Hey guys, it's been a while since I posted last but I usually check on you guys to see what you're up to
I had a play through all the entries and here are my thoughts:
The monument:
I'm afraid I couldn't get this to run. I have the latest (as far as I know) java installed but it hung on "GameController waiting..."
Scrape:
I'm not really into bullet hell stuff but this was kinda fun. I liked the bullet patterns and when I died it didn't make me feel like I sucked
Still, the actual grazing part was a bit confusing. The ship felt a bit too big and the collision random, almost. Sometimes I expected bullets to hit me when they didn't and other times they hit me when I expected them not to.
Owen Butler's entry:
Flowers? Cool, very nice touch on it, heh. The grazing gameplay felt a bit basic. It was well implemented but wasn't really used in a unique way. Also sometimes the ship bugged and wouldn't let me move up or down, only to the sides. Which made things harder
Vector Scape Arena:
I got very confused by the shapes and colors. And when the red ships/bullets started to show up I really couldn't find my cursor, heh. I really liked how the idea was implemented though. Very interesting and could really work in a full game. This should definitely be further developed in my humble opinion. I found it really fun to play, although sometimes the bouncing bullets bounced mathematically incorrect, maybe that was the point though
Grazer:
Another well implementation of the grazing idea although also a bit basic. The controls felt a bit unintuitive as well. Shooting with space and pressing 'M' (was it?) to switch weapon modes felt weird. I'm not familiar with common shmup controls so could be just me
Also I wanted to level the weapons somehow (power ups or whatever) but that was just a personal opinion....like everything else I guess
Aphid:
Very cool looking game although it's slightly epileptic for me
I love how the grazing mechanic was used. Very original (if it wasn't used before I guess
). The game could really do with some sounds though. It was very hard to know what was happening. The player needs an indication that grazing bullets is good but you didn't get much feedback. It wasn't obvious right away that the companion got bigger and it definitely wasn't obvious if that was a good thing or not. In these cases it's really not enough to type stuff in a readme file, they need to be "in your face".
BuzzKill:
Buzz Killington from family guy anyone? Doesn't have anything to do with the game but I like that show
Anyway, I liked the usage of grazing. It was clear when and how the power bar got filled. There are smaller details though that were implemented a bit poorly in my opinion. For example, it doesn't really matter when you power bar fills up, you just get the new weapon. Which means the power bar is either unnecessary or misplaced. I wouldn't say unnecessary because it's fun having a bar filling up, it gives you the "one more bullet" type of feeling that keeps you playing. But in that case, the bar is in the wrong place. For a so hectic game it's not easy to keep track of where the ship is and also look at the top corner of the screen to see the bar, and move your eyes between those places. I would put the bar in form of a circle around or on the ship, like lights or whatever. This way the player needs to look in the same place to get all the information.
Since the theme was bullet grazing I based my vote on how that mechanic was used and how well it worked in the game. I know it's hard to make a full game but it's not much easier to make a prototype of a small mechanic, especially if the mechanic is based on many other aspects of the game. For instance, if the bullet grazing is well implemented it is still affected by the enemy AI. If the enemies fly around stupidly the bullet patterns will be bad and therefore how and when the player can graze the bullets will be affected. I've felt this in some of the prototypes from above and it's kind of a shame. The prototype would feel much better if small things like these were fixed, or avoided some how. But there's not time for anything.
My vote has to go to Aphid, since I felt Aphid used the mechanic in an original way that worked well throughout the game. But I can say I would really have enjoyed the game more if it had a better indication of what the player did or should do.
Well done to all of you. It's been fun playing the games and I'm looking forward to next round
SHMUP-DEV » RAPID PROTOTYPE SESSIONS » Older Sessions » Session 7
Session 7 Finished - Voting Closed
Poll: The theme is "Bullet Grazing", what's your favourite?
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