Windows Gunkid 99 - high-score, arena-shooter (RELEASED! now on Steam)

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Yong

Member
Hello everyone!
I am currently on solo development of my very first game - Gunkid 99.
To put simply, Gunkid 99 is a fast-paced, arena-shooter that is all about getting that HIGH SCORE.

Gunkid 99 is now out on STEAM!

Also available on Itch.io!

Inspired by Super Crate Box and old-school arcade games, the goal of the game is to earn as high a score as you can by collecting weapon drops throughout a run (and thereby changing your weapon in the process).




As you progress through the game you'd unlock more theme-Worlds, more stages, and of course, more weapons.




You can also equip special abilities and choose your weapon loadouts to utilise different strategies and customise your play-style.





A DEMO is available! Try it out on Itch.io or Steam.

Please feel share to share any feedback you have on the forum here. But the fastest way to get to me would be though DISCORD.

You can also find me here:
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr

PRESSKIT: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FOQK-7dx1zil6mX1pXypjYAN8MSlRrQ5

And if you don't want to miss the game's full release, wishlist it on Steam or sign up for the mailing list.
Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!!
 
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Tayoyo

Guest
Wow! This all is really well done! I played through the first world, and the shooting and movement felt great! All the animations are really well done, but the sprites for the enemies and the players are a little generic. Hopefully the enemy design gets better as I play. The art is really well done, and the menu at the start is gorgeous! Getting new weapons is fun, the way levels play out is fun, and overall its a great game.
There were a few problems I noticed though. Getting hit doesn't give the player enough feedback. It's very easy to miss the subtle way the music would change when you take damage, and the damage sound the player makes sounds just like all the others. Maybe make the player flash red or something.
With how you have to pick up guns to progress, reloading just doesn't make sense and in fact slows down the game. Either you make the weapons spawn slower, or you should get rid of the mechanic entirely. This would help encourage players to go after guns more, which would help the game move faster and result in players having to decide to focus their efforts on saving their ammo or clearing out enemies. It'd help keep players from spamming overpowered weapons, like the bounce shot gun, as they'd have to rely on the pickup for a new gun instead of just reloading and shooting again.
The sound design for the guns is really good, but the sounds for the player when the jump and stuff are way to simple. They'd sound a lot better if you mixed some things together for those.
Your game is really, really good. There is just too much good for me to talk about, but these are a few things that stuck with me after I played. I hope this was helpful!
 

Yong

Member
Wow! This all is really well done! I played through the first world, and the shooting and movement felt great! All the animations are really well done, but the sprites for the enemies and the players are a little generic. Hopefully the enemy design gets better as I play. The art is really well done, and the menu at the start is gorgeous! Getting new weapons is fun, the way levels play out is fun, and overall its a great game.
There were a few problems I noticed though. Getting hit doesn't give the player enough feedback. It's very easy to miss the subtle way the music would change when you take damage, and the damage sound the player makes sounds just like all the others. Maybe make the player flash red or something.
With how you have to pick up guns to progress, reloading just doesn't make sense and in fact slows down the game. Either you make the weapons spawn slower, or you should get rid of the mechanic entirely. This would help encourage players to go after guns more, which would help the game move faster and result in players having to decide to focus their efforts on saving their ammo or clearing out enemies. It'd help keep players from spamming overpowered weapons, like the bounce shot gun, as they'd have to rely on the pickup for a new gun instead of just reloading and shooting again.
The sound design for the guns is really good, but the sounds for the player when the jump and stuff are way to simple. They'd sound a lot better if you mixed some things together for those.
Your game is really, really good. There is just too much good for me to talk about, but these are a few things that stuck with me after I played. I hope this was helpful!
Hey Tayoyo, wow that's a lot to digest. Thanks for trying the game and double thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it :)
 

Yong

Member
Hello again!
Today's devlog will be a showcase of some of the weapons in 99999.

*poor slime will be the demonstrator lol


First off - the Blaster, the first weapon you'd get.
The Blaster is weak but relatively fast. Zero recoil which makes for good control. High ammo cap and a fast reload means the Blaster is consistent and reliable.

You can consider the Blaster as the basic weapon for which all other weapons are compared to. Obviously you'd unlock better/stronger weapons as you progress but I don't want the Blaster to become completely obsolete either. That means other weapons will behave differently or might have certain drawbacks and the Blaster may still be the preferred weapon of choice in certain situations.


Revolver
It can fire as quickly as you can spam the shoot button and is quite powerful to boot. Slight recoil. Some of its power is mitigated by the lower ammo cap. I particularly like the reload animation on this one (just wanted to point it out :p)


Mini-Cannon
Powerful but has a slow rate of fire. One-shot the vast majority of enemies.The low ammo cap means you’d have to reload often. The recoil is pretty noticeable too and will slightly hinder movement


Shotgun
A monster at close-range. With its wide arch of fire you can get away with being less accurate. However its reach is pretty short. If you look at the bullets they disappeared before even hitting the wall. The recoil is also pretty significant.


Bounce-gun
Bullets from the Bounce-gun bounces (duh :D). This can be extremely useful because you can shoot round corners and hit enemies where they can't reach you. Its one drawback is that direct shots are incredibly weak. The bullets only gain their true strength after they bounced off a wall(If you notice, the bullet lights up after it touches a wall).

As you progress further into the game, you'd also start to unlock more varied/weirder weapons. Weapons that may be very powerful, but also difficult to handle and master.
 

Yong

Member
Hi all!
In this post I will be talking about the enemies found in World-1 of the game.



There are only 4 enemy types to be found in World 1. Subsequent "Worlds" will follow the same pattern. Since the game is fast-paced and each run only lasts a couple of minutes at most, I thought reducing the amount of enemy types will allow players to quickly recognize each enemy for what it is and react to their attack patterns accordingly.

Also, because this being the first World, I've decided the very first enemies you'd see will be one of the most common monsters found in games - Slimes.



First up is the big slime. Nothing much to say here as you can see. It moves along and turns when it meets with solid obstacles. The very first enemy you'd see. It is slow-moving and has a decent amount of health (you can see it takes 4 hits to destroy the Slime. That is considered the upper range. All enemies have low health to keep the action fast and to avoid bullet-sponge situations).




Baby slimes. Its behaviour is identical to its larger counter-part. Small and extremely squishy it can be dealt with in a one single shot from most weapons. What it lacks in size it makes up for in speed. Its small size can make it surprisingly tricky to hit in the heat of action.




My intention is for each World to have only one single enemy type that shoots projectiles. This is so as to prevent the game from becoming "bullet-helly". Not that there's anything wrong with bullet-hell but I think it will be too difficult to navigate in a side-scroller platformer setting. So that is the Shooter slime's purpose: to shoot projectiles. It remains static at the spot from where it spawned, shooting at the player near or far.




So far the Shooter slime is the only enemy type that will actively engage the player. The big and baby slimes just move about irregardless of what players do. And thus I added the last enemy type: Winged slime. It constantly seeks and follows the player around. The intention is to force players to move and not be able to bunker down in a safe spot.

Being the very first World, the enemies found here are more stereotypical and do not have much special characteristics. As players acclimatize and progress through the game, enemies in later Worlds would provide more of a challenge.
 

Yong

Member
I finally have a STEAM PAGE! woohoooo!

also, trailer:

As you probably already know, wishlist is now more important than ever with the recent changes to Steam's 'Upcoming' tab to 'Popular Upcoming'. I think it's a great change, makes a lot of sense and could really help us.

I also got some really valuable feedback from the initial release of my demo and made some changes accordingly.

DEMO

Feel free to comment/critique, (constructive)feedback is always appreciated.
 

Yong

Member
Continuing on with the various creatures found in World-2.



As I've mentioned before, there are only 4 enemy types in each World. World 2's theme is lava, so I've tried to make the enemies fit in with the world/environment. After the introductory "vanilla" enemies of World 1, the enemies in World 2 will begin to have more varied behaviors and attack patterns.



First off, the Lava Blob.
The blob might be relatively weak but its small size combined with its speed and jumping pattern can make it rather tricky to hit. I also did a little something extra for its death animation to show its "fire-y" nature.




Next up, the Lava Bat. The only projectile-type enemy in World 2.
Unlike the static shooting-Slime from World 1, the lava bat flies about in a random direction when it is not actively shooting you. That makes it a slightly more annoying target. That it can fly also means it can target the player from practically any position. If not quickly dealt with and left to loiter in the stage, just a few of them can quickly overwhelm any player.




The Wall-climber has the ability to climb walls obviously.
It can round a corner and even climb upside down. Its climbing ability can hinder the player when you want to say, wall jump or traverse the map. Also, shooting it will make it drop at once so shooting at it while it is directly overhead is perhaps not the smartest move.




The Blue flame is probably the most dangerous enemy in all of World 2.
It "dives" straight at the player, and as you can see in the gif above, dodging it requires good timing. Make the mistake of doing a dodge-roll while close to a wall and the Blue flame will still manage to hit you when it "rebounces". Probably the number one priority target whenever it makes an appearance.
 

Orak

Member
Hi! I tried your demo and I liked it, your game looks nice and the game feeling is good!
I basicly agree with all Tayoyo comment, I liked the music, weapon sound, weapons animations are great.
I didn't use the reload button, i don't think it bring something to the game neither.

I noticed a few things:

Control:
It's harder to play with a gamepad, especially when you try to aim with the second stick. I didn't really know how to bind the keys to play with 2 sticks, but I really liked the binding option to do so. it's well made and it is great to have access to that in game!

When I try to move with the stick, while pressing it down slitghly i couldn't move (not intended, i didn't want to press it down). I found the threhold a bit to low. I played with the D pad then, makes more sense (great to have both by the way).

That's all for the control, i played with mouse and keyboard then and i had a better flaw.

Glitch:
there is a recurrent glitch (white bars that last 1 frame)

Difficulty:
I think I was quite bad, but I would appreciate it if the difficulty curve were a bit less sharp (had a hard time on the second level). Well, maybe I was really really bad.


Overall this is fun, I enjoyed it! Try to make as much guns as possible ;)
 

Yong

Member
Hi! I tried your demo and I liked it, your game looks nice and the game feeling is good!
I basicly agree with all Tayoyo comment, I liked the music, weapon sound, weapons animations are great.
I didn't use the reload button, i don't think it bring something to the game neither.

I noticed a few things:

Control:
It's harder to play with a gamepad, especially when you try to aim with the second stick. I didn't really know how to bind the keys to play with 2 sticks, but I really liked the binding option to do so. it's well made and it is great to have access to that in game!

When I try to move with the stick, while pressing it down slitghly i couldn't move (not intended, i didn't want to press it down). I found the threhold a bit to low. I played with the D pad then, makes more sense (great to have both by the way).

That's all for the control, i played with mouse and keyboard then and i had a better flaw.

Glitch:
there is a recurrent glitch (white bars that last 1 frame)

Difficulty:
I think I was quite bad, but I would appreciate it if the difficulty curve were a bit less sharp (had a hard time on the second level). Well, maybe I was really really bad.


Overall this is fun, I enjoyed it! Try to make as much guns as possible ;)

Thanks for playing!! :)
My intention for the reload is for it to serve as a kind of power balance between all the different guns. For example, the first gun (Blaster), being the weakest also has the fastest reload speed. But the revolver(2nd gun) has a MUCH slower reload because of its speed and power. The same usually goes for the more powerful guns like the Mini-Cannon(3rd gun, the big red one). If there is no reloading, the revolver would be very OP, because it can shoot as fast as you can press fire.
Tayoyo's suggestion was to consider an ammo system, but that will fundamentally change the game and is not something I want to go for.

Control:
I have heard that before! Pressing down when you did not intend to. I think I am likely to remove the entire kneeling mechanic. I initially implemented it because I wanted clear visual feedback for every button that the Player presses (and also to evade enemy projectiles but it's not like kneeling was enough to evade much).
Now that I had some time to reflect on it I don't think it really contributes anything at all. What do you think?

Glitch:
This is the first time I've heard this. Where and how exactly does the glitch occur? It'd be very helpful if you can be specific.

Difficulty:
This has been something I've been having trouble with. I want the game to be difficult yet I understand the importance of not turning players away especially in the beginning. You're probably right, I should lower the difficulty in the beginning, you're not the only one who had trouble with it. How far did you make it if I may ask? Do you think the third level is easier than the second?


Thanks again! I really appreciate you being so thorough with your feedback :D
 

Orak

Member
If there is no reloading, the revolver would be very OP, because it can shoot as fast as you can press fire.
One way to do it maybe, would be to adjust the time between each bullets to be fired, in order to balanced the power of weapons. Or have a cooldown after shooting few bullets on some weapons. But it' s not that much of problem thaugh, it is just that i prefer when there are as few buttons as possible.

for the kneeling mechanic, I have to play it again maybe, but I guess I never tried intentionally to use it. When you start playing it for the first time, you have enough to deal with should I jump or dodge this bullet? You already have 2 ways of doing it, I think it is enough. But I used it if I didnt want to move for a better accuracy thaugh.

With the glitch, I' ll play your game again later, after the week end (I don' t have time right now) but It was quite random, every 30 sec or so, and very brief (one frame). I think it may be when the camera is moving.

I didn' t try the third level, I' ll play it later to give you more feedback if you want.

I have questions about the control, as it seems you appreciate feedback: do you playtest the game with a gamepad? and when people play your game, do they tend to use a controller or a keyboard?
I ask you that because your game is a platformer and a shooter and I didn' t really feel confortable with a gamepad, which I usually prefer over a keyboard for platformer.

A part of the fun comes from aiming so I didnt want to use the target system, but it was hard to control the character while shooting because I couldn't use A and B.
Something bring me some disconfort here, but don' t worry it happen to me all the time. I' m always binding keys, and I try to figure out which way fit better to me, on most of the games I play.

I' ll play it again and give you more feedback if you want, doesn't bother me when I have fun!

Cheers!


EDIT:
I don' t know why I never tried super crate box... will do!
 

Yong

Member
Hey Orak, sure, I always appreciate more feedback but there's no rush, take your time :)

I personally prefer mouse + keyboard, but I made sure to make the gamepad feel as good as I can make it. That means doing things like aim-assist, auto-targeting etc, because otherwise the game would be too difficult with a gamepad. I think you simply can't beat the level of precision you get with a mouse so rather than replicate that on a gamepad I decided to do what feels good on it instead.

So although the game may play quite differently with mouse+keyboard compared to a gamepad, I hope they can still be fun in different ways.

and when people play your game, do they tend to use a controller or a keyboard?
I did not do anything to track whether people are using mouse or controller (though I suspect most use mouse+keyboard) so I do not know. But when I first put up the demo on itch.io a substantial amount of views came from people searching for games with controller support.

but it was hard to control the character while shooting because I couldn't use A and B.
Ya, I definitely thought of that as well but in the end I just went with what felt right for me. Of course that's precisely why I added key-rebinding. I'm the same as you, I usually rebind the controls of games I play.

Thanks again for the feedback! :)
 

Yong

Member
The Demo for 99999 is finally out on Steam!
I have to say putting the demo out on various sites (itch.io, Gamejolt etc) has been really helpful in gathering feedback and honest opinions. The demo has received some major updates based on the feedback received.

The changes:

Hit sprites
Amid the chaos, it can sometimes be hard to tell when you get hit. Hurt sprites and animation is now a lot more obvious. Because of the longer animation, recovery time(you can tell by the player sprite fading in and out) is also extended for balance.



Movement
Pressing the down button meant the Player-avatar would get stuck in the kneeling position even if Left/Right was also being pressed, this was an especially common problem when using a controller(moving with analogue stick).
Now, Left and Right directional press take precedence over the Down button. Your avatar now continues to move so long as Left/Right is being pressed.

Going down Platforms
Previously pressing Down + Jump allows you to pass through platforms one at a time. Now you can speed through them so long as you hold down both Down + Jump buttons. You can even do so while in mid-air to speed up the action (previously you can only do so while grounded).




Dodge-roll and wall-cling
Previously doing a dodge-roll while next to a wall meant that you'll lose the wall-cling and fall quickly down. Now you'll continue to wall-cling even while doing a dodge-roll (should you not want to stick to the wall, going the opposite direction will make you lose the stickiness).




Screenshake
I have gotten plenty of comments, both good and bad, about my implementation of screenshakes. I get that screenshake is very subjective, and personal tastes vary greatly. The default screenshake is now toned down from before. But more importantly, you have the option to turn it off completely if you want to (or put it to max, if that's your thing).



Difficulty
The feedback I've received regarding difficulty tend to be that it is too difficult in the beginning, and actually becomes easier by the end instead of harder(at least to those who didn't give up immediately). That also led to some players feeling a lack of progression because while they got better, the game's challenges did not keep up.

The difficulty has been adjusted and it is now much easier in the beginning to give players the time to learn and get used to the game's controls. The difficult gradually ramps up to give more of a challenge as one progresses.

Shop
Items and weapons costs have been greatly reduced. Since my intention is to encourage the use of new items/weapons and experimenting with different combinations, it makes a lot of sense to reduce their costs. Hopefully this will also help those who are struggling to adopt different strategies with the use of various item abilities.




Future updates
The first thing on the to-do-list is to add global leaderboards!(for Steam) Since the whole point of the game is to challenge yourself to obtain a higher score (hence 99999? no?), I think it'd be cool to know how you compared to other players.

Thanks for reading. Please do try the demo and let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated!
 

Yong

Member


Introducing the Enemies of World-3.

World-3 is horror/halloween themed and is reflected in the enemies’ design. The enemies have also gotten more difficult to deal with. World-3 is already pretty far into the game after all, it only makes sense that the difficulty would ramp up.




First up, the jumping Pumpkin, it throws up 3 projectiles into the air upon death. The Pumpkin might seem easy to deal with because of its relatively slow movement speed, but those projectiles can often hurt you if you’re not paying close attention.




The Bat. Once it sees the player, it will not stop giving chase. It also has the fastest movement speed (thus far) among all enemies, making it an immediately threat that must be quickly dealt with.




Ghost. The Ghost reacts much like a certain character in a mario game. Come face-to-face with it and it will turn transparent, making it impossible to hit. The Ghost is also the only enemy type that can pass through solid wall.




Floating Skull. The Skull shoots the fastest(and biggest) projectile yet. To balance the difficulty, it also takes slightly longer to charge up its shot compared to previous projectile-shooting enemies.

That's it for the enemies. As I've mentioned before, there's only 4 enemy types per 'World' to keep enemy attack patterns easily recognisable and to keep things from being too hectic.
 

Yong

Member
I'm having 2nd thoughts about the name of my game, thought I'd ask for some opinions here.

I named it 99999 because:
- It's easy to remember.
- 99999 sounds like a high-score, which I think works well because getting a better high-score is a core focus of the game.

However, it seems a little bland and uninspired. It lacks...character? More importantly it might be really difficult to find on youtube (and likely other places as well). Search for 99999 on youtube and you'd find a really popular (and regularly updated) series for Plants vs Zombies that frequently have 99999 in their title. There are also plenty of videos on other games with 99999(usually about a hack, or bug) in their titles as well.

So...what do you think? Should I change the name? Any thoughts? advice? suggestions?
 

Yong

Member


99999 is now renamed as Gunkid 99

Why the name change? Well, I'm sure a fair number of you have thought that 99999 was a bad idea for a name. And you'd be right.

Let's first put aside things such as a sense of identity, 'catchy-ness' and other more subjective aspects of a name. For most indiedevs, we simply to not possess the marketing capabilities to "make a name ours". That means if the name of your game is generic, you'd risk being drown out by similar words/term from other search results.

Take my game for example, if you search 99999 in youtube, you'd likely end up with a whole list of videos of other games with 99999 in their titles (with a particular Plants vs Zombies being especially popular). Even if you intentionally search for my game by pairing '99999' with 'game', it'd be useless as the other popular videos with 99999 in their titles are already that of games (just not my game). That means the few play-throughs that I got from releasing my demo are already lost in the sea of youtube videos (sorry guys). You might do ok with a generic name if the name doesn't appear often with the word 'game'. Take for example, the game Bleed. Bleed, on its own, has terrible SEO. But it is mitigated by the fact that if you search for 'Bleed game', it becomes a more unique title, and most gamers are smart enough to do just that.

Googling Gunkid on the other hand, gives you near zero hits on anything videogame-related, so it has a higher possibility of standing out from the get-go. The 99 is mostly a remnant of the previous name, but by pairing it as Gunkid 99 it will hopefully be more easily searchable. I guess I'd find out soon enough.

So, fellow indies out there, spend more time to mull over your game's name. Do some basic research by seeing what comes up in your google searches. Don't be like me (lol).

*if you already have a Steam-page, you can still change the name of your game easily enough. BUT if you've already released a demo, you'd have to contact Steamworks developer support to change the name of your demo.

On to some updates for the game:



I've made some changes to the Training room! Along with unlocked weapons, weapons that are ready for sale in the Shop will also appear in the Training room with a little note above them.

This will allow players to have a taste of the weapons before deciding if they wanna buy em. Makes a lot of sense to me!





Health UI has also been tweaked to make it less cluttered.





I've also recently added Steam Achievements into the game. But I know achievements by themselves are rather meaningless to some players (I'm one of them). So I added actual in-game rewards for said Achievements!



Some of the more quirky Achievements add real tangible effect to the game by unlocking unique Ability Items. There's only 3 now, but there will be more to come.





That's it for this update. If you interested in Gunkid 99 it'd help a lot if you can wishlist!

Steam-page!

You can also find me on:
Twitter
Tumblr
Itch.io
 

Morendral

Member
I think you might run into issues that could otherwise be avoided by having "gun" and "kid" in the name, given the recent rash of school shootings.

Looks promising otherwise
 

Yong

Member
I think you might run into issues that could otherwise be avoided by having "gun" and "kid" in the name, given the recent rash of school shootings.

Looks promising otherwise
I did think of that...but hopefully no one will be dumb enough to get outraged just by that..... :x
 

Yong

Member
I’ve been hard at work making more (unusual) weapons!

Some weapons are familiar projectile types with a twist whereas others are more…interesting. Hopefully the variety will encourage players to experiment with more weapon types and find the ones that suit their play-styles.







Popper
The Popper fires bullets that explode into smaller bullets upon reloading of the gun. It makes for an effective (if albeit chaotic) crowd control weapon.





Void-gun
The Void-gun functions in a similar fashion to the aforementioned Popper. It shoots ‘bullets’ that explode into a black-hole like vortex upon reloading. The resulting explosive blast will instantly kill any enemy (unless your damage has been significantly reduced from equipping certain items) but will also damage the player as well. Incredibly powerful, but also incredibly tricky to use.





Fireball
Inspired by Mario’s flower powerup. Although not especially powerful, the Fireball’s ability to bounce a few times before it extinguishes means that it demands less accuracy from the player while ensuring maximum chaos.





Ring-of-Fire
One of the most unusual weapons in the game in terms of control, because the player's control of the Ring-of-Fire is rather limited. The ring spins entirely by itself, but holding the ‘shoot’ button will increase its range and speed and releasing the button will it to its default state. The Fireball extinguishes itself upon hitting an enemy and do not replenish until all 3 are gone. Very powerful when all 3 fireballs are present, a lot less so when left with only one.





Wheel-blade
The counter-part of the Ring-of-Fire. Unlike the Ring, the Wheel-blade does not extinguish, it trades the Ring-of-Fire's coverage with consistency and reliability.





Boomerang
The Boomerang is powerful but can be quite tricky to use. Only throw the Boomerang at the right moment or you'll find yourself defenceless without a weapon on hand. To compensate for its vulnerabilities, the Boomerang will destroy any enemy projectile it touches.

That’s it for today’s weapons update. Game is now called Gunkid 99 if you don’t already know.
If you’re interested, please WISHLIST on Steam, that’ll help a lot :)

Cheers!
 

Yong

Member
Today's devlog will be a technical one: fixing the mouse issue.
Or more specifically, the issue of disabling the game when you click outside of the game-window. It is almost bound to happen when playing in windowed mode (especially for action-heavy games), but can also happen even in full-screen if there is more than one monitor.

This is an especially common feedback I've received from my game's demo. It is very disruptive when it happens in the middle of the action. Definitely can get annoying real quick, so I fixed it!

Crosshair can no longer go beyond the game-window. Pause and you'll regain control of the mouse:



The following is what I came up with. (Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure if this is a good solution so if anyone has any better implementation please enlighten me!)

*gm studio (1.4)
Code:
var cursor_x = window_mouse_get_x() - window_get_width()/2;
var cursor_y = window_mouse_get_y() - window_get_height()/2;
//Keep mouse to Screen's center
window_mouse_set(window_get_width()/2,window_get_height()/2);

//Mouse.x relative to camera
view_x += cursor_x / global.mouse_offset;
x = view_xview + view_x;
//Limit x to screen
if (x < view_xview) {
    x = view_xview;
    //Cut back view_x's value
    view_x = 0;
}
if (x > view_xview + view_wview[0]) {
    x = view_xview + view_wview[0];
    //Clamp view_x's value
    view_x = view_wview[0];
}

//Mouse.y relative to camera
view_y += cursor_y / global.mouse_offset;
y = view_yview + view_y;
//Limit y to screen
if (y < view_yview) {
    y = view_yview;
    //Cut back view_y's value
    view_y = 0;
}
if (y > view_yview + view_hview[0]) {
    y = view_yview + view_hview[0];
    //Clamp view_x's value
    view_y = view_hview[0];
}

So basically what happens is that the actual mouse will be locked to the center of the screen with:
Code:
window_mouse_set(window_get_width()/2,window_get_height()/2)
Any movement of the mouse will then be calculated and the mouse object will be moved accordingly instead of the actual mouse. The x and y position of the mouse object is also relative to the camera so it'd work even with a moving camera. Because the game's base resolution is 640x360 and scaled up approximately to the monitor's resolution, global.mouse_offset is used for calculating the actual movement of the mouse. If there is no offset, moving 100 pixels to the left would translate to moving 200 pixels if the monitor's resolution is at 1280x720 (twice the base resolution).

Hope someone finds this useful!
 

CMAllen

Member
That's not a bad solution. I'll need to keep this approach in mind, because any windowed game using the mouse cursor is going to have this issue crop up.
 

Yong

Member
Gunkid 99 is now available on Itch.io for FIRST ACCESS!
https://yongjustyong.itch.io/gunkid99


What is First Access? It's functionally the same as Early Access, where you can help me shape and improve the game with your feedback. Except it's only available on Itch.io.

So why not have early access on Steam then? Well, early access is not what it once used to be, these days an early access release on Steam is more comparable to a full release. If I release the game on Steam now as is it will very likely be buried immediately.

If you get Gunkid 99 on Itch.io now, you WILL still receive a Steam key once the game is ready for release on Steam! (you can wishlist it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/906600/Gunkid_99/ to be notified of full release)

The game is available now for USD$4.99, with a 10% discount until 21st Oct.

I also made a discord for the game, come chat!
 

Yong

Member
Minor Patch
- Fixed an issue where keyboard is locked whenever a controller/gamepad is detected as being connected, even if you are not actually using said controller. Now the controls will automatically switch to either controller or mouse+keyboard depending on which you last use.




Previously what I did was to perform the m+kb/controller check only when a System event is triggered. But some players have feedback to me that sometimes they prefer using mouse+keyboard, even though their controller is plugged in.

So what I did is the game now performs a check every 4th step and switches controls accordingly depending on whether m+kb or controller has been used. But I have this nagging feeling that my method is somewhat inefficient...I've been trying to optimize the game and prevent the codes from getting too bloated. Anyone cares to share their methods of detecting control inputs?
 

Yong

Member
Today's update is all making the controller/gamepad more precise and intuitive.

Patch notes

- Performing a jump from a platform might have made you drop down from it instead because of pressing ever-so-slightly down on the analogue-stick. That is fixed now, only more obvious down-push will be registered by the left analogue stick.

- Aim-assist is now more precise and snaps easily from one target to another.



- Engaging in Free-aim gives you a slower but finer control over the Crosshair.

- Aim-assist can now also be turned off if you so chooses!

- Removed a developer's tool/button from the video options that I forgot about. Oops, how embarrassing!
 

Yong

Member
Today's update has mostly to do with the movement system, particularly when it comes to falling through platforms. I've made it almost effortless to drop down from platforms, and as a result I think the movement flows much better now.


Patch Note:

- Pressing down will now let you drop down from platforms. A new checkbox called 'Down Lock' has been added in the Key-bindings menu, enabling this will stop you from being able to drop down from platforms with just the down button. You'd have to press 'Down + Jump' (the previous method) or double-tap 'Down' instead.

- You can now also drop down from platforms while doing a dodge-roll by pressing down. (or the other buttons combination mentioned above) Basically anything to do with moving through platforms is now smoother than before.

- Camera issue for certain monitor resolutions have been fixed. (If you still have problems, please feedback to me!)

- Minor hit-box adjustments.

- Slightly better path-finding for Flying Slime.



The flying Slime's path-finding is a simple mp_potential_step_object function and thankfully tweaking the mp_potential_settings led to a much better overall result.


- Fixed a bug where the game icon doesn't appear on the taskbar when you ctrl-tap out of the game.
This is I think a known bug in Studio 1.4 that happens only when a game launches straight into fullscreen. A simple fix is just to run the game in windowed mode for a step or two before going into fullscreen. Once the game icon can be seen on the taskbar it won't disappear again, so you can safely enter and exit fullscreen as and when you want to.
 

Yong

Member
Fine-tuned some numbers to get a smoother, more natural variable jump height. I have to say the movement system has improved quite a bit the past few weeks following players' feedback. Shows the importance of having others play your game.

 

Yong

Member
Made some changes to the Crosshair so that you can tell at a glance when you're out of ammo. Also makes it less likely to lose sight of the crosshair amidst the chaos.

 
K

ketogenicGG

Guest
Love the name! Graphics are very well done but the enemies looks like Pokemons.
 

Calvert

Member
I like the look of this game. Just looking at it, I can't think of anything I would even change about it at the moment. Great job!

Gunkid looks good as he is, but have you ever considered giving him some color? Maybe unlock-able color palettes for Gunkid so players can customize him during their gameplay?

I see his shape being more iconic than his color.
 
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Yong

Member
Love the name! Graphics are very well done but the enemies looks like Pokemons.
Thanks, I'd take that as a compliment LOL.

I like the look of this game. Just looking at it, I can't think of anything I would even change about it at the moment. Great job!

Gunkid looks good as he is, but have you ever considered giving him some color? Maybe unlock-able color palettes for Gunkid so players can customize him during their gameplay?

I see his shape being more iconic than his color.
Thank you! :) Not at the moment, but that shouldn't be too difficult to implement in the future if there are any requests for it.
 

Yong

Member
Update v0.1.4

- Added sound effects to Spikes trap.

- Added sound effects when countdown timer goes below 3.

- Added a little segment to the tutorial stage. Hopefully this will make people more aware of the usefulness of dodge-roll.




I have been hard at work on making new content. Here's a sneak peek at World 4:





World 4 is not quite done yet as there are still lot of things left to do (new weapons and items unlock etc). Hopefully I'd be able to get this big content update out in the middle of December so stay tuned!

P.S. consider joining Gunkid 99's Discord server if you want to follow along with the development process.
 

Yong

Member
Minor update v0.1.5

Patch notes:


- Getting injured is now a LOT more obvious. New hit sound has been added, injured animation is also slightly longer. An error which used to cancel out the injured animation if the player gets hit while in the air has been fixed.

- The Bazooka will still one-hit-kill all enemy types but its damage has been lowered. The previous damage figure was so high that even if you equipped multiple items that lower damage, it will still decimate everything.

- The Item, "First-Aid" now takes 40 seconds to activate instead of the previous 90.

- The Item, "Health gain" now takes 100 seconds to activate instead of the previous 120.
 

Yong

Member
Update v0.2.0 - World 4 is here!



World 4 is robot/tech themed. Expect a much higher difficulty, even the environment is out to get you!
Some stages can be rather tricky(but fun!) to navigate, like the bouncing pad below:



Make use of the pad to overcome the height and traverse the stage quicker. Your survival might depend on it.
Even the enemies of World 4 have a few tricks up their sleeves.



The happy flying-bot looks deceptively slow at first glance, but with each hit it takes, it becomes faster (and angrier). You can't really tell from this gif but at its fastest the flying-bot is even faster than the player, making it the fastest enemy in the game.




The Shield-bot has a sturdy shield that makes it difficult to deal with head-on. However it is pretty weak if you can bypass its shield.

And of course, with a new World comes new weapons!



A big ass weapon that is both melee and long-ranged.




These bubble bullets may be weak, but they can linger around the stage and act as traps for approaching enemies. Set them up properly and they can easily overwhelm any enemy.

Gunkid 99 is currently on a 15% discount on Itch.io, after this discount period is over (19th Dec) the game will slightly increase its price from $4.99 to $5.99. As always, feedback will be greatly appreciated! You can reach me here or on Discord.
 

Yong

Member


Introducing the Enemies of World-4.
World-4 is tech/robot themed and is by far the most difficult world as we're approaching the end-game.




The Shield-bot is fairly simplistic, it goes back and forth along its path, similar to the slimes of World-1. However, the addition of a sturdy shield makes attacking it straight-on rather time-consuming. This rewards a more active play-style because the bot itself is fairly weak if you can take it out by avoiding its shield. Also notice that the shield momentarily disappears when it touches a wall, leaving it completely vulnerable for a short time frame.




The Heli-bot looks pretty harmless at first glance, flying towards the player at a rather slow pace. But with each hit the Heli-bot takes, it gets faster (and angrier). At its fastest (1hp or less remaining) the bot is faster than even the player, this gif above couldn't really show its real speed because all the turning slows it down (in terms of movement the player is still the most dynamic). The real threat of the Heli-bot is that once you attack it you probably should make sure it gets destroyed or it'll come back to bite. The bot also has one of the highest health at 5hp. This means a weapon like the Mini-Cannon, which usually destroys most enemies in one hit, would leave the Heli-bot at 1hp (fastest state) after a hit.




Bird-bot, the only projectile-type enemy in World 4. Similar to the Lava-bat of World 2, the bird flies about in a random direction but quickly switches to attacking mode whenever it spots the player. The projectiles are also much bigger and faster than the Lava-bat's. As always, projectile-type enemies are usually priority targets as just a few of them can quickly overwhelm the player.




The Electro-crawlers are speedy wall climbers. They are especially dangerous in tight quarters and their ability to stick to walls can make the simple act of traversing a stage surprisingly tricky. They also fall straight down after a single hit so be careful not to attack when they are directly overhead!


That's all for the enemies of World-4. Gunkid 99 is currently having winter sales on Itch.io. There's a demo available too!
 

Yong

Member
I just implemented Steam Leaderboards for the demo!



Click on the button for a particular stage and click on steam-leaderboard to see where you stand.
Normal-mode and Equipped-mode have separate leaderboards.

The Leaderboard is still in need of much testing, particularly the 'Friend' tab. Some fonts for non-English characters are also missing.
If I may ask a favor, it would be great if you could help me out by testing the leaderboards on the Steam demo. Please let me know if anything is not working!
 

Yong

Member
Final world, World-5!!

World-5 will be the last and final 'World' in Gunkid 99. Rather than having a new theme, World-5 will mash-up everything you've seen thus far to create the most unique and challenging stages yet.

Because the difficulty has been upped significantly for this final 'World', the pacing will need to be adjusted accordingly. As such, there will only be four stages instead of the usual seven.




Here we have the bounce-pads originally of World-4 implanted into World-2's lava stage. Needless to say, bouncing around in a lava-filled stage is not safest of activity so players will have to pay extra caution to the environment!




Environmental hazards are not the only things that have been mashed up. Enemies too are no longer restricted to their original worlds, so be on the lookout for some unusual combinations as enemies from the four different worlds come together.

In this particular stage, the laser-traps of World-4 have also leveled up into an 'extreme edition', with every inch of the stage being reachable by lasers. Certain attack-patterns (like the one above) will force players to utilize the dodge-roll or get hit!




A new enemy?!

Previously, the rule has always been that players will need to collect a certain number of weapons before they can clear a stage and progress to the next one. Well, this rule has been upended in World-5 so get ready for a surprise... ;)

Gunkid 99 is currently having a 15% discount for the Lunar New Year sale on Itch.io.
I am nearing the end of development. All that is left now is to tie up loose ends and make sure that the game is bug-free. Release date to be announced soon!
 
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Yong

Member
A release date has been set, Gunkid 99 will be released on March 13th, 2019!
The price will be USD $5.99 with a launch week discount of 20% :)

Check out the new trailer below:
 
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