[Comp H] Shape Shooter

vince

Hey everyone.

So my Comp H jam idea is a top-down shooter. I have wanted to try something like this for a while and after a few weeks of bashing my head for a 7 minute game, I finally deciding on something. The entire game revolves around geometric shapes, and I try to incorporate their properties into the game-play. See Game-play[ below.

/*Epic Story
You are an arena fighter from Square-Kingdom, squaring off against waves of N-gons.
You use other prime shapes to become more powerful in hopes of surviving your 7-minutes in the arena, and to possibly become the best combatant ever.
Are you in-shape to make it all the way?
Epic Story*/

Game-play
*The player is a square, and can hold 4 power ups at a time.
*Three Power Ups: (Can stack for increased effect)
Circle - Bounces off walls(More Circles = More damage after bouncing)
Triangle - Adds tri-directional shooting
Hexagon - Splits up when it hits and enemy and continues(Not implemented) (Google Hexagon triangles for why hexagon splits)
*You have 3 lives. When hit you lose a life and current score reset to 0.
*Scoring will be overall score for session.(Three lives or per 7-minutes depends which comes first) As well as highest score per life. (Not Implemented fully)
*Scoring is now total per run, with a multiplier stacking up as you go. If you die you lose your multiplier and any power ups you had

Controls
W-Move towards cursor
Mouse-Aim
Left Click-Shoot
Escape-Go To Menu

Currently a power-up will spawn at 10 seconds and every minute there after.
Power Ups now depends only on score.
You will gain a power-up on every multiple of 1000 score reached.
Once you have a stack of 4 power-ups, gaining another will replace the first power-up collected. When another is collected the second power-up you collected will be replaced. And so for the 3rd and 4th then returning back to the first.
Only one enemy type at the moment but more are planned and I'll see what I can add

Disclaimer* The game is horribly imbalanced and will contain bugs.

Known Bugs
-

itch.io Web Build: https://vince1236.itch.io/shape-shooter
(Just click the fullscreen button)


Any feedback will be appreciated :)

FanieG

@vince Link Gives a 404 error?

vince

@FanieG Thanks for letting me know. First time using itch.io, should be fixed now

pieter

Hey @vince, gave it a few playthroughs and here are some of my thoughts.

* I like the clear, Tron like aesthetic, makes it really easy to distinguish threats and powerups.
* I felt the bullets could travel a little faster (I was able to catch up to them which meant I could not move forward and shoot enemies in front of me).
* Not being able to quickly target the enemies made the game feel sluggish. For me this was mainly due to the ship's slow turning rate.
* This is preference, but may I suggest using WASD for up, down, left, right movement (the 'ol twin stick shooter formula). Giving me only forward and backward (in the direction I'm aiming) felt restrictive in a game that seems to be about frantic action.
* There's plenty of opportunity for the player to feel badass, you just need to give them the tools to pull it off.

Good luck, and look forward to the next build.

FanieG

@vince. Quite like it. You need to get a restart button in there (unless i missed it somehow). Had to reload the game every time i died. Like your little splosion gib when you hit enemies. You should have a look at @kobusvdwalt9 comp G entry

https://kobusvdwalt9.itch.io/falcon9

he did a really great job at making this genre feel good. Especially his player movement. You can maybe get some inspiration from there.

Like it so far. Keep it up

vince

@pieter Thank you for all the great feedback. I changed the controls to the twin stick shooter control scheme so that's done and it feels much better. I also increased the speed of the bullets and it feels better already. I also made some other changes in regards to making the player feel bad-ass, something I'm struggling with balancing. See Update 1 Below

@FanieG Thanks for giving it a go. If you press escape anytime it should take you to a shoddy menu from where you can start again. Will add it to to original post as I forgot about it. I watched the Falcon9 video and I remember looking at his progress during the previous jam and really loved it. Will give it a play tomorrow.

------------------------
UPDATE 1
------------------------
*Changed to Twin-Stick Control scheme
*Added score multiplier
*Added rudimentary difficulty increase
*Added new enemy(Is new Default)
*Red arrow is now faster
*1 new spawning pattern, more to come
*Changed circle stacking to increase their damage after bouncing and limited to one bounce
(Is now:
1-circle->25% damage
2-circles->33% damage
3-circles->50% damage
4-circles->100% damage
)

The reason for this is I am trying to get the circle power-up to feel more fun. As previously once you had lets say 3 triangles(Good alone) adding one circle to that would allow you to just keep firing and the bouncing circles would clear everything without a problem.

Even after the update the circle and triangle power up feels a little strong(but very dull), especially when stacked. Thinking on ways to improve this and I'm all ears for suggestions

vince

Update 2
https://vince1236.itch.io/shape-shooter

Reworked the Circle and Triangle power ups. Feels more enjoyable and balanced?
New Enemy Type
High-score saving(Local only)
Press P to go to main menu and restart

Any last minute feedback welcome. :)