I made a videogame! (demo v3 inside)

http://www.boomspeed.com/cigsthecat/screen04.jpg http://www.boomspeed.com/cigsthecat/screen07.jpg http://www.boomspeed.com/cigsthecat/screen10.jpg

This is a shooter I'm working on (Codenamed Project Dumf). I plan to have 6 or 7 stages, haven't quite decided yet. For now I have a 1 level demo to show.

All the graphics are done by me, as well as enemy movement, bullet patterns and level design. Mediocre (from the GameMaker forums) was working with me on this for a while and did a great job with a bunch of the programming. Can't thank him enough.
The music is placeholder stuff from vgmusic.com.

Now on to the fun stuff.


Scoring System:

http://www.boomspeed.com/cigsthecat/medal.jpghttp://www.boomspeed.com/cigsthecat/medal2.jpg
Pick up the medals for points. Destroy the fast spinning enemies before they explode for a 100,000 bonus each. You can also buzz the blue bullets from the boss for 2000 points each. That's about it as far as scoring goes.


Controls:


Joystick/Gamepad- Hold down BUTTON 1 to shoot. BUTTON 3 resets the game.

At the title screen, press ENTER to start the game. At the continue screen, press ENTER to make a selection. You can also press ENTER at the game over screen to restart the game.


Keyboard- Hold down SPACE to shoot. ARROW KEYS to move. The "R" key resets the game.

At the title screen, press ENTER to start the game. At the continue screen, press ENTER to make a selection. You can also press ENTER at the game over screen to restart the game.



DOWNLOAD

Let me know if it sucks or whatever.

(new version has slightly smaller hitbox, medals are easier to grab and can be grabbed while invincible now)

Mac version pls.

p.s. looking for music?

The program I used to make it can only do PC. Try that Virtual PC thing maybe.

RE: music- probably, once I finish it. Maybe we can work something out.

Looks great.
Is the game windowboxed, or do you need to flip the monitor to play it vertically?

I'll be sure to check it out next time I'm on a windows machine.

Right now it's letterboxed, I'm trying to figure out how to make an option for monitor flipping.

Pretty cool, pretty cool. Especially love the look.

I got reamed more than I usually do playing these, I must say.

Pretty cool. It crashed about a minute in.

Thinking about going Alien Hominid with this? If it gets fleshed out, I don't see why it couldn't.

This reminds me of Alien Hominid.

Not because of the art style, but because it mercilessly kicked my ass, wiped it's balls with my chin, and sent me on my way :(. I'm going to bed a shamed man

It was fun, though

Seems cool, looks great. And I know I'm not good at shooters or anything, but some of those shot patterns seem pretty impossible to dodge...

Your art style as applied to a shooter is pretty unique. I dig it. Unfortunately, the controls feel a little imprecise for some reason. I had a lot of trouble dodging bullets worth shit. Maybe it just needs to be slowed down a bit. I'm not sure what it is.

Played it on a PC. pretty fun. pretty hard.

I want to do the musics. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josh

I want to do the musics. :D

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Plus One Mores?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Unfortunately, the controls feel a little imprecise for some reason. I had a lot of trouble dodging bullets worth shit. Maybe it just needs to be slowed down a bit. I'm not sure what it is.

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Did you play with a keyboard or controller? I know when playing with the keyboard sometimes you can't hold down two directions at once and it feels awkward. I do have to work on that. Playing with a controller it plays perfectly for me.

Thanks for all the comments so far, glad it seems to be going over well.

Great stuff, cigs. You adapted your style to shooters really well. The patterns were cool; at first it was hard, but after a couple minutes I could get through the level no problem, nice learning curve. I think maybe making the hit box smaller would cut down on some of the frustration, but it's definitely very playable. Better than most fan games. Give it some more levels, a loop, and some polish and it'll be fit to hang with cho ren sha.

I liked it alright, but I couldn't see this being sustained for 6, 7 more levels. Were you thinking about adding power-ups?

wow. that's pretty cool. i gave it a whirl and enjoyed what was there so far.

Its pretty rad man. I suggest you animate the enemies a little more rather than just have them rotate. I had real troubles predicting the bullet patterns, which was nice.

Awesome work, cigs.

You might want to scale the difficulty a little.

Very cool, great work Cigs. The look of it is the most polished aspect, imo, which certainly speaks to your artistic talent.

A few random thoughs; it needs a shooting sound effect! Definitely let Josh do something with the music, too --it's really repetitive and generic. And I didn't really like the spear/missile-style bullets, but that's just me. Otherwise, great job, man. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sqoon

I liked it alright, but I couldn't see this being sustained for 6, 7 more levels. Were you thinking about adding power-ups?

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Do you mean because there aren't any bombs, powerups etc? That stuff is coming.

Also, enemies will definitely be animated. Better (and more than one) explosions too. Thanks again for the nice comments.

Absolutely love the look, although the ship seems like it should move just a bit faster. It's a really nice start, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

James

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cigsthecat

Do you mean because there aren't any bombs, powerups etc? That stuff is coming.

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Yeah the lack of variety makes the game feel really empty and unsatisfying. But since you're adding that and working on the animation this can be dynamite.

And the art is superb. Hell, remove the score/life info at the top and I'd buy a print of a screencap.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cigsthecat

Did you play with a keyboard or controller? I know when playing with the keyboard sometimes you can't hold down two directions at once and it feels awkward. I do have to work on that. Playing with a controller it plays perfectly for me.

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It doesn't work with the controller for me. Doesn't recognize it. No idea why.

EDIT: Ok, rebooted and now it likes the controller. I still think the game feels like it's running too fast. I know I have a beefier rig than you, so maybe it is.

Also, I wish the temporary invulnerability didn't keep you from picking up medals.

EDIT: Ok, wish granted on that last thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josh

Mac version pls.

p.s. looking for music?

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yeah, os x port plz.

also, build in a .mod player! ;)

Looks awesome so far. I think I died like 7 times before the demo ended though =/

This looks great man. My PC isn't running right now & it is killing me to not give this a try. It must be awesome to see your stuff up & running like that.

JM

Great stuff. I really like the style too. I'm not a big fan of bullet hell shot patterns though but that's just personal preference.

Bringing another vert shmup into the world is always a worthy cause. :D

Good job.

I agree about it looking fantastic, and about it running too fast. I'm also too used to Cave and their tiny hitboxes, so the hitbox here feels enormous, especially considering the size of the ship relative to the screen. You might want to shrink everything down a bit to give the player a little more room.

Neat, I whish you the best of luck on this one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy

AAnd I didn't really like the spear/missile-style bullets, but that's just me.

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You're crazy, they reminded me of Gain's bullets (or whatever his name was). The big enemies reminded me of DOJ's first boss too.

Some of the ship designs and enemy movement patterns were a bit bland and I'd like to see some more action going on in the level backdrops, but the ship's movement/controls definitely felt smooth and the degree of difficulty felt quite right for an opening level.

Final update to the demo, new version has:

-smaller ship
-smallerhitbox
-smaller hitboxes for all bullets
-medals even easier to grab
-warning message befiore the part with the 6 spinners at once

This looks awesome! Very interested in playing the demo soon (currently at work); what programs did you use to make this, Cigs?

Game Maker for the game, Photoshop for the sprites.

Won't run on mine.

Making the ship/hit boxes smaller helped big time. I realized that was the only complaint I had.

I love the game!

Pretty cool. I'd say put a small breaks or two in the spinning enemies' bullet patterns. Especially when the ones appear on both sides and their bullet streams crisscross, there's pretty much zero chance of surviving there. I'd also break up the shot frequency of one of the boss' bullet patterns, the one that goes like this:

8888 8888 8888 8888 8888

There's not enough space to squeeze horizontally inbetween rows of these volleys, and the way the breaks keep herding you to one side ensures death unless you're able to do that.