Free Offendron Warrior - Defender with Robotech

hijong park

Member



This game was suppossed to be a gamejam project, but i didn't have enough time to finish it before the gamejam ends so I'm making it as my own game.

Similar to defender, your objective is saving people (or ally robots) from enemies to stop the planet destruction.

You are a transforming jet. when you are a jet, you can thrust very fast but going up and down is quite slow. When you are a robot, your thrust speed gets slower, but going up and down gets much faster and your primary weapon become an automatic laser rifle.

Instead of smartbombs, you have homing missiles in this game. Compared to smartbomb it can't instantly destroy all enemies in the screen, but you can use it more efficiently.

Using smartbomb against an single enemy is a big waste, but with homing missiles you can just launch one to get the enemy.


There's also a Hyperspace to eacape from dangerous situations, But it's different compared to the one from defender.

The chance of dying for using Hyperspace is moderated to make it actually useful rather than just a gamble.
If you use it for the first time, You won't be killed. But The chance of dying will be increased as you use it more and more.

Also, The destination of hyperspace is not totally random. instead, you jumps half length of the map. This can be used to avoid enemies who are chasing you or save the humanoids much quicker. also, saving humanoids resets the chance of dying, so you can use the safe hyperspace again if you captured them.

There will be two kinds of waves. 1~4 waves are defending wave, and in the fifth wave you will leave the planet and fight with large amounts of enemies in space.

After the Fifth wave, you will warp to another planet and start defending again.


My objective is making a Defender clone with some good elements of Stargate(Defender 2).

Stargate is technically an superior game to Defender, But I never liked it. Too many busy things happen in regular waves and it's just frustrating. But i liked some new features like Humanoid capturing bonus combo, Warp, and Space battle waves and wanted to mix them in defender.
 

hijong park

Member

- Added Title screen and option. In option, you can change game settings(start lives, score for bonus, required humanoids to warp, and warpable wave), controls, sould volume, and fullscreen mode.

There are simple control and classic control mode....

Simple mode controls the player like home versions of defender, and classic mode controls like the arcade version of defender with thrust and reverse buttens.

- Added new enemies : Quad cases and glitters.

Most enemies shoot bullets in this game and I needed more enemies to make the space battle waves, so I decided to make a enemy that don't shoot projectiles.

Glitters are small dots randomly flying around the levels.
They are hard to shoot due to their small body and unpredictable movements, but if you get close to them they start to chase you.
In order to get these enemies easier you have to keep close with and lure them to your shooting lines, while trying not to colide each other.

Quad cases carry 4 Glitters. usually they just do nothing but moving up or down. but when there are no enemies left in the level (other than Quad cases and Glitters), they will self-destruct and discharge Glitters. You can't get points if they self-destruct so destroying them first is important for scoring.

15th Wave is about Full of Quad cases and Glitters
 

hijong park

Member


- Added Instruction.

- Added Online Scoreboard

- Improved backgrounds

- Impoved the player's control. Now jet mode is much more responsive to control.

- I have decreased the difficulty a lot, because everything was too fast and felt impossible. Now It's a bit too easy with so many bonuse lives and missiles, but i think it's better than frustrating. some tweaks in scoring and missile supply would make it perfect.

- Tujate space fighters and counter firers are now space-battle-wave exclusive enemies. Featuring all enemies in normal waves makes the game too busy.
 

hijong park

Member

- Added Controller inputs.

- Added Humanoid falling sound. The sound appears when the humanoid is falling high enough to cause death.

- When you killed the last infector, you have to catch the falling humanoid to finish the wave.

- Decreased missile supply per bonus to 12 from 15.

The game is almost completed. The balance is adjusted well, too. If you are skilled enough you'll be able to play over 100 waves.

I'll find the bugs and add musics for title and game over screen.
 
"You're score is too low, practice recommended" Screw you! :p hahahaha.

I love the atari theme to the game, it literally takes me back to being a 10 year old again. There's -way- too many controls to remember. I looked at the control scheme for like 2 minutes before starting the game and all I could think about was: "I don't know what any of this means..." Once I started playing, I figured out space was missiles and there was some other key that shot a straight bullet, but space was the automatic response I used. After a little bit, I realised that the space bar ammo was limited, so obviously I wasn't meant to be spamming that, but I'd say move the limited ammo key to anything else but space. The space bar feels like normal shoot, not special shoot. I didn't get too far as the game was quite punishing, but that's fits in perfectly with the old-school arcade style that I assume you were going for, so it was nostalgic for me.

I literally don't know what I was doing apart from shooting things, which kinda fits in with the retro theme, but I think you have to be a bit more forgiving for the modern player. Perhaps a level or two where you actually introduce the mechanics in association with the gameplay would make it easier to get a grip on what is happening.

The graphics were great for the style, super reminiscent of arcade games, with just enough detail to feel a little modernised. Sound effects were perfect, no changes needed.

Overall, I think the game succeeds at its premise. Shoot some blocky enemies and try to get a high score. But the control scheme is ridiculous and I think you need to make some changes so it's more accessible. Old-school games like this had maybe two buttons max that did things besides movement and I really think you need to think about a way to condense what you currently have into something more similar to that. Maybe a context sensitive button would be appropriate?

Remember, you know what is happening in your game, but a random person who plays it has literally 0 idea of anything you're trying to achieve. The game has some polished gameplay, nice graphics, great sound, but I can't memorise a screen of controls and then remember it in the middle of the game, you have to introduce it slowly.
 

hijong park

Member
"You're score is too low, practice recommended" Screw you! :p hahahaha.

I love the atari theme to the game, it literally takes me back to being a 10 year old again. There's -way- too many controls to remember. I looked at the control scheme for like 2 minutes before starting the game and all I could think about was: "I don't know what any of this means..." Once I started playing, I figured out space was missiles and there was some other key that shot a straight bullet, but space was the automatic response I used. After a little bit, I realised that the space bar ammo was limited, so obviously I wasn't meant to be spamming that, but I'd say move the limited ammo key to anything else but space. The space bar feels like normal shoot, not special shoot. I didn't get too far as the game was quite punishing, but that's fits in perfectly with the old-school arcade style that I assume you were going for, so it was nostalgic for me.

I literally don't know what I was doing apart from shooting things, which kinda fits in with the retro theme, but I think you have to be a bit more forgiving for the modern player. Perhaps a level or two where you actually introduce the mechanics in association with the gameplay would make it easier to get a grip on what is happening.

The graphics were great for the style, super reminiscent of arcade games, with just enough detail to feel a little modernised. Sound effects were perfect, no changes needed.

Overall, I think the game succeeds at its premise. Shoot some blocky enemies and try to get a high score. But the control scheme is ridiculous and I think you need to make some changes so it's more accessible. Old-school games like this had maybe two buttons max that did things besides movement and I really think you need to think about a way to condense what you currently have into something more similar to that. Maybe a context sensitive button would be appropriate?

Remember, you know what is happening in your game, but a random person who plays it has literally 0 idea of anything you're trying to achieve. The game has some polished gameplay, nice graphics, great sound, but I can't memorise a screen of controls and then remember it in the middle of the game, you have to introduce it slowly.
Thanks for the review and sorry for the late response. I hadn't check this forum for a while and didn't know someone leaved a comment.

Offendron Warrior is based on 1981 game called defender.

Defender was a very unusual game back in 80's - defender is not just a simple 80s shooter with 1 or 2 buttons. it has 5 buttons to use, and the gameplay is about saving humanoids from enemies.

And since this game is inspired by defender, having more buttons was an unavoidable choice.
I made spacebar as using smartmissiles, because it's suppossed to be used in emergency and spacebar is big and easy to press. If you don't like it, you can change the controls in option.

I actually made an instruction that appears when you press Hyperspace (R as default) in the title screen, but I agree that this is not enough. Defender is not a common old-school game that doesn't require instructions to play it. I will make a instruction where you can actually control your character.

Thanks for your feedbacks !
 
Last edited:

hijong park

Member
1.5.5 patch

- Added rhymes after completing defending waves to give advises and hints for new players.

- improved dinkies' AI, so they won't overlap easily while flying.
 

hijong park

Member
https://store.steampowered.com/app/999200/

Offendron Warrior is now available on Steam !
This game is free to play and there are 25 achievements available.

Althrough Offendron Warrior is currently finished, I want to keep improving it to make this game as a good defender-style game. So, I'll prepare a major update with some more contents. Feel free to write your thoughts after playing Offendron Warrior here, that might be helpful for the game's improvements.

Currently I have to work on other games to make patches, so i won't make Offendrron Warrior right now. Here are just my plans :

I'm thinking about new enemies to add more variety. Only for Space battle waves though, The defense waves are already frantic as hell!

Currently there are 3 kinds of space battle waves : Space dogfight, Counter shooting fest, and Glowing night.

I like Space Dogfight and Glowing Night. fighting with large amounts of space fighters is challenging and thrillful, and it's very satisfying when i managed to lure the Glitters into the line of fire and eliminate them at once.

However, I found Counter shooting fest quite boring, also a bit tedious. The concept of fighting with large amounts of Counter firer wasn't a very good idea for a fast-phased game. I'll try to fix, or replace counter shooting fest with other kinds of wave featuring new enemies.

Also I want to make a new space battle wave for the 30th wave, either featuring original enemies or a mixture of other enemies.

I'd like to add some kinds of boss fight when i managed to reach the 40th wave as well.
But if it just doesn't work, I'll scrap it. I remember that the boss fights in Archer Mclean's Super Dropzone (Remake of an awesome defender clone, Dropzone.) were just tedious and slowed down the action.

I got some concepts for the new enemies:

The spore : a flying nucleus carrying its small eggs. If you shoot the nucleus, the eggs will turn into crazy mutants, who acts similar to infected offendrons but slightly different.

Squad leader dinky : a pallete swap version of dinky. It would lead the swarm of dinkies to the player, while actively avoiding the player's laser. If squad leader is dead, other dinkies will scatter around and act as the regular dinkies. If squad leader is leaved alone, it will go berzerk and throw crazy amounts of bullets at you.
 

hijong park

Member
Before adding new enemies, I decided to tweak the warrior's ability: the rapid fire laser.

firing the laser rapidly in Offender mode was quite hard, and made my fingers painful. So I decided to make it easier. I made the offender mode's laser to be fired twice, when you pressed or released the fire key, so I can fire the laser at consistent speed by just casually hitting the button.


The result is great. This new rapid fire method allowed me to shoot down dinkies and glitters much easier and faster, and the game became more easier to play in a good way.

It's very satisfying to quickly destroy the swarm of enemies with consistent rapid firing lasers.

Also, This ridiculous laser can rather be harmful when trying to save civilians, so you have to use interceptor mode's single shot laser for that situation and it made the trandforming system more important. I'm very happy with this change and will include this new rapid fire method in the next update.
 

HayManMarc

Member
This is great! I started a Defender clone long ago, but abandoned it. It's good to see a faithful clone. Nice job!

When Defender came out, it was a game ahead of its time. You really had to dedicate a lot of quarters and effort to get good at it. Not too many had the patience for it, but it sure was great to watch a pro play the game. The action was intense!

The videos look great. Can't wait to give this a try.
 

hijong park

Member
This is great! I started a Defender clone long ago, but abandoned it. It's good to see a faithful clone. Nice job!

When Defender came out, it was a game ahead of its time. You really had to dedicate a lot of quarters and effort to get good at it. Not too many had the patience for it, but it sure was great to watch a pro play the game. The action was intense!

The videos look great. Can't wait to give this a try.
I agree. Defender is so much more advanced compared to other one-direction shooting games and that's why I love it. Defender will always be my #1 favorite game.
 
Last edited:

hijong park

Member
1.8.0 Patch is almost ready !

In This new patch, I Added 3 new enemies for the space battle wave : Mothership, Egg, and Enforcer.

I did lots of experiment for Space battle variants and new enemies for it, and decided to make only 4 variants with 13 enemies.

Considering the fact that this game is a quick arcade game, 4 space battle variants with 13 enemies were the most balanced amounts of contents for this game. I want Offendron Warrior to be a simple, but fun and addcitive game Just like Defender, and adding more enemies to analyze and master its pattern felt absurd since this game is already challenging enough.


Every 20th wave is "Mothership Invasion" wave, featuring 4 Motherships with some space fighters and counter firer. Motherships just spawn eggs, and The eggs follow their mother.

Both of them don't do anyting to the player, but if you destroy the mothership, Eggs will instantly turn into Enforcer, who are very aggressive enemies. You must destroy some eggs first and then quickly destroy mothership. If you destroy the mothership first, lots of Enforcers will make a big trouble. They only give you 50 scores, so using missile to them can be a waste.

By destroying Mothership you can gain 3000 points.


Not only this, I have made lots of gameplay improvements. There were lots of unforgiving designs.

First, I have changed some enemies pattern who often made cheap hits. Counter firers are now called Scatterers, and they shoot progressively accelerating bullets instead of quickly throwing them. This will prevent unfair situations where they suddenly fire bullets without giving a chance to dodge them.

Space Fighters now decrease the speed and burst fire beams if you are heading into them or just stopped. This makes the dogfight more interesting and less annoying, as you don't have to avoid insaly fast fighters directly heading into you !

Dinkies don't more randomly when they are in off screen anymore. Now you can penetrate the swarm of Dinkies much easier.


Second, Hyperspace don't randomly change your height anymore. Now you can use it more useful !

Lastly, I got a report that the camera movement can be irritating when turning the direction frequently, so I made the camera movement length a bit shorter. I never expected but it feels much better! Thanks to Nayllo for reporting this...
 

hijong park

Member

I made a name entry system that works like the arcade games today. With this, you can write your name with controller.

It will be included in 1.8.5 patch. There are some gameplay tweaks as well :

- Fixed some bugs related to some enemies' AI

- Nerfed Scatterer and TUJATE space fighter a lot !

- Quad cases don't randomly change the height anymore. It was really annoying sometimes.

- Changed Missile launching positions in Offender mode. Launching the missiles to upward was quite weird, so I made them to be launched to front.
 

hijong park

Member




After countless balance improvements and practice, I finally have reached over 1 million points in Offendron Warrior ! If you reach it, You can get the highest rank (The legend) with different game over screen. This game's learning curve is now perfect. (at least in my opinion)

Even for the developer, It was an extreme challenge because I'm terribly suck at shooters. The feeling of becoming an ace player when i managed to catch over 5 civilians at once and kill the group of enemies without dying, or reach over 1 million points was something I had never experienced in any other games, including Defender.

I had purchased some new games to play during the christmas sale, but Ironically My own game gave me the most excitement. That's why I love Offendron Warrior !

Someday I'll do another 1 million run and record the video of it, That might be helpful for others who want to reach 1 million points.
 

hijong park

Member
Today, I added the training mode!

In training mode, Enemies are much weaker and there's no space battle waves.
Also, Infectors can only catch 1 civilians at once, So it's a lot easier than the main game.

The training ends when you cleared the 10th wave, because completing the 10th wave means you are already good enough to play the main game.

This mode will be included in the 1.8.8 patch.
 

hijong park

Member
I made 1.9.2 patch today.

- Steam screenshot function (F12) now works !

- Increased the number of infectors and decreased the other enemies after 20th wave. Now defending waves are more busy, and more fun.

I'm planning to record 1 million score run with this version later, and make a brief trailer with the video.
 

hijong park

Member

This is my Highscore run done in the lastest version of Offendron Warrior.
I have increased the difficulty in the 1.9.4 version and it feels much better.

There was really no time to get bored while playing it for an hour because I'll quickly lose all of my lives if I do that.

I made the game a bit easy for other players in the older versions, But later realized that Defender-like games are not perfect without the brutal difficulty.

Offendron Warrior feels perfect at this point. Time to start a new project !
 
Top