Voting time for Movie and TV theme game competition - Apr 10 2018

Started by Qube, April 11, 2018, 23:15:46

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freeman69

Not actually voting, as I had problems running some of the games on my clunky laptop, but wanted to praise all the entries...

Envahi was the first I had a go at - fully functioning, lots going on and just a couple of very minor niggles that would have been smoothed out with more time. That grabber seems easy to avoid, but it still got me more than once! Multiple control systems for differently behaving objects. Nice package overall.

Exbiens - clever control system for steering and moving a group and firing towards a single point. Found out that it's okay to shoot a team member in the head when attacked by a face-hugger, but then I'm a dead shot  ;D Loved the atmosphere and the A+ graphics. Got to level 2 so far and was wiped out pretty quick. Enjoyed every moment.

Pipanic - Very cute and very efficient with system resources. Loved the wake effect. The player's berg and the ships didn't want to draw properly on my old machine, showing a black surround instead of being transparent. Unique and fun idea.

Creature Corp - yet to unzip the download (not a bog standard zip), but the images showed amazing isometric graphics. Hope Derron intends to finish it as the idea is very appealing.

Inferno - I know iWasAdam put a lot of effort into the high spec 3D. Intriguing control system - although I never got to play  :(

(Then there was Blue TIGAR... least said...)  8)

It's a real pity there weren't as many entries as before, but the open theme seems to have given people too much choice?!
It would be nice if there was also beginner's thread, so people aren't intimidated by all the high end output. Some of us are using basic facilities and can't draw for toffee (me), and if we can't run all the entries it would be nice to submit an entry to a class 'B' category that isn't part of the final vote and prize.


Holzchopf

Thank you very much for your feedback, Xerra. It really helps a lot =)

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Had no sound at all when I played - seemed odd for a game that's so developed? Bug on my machine?
I intentionally didn't put any sound and let me explain why: I plan to port the game to mobile. And as long as I don't know how I can ensure how to play sounds only via headphones but not the speaker, I'm not going to implement any sound. Period. Maybe it's a swiss thing, where almost everyone uses public transportation daily and just likes it quiet - believe me, if you're sitting in a train here and hear noises coming from a phone, you could ask who'd like to throw that person out of the bloody moving train and fifty people would silently raise their hand. Of course you can mute your phone, of course I could put sounds in the game and hope people wouldn't annoy others by playing my game loud. But it's considered rude insomuch, that I'm simply not going to put sounds unless I can guarantee it's not going on someone's nerves ever. :D

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Should have a skip so you don't have to go through all the intro text each game constantly pressing space.
Hmm I see... Not having the time to play a game while having the will for it seems to be more and more common :( You're not the first one to mention this. The animations are already going to speed up. I'll find a clever way to also make the intro skippable. ;) edit so right now I just put "don't show intro if player is not level 1" onto my to-do list, hope this will help already.

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Don't like the scrolling system where you push to a certain part of the screen and then it catches up. I felt it should be moving as you do.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to put this on my to-do list (immediately, maybe later on as an option). But I tried it and the fact that the movement is not digital and therefore the view starts to jump single pixels every now and then while de- or accelerating just gave me an headache. I'm trying to find a way to implement a pleasant "two speeds autofocus" where just a bit out of centre will move the cam at a lower steady rate, though.

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Chasing coins was annoying as they're moving almost same speed as you are. Took me forever to catch up to some.
Huh... Thanks for that clue. Another thing I have to make Iceberg mention! There are so many things missing in the greeting, like telling the player level 20 is max, Pipanic will only appear then or that ships should always be rammed from the sides ::) The extra thing that should solve your problem: Once a ship has zero health and starts sinking, you shouldn't ram it any more. Simply let it slow down and the spawned loot crate will quite soon just be sitting there :)

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Personally didn't like the graphics style but it's consistent and I can see it would appeal to some people.
Thank you =) I really put a lot of efforts into the graphics. I'm glad not to be the only one who thinks the style is consistent.

Quote from: Xerra on April 12, 2018, 17:31:39Of all the titles this one felt the most developed.
Thank you again! This is a great compliment :)

GaborD


Derron

@ Holzchopf
If you are able to call external java code (eg. creating a function which you provide "native implementations" for ... should be possible with Monkey/Cerberus as "mojo" and the likes were done htis way), then you could just do as suggested there:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16395054/check-whether-headphones-are-plugged-in

Basic approach would then be to have a function "IsHeadphonePlugged()" which calls this stuff when targetting android as platform. And yes, I fully understand that "noise" thing - people doing "whatsapp audio conversation" in the public transports or on the street. Listening to it via "loud" speakers of course, not the ones for the ear. So it is exciting to know who got cheated, who does not care for his kids or if one has drunk too much.


bye
Ron


Qube

QuoteLoved the atmosphere and the A+ graphics. Got to level 2 so far and was wiped out pretty quick. Enjoyed every moment.
Glad you liked it ;D - Level 2 is a big level and there is a simple strategy to not dying quick. The trick is as soon as you hear the motion tracker beeps getting higher in pitch, stop moving and get ready to blast the EBE's. Even switch to grenades if needed as they blow up anything in one shot but you only have 8 of those until you pick up more ammo. The game saves the level you've reached so you don't have to replay from the start once you've completed a level.
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
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MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.

Steve Elliott

1) ExBiEn

2) Pipanic

3) Blue TIGAR

.4 Inferno

Creature Corp looks excellent but more a tech demo - as was Inferno in my eyes, but was completed.  A real shame Creature Corp wasn't completed in time.  A nice retro shooter in Envahi.  Well done guys!
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3DzForMe

My Votes:

1. Blue TIGAR
2. EnvahI
3. ExBien

Edit I'd some problems running some of the entries, I was intrigued by I WAS Adam 3D however couldn't run it on my rig. Also failed to extract the 7z compressed thing despite downloading a 7zip utility.
BLitz3D, IDEal, AGK Studio, BMax, Java Code, Cerberus
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Oldest Hardware: Commodore Amiga 1200 with 1084S Monitor & Blitz Basic 2.1

Holzchopf

Blue TIGAR
Wow, I'm impressed. It has a story (or something similar, you call it introduction), training missions, the controls can be adjusted, sounds and the graphics? nostalgic! :D I even had fun playing it, although it's quite hard. One thing I have to critique: the menu controls aren't consistent. But you sure provided a lot of game content =)

Creature Corp
Looks cool! Unfortunately it lacks a goal to achieve? For a tech demo it's already pretty sophisticated, meaning it seems to run solid. Well except for the one core of my CPU that has to suffer a lot while the game is running ::) This can definitely develop to something playable and long lasting. The concept seems to be of that kind where content makes an awful lot of the end product, but I'm impressed how professional it looks :o I hope you plan to make some sort of introduction? Maybe just start with one single guy that works for almost free and only does... idk drawing and you have to pick a few contracts to make up for a good income/effort mix.

Envahi
Ok the different objectives make it a bit more interesting. Basically I like the sounds and music, but somehow the music from the menu doesn't fit the ingame music (latter one seems to be too much lo-fi in my ears). Some of the graphics also seem a little off, e.g. the "lives" display in the top right looks a bit too much like carelessly resized ;D Let's pretend, the styles would be following the same line: The game could be spiced up by adding... Power-Ups! Yay! Why just the upward shot? You could also have: triplets, fast-fire, explosions (come on, EXPLOSIONS!), lasers, all in different directions and crazy stuff ;) But now it's almost only keep shift pressed and avoid crashing into something. Nice credits btw. I like details like these.

ExBiEn
One of the games where the graphics are just so nicely done. Respect! And not only the graphics but also the sounds build a really strong atmosphere. I got used to the controls on one hand (pun intended) but on the other, I couldn't get used to the difficulty of the game. Level 2 is final stage for me. Am I missing something about the radar? Is most of it decoration which I shouldn't bother about too much?

Inferno
It took me a while to understand the game mechanics. And I'm still not sure if I fully do :D But I like the concept. Great job if you came up with this! I guess it's an adoption of 2048 or what-it's-name-was, but a clever one. I like the graphics, the fake news and basically the game as a whole! I had some trouble after rotating the view, but then I rotated it more and everything seemed to be back to normal. But boy, this game grabbed me.

You make it really difficult for me to decide. I mean, I have three favourites and all for their own reason: Blue TIGAR for it's content, ExBiEn for it's atmosphere (and also it's distinctively movie relation) and Inferno for it's simplicity and cleverness. :-\

But finally, here are my votes:
1. Inferno
2. Blue TIGAR
3. ExBiEn

Derron

QuoteMaybe just start with one single guy that works for almost free and only does... idk drawing and you have to pick a few contracts to make up for a good income/effort mix.
This was exactly the plan - this single guy would be named "You". All figures are able to "learn" new skills (autolearning was disabled in the release) so the whole stuff with "training" etc was already in the concept. And once you played 10 years everything gets replaced by computers - where you then improve by learning new techs (like Pixars OpenSubdiv and the likes). But right, it is really much content to create :-)

If you have more ideas - feel free to add them to my worklog thread (also your computer hardware - if your 1 core was at 100%, on my AMD of 2011 it uses 30% - I think its the FullHD rendering and your GPU at the end...).


bye
Ron

Xerra

Quote from: Holzchopf on April 13, 2018, 22:36:35

Envahi
Ok the different objectives make it a bit more interesting. Basically I like the sounds and music, but somehow the music from the menu doesn't fit the ingame music (latter one seems to be too much lo-fi in my ears). Some of the graphics also seem a little off, e.g. the "lives" display in the top right looks a bit too much like carelessly resized ;D Let's pretend, the styles would be following the same line: The game could be spiced up by adding... Power-Ups! Yay! Why just the upward shot? You could also have: triplets, fast-fire, explosions (come on, EXPLOSIONS!), lasers, all in different directions and crazy stuff ;) But now it's almost only keep shift pressed and avoid crashing into something. Nice credits btw. I like details like these.


Thanks for your feedback on Envahi. I've now created a - probably far too - long post on the game development in the showcase forum if you're interested. I'll go over your points here:

You've got me bang to rights on the lives counter. It's something I noticed just yesterday because I did exactly what you said and just used resized player image for testing in the game and forgot to flippin' put in proper ones before release. How embarasing :-) Ron is going to have a field day with this admission.

The title screen music is my main link to the theme of the game, which was Airwolf. I specifically wanted that music as it's so recognisable and gives the game a bit of identity, with the player being a helicopter and all that. The music in the game was something I added very late on as it was a bit too quiet for my liking and I didn't want to try and over-compensate with too many whiz,bang,crashes. I had 19 8 second bursts of retro music that I used 8 from in a random manner. I found that this worked very well and didn't get annoying so kept it in. I wasn't trying to match to the title theme at all with that.

The other parts you mention about additional shooting angles, power-ups and so on weren't part of the original game so I didn't deviate much from that design. The only real changes were me adding the two shields, being more forgiving with wall and city impacts on the player part and multiple acid rain clouds. I did have some new parts that I was considering adding to the game, like a day/night transition, high score table for example. None of that made the cut as my slackness meant I was running out of time. My worklog goes into this in a bit more detail.

Glad you liked the credits. Original plan was to have a dynamic text system so I could use different fonts, colours and a kind of attract mode sequence that showed the aliens and what they did, points total etc. In the end I had to scrap all that too and just cook up a large sprite with the logo's and credits text due to time. Totally my fault but I'm not that unhappy with how i got at least the basic scrolling system going. I reckon you may be the first to have noticed that screen as nobody else has mentioned it. It's waiting for around 10 seconds on the title screen or you can press "F1" to launch them - for the interested.

Thanks for playing my game.
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Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
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Qube

QuoteI couldn't get used to the difficulty of the game. Level 2 is final stage for me. Am I missing something about the radar? Is most of it decoration which I shouldn't bother about too much?
Level 2 is quite easy really ;D - The trick is when you hear the motion tracker beeps go up in pitch, stand still and get ready to shoot. Little bursts of movement are best on level 2. Don't rush and it'll become a lot easier. Level 3 is time based before the space station blows up, so on that level you have to move a little quicker.

The motion tracker / radar is 100% accurate based on the direction your players are looking in. The little green arrows represent the direction your players are looking in and all the white dots show where the EBE's are in distance / angle. If you find the motion tracker a distraction then just press M to remove it.
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
Beelink SER7 Mini Gaming PC, Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-Core 16-Thread 5.1GHz Processor, 32G DDR5 RAM 1T PCIe 4.0 SSD
MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.

iWasAdam

QuoteIt took me a while to understand the game mechanics. And I'm still not sure if I fully do :D But I like the concept. Great job if you came up with this! I guess it's an adoption of 2048 or what-it's-name-was, but a clever one. I like the graphics, the fake news and basically the game as a whole! I had some trouble after rotating the view, but then I rotated it more and everything seemed to be back to normal. But boy, this game grabbed me.
Congratulations on guessing the base mechanics was 2048. What were the rotation issues you had?

Holzchopf

The picking wasn't working properly any more. IIRC it was off by one tile, but then I rotated the view once more and it worked again.

Qube

Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
Beelink SER7 Mini Gaming PC, Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-Core 16-Thread 5.1GHz Processor, 32G DDR5 RAM 1T PCIe 4.0 SSD
MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.