Help needed for promising vertical scrolling shoot'em up

I gave your demo a try, heres some quick thoughts:
- Making users download SDL separately is a big no-no. I almost gave up right here.
- Having a 'help wanted' ad at the start of the game is a nice idea.
- I had to click though *pages* of long, tedious text to even get anywhere near the game. Not what I'd expect from an old school vertical shooter.
- "Your ship is not good enough". WTF? Confusing and non-intuitive interface. It's been five minutes and I've not shot anything yet.
- Eventually get in game. Don't know the controls, so I alt-tab out again. Controls not listed on website or in pages of intro text. Find controls in obscure subdirectory of install. Curse and go back to game.
- Finally get to shoot things in game.
- Give up, as I can't figure out whats actually happening, what the powerups are doing, etc. etc.

In short, it looks live you've got a nice promising game that I'd really like to play. But at every step you've hindered and frustrated the player and I expect most people would give up before even getting into the gameplay proper.

Do you need a coder?

Quote:

Original post by OrangyTang I gave your demo a try, heres some quick thoughts:

Thanks for both playing and your expressing your concerns.

Quote:

- Making users download SDL separately is a big no-no. I almost gave up right here.

I can understand that. However, if I had included the library, complying with the LPGL licence would have required more work and I did not have the time. Since installing SDL is just a matter of downloading a small archive and copying just 1 of its 2 files in the same folder of the demo, I thought it could be acceptable.

Quote:

- Having a 'help wanted' ad at the start of the game is a nice idea.

Thanks. That part is also needed to make it very clear that the potential is mostly hidden.

Quote:

- I had to click though *pages* of long, tedious text to even get anywhere near the game. Not what I'd expect from an old school vertical shooter.

In fact, one of the key elements is getting the player involved in first person as much as he can - the story is not just a justification for a bloke that jumps in a spaceship and starts to shoot at everything that moves ;)
For those who, like you, don't like this kind of things, there are a couple of options:
- the ESCAPE key (will skip entirely the current sequence of cutscenes);
- the CUTSCENES_MODE configuration entry: if set to "never", cutscenes are never shown (the default setting is "once", which means that they are shown only the first time the player comes across them; another setting is "always", which is quite obvious).
Moreover, the cutscenes are timed according to the length of the texts (maybe I should shorten the timings a bit, though).

I'll seize the occasion to clarify that although there is no configuration utility yet, the game *is* configurable: just look at uniVERSUS/data/miscellaneous/configuration.txt. Everything is rather obvious, so here I'll just point out that by writing anything other than "fullscreen" as the VIDEO_MODE parameter, a window will be used instead of a screen.

Quote:

- "Your ship is not good enough". WTF?

It means that you chose a configuration that has not sufficient engine power to face the chosen scenario/levels because of gravity, friction, required speed, etc. or chose no configuration at all. Since in the final version the player will build the spaceship piece by piece, he must be told *before* he starts playing whether the spaceship can actually move as needed - that's because the game simulates a few physical factors.
The building of the spaceship is a strong strategical aspect of the game.

Quote:

Confusing and non-intuitive interface. It's been five minutes and I've not shot anything yet.

edit: Mmm... I guess that what puzzles you is the fact that the "buy" button has to be clicked to actually choose the spaceship. If it had not been so, how could one possibly have a look at all the available configurations? Moreover, this may look definitely overcomplicated now, but when the rest of the interface will be in place it will make even more sense - f.ex. if the spaceship is already partially built, one may want to look at the pre-configured setups (which the player himself creates!) to quickly complete it.

Quote:

- Eventually get in game. Don't know the controls, so I alt-tab out again. Controls not listed on website or in pages of intro text. Find controls in obscure subdirectory of install. Curse and go back to game.

The "Demos" section of the website, exactly the same place from where you downloaded the demo, says: "Controls are described in the "Controls" section of the design information that can be found in the "Design" directory."
edit: Ouch! Only now I realize that the "Controls" section only talks about generic controls! My fault! I'm *very* sorry about this. Thank you for pointing it out. I'm uploading a new version that shows the controls directly in the demo notice.

Quote:

- Finally get to shoot things in game. - Give up, as I can't figure out whats actually happening, what the powerups are doing, etc. etc.

I think that basically the problems you've had are due to the lack of user documentation; unfortunately I did not have time to prepare that, so I included much the more detailed documentation which has been used to create the game - another reason to do this is showing the real potential of the engine.
BTW: there are no powerups: the only bonuses that have immediate effects are the integrity, energy, shields, credits and extra (a mix of all the others) ones; the devices/weapons picked along the way are stored in the cargo bay, so that the player can mount/sell them at the spaceport - this is more realistic and adds a lot to the strategic aspect of the game.

Quote:

In short, it looks live you've got a nice promising game that I'd really like to play. But at every step you've hindered and frustrated the player and I expect most people would give up before even getting into the gameplay proper.

I'm sorry it turned up to be so unfriendly. As said, I'm aware that the lack of user documentation made it harder. That's why I've been so insistent about reading the included information - see announcement, website and demo notice: they all invite to have a look at the documentation. Of course things will change in future, provided that I can find the collaborators needed and the project remains alive.

Thank you again!

Regards,
saimo

P.S. there are other answers and explanations in other forums where the game is being discussed; for those how can bother surfing to them, the forums are this one and this one

[Edited by - saimo on September 27, 2006 6:47:28 AM]

Quote:

Original post by GP_rly Do you need a coder?

No, thanks.

saimo

Do you need music?

Quote:

Original post by nurk Do you need music?

No, thanks.

saimo

@thread

Thanks to the heads-up of a OrangyTang, I realized that in the previous release I gave only generic indications as regards the controls. This has probably caused troubles to those who bothered checking out the demo and maybe did not even make them enjoy it to the fullest. I'm very sorry about that. It is now available for download a new version that shows the list of controls right at the beginning. Among other (small) things, it also:
- fixes a bug that would cause the game to suddenly quit under Windows;
- allows to choose whether to use the clones once and for all from the main configuration file (in the file uniVERSUS/data/miscellaneous/configuration.txt, the "CLONES_MODE" line accepts the values: "ask", "always" and "never").

A couple of additional hints:
- since the game simulates physics, the first times it may be difficult to play; the spaceship called "F-L-A-S-H" mounts a special braking device that makes life a lot easier;
- for those who want to get to the action almost immediately, this is an example of settings for the abovementioned configuration.txt file:

KEY.UP              upKEY.DOWN            downKEY.LEFT            leftKEY.RIGHT           rightKEY.SELECT          tabKEY.FIRE0           xKEY.FIRE1           spaceKEY.SPIN            sVIDEO_MODE          fullscreenHERO_NAME           Isao OtaCUTSCENES_MODE      neverRECRUITMENT_MODE    neverCLONES_MODE         always

Enjoy,
saimo

Hi again,

I'd like to inform you that the currently available version now features the following improvements with respect to that released at the time of the announcement:
* the spaceport is now 99% complete: spaceships can be built from the scratch, parts can be bought/sold/mounted/dis-mounted/re-mounted, etc.;
* there are new weapons and spaceship setups;
* there is a brand new scenario (Lithlet);
* joystick/joypad support has been added;
* finally there is a configuration utility;
* lots of internal improvements, bugfixes, etc.




You can download the latest versions from the website, where you can also find a new section showing many other screenshots.

Unfortunately, development has slowed down considerably (practically stopped) in the last two weeks because of lack of collaborators - honestly, it looks like the project is going to die soon. I'd love if you could help in any useful way to keep it alive.

Cheers,
saimo

P.S.: thanks to kazgoroth for re-opening the thread.