!! IMPORTANT !! If you get stuck on a grey screen after the text intro, please wait a few seconds, music is still loading (it seems dropbox is experiencing some difficulties).
--
The villains' empire is threatened by the heroes. Using your ability to control spaceship telepathically, you are the last hope against the menace.
Be sure to avoid the destruction of the ship you are controlling. If you are not inside, it's ok. The empire can afford some material loss.
Arrows to choose which ship to control, space bar to shoot, "m" key to mute sounds.
J'eu un peu de mal a suivre quel vaisseau j'incarne, avec toutes ces etoiles qui defilent en fond.. Un sacre challenge, le "gentil" ne se laisse pas abattre facilement. Bravo pour cette recherche, les vaisseaux de l'empire sont d'une bonne varitete.
I like the story aspects, but the controls make it very very hard to do anything. I don't see any advantage to shooting with one enemy vs. another, and didn't see a way to dodge at all.
@nSun: yep le jeu souffre entre autre d'un problème d'équilibrage, mais cela reste possible.
@sclark39: It should be an advantage to shoot with one ship or an another since it modified a bit the "hero" moves, but it's AI is fore sure too rudimentary. Playing on this modification of the hero moves and selecting the right ship you can succeed to dodge most of the attack.
En effet, même après plusieurs essais, sans réel contrôle sur le mouvement de la cohorte de vaisseaux le jeu est assez frustrant. J'aime assez les graphismes et la musique.
Indeed, without proper control on the ships and even after many tries, the game remains quite frustrating. Good graphics and sound, though.
Bonne idee, mais il aurait peut etre fallu donner plus de controle au joueur. Ca va trop vite pour que notre choix de vaisseau ai une incidence. J'ai teste plusieurs fois mais j'ai a peine blesse le gentil.
Since LD is an international contest, let's try to keep comments in English (ok, bad English isn't better but at least everyone can understand).
@Manest: I agree player controls have too little influence on the attack phase, but they are mainly present to dodge. The issue regarding attack is more about the balance in projectiles damages.
I'm writing a post mortem mainly about gameplay issues.
pros: ship formations, story, nice twist to space invaders, graphics. cons: i don't have enough control over my ships, steep learning curve. tips: try to make it so it starts easy and gets harder over time e.g dumb down the enemy ai.
I was looking for something like this so badly, thanks! Reading your MovePattern class right now, ...why do you implement so many functions in stead of a switch or another kind of paradigm?
Cool idea, very challenging though, and it doesn't feel like you have much agency over wether you win at all. I found just holding space and occasionally switching was the way to go.
@juaxix: I always do it that way when I have multiple behaviors to deal with. Is it wrong ? (I'm learning).
@DTG/berareu: Yes this is the main issue, the player do not have enough control since I didn't have enough time to come back to it (you can read my post mortem if it's not too long for you).
@bms: Thank you for the tips.
Thank you all, for playing and leaving me your feelings about it.
Brilliant idea, really :) However I felt I didn't had a lot of control, maybe because of the movement pattern. But still I think this has a lot of potential.
@har_g: Actually it's not pixel art, it's stretched vectorial drawing (cf post mortem). It was the first time I used it and I like the result, but I understand that some people might not like it.
@Dir3kt: Thank you. I'm thinking of working on an enhanced version when the rating will be finished.
Z
Zed20 Dec 2012, 16:46
I really like this and think it's very clever, but it's bloody impossible. The music's great, too.
Strong concept. As commented already, make the beginning easier, and make the ship selection clearer and less confusing and you got a pretty solid gameplay. The game has a cool mood too.
Rad idea. Love the concept of an inverse bullet hell shooter. Could use some work on the implementation. I had a hard time figuring out who I was controlling and what I could do. Once I figured out how to shoot, I still got smoked right away. Liked the art and audio.
I like the concept of being the enemy ships in bullet hell shooter. However, the controls weren't great, especially when it automatically switches the enemy you're assigned to (which caused me to lose right as I killed the boss).
Didn't figure out until 2nd playthrough what I was controlling. Not sure if I can win or use tactics. Interesting idea, not sure how to make it work in this form.
I liked the idea of jumping from ship to ship to avoid bullets, but I felt it's not very balanced, because you can't control the way the ships move, sometimes your ships get shot to pieces with you not being able to do anything about it.
Overall, i loved this game. Bit hard to strart... missing a learning curve, but splendid work for a compo entry !!!! Perhaps a post compo version some day ?
Pretty cool idea about possessing ships! Though it got distracting with the stars around, needs more contrast. The difficulty is either normal or impossible based on the pattern.
Bravo pour cette recherche, les vaisseaux de l'empire sont d'une bonne varitete.