[prototype] Landshark Missile Attack

edited in Projects
Starting a new thread cos a pretty big update :)

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Landshark Missile Attack started its life at Ludum Dare 29 as my first solo jam :D

Play the post-compo updated version here:
http://www.twoplusgames.com/landsharkv2

Changes include:

1. A thumpin’ track by Tim Harbour! Unfortunately hadn’t gotten to sound effects yet.
2. Focussed on one level, removed others for now.
3. Screenshake! Of course!
4. Removed time limit.
5. Fixed stuttering bullet time.
6. Health + death mechanic added.
7. Eat people to heal.
8. Removed swimming up walls for now.
9. Added enemy dropship.
10. Aerial dodge – double tap forward, left or right while airborne!
11. Missiles and dodge energy reload when you land.
12. So wow, so much. Can’t remember.

So, some questions for you if you had time to give it a go:

1. Did you find it laggy? Was the performance much different between the Windows and the online version for you?
2. The direction I'm heading in is "Crimsonland in 3D with Bullet-time and possibly multiplayer". How does that sound to you?
3. How does the handling of the shark feel to you? Are you comfortable with jumping, aiming, and aerial boosting?
4. How "fair" does it feel to you? How's the challenge at the moment?
5. Did you see any blatant bugs?

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A massive massive thank you to EVERYONE who helped, directly and indirectly, everyone at Ludum Dare, and on the forum, and everywhere. I'd start naming names but I just know I'd leave someone out. And there's just so many! I love you guys!

Comments

  • Turned out really epic! :D Loving it!
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • @tuism Haha this is so awesome! I just drifted a shark around a guy trying to shoot me! Classic! Well done man!
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • The Ludum Dare results are out! :D

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    #395 overall out of about 2,500 ain't bad :)
    I still don't quite understand what Coolness means (thought it's something about times voted) but a silver also sounds pretty cool :)
    Looks like hitting high on humor and fun - which is defintely a good sign!

    Anyone gave the new version a play yet? :)
    Screen Shot 2014-05-20 at 9.50.33 AM.png
    171 x 241 - 18K
    Thanked by 1Tim_Harbour
  • edited
    "Coolness" is directly related to how many other games you voted for, which in turn is directly related to how cool you are as a human being.

    I played this new version a couple days back.

    My impression was:

    I really liked the targetting triangles that appear on the humans. I assumed this was what was happening before, but the interface really conveys what's going on.

    I couldn't target the sky bombers, which I really wanted to do.

    The game looks more polished now. (though I don't recall the latest version it having much in the way of sounds, some human screams might up the humour).

    It feels like staying away from the humans and jumping occasionally is risk free. Which feels wrong, jumping out the land and targeting humans should carry some risk (like jumping into a room in slow motion in Max Payne should carry a risk, but instead feels wrong in Max Payne when the room is empty and the slow motion gun attack is wasted).

    Acquiring six targets is pretty slow, and so killing the large swarm of enemies is time consuming. Charging through them is faster but vastly more dangerous, and seemed like a bad idea as soon as I tried it.

    It feels like there are moments of gameplay that SHOULD be awesome (I mean slow motion gundum missile launching is awesome obviously), but the rules of the game undermine those moments.

    I'm not trying to be harsh. I really think there's something beautiful to be found in LandShark Missile Attack. I just think it's not reaching it's potential.

    I don't know if other players had a very different experience. But that's my feedback for what it's worth.






    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • edited
    Thanks for the input! :D

    I wanna ask, did you ever make use of the double tap aerial dodge? Did you do it in bullet time? Out of bullet time?

    I utterly agree on many of your points and they're things I do need to solve. The lack of a need to dive into the crowd is a thing. The ability to just circle everyone and ignore going in was a real possibility unless you get shot accidentally. The healing by eating people was supposed to fix that a bit so that you'd need to get in to heal, but the ability of the humans to hurt you was so low that once you recognise the very linear and simple pattern of attack, it becomes too easy to again, just run circles.

    The dropship was also supposed to alleviate that somewhat by always going to the player, but that wasn't really good enough. Sometimes the dropship made for insta-kill moments as all the humans dropping out of the ship made a death laser as they left the ship - don't know if you experienced that? Again that can be avoided if you just kept moving.

    I was going to make the ship targetable but didn't have the time to put in the extra system. Also I don't want it to be destructible, but yes the first thing I wanted to do when I played the new version was try to shoot it. Which I of course knew I couldn't :P I will definitely still incorporate a system to make it a regular enemy that you can fire at.

    I haven't added any sound effects yet so that's definitely in the cards, time willing. Sigh time :(

    Yes the targeting was happening previously but it wasn't being visually conveyed in the LD48 version.



    Some ideas I want to inject into the next iteration that hopefully resolves some gameplay issues:

    1. give the player a goal to be acquired in among the crowd so you have to go to it. Right now the idea is... Baby Landsharks that you have to save XD This makes it much more likely that you'll take damage and have to heal up.

    2. Add other enemy types that does different things to make damaging that much more likely. Not sure what yet.

    2B. Tweak enemy aiming to either lead the player's movement or be more random so that again, it's more likely to hit.

    3. Have the enemies move towards you a la crimsonland. Though I'm slightly worried about the cost of added burden on the physics engine? Fuck it I'll worry when it crashes.

    4. Some kind of charge up power that unleashes some kind of special attack that can wipe a bunch of things out at once. <-- Moment of awesome :D I do understand what you mean by moment of awesome, I feel the game could do with a less flat rhythm and tempo. Heck maybe the slow mo should be a charged power rather than being spammable. That's a great point!

    5. Sounds!



    Thoughts? Yes I should just make it and update it instead of asking for thoughts on words :P
  • Why not just make humans throw grenades at the shark?

    It seems to me like the issue is that the humans do hitscan-style damage at close range, so as you get closer, you're in more danger. It would make way more sense for the shark to want to get closer if the humans had a minimum throw range (if they threw grenades at the floor, those would bounce away and explode further from the human) so that you were essentially "safe" coming in for a bite.

    Explosion-based damage would also mean that being in the air would be more dangerous, especially if the explosions were large enough. Players would want to leap when it was safe to do so, but then get back out of that area under-land (because that IS faster movement, right?) so that they didn't get caught in the resulting sea of explosions.

    If you then make explosions also damage people through shrapnel/other physics objects (that could also damage the shark too BTW) you get this neat emergent explosion crazyness so players could do stuff like lure humans into blowing up other humans. Then all you need to do is spread the humans out across levels (maybe make them clump in the odd group or so) for maximum risk/reward tradeoff.

    Basically - stop keeping your humans in one big lump (I dunno why you're doing this), and stop making humans terrifying up close, they should be tasty instead. A distance shark should be a risky thing to do, so that they want to get close to people ASAP.
    Thanked by 1Tuism
  • Thanks for the input @dislekcia! :D

    Grenades sound pretty cool, definitely something I can try, initially I didn't wanna give humans splash damage because I didn't want them to kill themselves by the buckets (, but I can certainly see the appeal there of mayhem and emergent madness! :)

    As for movement speed - well you lose the ability to steer while jumping - but then I did add in the aerial dodge which gives you some maneuverability if enemy fire was coming towards you. That however might be too strong. Right now the system allows one boost in either of the three directions per jump (left, right, forward), I could limit that to one boost per jump so you don't get to spam it.

    What I'd like to have are moments where you see an enemy attack coming towards you to fuck you up, and you getting out the way with the dodge. That'd be super epic bullet time dodge :)

    Spreading people out is a good point, right now they're clumped because they were previously and I enjoyed the lumpy chaos of people flying all over the place. I didn't give it too much thought, but level design should definitely be a thing. Also that clumpyness had been broken up a bit already by the drop plane.

    The landscape could use some interesting features on it, either physics objects or something else. Need to experiment with that.

    Thanks thanks! :D
  • @Tuism - Does this remind you of something?

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    Some design ideas right there!!!
    Thanked by 2Tuism Kobusvdwalt9
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