: Mission 1 is almost done (including the boss), but it's waaay too hard. Might have to make the enemies a bit dumber :smiley:

    Also need to create something that the enemies spawn from. It's weird now that they just appear from thin air.

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    Having some serious performance issues when there's tons of enemies on screen. Well, not really with the enemies, but when they die and spawn the explosion and the glow effect. There's very little code to optimize, so i might need to tone down the effects a bit.

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

  • KnightStarKnightStar Member Posts: 162

    I'm working on a dual-stick shooter arena game as well that has a large number of assets on screen (Bullets, explosions, AIs, etc.) and I'm making a point to recycle a number of the commonly recurring assets vs. spawning / deleting them.

    For example, I have a recycle pool of (15) player bullets, a recycle pool of (5) of three different classes of explosions (S/M/L - individual actors with 6-10 animated frames), and I'm making a point to reduce the number of calls to global attributes and loading any saved (table) attributes prior to the game scene starts. Finally, I'm keeping my art size relatively low (almost all combat-based assets 128x128 or smaller in size) and everything else flagged as unmovable, etc. to keep processor ticks at a minimum where unnecessary.

    It helps and I'm making a point to test on lower-end devices as well, such as i5 phones and an iPad2..

    -- J

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    @KnightStar Thanks for the tip. I already have movable unchecked in everything i can, and the little amount of code is as optimised as it can be. I might give the actor recycling a try, but i´m not sure how much that will help.

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

  • mhedgesmhedges Raised on VCS Member Posts: 634

    I liked it! It reminded me of Sinistar in terms of ships, quantities and movements, but with obstacles and dual controls. Keep going at it.

  • MentalDonkeyGamesMentalDonkeyGames Member Posts: 1,276

    @mhedges said:
    I liked it! It reminded me of Sinistar in terms of ships, quantities and movements, but with obstacles and dual controls. Keep going at it.

    Thanks. Just watched a video of sinistar, and that gave me an idea on how i could keep the enemy count low enough to avoid lag, but still keep the gameplay challenging.

    Mental Donkey Games
    Website - Facebook - Twitter

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