Dr. X's Rainbow Arena by TheChemist
Top down arena shooter with evolving (creative, I know) enemies. Best played with a 360 controller but it can now also be played with WASD + arrow keys! Keep on evolving!
Dev log was kept at: http://publishingnothing.com
Tutorial strings for convenience:
"Green Arrow, its good you're here! You are needed again for the war effort! We've been breeding a nano virus but its taking too long.",
"We need you to get in there and shake up that gene pool!",
"Each enemy you encounter is spawned from the pool. When you kill one, it re-enters the pool and has a chance to mutate or split!",
"A mutation causes a new trait to appear in the freshly killed strain...",
"And a split causes the strain to duplicate! If the pool is full, then a weaker strain is kicked right out!",
"In case you forgot, you move around using the two joy sticks. Left for moving, right for looking.",
"Also use those two guns of yours, left and right triggers, to blast our nano viruses out of the arena!",
"Good luck Green Arrow!",
"- Dr. X"
Dev log was kept at: http://publishingnothing.com
Tutorial strings for convenience:
"Green Arrow, its good you're here! You are needed again for the war effort! We've been breeding a nano virus but its taking too long.",
"We need you to get in there and shake up that gene pool!",
"Each enemy you encounter is spawned from the pool. When you kill one, it re-enters the pool and has a chance to mutate or split!",
"A mutation causes a new trait to appear in the freshly killed strain...",
"And a split causes the strain to duplicate! If the pool is full, then a weaker strain is kicked right out!",
"In case you forgot, you move around using the two joy sticks. Left for moving, right for looking.",
"Also use those two guns of yours, left and right triggers, to blast our nano viruses out of the arena!",
"Good luck Green Arrow!",
"- Dr. X"
I felt that using the controller triggers for firing was really redundant, and just autofiring towards the right stick location would have been nicer.
I've added support for playing with the keyboard (WASD + arrow keys) which necessitated the change where looking is firing. It does negate the players ability to micro manage the energy of the two separate weapons but I've yet to see anyone make it far enough for it to really matter!
All told, I don't actually like how it feels on the keyboard but I agree, it was isolating too many people. Thanks again!
The gameplay is simply fun. Everything just feels right (down to minor details like being able to heal by not being hit for long enough), and the randomly changing enemies add a lot of variety to the game (it strongly reminds of Warning Forever, which also has interesting changing gameplay like this).
The graphics look very nice, with the clearly 2D elements fitting perfectly with the 3D elements. The whole thing looks very polished.
The audio design was also well thought out, with a sound for everything I'd want a sound for. The shooting noises are a little harsh and become slightly repetitive, though.
This game is simply fun to play and replay. One thing I feel that could be added is saved high scores, possibly even online high scores - it would be great if I could compare my score to my highest score, or even to other player's scores. I can now post in the comments that I hit Virus Strength 35 (with best strain 0x02E1, 16 mutations, 10 splits and 120 dead), but experience has taught me few (if any) other players will also post their scores.