Martian Scrapper by Aileron

Martian Scrapper
A side scroll 'shooter' game. Blow up enemies and take their scrap to heal.
Sell parts of your hull for upgrades.

As usual, I was super strapped for time on this one and ended up skipping a whole bunch of stuff. I had fun trying to learn how to animate explosions though!

Random notes:
- There's no ending. At least 1 boss was planned, but only the main gameplay loop exists and it continues indefinitely.
- I've implemented stages of 4 levels each. This doesn't yet affect the gameplay (besides random "maps" after stage 0)
- Ideally I wanted 1 miniboss/hard level per stage and the boss on the 4th+. Of course, each stage with changing background visuals too (..making 1 was difficult enough though).
- The 'Health/currency' system was supposed to be more robust, involving hp->scrap->upgrades, inventory, modules and on-the-fly repairs. It ended up being a lame direct hp cost.
- The shop is particularly hacked and rushed.
- Obviously not as balanced as it could be.
- No sound at all. I had some cool ideas but alas, time.
- I don't know why I went for this specific design of 'tank'. I think my brain had an image of a huge tracked vehicle chugging through the desert. Somehow that translated into WWI tanks.
- The whole idea kind of flopped. The core mechanics are... what even are they? I need to work on my game design!
- Despite this, there's something about this I feel very fond about but I can't seem to put my finger on it. Might be worth revisiting.
- I was going for something kind of like the Android game 'Minute Quest'.
- 30 minutes later: Yeah I was going for a roguelite (you can tell by the existence of a pre-game intro), but decided to hack it into a 'grinding game' after seeing the clock. Still missing some features for that though.
Ratings
| Given | 6🗳️ | 4🗨️ |
Feedback
Izaacs
29. Apr 2019 · 11:23 UTC
The itch link returned a 404 for me
🎤 Aileron
29. Apr 2019 · 11:26 UTC
Oops, I forgot to publish it, my bad. Should be up now.
ManTou
29. Apr 2019 · 11:29 UTC
It's a funny game, but a little difficult for me.
don_kyniu
29. Apr 2019 · 11:33 UTC
Good Job! The most important is that you learned something and have something to show :). I'm sure, that everyone has got more ideas for their games, but they lack of time/skill or other things to implement it, so it's normal i belive. What make this hard is aiming system, which rely on Z/X button, what makes it hard, especially when you have to face the whole army of planes, rocket-launcher men and armored vehicles, so you need to aim and react quite quickly.
shp
30. Apr 2019 · 13:05 UTC
Cute and fun little game! I like the explosions and stuff flying around, and the parallax background. I wish the controls were a little bit different though, maybe my brain is a bit stupid but aiming and shooting with the same hand is very hard for me, if aiming was done with arrows too it would've been easier I think. Alternatively there could've maybe been a system where shots go near/far depending on how much you hold the button
stevenjmiller
30. Apr 2019 · 21:49 UTC
Good game, the upgrades feel useful, though I think taking the bullet velocity upgrade is almost necessary due to how much easier it makes shooting down aircrafts. I also wish that the arc updated to accurately show the trajectory of your bullets after getting upgrades.
🎤 Aileron
01. May 2019 · 09:58 UTC
Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with all your points! (and that trajectory bug... I knew it existed from the first 24hrs yet I never fixed it in the end!)
DAVidus
01. May 2019 · 12:59 UTC
Nice game! I had a good time playing it! But it would be so much easier to play and I think it would get a better rating and more people would play it if you could play the game directly in the browser. And I think it's a little bit to difficult.
toasteater
03. May 2019 · 05:45 UTC
Fun game but a little short in terms of content. I wish there was an option to resize the window. It's pretty small on my monitor!