In terms of ideas I would like to add to the game. Some of the first ones I am thinking seriously about are: A variety of new weapons, that can be picked up or built with ore. - Adding multiplayer. So that it is like Day Z. Surviving against the environment while then either helping or killing other human players. Make asteroid mining. (next ones are lower priority. ) Adding some rts elements ie: Making some kind of deployable gun towers, making some kind of ships under your control that you can assign to attack targets or defend your base. Having some kind of asteroid mining base structure, and a ship factory that manufactures your minion ships. But most of these things will take a while to implement and I am flat out with various other projects for the next couple of months, with traveling overseas to shoot a film and then studying full time and working nearly full time. So I will squeeze in updates when I can. Thanks again for your interest in the project!
Even though each of the elements you need to balance in Scavenger are quite simple it is really hard to balance them all. For instance if you keep up top speed the whole time it is pretty easy to avoid the enemies so you can do this and keep exploring for resources. The problem is that this will burn fuel quicker. Another option is to try and hunt the enemies and kill them for the resources they drop, but this obviously puts you in more danger of being killed by them. Remember you can upgrade your speed or manoeuvrability very early on which can help. People have survived for an hour on medium before. But it is really challenging. I wanted to make a game that is challenging. That a group of friends can compete with each other for how long they survive. In answer to your question of is the game finished. Yes and No. I think that it is a fun, intense and challenging game with nothing but core game play to it and with no polish. So in a sense it is simply a game in its most essential form. If I wanted to add polished graphics and menus and tutorials and all this polish, and keep the same core gameplay, it would take at close to 10 times the amount of time to make the same game, but so that it looks polished. I have lots of ideas for fun games, so I would rather make 5 fun games in the same time, rather than make 1 fun game with a heap of polish. In terms of adding to the core gameplay. I do have lots of ideas for this but I want to see how popular the game is and then decided how much time to spend on this game or whether to spend the time on my many other projects that are in the pipeline.
Hey thanks for playing and leaving a comment. Thanks for the feedback on the difficulty. I tried to balance the three difficulties so that there was an even spread of challenge. During alpha testing we had some people able to beat hard with ease, so we had to turn up the difficulty on hard an medium to make it challenging for a wider range of players. I have been thinking that I should make 5 difficulty levels to give a more even spread. I will do this in the next update. (Which may be in a month due to how busy I am at the moment) I am also planning on adding an Arcade (or instant action) mode where you start with an upgraded fast ship and the enemies start spawning in big waves right from the start. But back to your question. When you kill enemies there is a chance that they drop resources, the faster enemies have a higher chance of dropping more. In easy mode there are a lot more pickups, and the enemies spawn slower and start at lower speed, and also improve slower. In medium there are less pickups and you also use oxygen and fuel at a faster rate . On hard you literally have to make every second count and make sure you kill enemies really quick. Hard is super intense and to survive you have to be constantly running for your life. I think some players made it to about 30 minutes on hard during alpha. So maybe start on easy until you are really confident with flying the ship. This game was designed to be hard, Like old school arcade games are where you keep dying and keep needing to put more coins in the machine to play again until you master it. Or like in the new Day Z standalone where heaps of players are dying from exhaustion in the first 30 minutes because they didn't stop to rest and keep hydrated.
People also haven't made games with "wireframe" graphics for 15 years. Perhaps there is some correlation between these two trends. :)
Hi I am terribly sorry about this. It appears that Unity engine has a problem with some versions of Linux which cause the mouse control to not function. I will be looking into it. Would people who can get it to function on linux please post what version of linux you have running?
Hey thanks for the feedback. A tutorial is a great idea. Did you read the read me file that came with the game? Collect the sparkley small asteroids. Orange is Fuel, Blue is Oxygen, Yellow is Ore. Kill or evade the red AI drones. Press tab to upgrade your ship. Left click is blaster. it used fuel to fire. Right click will fire a homing missile at what ever is under the crosshairs. Missiles cost ore. WASD to move and mouse look. Make sure you hold dow the movement keys to build up momentum. Then see how long you can survive! It is very simple but gets complex. Like a 3d space invaders!
@ LetsmakeGames dot org thanks for the review!
Cheers guys!
If any one wants to check out more indie games made in our home town Perth, check out the Lets make games site!
@ gamingonlinux dot com Thanks for the review!
Also thanks for the heads up about the Unity engine sometimes having issues with the mouse on Linux.
It definitely works fine on most of the Linux systems we have tested it on. But some have had bugs so people be warned. Strange mouse bugs on some linux machines! If this has to do with the engine there sadly is not much we can do to fix it a t this stage! :(
Hi thanks for the feedback. There is a read me file with the game that explains the controls. Use your mouse to look. WASD to move. If your ship is spinning its because you used your mouse to look up. Or because you were hit by an asteroid or enemy ship that is pushing you around. Either way you are in space so it takes time to build up momentum. If you ever get stuck hold down the W key to speed up forward. This will help you get your orientation. Also it takes a while to learn how to turn due to your momentum. I find that if you think about it like drifting in a car then it helps. So as when drifting you need to turn past the object you are trying to get to so that you are sliding into it sideways. It is pretty hard to get used to the controls, but this is part of what I love about the game, is that it involves a lot of skill to navigate in the new environment. Once you get a hang of it it is super addictive. I am going to be adding an arcade mode shortly where you start with a ship with heaps of upgrades. It is a bit easier to get a hang of flying in space when you have a greater thrust to mass ratio. So in the arcade mode it will be easier to learn how to fly. Thanks again for the feedback!
Hey Thanks for our review for Scavenger. Could I ask what operating system you are using to help understand why the game froze for you? There is normally a short freeze on level load as all game objects are created at that point, We could probably put in a loading bar to show that progress, but in m experience it has never taken longer than 3 seconds to load. If you had a second some some more info would really help us! :) Cheers
He thanks for the feedback on Scavenger. If your ship is spinning its because you used your mouse to look up. Or because you were hit by an asteroid or enemy ship that is pushing you around. Either way you are in space so it takes time to build up momentum. If you ever get stuck hold down the W key to speed up forward. This will help you get your orientation. There is a read me file with the game that explains the controls. Use your mouse to look. WASD to move. Also it takes a while to learn how to turn due to your momentum. I find that if you think about it like drifting in a car then it helps. So as when drifting you need to turn past the object you are trying to get to so that you are sliding into it sideways. It is pretty hard to get used to the controls, but this is part of what I love about the game, is that it involves a lot of skill to navigate in the new environment. Once you get a hang of it it is super addictive. Most of the fun of the game is in flying around so if you couldnt get the ship under your control you probably missed out. Sure the graphics are about as simple as the Atari, but once you get a hang of if the the game play is actually quite addictive. Also keep in mind that the whole game was made in under 2 weeks by 2 guys, and its the first game we have ever made and its free... Also I am going to be adding an arcade mode shortly where you start with a ship with heaps of upgrades. It is a bit easier to get a hang of flying in space when you have a greater thrust to mass ratio. So in the arcade mode it will be easier to learn how to fly. Anyway cheers again for the feedback. Hope you try it again some time.
If any one else has questions about game play or future development feel free to ask. We would love to hear your feedback. Be it positive or negative.
Hi guys. Thanks for the feedback. There is a read me file with the game that explains the controls. Use your mouse to look. WASD to move. If your ship is spinning its because you used your mouse to look up. Or because you were hit by an asteroid or enemy ship that is pushing you around. Either way you are in space so it takes time to build up momentum. If you ever get stuck hold down the W key to speed up forward. This will help you get your orientation. Also it takes a while to learn how to turn due to your momentum. I find that if you think about it like drifting in a car then it helps. So as when drifting you need to turn past the object you are trying to get to so that you are sliding into it sideways. It is pretty hard to get used to the controls, but this is part of what I love about the game, is that it involves a lot of skill to navigate in the new environment. Once you get a hang of it it is super addictive. @calisnake I'm glad you enjoyed it. I am going to be adding an arcade mode shortly where you start with a ship with heaps of upgrades. It is a bit easier to get a hang of flying in space when you have a greater thrust to mass ratio. So in the arcade mode it will be easier to learn how to fly.
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