Luftwiderstand, German for air resistance and pronounced something like [looft-wee-dar-shtand], is a minimalist arcade shooter in development. You control a jet plane and fight against hordes or bullet-spewing baddies and gravity for fame, glory and your personal bragging rights. Pick up items to restore health and increase the score multiplier for an epic highscore. Development on this game has been canceled, see the latest news (one it's gotten approved) for an explanation if you really car. Thank you all!
After getting the initial mechanics in place for the first alpha, I had a lot of fun just flying around trying not to crash. For about 5 minutes. Then I added an enemy ship to avoid, another 5 minutes of fun. Then I had it shoot at the player, plus five minutes of fun too. But the more I kept adding, the actual fun part for me began to stall, despite adding new enemies and so on.
Instead of revisiting the mechanics and rules I darted off into the wrong direction: Adding polish and getting lost in a non-important feature creep. While the thought of "diet RPG-mechanics" seemed enticing at first, it was just another attempt at finally making the game fun for more than five minutes. Plus the whole thing was too big for a solo pet-project anyway.
Recently I realized that I was trying my best to implement a skinner box without noticing it, trying to give rewards to the player for just enduring the sub-mar mechanics, much like Diablo III. And that's not what I want my games to be, not even my first one. I want the player to enjoy themselves while playing, to provide them a meaningful experience and not steal their time time by getting them hooked on some kind of "one more try"-cycle, fueled by a gameplay mechanism on top of a bland game. To me, that's not what I want to spend my time with making. I despise all the Farmvilles and Candy Crush Sagas and all the others that don’t want to engage with their players in a discussion rather take their time and money away from them.
So thank you all who were following my progress and played the darn thing for a couple of minutes. I am returning to the basics, trying to come up with something simpler and smaller. And something, that's actually more meaningful than an arcade shooter trying to get you addicted.
I'll put the last development version of the alpha up here and call the disaster "released".
Another couple of days have passed and progress has been made. Here’s a little update about the intended RPG mechanics, menu-design philosophies and...
Deep down, we all love good graphics despite assuring ourselves that, no, it’s the gameplay that comes first. Still: A coherent art direction makes...
An update summarizing the current state of development and what to expect next: New visuals, basic RPG mechanics and smart enemy spawning.
Thanks to everybody who played the previous alpha versions and provided some feedback! Here's a short overview of the feedback I received and my thought...
This is the latest version before I canceled development. See the latest news for the reasons.
Current Alpha build. For Controls and release notes click on more information: CONTROLS: A - Turn Left D - Turn right W - Boost Up - Shoot Space - Respawn...
A new release with lots of new stuff under the hood and a much nicer play experience. Check the release notes if you want to learn about what had been...
To take a break from coding I did some musical work on the game for a change. This track is not finished yet but I intend something like this for the...
Time for another fresh alpha! Here are the changes I made since the last one. For controls and a list of additions click "read more". Enjoy!
The version seen in the video is now debugged and eager to be played with. Here are the controls again. Left: A • Right: D • Boost: W • Shoot: ↑...
Ok, look. There's a thin line between a "clone" and "inspired by".
Copying a game's gameplay almost completely (even if you plan to add stuff in the future) makes it look like a clone. Why not work on those features before you put a demo out? It would make you stand apart from the other Luftrauser clones. Also, calling your game "Luft...." does make it look like a clone.
Oh, and I won't say too much about the Independance Day UFO, but really?!
Downloading the newest version! Thank you sir.
I want to control with the keys. It would be awesome if you could make that happen.
Hey Boot! Currently there's W, A, D for movement and ↑ (cursor arrow up) to shoot or you can connect a xbox360 gamepad and accelerate with the right trigger.
Seems just like Luftrausers, only more physicy..
Still like it, tracked.
LOOFT WEE DAR SHTAND
Yeah, I've taken some inspiration from a gameplay video I watched on Luftrausers and I wanted to give it a try myself. Currently I am toying with kinda bullet-hell gametype and fidgety controls but nothing's written in stone at this point. :)
Also, do you know if you will be able to make an auto-updater?
Getting a little annoyed at having to download a new version every few days.
Hey Chicken! Sadly I'm afraid I have neither skill nor prowess whatsoever to come up with an auto-updater. But Since I am currently a bit busy otherwise, the frequency of downloads will decrease to something like once every week or less. Next up will be some UI changes and a lot more under the hood. Oh, and thanks for playing! :)
Oh god, I don't know how to say this without sounding spoilt or overly expectant (???) BUUT..
I think you should put in the light RPG elements, WHILE having an 'arcade mode' where you aren't affected by your stats, but just on skill.
You know what? I'm just going to say implement everything in your recent post, but give a way to activate/deactivate it, like a survival level and the small arcade levels with bosses at the end.
So, I basically want this game to have an options menu overflowing with random stuff.
(If it's not too hard ;) )
Hey Chicken! I’m happy you enjoy the game in its current state already and I like your ideas. Yes, I am looking to implement a number of options for player to tailor a Challenge Mode to their skills, plus (when everything goes right) I'll be developing the Story Mode a bit. What I have planned for the future will be published in the news here in a couple of hours I guess so stay tuned and thanks for watching :)
Holy balls. This is your current game?
Amazing work! Already a really good game (Albeit repetitive :P)
Hehe thanks! I've noticed that many games are pretty repetitive so the actually tricky part is getting the core gameplay mechanics to be real fun (Diablo 3 anyone?), so I am trying out and adding stuff to keep the player invested. Currently I am in the early stages of design-work for a boss that appears after a while before the stage ends, so let's see how fun that turns out to be.
Oh.
OK..
Well, good luck on your next game.