NOTE: First three images are gifs. I’m bad and don’t know how to embed them :(.
So in Links the connection between the worlds was by the pick ups. By picking up one of the Links/?, enemies do something on the other world, upon their death. Could be:
Suddenly, lava. (GIF)
Could be something like:
Dat SHMUP classic. (GIF)
And there are a few more like that; bullet burst on the other world, instead of dying, enemies spawn at the respective position on the other world, etc.
But not only. I also added two Links that work upon pickup and stay until you pick up another Link. The best Link in the game is Great Minds, which basically does this:
Pretty nifty, no? Now you don’t have to multi-task. (GIF)
Development Process
This was my second LD and I wanted to give it time and really work on it. The last one I did, I felt went relatively well for a first time, but that it also could have gone better. I work on Sundays, so I took a day off work, but I still had a family event to attend on Saturday that killed 4 hours of development time. For the tools usage, I used things I am familiar with. I wanted to churn out a complete game that people could enjoy. So with flixel, paint.net, sfxr, and autotracker, I went ahead on my way.
I didn’t like the theme. But after about 30 minutes of brainstorming I came up with this thing. I can say I am happy about it, but not delighted about it. In hindsight I should have made a game about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I feel.
Important Design Decisions
So if you give players a static game that doesn’t get more difficult, it becomes an exercise in tedium. Since the game is randomly-generated, I made it gain difficulty over time. The maximum difficulty is achieved after meeting 40 encounters in the game. But it is also impossibly hard. Like, maybe people with 250 APM could play it. I myself couldn’t (not for very long at least). So how do I reset the difficulty? I had thought to have a boss somewhere in there, but I didn’t have a clue how he’d fit into the design of the game since it is a highscore-based arcade shooter. This was the perfect place to use the boss: You can fight him by picking up a special drop, and when you do, it resets the difficulty. Check number one.
Another important design decision to consider was: how do I make the Links an integral part of the game? Powerups are cool but they are hardly the core of shmups. In order to do that, I made it so the Links ARE the score. The more you collect, the higher your score. In doing this, I took a cue from Vlambeer’s Super Crate Box. The immediate benefit in this was that I became able to include both positive and negative Links, as opposed to strictly positive or negative ones. Some links spawn harmful stuff on the other worlds, others are more useful to the player and make fighting foes easy. Check number two.
The last important decision was how the boss was gonna behave. This was the one I am least satisfied with, not in terms of behavior, but in terms of how I relay that behavior to the player. The boss has two attacks, and his eye changes to indicate what type of attack he is about to perform, allowing players ample time to prepare. Someone who is equipped with this knowledge can defeat the boss, someone who isn’t, can as well, but will have a much harder time. The eye animation is not that clear, so this was a failure on my part. Something else to note about the boss was that he could only be damaged by hitting his eye. Here the information was better relayed; the text next to his HP says “Go for the eye, Boo!”, and when you hit his body no sound is made. When you hit his eye, a hit sound is made. It still wasn’t clear enough.
Isn’t he pretty?
Things That Kicked Ass
1) The game feels complete. With 2-3 more days of polishing it and adding content, I could probably sell it.
2) The theme is an integral part of the game.
3) SHMUPS are nothing original, but a dual-screen one where what you do in one screen affects the other is.
4) Endgame messages to the player are rather insulting in a funny way.
5) 2 great design decisions in the scoring system and the difficulty curbing system.
Things That Got Their Ass Kicked
1) Graphics are pretty bad. They are consistent, which is good, but still pretty bad. On the upside, some people like bad graphics, so there’s that.
2) Soundtrack is great, sfx are on key.
3) Game is pretty difficult, and pretty hard to pick up. My instructions screen could have been clearer, and it’s not readily apparent that you can try the controls before you start the game.
Last Forever
I’m happy with this thing. For a second entry by an amateur who doesn’t get much time to work on games, I feel like it is a polished, complete package (sans the graphics). I don’t expect it to do very well in the compo, but it did well by me. In case you decide to try it, drop me a line!
