Newo Shooter - wii homebrew game

So After 3 months or so of hacking away at C, I finally have something I think is a mostly complete as a game. I know there are still stuff I need to add but I'm posting it here to somewhat get a feel of the direction I need to go so I can finish it in 2 months time. I am going for a more arcade style centipede feel to the game so I'm not going to try and replicate EVERY feature because I don't have the time nor the math skills to get them working fast enough on the wii.

Here is what i need you to beta/alpha test;

1. The feel of the flying and aiming. Is it passable? Or do I need to add some momentum or swing to it. I'm not trying to be perfect and I'm not really going to implement a boost and air break feature (unless i really have to).

2. The scoring system. I don't know if bigger number are more appealing to players.

3. How easy it is for causal players and noobs to play.

4. How do you feel about the level length? are they too short or too long?

5. (Optional) The Lua stage scripting engine (I need to expand the API because right now it is pretty simple, most people can skip this)

You can download it from the wiki; [wiibrew.org]

here is a recent video posted by Cid
[www.youtube.com]

As far as the code is concerned it never crashes unless you remove the SD card after the game is loaded. It reads the level scripts out of the game directory at the start of each stage. And if you edit the scripts, you have to restart the game to get them to load (i got a fix for this but it is not implemented yet). it will show a crash error and line number message of you load a bad script. You presently cannot add a new stage, just edit one the existing ones. Other than that it is pretty stable.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2011 12:16AM by owen.

Updated to 1.77 - I think I have fixed allot of the ship movement issues. I find the Gamecube none dual-stick controlls to be the best but some people may not think this. I never liked dual stick however both options are now in game (switched in the options). I need to figure out how to implement proper dual stick cursor movement.

So far I have only gotten only one report of it randomly crashing. It really should not crash - AT ALL. Unless you take the SD can out of the wii. I have not tested it in any emulator. I doubt it will work in an emulator because of the files I load at runtime eitherway I can not test it in a emulator, all I have is my 4.3, 2007 wii. If you can outline a crash scenario that would be helpful.

I'm sorry for not taking the time to test this before... your effort deserved it.

1. The aiming is good. I had a some problems with the sense of depth but I got it soon. I found the flying good but (since you mentioned it haha) the air break feature would be nice to get every target destroyed. I didn't miss a boost feature.
2. I can't help here. I don't care about the score in this kind of games. I noticed it there but never looked back. Bigger numbers would not make a difference on me.
3. I found the game really easy. I (mainly) think crashing should do much more damage. Balancing is always hard :/

The fact that I found it easy does not mean I did not find it fun. It runs smoothly and feels smooth. I love the in game graphics! I saw a video of this game a month ago or something and it remembered of Tumiki Fighters because of the squary graphics.

It did not crash.

Good game! :)

@Aruskano thanx, I thought I'd never get any feedback!
I turned down the crashing damage in release 1.77a because people kept flying into the ground in stage 4 & 5 and getting instant deaths, lol. I am thinking of taking out those stages because EVERYBODY seems to die because of the ground damage - at least on the first play through. Once I add more enemy types and harder levels further down into the game it should balance out the difficulty - hopefully. Or maybe longer levels. How did you feel about the level length? are they too short or too long?

Next time you get a chance try using the gamecube/classic controller with the Pointer option set to "no" in the options. Its the more "traditional" control scheme.

Not sure how I can fix the sense of dept thing though. I have major fears of trying to add lights and shadow, only god know what that would do to my frame rate. I do plant to reduce the clutter in some of the stages though.

Any thanx for the feedback! kudus!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2011 04:26PM by owen.

Hello,

That lack of participation is a problem within this forum. There's people using their time to insult (unkindly answer, if you preffer) starters of "stupid" (I do agree sometimes those threads are really stupid but that's still not a good reason) threads instead of using it to contribute other way.

I could not kill many enemies with those controllers but those feel good too. Do not worry about depth, it is good already.

Go on!

I barely played the game and well.....I LOVED IT!!! This game i actually really enjoyed unlike other homebrew games where i test and if i dont like it i delete it...but this game is awesome.

The controls are easy to use...and the aiming is easy.

The score isnt really important to me...maybe advancing further into the game like to a ending boss or something really makes me want to play not the score.

and it did not crash....

Overall this game is awesome, nice graphics too! :D

YOU NEED TO MAKE MORE GAMES!!! :D

@11ssims Thank you for playing, I designed the game to be simple and easy to play for a wide range of people. Since it is my first game I did not want to make it too hard and confusing.

Yes, I need to fix the scoring system, I think I got 1 billion points the last time I played. lol. I will work on the bosses next month, I imagine it will be really difficult but i will not give up as yet.

I was thinking of making another game but games take along time to make. I think there are 4 or 5 major features I have to add before I can finish this game. Slow progress is good. Plus I think I need to add about 10 more stages because at present you can play through the whole game in about 15 minutes.

@Aruskano I understand. It does appear that things have slowed abit



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2011 04:27PM by owen.

I have updated the game to version 1.81a, [wiibrew.org] added 4 more levels to the end of the game which are hopefully harder and reduce the amount of health that you can regain by collecting the green power up to 30%. I also added a enemy that explodes when you shoot it to the last stage.

The changelog seems short but there are tons of new enhancements mostly for graphical effects like smoke trails behind the bomb as it flies through game space, splashes when you shoot the water on the water planet. I also fixed some of the bugs in a couple of the old stages.

Added a new feature to the lua scripting API so that background textures can be loaded using Set_texture(slot, filename);, current only slot 1-4 is available. Slot 2 rotates on the Y axis to simulate the rising and setting sun/moon. Slot 1 is the background, slot 3 is the foreground.

@Aruskano I did not have time to add the air breaks, it will take me some time to figure out how add that into the game. I did add some harder levels and fixed some of my collision detection.

The game should still run at a smooth 60 fps even though I have added more explosion effects. Explosions effects increase the fun! :)

Collect 5 yellow powerups to max out you gun. When the gun is maxed everything you shoot makes a little explosion of squares.

Collect blue power ups to increase the radius of the bomb. You can collect up to 25.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2011 03:13AM by owen.

Do not worry about that air break. I like to kill every enemy and that's why having a way to slow down would be nice to me but it is not necessary.

I have not had the time to test your new version. I'll do it as soon as possible.

@Aruskano it is ok, take your time, most of last month was spent working on getting different background textures for stages example; flying over planets, under planets, planets with multiple moons, mountains in the distance, etc. So the game mostly looks prettier than before and has prettier explosion effects.

Apart from that I now have 14 stages and it takes about a minute to complete a stage. So the game takes me about 15 minutes to complete which is good in comparison to other homebrew games. I think the game can hold up to 30 stages before I run out of space.

I've started working on this game again after about a month long hiatus. I've finally gotten someone to create the 3d models. A new build is coming in the next couple of days for testing.

Just and Update, I'm still working on the new version, as soon as my model designer comes back online I will add the 2 new models and be able to upload something for you all to test next week. A couple days [en.wikipedia.org] should resolve any issues that may have popped up when I was randomly changing variables to make the engine work with the new models. Debugging on the wii is hard, there is nothing worst that a random memory crash. Anyway Next week.

Yeah its taking longer than I though but in the mean time you can keep up to date on the game on my new dev blog: [newogame.posterous.com]

Kinda quiet around the testing boards. Anyone interested in testing a early pre-pre-release version of the game?

I'll be glad to try it out (possibly over the weekend. More likely Monday) and feedback. I'm not exactly technically skilled though, so if there's anything you're particularly interested in, let me know :)

@doodinthemood I sent you a email at your hotmail address

For those who still want to comment and play it early download version 1.993a; [www.box.net] (Stage 1 needs some more work and stage 13 is pretty hard but those will be fixed before release in a couple days). Make sure to let me know what you think.

Latest Version 2 is now live for download at [wiibrew.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2011 04:24AM by owen.