Space Dystopia: PvE Asteroids spin-off, lasers and explosions

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jimmosio

Guest
Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=615210843
ZIP (3rd July 2016): http://puu.sh/pOEp4/b8e5d97368.zip

I've been working on this project during my spare time, and it's the first game I'm willing to show to the public.
It's not exactly the most original concept, but I decided to give it a try anyway.

Space Dystopia is a PvE endless Asteroids-like game, but instead of shooting at asteroids you shoot at AI-controlled ships. You control a lonely orange ship, which you'll use to tear blue ships into pieces until you're torn yourself.
You fight the enemy ships in waves, which get harder and harder. At the end of each wave, your health and energy regenerate and you're given 40 seconds to upgrade your ship.

I have a few specific questions for anyone who will be trying the game:
-Recently, I tweaked the movement of the ship by making it "drift" when the player tries to turn too quickly. It is manageable? Should it be more forgiving?
-Did the game feel too hard? If you played a handful of times, what's the highest wave you reached and how hard was it to get there?
-Was the tutorial explicative enough, or was it too bare-bones?

If you have any questions/suggestions, I welcome you with open arms.

Here are some screenshots:


More screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/23BFl
 
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darthlupi

Guest
I like the look of this game. Some things were difficult though.
I feel like the mouse controls were just adding layers of requirements instead of making it easier to play.
The player could turn and thrust with exactly the same movement without needing both mouse and keyboard.
Some things with the menu options could be improved too. Having to hold down buttons to make selections was a little cumbersome as well.

I really liked the sounds and the general look of the game!
 
J

jimmosio

Guest
Thanks for the feedback.
-What exactly were you finding unnecessarily hard in the mouse controls? Were you drifting too much unintentionally or you just find moving with your mouse harder than your keyboard?

-Perhaps I overlooked it when explaining the controls in the tutorial, but the purpose I had in mind with turning with the keyboard was to turn WITHOUT moving. Sometimes it's better than turning AND moving. I didn't want to make the normal turning any faster if you both used the keyboard and the mouse at once (that sounds like bad design anyway).

-What do you mean? What exactly do you find cumbersome in the options? The only button you have to hold down in the menus is the volume slider.

I'm glad you liked it. I had some friends try it too and they all thought it's a fun game, but I couldn't get any "deeper" feedback.
 
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darthlupi

Guest
Oh, the option to go back to the menu I had to hold a key for a certain amount of time to exit.

A better explanation of what I found challenging about the controls was that moving with mouse also overrode my turning controls.
I seems like the game could be controlled without the mouse at all since the keyboard turning and the mouse movement kinda countered each other.
 
J

jimmosio

Guest
It used to be "Press P to exit", but some of my friends were complaining that they pressed P by mistake and instantly put them back in the menu. I wanted to try something different than the usual "Are you sure?", so I put a build-up... and explosions.

As I said before, I probably should be more explicative in the tutorial. I thought about having two completely separate controls for thrusting and turning, but IMHO that would make the ship even more awkward to control. In some games where you only have to move (like the torpedo game) it's not a big deal, but in this one you have to do other things too: deciding when to boost, aiming your laser, etc.
Instead of "Left click to move, A and D to turn" in the tutorial, it should be "Left click to move and turn to the mouse location, A and D to turn without moving", for example. Or even better, I should introduce the mouse movement and the keyboard turning at different points of the tutorial, so that the player gets to know them as separate things.

I appreciate your time, and I surely want my game to be smoother to play, but it's hard to make a decision with only the feedback of one person.

EDIT: I just improved the tutorial with my idea, it won't cancel your "bias" of using both mouse and KB when moving, but hopefully it won't appear any more in the newcomers. If you want to re-do the tutorial, you have edit a line in AppData/Local/SpaceDystopia/progress.ini:
turn:
HasPlayedTutorial="1.000000"
into:
HasPlayedTutorial="0.000000"
 
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