[Prototype] A Shmup with some roguelike

gryphon

Hi guys

I am currently doing an internship at Clockwork Acorn and with their advice and feedback I have been working on a prototype for the last week.

The game is a shoot 'em up with some roguelike elements. Basically, beat some waves of enemies, pick an upgrade and repeat with higher difficulty. Continually firing your weapon will cause it to heat up to the point of overheating.

Download for Windows here
Download for Linux here
Or click here to play the web version (Note there are some audio issues with the web version in Firefox at the moment).

Controls (Keyboard):
Arrow keys = Move ship
'X' = Fire
'B' = Blink (if you have the Blink upgrade)
Esc = Quit

Some screenshots:


Some explanation regarding some of the in-game upgrades:
Blink - Allows you to teleport a short distance in the direction you are travelling
Salvage - Gives you a chance to repair 1 health when killing an enemy
KEEP FIRING - Allows you to continue firing while overheating at the cost of health
Missiles - Causes your guns to fire slower missiles that explode on impact

I'm looking for feedback on the gameplay, how the game feels and the difficulty. Also looking for feedback on the general idea and whether it works or not.

Focused feedback:
With regards to the overheating mechanic, do you think this works in a shoot ‘em up?
What do you think about the enemy formations? Do you think it might be too chaotic? I plan to add more formations.
What do you think about the upgrade system? I made it occur in a paused state to provide relief, but maybe the upgrades should spawn dynamically while playing.
What do you think about the difficulty?

Future plans:
More different types of enemies
Procedurally generated obstacles in each level
Boss fight
More upgrades
Stacking upgrades

Download for Windows here
Download for Linux here
Or click here to play the web version (Note there are some audio issues with the web version in Firefox at the moment).

Thanks in advance!

Tuism

15630, no more enemies were appearing, I guess I reached the end :)

I like the concept! I like that you've added some elements to the shmup formula to make it fit rogue-likes, though at the moment it actually plays like many regular shooter with powerups. Comments:

With regards to the overheating mechanic, do you think this works in a shoot ‘em up?
Never had to use it, so it's not up to me to comment. It feels like using health to hit things that'll only damage you in future (so guaranteed damage now for possible damage negation later) isn't something I'd conceptually actively do until I can see an obvious benefit.

What do you think about the enemy formations? Do you think it might be too chaotic? I plan to add more formations.
I think the formations are fine, slippery controls make them more frustrating than they should be, perhaps.

What do you think about the upgrade system? I made it occur in a paused state to provide relief, but maybe the upgrades should spawn dynamically while playing.
While playing would be nice, but you'd need to slow the game down to give players time to choose. AND information for their choice would be good too.

What do you think about the difficulty?
Too easy, I "finished" it first try. Bullet hells are supposed to be hard. Oh, and about things that are learnable - attack patterns and such. Maybe the roguelike element negates that, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

1. The controls are too slippery - it's hard to dodge shots with the controls. The controls enabling dodging is one of the fundamentals of shmups. So that could either be a design choice or you can add upgrades to tighten controls.
2. There's no trade-off, only one linear progression through upgrades. In roguelikes you will either keep the sword with the high DPS or the axe that has fire damage. Or something. Right now the upgrades are linear, and the next is almost always better than the previous. It would be better if there were tradeoffs (the missle vs regular shot is kind of a trade off but you can't ever go back so it couldn't work as such)
3. The recoil of shots are a bit much on a regular shot, it works on a missile (supposed to be more impactful), but on regular shots it feels broken and contributes to the control imprecision problem
4. Roguelikes are often more about degrees of upgrade rather than utterly different upgrades. Do more damage, have more armour, move faster, more chance to this, that, etc. So maybe think in that direction to extend the level-up tree.

Good luck with it :)

gryphon

Hi Tuism

Thank you for the feedback. I think you might have encountered a bug as enemies should continue to spawn between chosing upgrades.

The overheating mechanic only costs health after you have chosen the "KEEP FIRING" upgrade. If you do not have that upgrade and the bar reaches 100% you will simply be unable to shoot until it cools down. I think I'll have to tweak how quickly the bar fills.

Interesting you mention learnable patterns, didn't really think about that but that is definitely a part of a shmup. Maybe I could add a bit of uniformity to the way enemies spawn.

I like what you said about degrees of upgrades. Will definitely consider that as I improve the upgrade system.

I found your feedback very helpful, thank you.

Tuism

Learnable patterns is more about the shots coming at you than the way the enemies fly, if the player can see that a big attack is coming or learn it from experience, then it's possible to put in a big, seemingly unfair attack, which the player can dodge, making them feel awesome for dodging :)

Good luck!

gryphon

Update
So I've made quite a few changes and tweaks. I've added stacking upgrades and changed the upgrade progression so that certain upgrades replace others. Also added some sounds.

Download for Windows here
Download for Linux here
Or play the web version here (There are some audio issues with the web version in Firefox at the moment)

Looking for some more feedback on the gameplay. The next thing I'm planning to do is introduce some more discernible patterns to the enemies.

Kobusvdwalt9

Well done. I like your screenshake, it feels nice and chunky.

Random thoughts :
1. Its generally not such a awesome idea to force the player to switch his mode of input. So at some point (not sure when or why, so this needs to be communicated more clearly) I reach a checkpoint and I get to choose a powerup, except I now have to go and use my mouse which I have not touched since I started playing.

2. I would keep my UI elements together. So the heat meter would go together with the health meter either up top or bottom. I would pick bottom because your ship is likely to be there most of the time. This enables players to use their peripheral vision to monitor their stats.

3. The game needs MOAAR juice. For simple games like these you need more eye candy. You can take a look at this talk to get some ideas :

Here are some quickfire stuff
3.1> Try randomizing the angle a bullet shoots at by 2-5 degrees.
3.2> When you kill stuff there should be explosions and screenshake.
3.3> You can add a little trail to the back of the ship.
Also check out games like Broforce and ZX:Hyperblast as references to juice.

Overall I think its a good game. Keep up the good work.

gryphon

Thank you for your feedback. I really like your first two points, and I will definitely be adding some more juice...after the global game jam this weekend :)

Yeah to me the checkpoint part seems a bit disconnected, honestly didn't even realise that moving to the mouse was breaking flow.

Great advice. Thank you.