Play test for me, and I will return the favor. Thread

I've been working on a "mutating space shooter" since last Summer, and I've been determined to develop it openly to get as much feedback as I can from an early stage. I've released demos every two weeks so far. I've had three people respond, and their feedback has been extremely helpful, but I need more.

I realize that play testing, especially at an early stage of development, is work, so let's make a deal:

If you're developing a game, let me know, and I will give you ten minutes of my time and send you feedback. In return, I would like the same from you.

You can download the demo of my current game, It Never Ends, here:

Misterdonovan.com

My last game bombed after a year and a half of effort. I developed it in a vacuum. I think that if I had sought and listened to feedback as I developed it, I would have made a better game. Since we're all developers here, let's help each other out.

Thanks.

I've just tried your game, and for me it seems a bit too complicated/unorganized at first (I'm not really into these kind of games, so that could be also the reason). When I started the game it was a bit weird to see only a white box with some text on it but I guess it's because the game's in early development.

I think the menu where you can upgrade your ship needs some hints because I couldn't really understand how some of the skills are influencing my ship's abilities. At first I didn't give any points to acceleration and my ship barely moved. The problem with it wasn't that it was slow, but there was no chance of completing the first wave with that speed.

Even if all I said was negative feedback, I think this game could be fun to play with some more development and by making it a bit easier to start.

Thank you, Sora. Everything you said is valid, and it will be added to my To Do List.

Yes, it is ugly and unorganized because it's in early development, but I will spend some time organizing the menu, adding mouse-over explanations of items and perhaps a more detailed instructions page. Making the game look better was originally planned as one of my last objectives, but it appears that if I want more feedback, I have to make it more visually appealing soon.

Not being able to complete a round is part of the game. In the current version that I'm working on, it isn't such a big deal since the remaining wave damages the Earth, and you are given a brand new starting ship, and resources to improve it. There is also a planned feature called Launch Probe, which will give you advanced warning of what a wave's specs are.

Can I play test something for you?

the game was a little un-forgiving i played it for for a while i found that due to trying to multi-task i died a few time with no kills i soon founf myself with the inability to move or shoot making the rest of the game i little pointless but i think if this was fixed the game would be a very good game to pass time. also the sound are cool i really like them. so here is a list of improvements i can think of.

1) a way to start a new game.
2) if you become useless make it game over.
3) cleaner GUI.
4) maybe a difficulty slider for the game
5) screen size issues. had to move my task bar, make the game resizeable.

hope this helps and for testing for me i currently have nothing playable but i have a game in development i would appreciate if you followed our indieDB page click this button to go to the page

Thanks. Due to random alien generation, the game can be very unforgiving. My next update will increase the starting stats of the player ship to give you a better chance for survival. In the event of total failure, you will get a brand new ship, with resources to spend.

Currently, it's possible to retreat (hold the down arrow) and fix your ship, but without resources to make repairs, it doesn't help all that much. Until then, just press F2 to restart and get a more reasonable set of aliens.

In the future, you will be able to buy a special nuke which will destroy the entire alien wave, forcing them to redesign to something else.

Cleaning up the GUI is coming in the next update. This is often requested.

The screen size issue is interesting. Currently, it's the way it is because the game is meant go on the iPhone, but I didn't count on someone having a task bar that wasn't set on auto hide. I will look into doing a re-size.

Thanks for your time. I am following your project, and commented on your game's page. Your game seems very ambitious. Do you have a plan for assembling the talent required to pull it off?

i have alot of great talent as you can probably see from the art and sound. i feel we have a extremely big cliff to climb but we dont think its impossible. The only thing im starting to question with my game is the custom engine. and after talking to my programmers we may go to unity. Also iv found that the best talent comes from the people that are new to the industry because they dont want to copy they have new ideas to try.

On a septate not i will try and play your game every release, but it would help if you message me a reminder i enjoy testing games and thanks for following my project

I'm currently working on a game called Robbin' Goblin, but it isn't in a playable state yet. I'd be glad if you could try it when its test version will be ready (in a few months). I'd also try the new versions of your game, if you could post them in this thread, or better yet, message them to me? Thanks.

I have just uploaded the 8th demo of my game in progress, It Never Ends, which features evolving aliens. If any of you liked shoot 'em up games from the 70's and early 80's, give it a try, and send me feedback. The graphics are crude place holders for now. The same is true for sound effects.

**REMEMBER: Just post a link to a download of your game in progress, and I will be happy to send you feedback first.

Download it at my site:http://www.misterdonovan.com FB Page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/It-Never-Ends/700912539924816

Thanks.

Sora,

For starters, Robbin' Goblin is a catchy name. Just let me know when it's ready.

Hey, I just played five runs of the It Never Ends the 8th Demo and here's my feedback.

No matter how I spent my resources I always ended up with a ship that felt weak and useless. If I maxed out acceleration and deceleration for control I didn't have any power or any resources left for the blasters. That lead me to spend some resources on the generator but that in turn that left not enough resources to acceleration/deceleration and blasters - I just couldn't figure how to make my ship feel less wortheless.

I can't see why the threshold to "No Power" is so extremely low, if you don't put any points in the generator the ship cannot be used at all. Therefore, I suggest that you either increase the threshold to the point where you can still manuever your ship.

Moreover, I suggest that you increase the base values of acceleration/deceleration or actually merge acceleration and deceleration to one stat, maybe "Control Systems" or something.

After four tries I died either on the first or second wave every time and I did not achieve anything. The first enemies should almost be impossible not to kill.
If I were you I would look at the best shooters of all time, like R-type in example and see how they did it.

Good luck!

Here are my thoughts...I don't have a playable game in production right now, so no worries about the return. Sorry if they come across as a bit blunt.

Starting stats are ridiculously low. You can be slow, you can be weak, you can have low power, you can be killed easily, but you probably shouldn't be ALL of those things at the start. One compromise I can think of would be to have the 'starting gun' be faster and use a LOT less energy. I'd rather start a little more powerful and have a lot less upgrade points, and just slooowly become super powerful.
As it stands now, it's super punishing right off the bat. Getting all your systems knocked out immediately and then sitting there, waiting to die, is frustrating. Honestly I think I'd rather just blow up and start over the moment one of those critical systems goes red, unless you have a means to 'quickheal' yourself (like a limited number of nanobot repairs or something).

From what I'm reading on your page, it sounds like whenever the ship is destroyed, you lose all upgrades and start over. Seriously, no, just stop. That sounds awful. Right now, the game isn't 'survive and upgrade!', it's 'guess which combination of upgrades is the magic perfect setup to survive the first wave...doesn't matter, because you'll still die on the second one and start over!'

The whole upgrades system feels a bit messy and weird. The concept of it sounds like you're trying to be more realistic - limited resources from your home, Earth, which all feed into whatever choices you make as you go into battle. Okay, this system would be cool if you were playing an RTS or something, where you have to carefully negotiate your limited resources out among your ships and when a ship is destroyed, those resources are lost. That would be fine.
But this style of gameplay is super classic arcade. It's a realistic strategic system with a goofy arcade front. It doesn't feel like it works to me.
A complex upgrading system would be fine, I think, but you have to sacrifice some realism for fun. Instead of a limited resource pool, have the player go up in level, and as they go up in level, they gain access to more upgrade choices. Each upgrade can go a LOT farther...so you can put like 10 or 20 points in any one thing before it's maxed out. As you put points into things like armor, shields, and guns, those changes reflect in the artwork of your ship, which gets bulkier and has more/bigger guns. Have new options for types of guns and special powers that become available as you level up. And for the love of gaming, have these choices stick around after you die.
(These are all just random thoughts, not demands. I'm going with what I think would make the game fun, to me. I realize that's not for everyone.)

Obviously the art/audio/UI are all in baby-steps mode, so I won't comment on them much, but I saw someone saying that the sounds are great...honestly they feel like baby steps to me still, but depends on the style you're going for I guess.

Anywho, absolutely the best of luck to you. I hope that wherever you decide to take the project, it leads to great success.

Edited by: BombadeerStudios

Thanks for the feedback, Sjonsson and Bombadeer. Please let me know when I can return the favor.

E-mail me at donovan@misterdonovan.com when you need some feedback from me.

The number one thing I'm hearing from here, and elsewhere, is that the difficulty is too high. You're all right, and I will definitely take immediate steps to remedy that by decreasing certain alien traits and increasing player traits. Please keep in mind that what you see is what I've been able to make reality so far. A couple of features are still coming before the initial game design is complete. Once that's done, I will see how that plays out and make changes from there.

Would you believe that I thought the game was too easy, and I made it harder right before the last update? That's why I need feedback!

Aside from tinkering with the player's systems and the alien ships, which I will do, the following features are planned:

Player Specials: The player will be able to buy specials to provide an edge against the enemy. One of them is a nuke, which completely wipes out all remaining waves, forcing them to redesign. There are more details on my site for the last update.

The Probe: By spending resources, the player will be able to get a sneak peek at the alien's design and movement pattern. Following this, you will be able to modify your ship to deal with the oncoming threat.

What I eventually want to achieve, is to make a game where you constantly have to analyze and respond to the enemy threat. It's not there yet, but that's my goal.

Another part of the design, that isn't present currently, is that you can win the game by researching the enemy and completing certain challenges. So, defeating every single wave of enemies with an intact ship is not the goal of the game. There will actually be a story to the game as well which will flow from the intro. As you complete different levels of research, the story will continue. It will only have three interludes, and each one will present a challenge that you have to complete before you can move on to the next one.

You seemed frustrated about not being able to keep upgrades. Actually, you can if you use the retreat option. The remaining aliens will damage Earth, but you can keep your current ship intact.

I really liked having different accel and decel systems. It allows for interesting challenges and ways to conserve energy. However, I may scrap it if I get more feedback requesting one system for both. I tend to make things complicated, and I'm starting to realize that most people don't like that.

Thanks again. I'm going to tinker with the player and alien systems right now to make the game more reasonable. That seems to be priority one.

Also, thank you for looking beyond the graphics and sound. That's not easy to do in this day and age.

Because of tldr I did not read any of the other comments. I just went in and played. I must say, your game is already quite addictive! I played way longer than ten minutes thats for sure. Even though it's based on an ancient game it feels fresh nonetheless. I was a bit intimidated by the menu at first, but, taking into account you are at an early stage, I figured out what to do fairly quickly. If anything, the interface could be a little less, errr, text based.

With that said I'd love to see the upgrades have a visual effect on the ship, i.e. increased weapon strength = longer barrel etc.

I'm also gonna go ahead and assume the enemy AI will be moving left and right rather than going in a straight path? Another thing that could be better is that I could often manage to kill the front rows of enemies but than the rear would be too close to hit and I'm forced to just let them pass by. Seems like the ships could be spread out a little more, or clustered in smaller groups. You might want to consider some small v formations to make the gameplay less repetitive. Think smaller waves within the waves.

Now one reason which made it a bit more tedious to play is the strange size of the game window. Could you somehow make it go fullscreen?

Some suggestions/ideas:
- v formations
- motherships
- bullet time / slowmo upgrade
- different kind of projectiles (missiles/flak cannons/fast blasters/bombs/railguns etc)
This could be another dynamic where apart from the upgrades there are different base stats to each weapon. Might be tough to balance though!
- some more different sound effects
- visual upgrades
- some default classes where you dont need to set up the upgrades (like high armor, high power, high speed)

Oh by the way this is a pretty damn difficult game! Might wanna ease it up a bit for the early levels (one hit kills at first pls).

If I think of more I will add it to this post.

So in return would love to get some early feedback on my Far Cry custom singleplayer campaign, ZDAY? The videos total in at about 9 minutes.
Moddb.com
Thread... Moddb.com

Edited by: GC_Vos

Thanks, GC_Voss. I subbed it on Youtube.

I don't have Far Cry, but I am a zombie game fan, and I looked at your two mod videos. You really captured the tension of the genre in the first video. You were always checking over your shoulder to see if that zombie who was shuffling against the wall suddenly changed direction. The city was appropriately wrecked. As other people said in the mod forum, the tagging feature hurt immersion, but I understand if you can't disable it.

I am curious about something from the car scene. Does Far Cry handle the physics for the car correctly? Being a fan of the genre, I always wonder exactly how many zombies can you run over before your car gets stuck? There was a 2D game called Zombie Driver that handled this well. It would be a nice touch if you really had to pick exactly where to drive your car so that you didn't get stuck.

About my game:

Although I have been thinking about visuals for the game, I am pretty determined to save them for the final stage. I have considered visual upgrades for the player's ship, but that will happen after I do the visuals for the aliens. It's quite possible that the visual display of the player ship could have a negative effect on game play if it changes the shape of the ship too much. I'll have to wait and see.

I intend to add a few more movement patterns for alien waves. Currently, there are four, which includes the straight path option. The small wave option is a definite possibility.

I have to stick with the resolution for now because my intention is to release this for iPhone, so I'm designing it with this screen shape in mind.

I will remember the mother ship option. That might be a fun break in the action.

The slow-mo option scares me. Although it's possible, it would have been much easier to do if I had built it with that in mind. I do have an EMP planned though; it will shut down the enemy ships for a few seconds.

The idea of different weapons is intriguing, but a big departure from what I have in place. I will tinker with weapon systems a bit more; the intention was to alter rate of fire, speed and damage to sort of create your own, but it's not there yet.

Yes, the difficulty is way too high. I've currently nerfed the aliens to the point where I feel that they're too easy, but I need to get feedback for that.

Thanks!

I'll take the freedom to give you a bump and respond. In the future I will make sure not to tag intentionally. One way to enforce this is by not allowing the player to aim, or by deploying the player with some other weapon.

I actually played a bit of Zombie Driver back in the day and I still have it on steam! Reminded me a lot of gta2, in a good way I was absolutely terrible at the game though.

Actually the level is way harder than it looks in the video, because I was driving pretty much flawlessly. However, I assure you you will get pinned the first time you go in. The obstacles and enemies are setup in such a way you have to find a balance between going full speed and slowly turning your way around the cars and barriers. The zombies do slow you down as well, but not by much. Their corpses are not solid, thus only the ones alive will slow you down or even damage your car. The more you take down, the easier it will be to continue. Not much like Zombie driver.

However the level is a simple straight line which allows me to quickly add in or remove obstacles as alpha testing goes on. So what I can do is add some more solid corpses within the conflict zones and chokepoints to mimick the zombie driver effect.

About your game:

Saving the visuals for last is a smart move as gameplay is probably what your main focus should be at this point. However granting some attention to visual appeal may help you draw in a bigger crowd early on (thus more feedback and support). I hate to brake it in that sense but the next gen consoles are around and phones are getting hd screens. And a goodlooking thumbnail will go a long way. The first impression does count. But those are just my two cents

Anyway I will keep track of your game so keep on building!

Edited by: GC_Vos

The car level design sounds challenging. As designers, we always know where the sweet spot of success is, so we can make it look easy. Perhaps you should include a touch of failure in the video to show that the level is challenging. In the first video, I felt like the player was trying hard not to attract attention because of the slow progress, and the constant looking over the shoulder. When I designed my last zombie game, looking back over your shoulder was crucial for success.

About my game and visuals:

You're so right about the graphics, but I feel dishonest releasing a couple of fancy graphics that won't accurately represent the game. A prettier game would probably attract more testers, but I'm actually very happy with the quality of testers that I have right now because they are commenting on the game purely on its design.

Thanks.

Well, I played your game. First of all, great job at it, however there are some complains:

1. Game window. Could you please fix the window height? I'm using Win7 with 1920*1080 resolution, Aero turned on, and bottom of the game window goes below the taskbar, being unable to see it.

With that out of the way, time to talk about the gameplay:

1. What in the name of is with some of the aliens? For example, bulky aliens which fire a salvo of big homing projectiles are simply impossible to deal with. I know, size doesn't reflect damage, but size increases capability to hit.
2. Basic attributes of the ships are too low for player to be able to deal with some of the alien types. Also, system capability depreciation on damage in insanely unforgiving mechanic - if even one system gets accidentaly damaged, there is no way to put it back as it was before - at least not without sacrificing something else.
3. There is no reward in clearing 10 waves in a row (game forces you back to shipyard after 10 waves). I'm not sure if 10 waves before forcing back onto shipyard is intended mechanic (after all, you clearly stated that game is limited), but seeing as the game remembers players configuration, why not - at least temporarily - increase maximum upgrade limit each time player clears 10 waves?
4. Why is it possible to spend 10 points for upgrading if maximum ship value is 30? That limit of 10 upgrades can easily be bypassed with starting the game then immediately pulling back to shipyard for another round of upgrades till player hits max ship value.
5. Honestly, I see no reason why I should prioritize stopping aliens over my own survival. Especially when you consider that without max shield upgrades, ship is very, VERY weak.
6. I really enjoyed acceleration/deceleration mechanic of ship. It really complements the power mechanic and is a way to introduce more skill into playing the game. I managed to pull off some tricky avoids by accelerating and bumping into the side of the window. However, deceleration upgrade is more-or-less completely useless.

Setup I had most success with is:

• Generator 4/5
• Battery 3/5
• Acceleration 4/5
• Blaster strength 5/5
• Blaster path Spread
• Shield strength 5/5
• Shield regeneration 3/5
• Rest default

Let me comment why:

• Generator and battery are here to provide energy for moving - once player is out of power he's basically dead
• Shield is here to survive at least few hits before instant game over
• Acceleration is here to provide sufficient mobility, which is key in this type of game. Deceleration can safely be ignored.
• Blaster strength and Spread pattern ensure the maximum clear ability. In limited space, Spread is quite effective, and since (I assume) its damage is lower than single and double shot modes, it needs to be raised up.

With some more minmaxing, it can be more tuned for survival, but without those upgrades it's insanely (I'm using that word too much) hard to survive one wave, let alone 10 waves.
Overall, good game, revisits the classic genre of games, wakes up nostalgia, but it still needs balancing. Great job and good luck at finishing it.

Demo 9 of It Never Ends is on my site:

Misterdonovan.com

Several pieces of feedback have been addressed in the demo (unfortunately, not the window/screen size issue). Visit my site for a full list of improvements.

Also, please let me know if I can test your game too.

Aurioch, thanks for your detailed review. Through observation alone, you've figured out a lot of how the player's ship works. I have already made changes to the game that I think you will approve of. I would like to respond to some other comments:

-Deceleration can be useful if precise movement is desired. Otherwise, you have to counter thrust to stop which costs energy.

-Currently, you are rewarded for destroying 3 waves in a row. The enemy retreats and you get a bonus. I read your mind.

-Aliens are randomly built. I have seen some really stupid designs, like flaming stealth ships. I have also seen scary combos that seem impossible to beat. For the impossible waves, I'm adding a nuke option that will cost a lot of resources.

-There is a point to stopping aliens from getting by you, and for not retreating unless necessary: Earth has 1000 hp. Each alien does 1 hp of damage when it slips by. If you retreat, or die, all remaining aliens damage earth. There are 100 aliens in 10 waves (150 if the hordes special is active).

Again, nice job I played it for about a hour in the last 2 days, and these are my first... impressions?

• Ship subsystem text is misaligned.
• What happens with some aliens that fly out of the screen? For now, I spotted that Reserve and Independent aliens do that.
• Getting damage from bumping onto the side of the screen is from me... maybe it happened in Demo 8 as well, but due to bigger shields it wasn't visible.
• Merging Weapon speed, Weapon power and Weapon rate of fire is a good move
• While having Twin and Spread pattern projectile damage same as Single pattern is useful, you probably should bring back negative modifiers or increase Single patter damage (watch out for powercreep)... because right now, there's no use having Single pattern when Twin and Spread do much better job.
• Having indicators of Shield (and maybe Hull) status would be appreciated. When I get hit, I have no idea how much damage I got from that.

And now about ship subsystems, which is (probably) most important gameplay element...I don't know, while 2 subsystems have been removed (and thus free up 4 resources), halving amount of avaiable resources at start (from 18 used out of 30 max to 14 used out of 20 max) puts much more burden on player. because there's not enough points to create stable configuration - I'm still experimenting and I feel like I lack 1-2 points every time I try something. However, I barely managed to defeat 20 waves with configuraiton below, but mainly due to aliens being little weaker

Generator 4/5Battery 3/5Acceleration 3/5Deceleration 1/5Blaster strength 3/5Blaster pattern TwinShield strength 4/5Shield regeneration 2/5
Some suggestions:

• Double the max ship value and raise subsystem levels from 5 to 10, with current levels remaining as they are (so default, 2/5, becomes 4/10). Cost per level remains same. This allows more fine tuning while having same costs as right now.
• Introduce 1 or 2 more subsystems (for example, Repair bots, with 2/5 being current repair ability) and raise max value to 25. Opens up new possibilities with both new subsystems and tuning current ones.
• Maybe use Xenobiology points for buying few ship upgrade points? Slows down the progress for winning the game, but will help players survive.

Grim_Jester wrote: -Deceleration can be useful if precise movement is desired. Otherwise, you have to counter thrust to stop which costs energy.

I'd rather have 1 Generator level higher - which is useful for multiple subsystems - than 1 level of Deceleration, thank you very much.

Grim_Jester wrote: -Currently, you are rewarded for destroying 3 waves in a row. The enemy retreats and you get a bonus. I read your mind.

I actually managed to see that Still, as my own ship doesn't get any stronger as I blast those pesky aliens down, for now it's just a race to see if I can collect enough Xenobiology points before Earth gets destroyed. By the way, how many Xeno points are required to win?
As for my own game, why would I put the test version on my game's page if not for being actually played? Having feedback is always welcomed, and I'm not sure if my game is actually fun in current state... I can't rely just on nostalgia factor.

Aurioch,

I tried Tank City. I never played the game that it is inspired by, but it initially reminded me of the Atari 2600's Combat.

I gave the game a twenty minute play test. At first, I thought it was too easy, but then I lost which made me want to play some more. I kept at it until I beat it. That's a good sign, I think.

I then started looking for optimal strategies. Since the enemy tanks have only two paths/bridges to get to my side of the board, I only have to wait south of these spots to pick off the enemy as they approach from the sides. I know that you plan to have a level editor, so this is only an issue at the moment.

It's interesting that opposing shots cancel each other out. It's also interesting that you can only create one bullet after your last one was destroyed. What is the reasoning behind this?

I like the idea of forest tiles, but I feel like it needs more of a game effect; perhaps slowed movement, and even greater concealment?

I also really like that enemies pick up power-ups. It's about time! What happens if they pick up the dynamite power-up? Does the player blow up? It would be a powerful incentive for me to come out of my sniper position if I didn't want the enemy to get a nasty power-up.

I get the impression that you intend to add a lot of different types of tiles and power-ups. That, combined with the level editor, should be pretty entertaining.

I would be happy to keep testing it as it is updated.

Aurioch,

Thank for your review. It is exceptionally detailed and useful. I would like to respond to some of your points.

"Ship subsystem text is misaligned."

I know... I should spend an update making things look better, but I'm so distracted with other tasks.

"What happens with some aliens that fly out of the screen? For now, I spotted that Reserve and Independent aliens do that."

I've noticed that too. It makes total sense for the independents to do that, but I can't see what reserve power has to do with it. Anyway, it's a problem and will be added to my list. It might be the Dodge special too.

"Getting damage from bumping onto the side of the screen is from me... maybe it happened in Demo 8 as well, but due to bigger shields it wasn't visible."

My friend of 30 years wasn't happy about that either... I do intend to make a player special ability that allows you to warp from one side to the other.

"While having Twin and Spread pattern projectile damage same as Single pattern is useful, you probably should bring back negative modifiers or increase Single patter damage (watch out for powercreep)... because right now, there's no use having Single pattern when Twin and Spread do much better job."

I'm not going to make any changes yet, but I will remember this comment. The way I see it, twin blasts costs twice as much energy, spread costs 3x, and rationing your energy is a big deal in the game. I need to do more testing and get more feedback on this.

"Having indicators of Shield (and maybe Hull) status would be appreciated. When I get hit, I have no idea how much damage I got from that."

I agree. I plan to put in audio-visual cues when a system is destroyed. As for the shields, they become more transparent as they weaken; I guess I need more variation. As for the hull, the ship will continually spark, and/or smoke as it gets damaged.

"And now about ship subsystems, which is (probably) most important gameplay element...I don't know, while 2 subsystems have been removed (and thus free up 4 resources), halving amount of avaiable resources at start (from 18 used out of 30 max to 14 used out of 20 max) puts much more burden on player."

Yes, this whole issue is very complicated, and it will most likely see a lot of change. Adding a couple of more points will probably be the first step, but I also plan to add specials for the player as well. Hopefully, these will help.

"I'd rather have 1 Generator level higher - which is useful for multiple subsystems - than 1 level of Deceleration, thank you very much. "

When I design a ship, I tend to have deceleration one or two less than acceleration. I find that it saves fuel and allows me to do strafing attacks. The only time I have decel equal accel is when I'm fighting aliens with powerful weaponry, or a high rate of fire; in those cases, I need to have precision of movement. One of my oldest friends hates having both and accel and decel system, but I like the freedom of movement. In the end, I will let my play testers decide what's good.

"By the way, how many Xeno points are required to win?"

The game can't be won at this time. I'm not sure what the winning value of Xeno will be, but currently, I'm planning for Xeno to unlock certain challenge stages which will eventually lead to the end of the game.

Thanks.

Edited by: Grim_Jester

Grim_Jester wrote: Aurioch,

I tried Tank City. I never played the game that it is inspired by, but it initially reminded me of the Atari 2600's Combat.

I gave the game a twenty minute play test. At first, I thought it was too easy, but then I lost which made me want to play some more. I kept at it until I beat it. That's a good sign, I think.

I then started looking for optimal strategies. Since the enemy tanks have only two paths/bridges to get to my side of the board, I only have to wait south of these spots to pick off the enemy as they approach from the sides. I know that you plan to have a level editor, so this is only an issue at the moment.

It's interesting that opposing shots cancel each other out. It's also interesting that you can only create one bullet after your last one was destroyed. What is the reasoning behind this?

I like the idea of forest tiles, but I feel like it needs more of a game effect; perhaps slowed movement, and even greater concealment?

I also really like that enemies pick up power-ups. It's about time! What happens if they pick up the dynamite power-up? Does the player blow up? It would be a powerful incentive for me to come out of my sniper position if I didn't want the enemy to get a nasty power-up.

I get the impression that you intend to add a lot of different types of tiles and power-ups. That, combined with the level editor, should be pretty entertaining.

I would be happy to keep testing it as it is updated.

Thank you very much, this was just what I need It seems I'm heading in good direction with the game. Now for some responses...

Limited ammunition is here to enforce some planning from the player over the pure "shoot until you hit". Also, bullet reload only when previous has disappeared forces player to think a little about their shots. Having reload on timer would remove that - missing long shots wouldn't be punishing, while missing close shots, which is far more dangerous, would be very punishing. Besides, there's Ammo powerup which raises maximum amount of bullets you can fire, and few more bullet-related powerups will come as well.

Forest tiles... yeah, I need to update them. Their characteristic is obstruction of view, and in current state, they don't do their job properly.

Enemy dynamite powerup, along with enemy stopwatch (time manupulation) powerup, aren't implemented in testing version as I'm still thinking about how to handle them properly. Before, enemy dynamite crippled player tanks (stripped them of all power-ups and additional movement slow for 30 seconds) as I felt that killing players was too punishing.

I have 2 more tiles and at least 4 more powerups in my mind, but before I put them in the game, I want the current one to be as polished as possible. That means upgrading visuals, adding effects, sound and fixing what has to be fixed

Good luck with It Never Ends, I'm always ready to test it and will be happy to do so

Just played the new version and it seemed more fun than the last time I played but it was still difficult for me. I think it'd be a good idea to have different difficulties, so that it won't scare off the beginners.

I also think that you've got too few points to spend on upgrades at the start because many attributes are essential but you have to invest quite a few points in them. Without upgrading the generator nearly at the max level I always ran out of energy soon, but when I upgraded, my other attributes were pretty bad. It was fun to try to minimize my energy usage so that my power won't be depleted in no time, but I still think that the attributes really need some balancing.

The last thing is about the power bar left to the ship: for me it was hard to notice it, maybe making it a bit bigger and placing it int the top/bottom corner would be a better idea.

Edited by: Sora_

Thanks for your feedback.

Colonycapture:

Your screenshot confuses me. Are you telling me that was all you could see? Some people complained that they couldn't see the bottom of the screen, but you're missing over half from the screenshot. Is this the case? If so, could you tell me your computer/device's resolution and operating system?

I think you're right about adding polish to the game. I have been posting demos for 18 weeks, starting with the game's most primitive state. I did this to get feedback, but also to set deadlines for myself and to document my progress. To date, I've received feedback from around eight people so far. I hope that when I start cleaning up the interface and adding better graphics, it will get a little more interest, and I will get more feedback; I just really wanted to get the basics down first. Once I add the special ability feature for the player, all of the basic elements will be in. Once that's done, I will start the first round of polish.

Sora:

You are so right. The difficulty was way too high. 90% of my feedback said the same thing. I've known from the start that feedback is important, but I didn't realize how useless I am as a play tester. In my mind, the current version in development is far too easy. I hope this translates to moderate difficulty for others.

Keep in mind that the difficulty of the aliens is determined randomly, and this is supposed to be the main draw of the game. The title, It Never Ends, refers to the constant back and forth of strategies. Even I can't predict what the aliens will do. I'm hoping that when a player gets beaten, they will be able to go back to the ship yard and modify their ship to respond to the threat. The next demo will limit how quickly the enemy evolves. It was unfair for the aliens to completely change their design without any warning to the player.

I am working on balancing the ship's systems and costs a lot. This has been the most difficult part of the game so far. I'm glad that you had some fun with trying to balance energy use during play, because that's what I wanted to achieve, but it isn't quite right yet. I think the reason why I'm having so much of a problem with balance is due to the random nature of the enemy.

Also, if the player finds an alien configuration to be impossible to beat, they can buy the nuke special to wipe out the next 10 waves and force the aliens to redesign. I hope that this will be enough to keep the game from getting too difficult.

You are the second person to complain about the power meter. Considering the low number of people testing so far, that's pretty significant. The reason why I put the power meter next to the ship is that I don't want to clutter the screen. For now, I'm going to make it thicker, and see if that helps. If that doesn't work, what do you think about putting the power meter across the entire bottom of the screen? This is also a concern for me because this is intended for the iPhone, and I am considering putting controls at the bottom.

Well, it's the same for me, I think it's harder for the developers to test their own games because they know (nearly) every parts of their game, what is possible/impossible in the game, which strategies to use, etc.

Even if the aliens' difficulty is random, in my opinion it'd be a good idea to limit their strength according to the different difficulties. I think there should be some hint that if you die you can restart the game against the same enemies. At first I didn't realize it (my attention was focused on surviving) and I didn't modify the ship with the thought that I'll be fighting against the same aliens.

I think putting the power meter across the entire bottom would look good on an iPhone but on a pc, I'm not sure. On pcs maybe you can make it as an information panel which displays all the essential information.

Sora_ wrote: Well, it's the same for me, I think it's harder for the developers to test their own games because they know (nearly) every parts of their game, what is possible/impossible in the game, which strategies to use, etc.

So true.

Sora_ wrote: Even if the aliens' difficulty is random, in my opinion it'd be a good idea to limit their strength according to the different difficulties. I think there should be some hint that if you die you can restart the game against the same enemies. At first I didn't realize it (my attention was focused on surviving) and I didn't modify the ship with the thought that I'll be fighting against the same aliens.

That's a great point. I will make an effort to make the strategy of the game obvious. I mention the idea on my website, but it doesn't appear in the game at all. For the next demo, I will make the instructions and goal very clear within the program. It won't be pretty, yet, but it will be there.

Sora_ wrote: I think putting the power meter across the entire bottom would look good on an iPhone but on a pc, I'm not sure. On pcs maybe you can make it as an information panel which displays all the essential information.

I am hesitant to put things on the limited screen space, but for now, power will go across the bottom .

Thanks for your thoughts.

colonycapture wrote: @Jester: I could see the rest, I only took a screenshot of the buggy part, I couldn't see any of the bars/text/numbers so whenever I played I didn't know my health, or how much power I had for example.

I see. I will modify the power meter, and I have already been working on displaying ship damage as sparks; the more sparks you see coming off of the ship, the more damaged it is. Again, I'm trying hard not to add extra things to the screen.

BTW, I have to keep my word. I tried Colony Capture briefly, and will try it more after my holiday is over. Although I saw the tutorial option, I thought it might be a good test to just dive in without playing it:

I stumbled on the goal and interface for perhaps 2 minutes, but eventually figured it out. That's a great sign.

I love the concept of special pieces at the expense of points.

The pick up and placement method for pieces seems a little off to me.

The AI seems good enough to hurt my feelings.

More later!

Thanks!

Demo 10* is up at my site:

Misterdonovan.com

I have addressed some suggestions made in this forum. If I did not implement your suggestion in this demo, it does not mean that it was ignored. I may not have had time to make the change, or I'm waiting for more feedback to match yours.

As always, your feedback is valued, and the favor will be returned!

*NOTE: Unfortunately, version 10 had to be updated to 10b. The game was accessing pictures from my computer, and therefore, not showing up elsewhere. Sorry! It should work now.

Edited by: Grim_Jester