Spandex Force v0.3 - Feedback request
Community Forums/Showcase/Spandex Force v0.3 - Feedback request
| ||
| [Updated with new release 8/2 2008] Hey there! I'd love some feedback on v1.0 of my puzzle/RPG/adventure game Spandex Force. Especially from Mac users - I've put together a universal binary that I hope works as it should. Game Info Spandex Force is a unique puzzle/adventure/RPG game that lets you create your own hero to clean up the crime-infested town of Vigilance Valley. Follow your hero's quest to rid Vigilance Valley of vicious villains such as the Blizzard Wizard, the inept riddler Countess Conundrum, and the mysterious Professor Aphasia. More information here: http://www.spandexforce.com Screenshots     Download v1.0 http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.exe (Windows) http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.dmg (Mac) Looking forward to your comments! |
| ||
| Some things: Offering a setup exe requires the admin mode. For security reasons people often use user mode even if they have admin access. Here for example Win XP freezed when I tried to log in as admin (has nothing to do with your game), so I had to restart. This may be why people avoid testing install.exes. This and also because of resides in registry and programs folders, as usual. So I would suggest to offer the game at least for windows in a simple zip file that users can run on their desktop and then simply delete the folder. Very nice graphics. Some cool crossfading fx. The black "Loading" screen probably needs optimation. I take it the fullscreen is not a true fulscreen mode? When I drag the city map, then it sometimes flickers, a blue backbuffer is shining trough. I have however a very crappy onboard graphics card here. I found it a bit unspectacular to "collect 1000$" with amounts like 15$ in every item only, this must take hours. As I understand, the player has to rescue a victim or catch a criminal in order to play a minigame and after every minigame there are new cash items in the city, although only a few. While the minigames are well done (not the type of game I usually play, but surely addictive in a tetris way), the main goal (collect 1000$) of this first level doesn't motivate me too much (but maybe this is subjective :) ) All in all very well done. Try reducing some of the loading times. |
| ||
| Thanks for the comments! Interesting that you'd prefer a zip file - this is the first time I've heard that. I'd rather deliver the game in a complete package, the way it'll be delivered later, but if others agree that they'd prefer a zip to an exe please leave a note here and I'll fix it! Do you know any details about your comp? It's a laptop, I assume (since it's onboard gfx)? I haven't seen these issues on other setups; it's the standard BlitzMax fullscreen mode with some OpenGL tweaks. Hm... Just a question: didn't you get any money from the minigames/criminals? On average you should get ~$100 from playing a minigame; the small amounts you find in the city are just small bonuses to keep you occupied if you're waiting for a specific minigame to pop up. Will have a look at the loading times... But the only thing that's loaded between screens is the music; hard to speed up the ogg loading. :/ Thanks again! |
| ||
| I'd prefer a zip with an .exe over an installer any day too... |
| ||
| Okey-dokey, then - here's a zip instead: http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForce.zip I hope this works better! |
| ||
| A zip is good for techie forum members to test but a setup.exe is required for the final product for sure. |
| ||
| Yes, setup.exe for final release, of course. My gfxcard is a "VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP" with driver version 6.14.10.0367-22.00.01. It was used in a lot of cheap notebooks a few years ago. Running with DirectX 9.0c (tho, there are many subversions of dx9.0c, with huge compatibility diffrences). Well I tried my best, but I wasn't fast enough for most minigames, so if I didn't fail then I gathered only little bonuses. Very nice animations in the minigames, BTW. |
| ||
| Oh, okay. I'll see if someone has a laptop with an S3 card so that I can experiment a bit. I'm guessing GL drivers are to blame here.. Dang! Okay, then there's no bug at least - but I might have to look into the difficulty. Thanks again for testing! |
| ||
| Glitch: I get a flickering issue in the left corner of the world map. Some kind of transparency bug I guess. See yellow arrow:  Loading screens: Try to get rid of them! 1. When stating the game the monitor needs some secons to init the gfx mode. So my suggestion would be: Load the gfx sat the start, before or while your logo animation is running. 2. Make an option available to cache the gfxs for high end PCs. So they don't need to be loaded over and over again. 3. Load the data while the score is displayed and not afterwards. Feature Requests: - Make it possible to scroll the world map via moving the cursor to the screen edges. - Add some tiny cars, ships, planes and cute helicopters to the world map with special quests. - Add a day/night circle for the city - Add more snowflakes and change the city map accordingly. - Do you have rain as well? Overall: Great job. Really love the game! P.S.: Increase the demo play time... ;) |
| ||
| Thanks a lot! Those are some awesome feature requests... :) I'll see what I can do - but art-related things are a bit bothersome. Maybe I can add more weather, some tiny objects to the map, and possibly a day/night cycle at least... Oh, and yeah.. Maybe the scrolling too. I tried that earlier but removed it (for some reason; I don't remember why!) Regarding the loading screens... The problem is that all gfx and all sound fx -are- loaded in the beginning! All that's loaded between the screens is the music; apparently BlitzMax has the world's slowest OGG loader. :/ I could easily load the music at the beginning too, but the memory requirements would be doubled, and the initial loading time more than doubled. :/ I'll have to experiment a bit and see what can be done... Oh, and I'll fix that glitch as well... Oops! |
| ||
| For the loading delay... How about streaming the ogg files? I'm using Fmod in my projects and this works fine. Have you used upx on your exe already? |
| ||
| I'll have to look into streaming; right now I'm just using the plain loader. Fmod might be an option... $100 isn't -too- bad if it solves a lot of problems... But I'll see if I've missed something about playing the music from an opened stream instead, or something along those lines! [Edit: Okay, I've browsed around and it seems I have two choices: 1) Get Fmod and spend that $100 2) Make the music pieces shorter so that they load faster] Nope, no UPX:ing at all actually. I think I read some report that Some Antivirus Product(TM) erroneously interpreted certain versions of UPX packed exes as virii. (And I don't really see how much of a benefit the packing would be anyway.) |
| ||
| Ahm, this is b3d, right? How about "the bass system", should support streaming as well. Not sure though. Credits Glitches The credits image seems to be broken. As well as the collision between humans and houses!  Also, adding some kind of fade in/out effect when the lines reach the borders of the window would look neat. |
| ||
| It's BlitzMax actually... Oh, right! Bass also supports Mac, and is €100! So I have a few options then, it seems. I'll have to try both out, I think. Ah, yes... The infamous credits screen... That's because I forgot to change the overlay building locations from the old map screen to the new one. *Cough* :) Well, it's fixed since a while ago, and available in 0.4 that I'm finishing up now. Great idea about the fade effect on the credits screen! Should be really simple to do. Man, why didn't I think of that? Thanks! |
| ||
| Credits: You could also change the colour of the function a team member has. See example from me... ;)  Loading: Have you tried to disable the initial loading screen? The one that shows a progress bar and some text under it. Replace it with a simple "loading...". - These regular screen updates to show the % eat up a lot of time! |
| ||
| I got into a fight with a criminal that ended in a stalemate, neither of us had enough power or any moves, I ended up having to surrender because of it, other than that I haven't seen anything major. |
| ||
| Grisu: Man, you put me to shame. Yep, colouring will be done. I only skipped on it because of my inferior text rendering framework. :) Hm... I think I'll keep the loading bar, but I'll look into increasing the speed. For example, I only need to render the screen if a percentage has changed. (And I can but in a lower threshold for a percentage change that needs to have occured to render the new one.) Good suggestions! Perturbatio: Oh, right! That's also fixed and will be available in the next release. But thanks for noticing! (You're the second one to note it.) |
| ||
| Music Streaming: MaxMod might be a free alternative for that: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=67464#754159 How's 0.4 comming along? |
| ||
| Hey Grisu! 0.4 is actually out, and it cures a lot of the things you mentioned - except for the sound issues. I was going to tackle that next, but I dove into DirectX issues instead. (I wanted to use DX instead of GL for Windows, but that meant I had to read up on projection matrices and 3D drawing in DX.) It seems that DX works okay now, so I can start with the music streaming. Thanks for the hint, but it seems to be hard to get hold of MaxMod... Looking around a bit more. Oh, and if you're curious about 0.4, the download links are the same as above: http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.exe http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.dmg Thanks for the interest in my li'l game! :) |
| ||
| Please add a Version number / Release date to your first post. This way it's easier to keep track: Spandex Force 0.4 [19.01.08] You've got mail... P.S.: Credits look great. ;) |
| ||
| I can't test the 0.4 version because I played the other for 60 mins :( |
| ||
| I hadn't even thought of that! If you're interested in testing the game I'll post an update when 0.6 is ready, and I'll make sure that the 60 minutes are reset in that version! |
| ||
| Seems like you did it?!?.. Congrats!!! http://www.gamershell.com/companies/karjasoft/396655.html |
| ||
| Thanks! :D Yeah, at long last I have something called v1.0! Been a few busy days with my day job and this, so I thought I'd update forum posts and such tomorrow. :) By the way, if anyone has tried v0.5 (or earlier), you can download the new demo and get 60 more minutes! |
| ||
| Nice review on GameSpot: http://www.gamezebo.com/reviews/spandex_force_review.html I also saw the game on Big Fish Recently, congrats on getting in done and launched and well received! |
| ||
| Thanks, GA! I've gotten all Spandexed-out lately, and I've forgotten to update forums with the information. Oh, and here's another review at Out of Eight: http://jaguarusf.blogspot.com/2008/02/spandex-force-review.html Right now I just feel "it's done! it's over! I wanna work on my next project!" I'm starting to notice that it takes its toll making a li'l game and handling your day job at the same time. :) |
| ||
| It's a great feeling wanting to work on your next game (I had that about 2 weeks ago, started now) but you'll find that stuff from the old game still crops up and needs sorting out (sometimes it's good stuff like your first royalty report, woo!) |
| ||
| I love this, and it is on my "must buy" list. Brilliant presentation IMHO. |
   |