Alpha Dart Wars

[Edoc'sil]

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Dart Wars is a top-down game I started as a way to prototype different things for future products. It is a Nuclear Throne clone. In this game you journey to a variety of environments shooting darts at enemies in order to reach and conquer the Dart Throne. Environments are completely random with no two level layouts being the same. This is a very early Alpha version.

Main Website
Direct Download (2.75MB)
Twitter

Current Planned Features (not implemented yet):

• Dynamic lighting system
• Boss Battles
• Enemy / Player death effects
• Weather effects
• Environment appropriate enemies
• More weapons and weapon types
• Looting system
• Upgrades and skills
• More clothing and costume options
• Race / physical features
• Save / Load system
• Sounds
• Pause menu
• Other menus (options, credits, etc)

CONTROLS
WASD - movement
R - reloads gun
E - use door to next stage
SPACE - restarts the level
ESC - back to main menu
SHIFT - on main menu reloads menu

MEDIA - (click to enlarge)

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[chance]

Looking good! This is off to an excellent start. I played a few rounds (lost every time...) but I was impressed with what I saw so far. I just used the default character and settings, but there was a different world each time.

The graphic are excellent. I like the style of the characters and environmental objects. They're simple and clean, but with nice attention to detail -- even shadows. And the color choices are very pleasing. So great job on the graphics.

The gameplay itself seemed very difficult -- for me, at least. The controls were fine, but I couldn't last more than a few seconds before being killed. So I'd prefer some easier levels at the beginning. Also, you could consider some difficulty settings for incompetent players like me. Lastly, I'd like the option of using arrows instead of WASD. Having both options is becoming fairly standard these days.

The most striking thing missing right now is sound. There's no background music or sound effects, and that detracts a lot of potential. But I'm sure you'll be adding these. So I eager to see (hear) what you do.

But so far, this is shaping up to be an excellent game. Keep going.

 

[Edoc'sil]

Looking good! This is off to an excellent start. I played a few rounds (lost every time...) but I was impressed with what I saw so far. I just used the default character and settings, but there was a different world each time.

The graphic are excellent. I like the style of the characters and environmental objects. They're simple and clean, but with nice attention to detail -- even shadows. And the color choices are very pleasing. So great job on the graphics.

I'm glad the random generation is working correctly for you. It works for me but there is always that nagging feeling that when other people run the game that things will just break haha. Plus I've had issues porting it to HTML5 and getting the random generation to work correctly. Yay, you like the graphics! I hope to bring a lot more clothing and accessories with further customization in the future. The character system was created to experiment with unique looking NPCs for a big RPG project I hope to start at some point! I need to get better with surfaces so I can do better silhouettes (as well as a death explosion I want to do). Because of the way I draw the characters (lots of draw_sprite_ext) I have to use surfaces to manipulate the overall 'sprite'.

The gameplay itself seemed very difficult -- for me, at least. The controls were fine, but I couldn't last more than a few seconds before being killed. So I'd prefer some easier levels at the beginning. Also, you could consider some difficulty settings for incompetent players like me. Lastly, I'd like the option of using arrows instead of WASD. Having both options is becoming fairly standard these days.

Yes, the game is pretty difficult at the moment haha. I haven't done any sort of gameplay testing iterations aside from making enemies not constantly fire (before they would fire as fast as they could and it was hard to dodge.. now they have a chance to not fire every time they go to pull the trigger). Different weapons will have different ranges, fire rates, and such as well, so that will come in to play. One thing you can already do is lose them. If you hide behind corners and cover long enough they will stop chasing you. Another thing that makes it difficult is there are currently no chest spawns or ammo drops so as the levels progress you start to run out of ammo. The hope is to make it like Nuclear Throne where you have a running ammo count from level to level and not just start each level with a default amount like it is now.

Control functionality is definitely in the works. I hope to have controller support as well as remappable keys so multiple control options will be there! I could implement built in alternatives though!

The most striking thing missing right now is sound. There's no background music or sound effects, and that detracts a lot of potential. But I'm sure you'll be adding these. So I eager to see (hear) what you do.

Sound is definitely missing! And screenshake! I usually do sounds towards the end of my projects though. I'm not really sure why and it is probably not the best idea considering how different a game can feel with different sounds.

But so far, this is shaping up to be an excellent game. Keep going.

This was only supposed to be a systems prototyping project but I have fallen in love with it so I am definitely going to get it to a finished state!

Thanks for the feedback and kind words!

 

[KurtBlissZ]

The game is fun; I'll probably this this to my younger siblings later. If you get control support working it be awesome for local multiplayer.

Plus I've had issues porting it to HTML5 and getting the random generation to work correctly.

The Evaluation Order in the manual has helped with me getting things to work in HTML5. Though there's probably some other things that could be the issue too.

 

[Jeremy]

I gave it a run, here's my short rundown:

I love nuclear throne, and this game strongly reminds me of it indeed; Nice job!
I dig the art style too, and love how the dart drops to the ground after traveling a certain distance.

I did ran into a game freeze though, on level 2-3 when I pressed 'E' to travel to the next area.
Had to close the window, nothing I could do to revive it.
Also, on level 2-2, only two enemies spawned?
That seemed like a step down in difficulty compared to the levels before.

Overall you did a great job!

 

[Edoc'sil]

The game is fun; I'll probably this this to my younger siblings later. If you get control support working it be awesome for local multiplayer.


The Evaluation Order in the manual has helped with me getting things to work in HTML5. Though there's probably some other things that could be the issue too.

Thanks for that link, I will keep it in mind if/when I revisit it! I mainly want HTML5 just because I think it is neat being able to just play in a webpage. It isn't a deal breaker though My specific problems have been that the HTML5 version doesn't want to space out all the filler items (trees, rocks, enemies, etc). Instead it puts all of them in the first few tiles. It is very weird.

 

[Edoc'sil]

I did ran into a game freeze though, on level 2-3 when I pressed 'E' to travel to the next area.
Had to close the window, nothing I could do to revive it.
Also, on level 2-2, only two enemies spawned?
That seemed like a step down in difficulty compared to the levels before.

Hmm, weird. I will have to look into that. It's just a preliminary bare-bones implementation of progression though so glitches are to be expected I suppose. That is also very weird about having only two enemies spawn on 2-2. Technically it is possible for that since they are spawned based on a random call. Only two enemies, while a good example of randomness, is way too easy for being the 6th level though! I need to mess around with that to make sure it doesn't happen!

Thanks for playing!

 

[Jeremy]

No problem
This is what a W.I.P is for!
- Jeremy

 

[Roa]

It's amazing how nuclear thrown single handedly revived this entire genre that was almost exclusive to flash games. Now it sells like hot cakes lol. Looks cool mate. I'll check it out.

[edit]

Its pretty polished. Graphics are basic but work very well, menus feel smooth and flow naturally.
Might want to tweak the movement a bit, make it less angler feeling. Maybe increase the speed of the darts a little bit and players a bit. Darts feel like they have no impact and drop too early, but if those were sped up, you surely wouldn't be able to dodge much. Pretty solid though for a WIP