First attempt at making a game
 

So I recently stuck together a simple game and uploaded it to Kongregate. It's nothing too fancy (in fact, it's really basic.) This is my first time making a game.

It can be found here:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/User...evasive-action

Sort of a cross between avoidance and bullet hell.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

I think a lot of people go for this as their first games. I'm getting an issue with a "bullet" just chilling there in the top left not doing anything.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

There seems to be something off with the diagonals, like when I press up and right I go off at some weird angle instead of diagonally. I also find the controls kinda tricky to use precisely, so maybe you could play with that. Like maybe it would follow the mouse or something? It would also be good if the walls would either stop you completely or teleport you to the other side (this would be particularly good for the left/right ones), rather than killing you.

I haven't managed to play all that far but some bigger bullets and bullets that move in more bullet-hell-like patterns (spreads, single bullets that shoot bullets in all directions, shaped bullets, big bullets in interesting patterns) would be cool.

And to make mute and unmute the same button, just keep track of whether the game is muted or not (e.g. _root.muted), and have the button mute if it's false and unmute if it's true.

PS: why is there a lone bullet hanging out in the top-left corner? XD

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Pretty nice :) simplistic and fun haha. Got like 9000 points.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Haha, the lone bullet is there so my spawn method knows what a bullet looks like. If it's not there, none of the bullets appear, since the bullets are actually just images (to avoid lag). I couldn't really find a way around it, so I just stuck it in the top left where it would do the least damage.

(coded this in Stencyl btw)

And as far as diagonal movement goes, the slant has always been there, but it wasn't something I paid much attention to. I could fix it with a few AND conditionals and 45 degree angles. Don't have the time to fix anything tonight though :P

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Why not put it just outside the game screen?

I'm not sure how you're doing the movement, but one way to make sure the 45-degree angles work properly is to keep track of a change-in-x and change-in-y variable. They both start at zero, if the up button is pressed you increase the change in y by 1, etc. So for instance if I hold up and right then the change in both x and y is 1, and the movement is automatically a 45 degree angle. Also, holding left and right will make you do nothing :)

edit: OH GOD LEVEL 7 LOL

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Nice game. Level 7... lol.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

I was waiting for someone to hit Level 7 :P

It's programmed up to Level 10 btw. I wanted proof that it was humanly possible to beat Level 10 before going farther. :P

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

A simple highscore page would be nice. Or at least some sort of screen at the end detailing your score and level.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

haha, fun game! I tried camping on top of the lone bullet in the corner, but that didn't end up being a potential cheat as I thought it would. ;)

Got 12,810 on my first try :P lol lv7~

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

cool! I like it

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

I released a new version today :D

Changes:
-added a death screen
-fused mute buttons

In the works:
-fix diagonal movement
-get rid of the stationary bullet

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Haha I was just chillin' at the bottom having no problem and then they started coming up from the bottom and got screwed.

Its quite fun actually, I only have a singular arrow key with all 4 directions on it so its really hard to play for me, maybe add WASD into the controls too? :3

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

that poor, poor random number generator

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

lol this pops up whenever I go to this thread
lol Kibblre's siggy is the source xP

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

Ah I was wondering why it was happening.

Re: First attempt at making a game
 

This is really good for a first game. It's simple, but that isn't necessarily bad. I actually like the way the diagonals work because IMO, it does add another aspect to the game -- there's no reason every game's diagonals have to be exactly 45 degrees. The controls seem smooth enough, and that is VERY important. I like the difficulty on this and I actually like that it kind of has an "arcade hard" feel to it -- merciless and meant more to see how far people can get rather than for people to actually beat it. I also like that you didn't go overboard with special effects or anything -- it's a major problem I see with lots of Flash content in particular.

In short, you kept it simple, arcade-hard, minimal effects (this is a good, not a bad thing, in Flash), smooth controls, smooth flow.

The important thing is, would I play it again or over and over? Yes. It has good gameplay and that, rather than graphics, is what should matter in a game.

Unfortunately some people may dock you points for graphics or other non-gameplay-related features. You can't please everybody. I would say any true oldschool gamers out there should like this though, as it concentrates entirely on gameplay, is simple in concept and control yet difficult to do well on. And a true oldschool gamer is going to put most of the emphasis on gameplay rather than graphics, etc...

It's a nice little dodging game. IMO I wouldn't change the diagonals' behavior at all. Perfect as-is, as it is an interesting aspect of the game.