New version of Space Beetles is available.
Community Forums/Showcase/New version of Space Beetles is available.
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| http://www.arcadetown.com/attackofthealienspacebeetles/game.asp Actually it was put up a week ago, but I forgot to mention it. If you felt the mouse control was difficult to play with or sluggish, you should try this version. The mouse code now uses raw input so it's unaffected by pointer ballistics and there's a sensitivity adjustment on the options menu. This demo also has all the levels, but is time/use limited. |
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| Hey sswift, how happy are you with arcade town so far ? edit : you can email me if you prefer. I am very curious. GameMaker04@... |
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| I have nothing bad to say about ArcadeTown, aside from the fact that at the moment all they can offer is time-limited demos. Well, that and the fact that I sold a total of three copies through them the first month my game has been on there. I'm sure that's not their fault though. The game's not selling well anywhere. I've only sold a total of seven copies. ArcadeTown gets plenty of hits. My game just sucks, apparently. |
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| Sorry to go here Mr Swift, but from everything I've seen, that may just be the case. It ticks almost all the boxes: neat graphics, great sounds, top-quality music, power-ups, many levels etc etc. Trouble is, it's not really much fun. Whilst I'm sure each alien type has a well-crafted and unique movement pattern, the way all the aliens come on and off screen during a wave just feels all-too random. In truth, the entire game (or the entire demo I played - and I didn't make it past the 15th-or-so oh-so-similar level because I just couldn't take it anymore) feels like one of those quick tests people do to make sure graphics display correctly and sounds activate correctly etc... "This is just a test - I'll sort out the proper alien movement later". It feels like the annoying end part of a Galaga level when the main convoy is destroyed and you're just cleaning up the last few stragglers... but for every wave, the entire wave, over and over... I had been working on the "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all" line of thinking, but it's just such a shame to see you so seriously bummed. I feel like the BFF who tells you after you've already dumped him that yeah, your boyfriend was actually a jerk. From what you've said earlier, 'corny' as you may have thought it to be, you may well have been better off doing the "Galaga + more" game you initially started with. Better luck next time, but from what I've seen I know you have it in you to do this genre 'properly'. |
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| Damn! You have only sold seven copies and it is already plastered all over the warez sites. That is beyond sad :( |
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| Someone has made a game trainer for it: http://www.gamershell.com/download_48172.shtml I'd take that as a compliment. |
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| LineOf7s: I made the aliens move that way because I was trying to differentiate the game from other space shooters. It ended up being a bad idea, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it in time without turning the game into a straight Galaga clone which wouldn't have fared any better. Don't blame yourself for keeping your mouth shut until it was too late. I didn't know if what I was doing was going to work from a gameplay standpoint or not till the very end. I knew it was missing something while I was working on it, but I thought I could sort through those issues. To use your analogy, I was aware the boyfriend was a jerk, but I had myself convinced I could fix him. :-) Puki: Ha! The fools! If they have the full version all they need do is enter the name "Cheater!" and they will gain the ability to skip levels and spawn all powerups. With that you can have all the lives you want. :-) |
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| sswift: Yes, I've been following it for a lil while now. I know why you made the aliens do what they do, and sadly, it's differentiated it all too well from other (good) space shooters. Mission accomplished? :oD I'm not so sure a "straight Galaga clone" wouldn't have fared better. Maybe not well as such, but maybe better. But this is all by-the-by really, since it wasn't really artistic choices that led you to release it in the form it was in, was it? A man's gotta do... Still, you have all that code there. Perhaps a tweaked sequel/redux could launch Raccoon Rocket into the stratosphere where this one perhaps may not. |
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| I believe I was the first one to purchase the game and I still enjoy it. I also don't understand what people expect from games of this type. It's a typical shooter and it fulfills that role as it should. Pity there has been only seven sales. The game definitely deserves better than that. Barney |
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| LineOf7s: Aside from an update I released which improved the mouse control and saved your configuration, I'm done with it. No matter how much I tweak the gameplay it will never sell well enough to recoup my investment. As of right now, my plan is to develop a new version of my texture generator. That's the only thing I've got that's bringing in any real money; and it's only half what I need to pay the bills. My hope is that by rewriting it in Blitzmax I can get it to be 10x faster, and with a vastly improved seamless algorithm I've invented, color adjustment, drag and drop, batch processing, and the ability to generate displacement/normal maps based on the lighting present in the image (with another technique I'm in the process of inventing), I'll be able to charge between $65-$95 for it instead of the $35 I'm charging now. I'm trying to get that out before the end of August. I really need to. I'm running out of posessions to sell. :-( |
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| Best of luck with your cunning plan, but I always thought it was more the relative inexpensiveness that sold your STG (especially to 'indies') rather than its list of features. More than doubling the price of it could be... bad. I'm sure you know this, but I hope - if it comes down to it - getting a 'proper job' isn't beneath you. |
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| Hi sswift, I think LineOf7s is right there... people will only pay so much for a given task, adding features to the product is great but increasing the price may have the total opposite effect you are looking for which is, of course, bringing in more $. That kind of price point will encourage them to look at other options. As far as space beetles goes these are the points I would consider: - The graphics are very nice but, IMHO, aimed probably too young demographically - The alien arrivals not having some sort of pattern leaves out the possibility of "Getting to know" the game. That aspect is very important as it gives the gamer the ability to improve each time they play and "hooks" them in. Bonuses for killing a complete wave on arrival.. yes, these points do come from games like Galaga... but that sells...you just need to add a unique flavor of those aspects to your game. Lets admit it here, most games are new flavors of other games. If I were you, I would try darkening the graphics (maybe an arch-angel fending off various demons) to seek an older demographic, add waves and bonuses and release it as a new game... who knows... you could still recover some of your investment. |
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| Don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing. :-) |
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| Didn't you say that just before releasing Space Beetles? jk |
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| Yes. And I did. I knew I was taking a gamble when I made Space Beetles. And I knew I was making a game which wasn't one of the top selling casual game genres. But I also knew that I had $2000 with which to develop a game and a time management or hidden object game would have cost me 3-5x that amount. For the artwork alone. And the music would have been another three to five grand. And I know I'm taking a gamble now. But this time, I'm not taking nearly as big a gamble. Worst case scenario here is STG doesn't sell well at $65 and I have to drop the price back to $35. But even in that case, I'm left with a product which is 10x as good as it was before, and which, as a result, will likely sell better. A lot better. Also, you are forgetting something. You said people will only pay so much for a given task. That's true. But right now, the only task STG performs is making textures seamless. STG 2 will do that AND generate normal/displacement maps. And the only program out there right now which does that costs $50, and it does so with an inferior algorithm. |
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| I just downloaded it from arcadetown and that's one polished game. Easily the most polished Blitz made game ever made by far. I will agree though. The way the aliens move make them very hard to hit and rob the game of the fun that is at the door knocking, but it just can't get in. Very original ideas. And I think if they moved in a more traditional way you'd have seen a great boost in sales. FIX IT!! Just go back and change the code. You have time. All the assets are already in place. Just release it as AASB version 1.5. |
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| I agree in a way. Theres a reason so many galaga/galaxian clones or similar shooters exist. People like them. |
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| Chroma: I'm not sure it's the most polished Blitz game ever made, but thank you for the sentiment. :-) FIX IT!! Just go back and change the code. Fix it HOW? It's not that easy. What you're suggesting is that I rip out all the attacks that add variety to the game and make the enemies interesting. If all the enemies were to move simply along fixed paths and fire the occasional bullet, what would I be left with? |
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| From what I can tell from what Ive seen so far, you wanted to make an original version of the galaga style games, if you had made the AI like a normal galaga game you would have been selling and making a game for other people and not for yourself, but then hearing about your financial problems maybe that would have been the best thing to do. Im more impressed by a not populer original idea than a populer clone of something else. |
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| The movement while attacking isn't the issue, I would just give them wave arrivals and bonuses for getting them all when they arrive..that shouldn't be as daunting a task.. of course I don't know how you coded it |
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| My main issue was that the enemies are moving too fast. If you slowed them down a tad...that'd be better. Thet game did get fun though after i got the hang of it. |
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| I wonder: how many people did play-test this game? |
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| Skully: They attack in waves to a degree. There may not be enough time between waves to really sense it though. I didn't want to leave the player sitting there waiting three to five seconds for more enemies to appear on the screen. Perhaps I should have coded that bit diffently. When a wave appears, a counter starts for the next wave. Maybe I should have instead had a timer that counts down till all the enemies have spawned, and then had a second timer which counts down after there are no longer any enemies on the screen. I just didn't think it would be all that fun if the player kept having to hunt down on enemy on the screen before more showed up. I figured if I gave them 10-20 seconds to kill all the enemies, the threat level would drop as they kileld them and then be ramped up again once a new batch arrived. The only way to really know what works is playtesting. And I ran out of time to experiment unfortunately. Weibo: I had around ten people playtest it at various stages of the development. The last people to playtest it were my sister and her husband. My sister would fling the ship into an enemy on the other side of the screen when trying to avoid a shot, and blow up anyway. Her husband was as good at it as I am and easily killed all the enemies. As a result of that I added the laser powerups, and drastically reduced the number of enemies on the earlier levels, since my sister was closer to the demographic I was targeting. Chroma: Play it some more and you'll find you have no difficulty hitting the enemies. I'm not great at space shooters myself and I have no difficulty blasting them all. Especially after powering up the laser which can easily destory wide swatchs of enemies. I'm not saying your complaint isn't legitimate, just that... it's a problem. If I made the enemies move any slower then the game wouldn't be any fun once you played it for a few hours. And making them move slower isn't a matter of tweaking one variable. They all move based on animation timing, and that timing is tied to the animation of everything else in the game. Basically there's a state system which says do this do this then do this, at these specific times, and on top of that there's animation code which says do this for this period of time or until this condition is met. Just slowing them down would be a ton of work, and simply slowing them down isn't an acceptable solution for the reason outlined above, so I'd need to slow them down on earlier levels and then speed them up, or provide multiple difficulty levels where they move at different speeds. Lot of work. Now, I'd be willing to do that work... if I thought it would make the game sell. But at this point, I don't think there's anything I could do to make this game sell. I could turn it into a straight galaga clone with enemies flying in patterns and attacking from a grid if you miss them, occasionally diving at the player... But then there'd be little to no variety from level to level, and it would be a generic space shooter. And generic space shooters simply don't sell. Also, no matter what I do to the game, nobody is going to be interested in publishing it in stores. Only one publisher expressed any interest in the game, and though they thought it was a lot of fun, and even went so far as to request box art, ultimately they decided they didn't think they could market a shooter. No publisher ever wrote back to me and said they felt the game had promise but needed improvement before they could accept it. Ps: Regarding the lack of sales of shooters, I would be very surprised if anyone told me that chicken invaders sold more than 20 copies a month. And at $9.95, this game would have to sell 5-10 copies a DAY in order for me to consider it to be somewhat of a success. Do any of you think that any of these improvements you suggest could cause the game sell 30x better and go from selling six copies a month to selling 6 copies a DAY? That's why I'm working on my texture generator instead of improving the game. Doubling sales of my texture generator is a LOT easier than getting my game to sell 30x as many copies. |
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| Well, then go for that. It's no use beating a dead horse. |
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| Beat the dead horse! LOL, jk. Since your going to abandon it, why not grant a share in future sales to someone else (preferably an artist/programmer) and give them the code under an NDA to tweak... there still might be sales to make there. Just a suggestion. I just hate to see hard work thrown to the bin... recycle! Cheers. |
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| Skully: I would certainly consider that. |
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