Deep Wars: Soul of the Machine (our first game as free developers)

[serenity]

Hey guys, please take a look at Deep Wars: Soul of the Machine (http://www.nosubstancesoftware.com), the first game No Substance Software has been able to develop as an independent developer company.
The demo's free. Love it and buy the full game. Well, I hope you do.

Rob, No Substance Software (http://www.nosubstancesoftware.com)

[Ricardo C]

"The requested URL /Deep_Wars_Demo_Installer.exe was not found on this server."

Sorry.

I really like the site design, though. Very cool :)

[serenity]

Thanks a heap Ricardo.
I'd put a capital 'I' on installer, where none was to be found :).

Fixed.
We've spent quite a while on the 'look' of the site, and the feel of everything.
At one stage everything was a bit uptight and formal, and now we just want to be relaxed and who we are.

[techbear]

I've looked at it, and played the first couple levels.

I really like that you're trying to push the boundaries of top-scrolling shooters. Your two-weapon system is unique, as far as I know. Now, top-scrolling shooter fans can be a hide-bound bunch, which is why I applaud your marketing. It doesn't try to sell the game AS a shooter.

The keyboard control was a bit twitchy for me. Options to adjust the speed and/or smoothness might help. And where's mouse/gamepad support? For every input device, there's users that demand you support it.

I believe you when you say the game is most fun with two cooperative players. I have no idea whether that's a valid selling point, though. Many shareware players are rather solitary (though I could be totally misguided about that). Why don't you add a play mode with a computer team-mate? Especially one with a fun, digitized voice? Perhaps the voice track can help tell the story of the game.

I really didn't "get" why the avatar can "jump". I probably would if I'd played a bit more, but your otherwise EXCELLENT tutorial failed to tell me why I should get excited about the feature.

The sell screen is pretty annoying; you delay the appearance of the exit button, PLUS you make it hard to see AND fade it in. I hunted for it for quite a while! Players will expect a sell screen, but don't want to be annoyed by any part of your game.

Your art and art style are great, but the playfield seemed too static. Perhaps a smoky, scrolling field between your background and actors? Or particle trails on the monsters?

Your bullets are way too understated. They need to be bigger, brighter, with more particles and trails and flares and such.

I made a few enemies "angry" by hitting them with the stun weapon twice. However, they just didn't seem much angrier than before. I expected them to get MUCH faster, perhaps triple their fire rate, while a big red corona pulsed around them. What actually happened seems quite subtle to me.

Nice game! I hope you make it a success.

[Ricardo C]

ok, here are my first impressions:

1. The enemy design is great. Certainly a welcome relief from the non-descript enemy ships you tend to find in most shooters.

2. I like the idea of having to first stun the enemy before destroying it. Makes the playing session just a touch more intense, and makes me actually think about where my next shot should be place, rather than just strafe-shooting all over the place.

3. No idea whatsoever what the jump feature is supposed to accomplish, after playing through the first two levels. In fact, it seems it puts me in needless danger.

4. The graphics, aside from the enemies, are a bit bland. The backgrounds could use a bit more life, and some added visual splendor to the explosions wouldn't hurt, either.

5. Letting the player set his ship's speed, and perhaps the speed of the enemies, would be a welcome addition.

6. The "Buy Now" screen. If I were reviewing the game for a publication, I'd dock you points for pulling that crap on users. Yes, a "buy now/buy later/exit" screen is pretty much expected these days, but what I don't expect is to be held hostage by the game before I'm allowed to exit. If the game is great, I will want to buy it right after playing. Trying to force-sell it to me will just result in me getting peeved, and quite possibly, ruining any potential for a sale.

Overall, it's a pretty good game, and I think it has great potential :) Sure, it could use some visual enhancements (and that "buy now" screen needs severe retooling), but the gameplay is fun, and that's what counts. Best of luck with it :)

[princec]

Hang on, didn't I play this game a couple of years ago with vastly inferior graphics?

Cas :)

[serenity]

Hey guys, thanks for the detailed and thoughtful responses.

Jumping:-
It seems pretty useless to begin with, for sure. But when you play it a lot (and sadly I do mean a lot) it gets you out of all sorts of tight corners.

I play it myself most weekends with a friend who helped design the levels, and we use it more and more. I can see that it would seem useless to all but the most hardened veterans though.

Nag screen:-
Comments taken on board. We'll give people the option of moving on straight away, and make the icons stand out more.
Thanks.

gamepad:-
There's actually quiet gamepad support.
It should work straight off with a gamepad in single player mode, and for the first player in two player cooperative/adversarial mode.
We don't have configuration options for the gamepad, though.

Particle trails on monsters is a good idea, I'll look into it.

Anger levels on enemies:
For us, having played it quite a bit, there seems to be the right level of 'angriness' as enemies are hit. On moderate difficulty level and above, especially. If it doesn't seem to make any difference on the lower difficulty levels then I've certainly failed to give the demo the right feel, sadly. There are four levels of angriness, by the way, and above that it makes no difference.

Tutorial about jumping taken on board too. Because jumping is subtle, and can simply kill you a lot until you're very practised with it, I have trouble working out how to explain it well. Oh, you can also destroy bubbled enemies by jumping into them. Quite useful in cooperative mode when the first player can only technically stun.

Are all the bullets too understated, or only the player's or enemy's? We can certainly work on creating more 'presence' to them.

How are the keyboard controls twitchy? Is it an input problem, or are we not allowing for enough 'play', or something?

Oh, and you probably did play an 'inferior' version several years ago. Soul of the Machine is a re-written game using hardware accelerated graphics cards and all new graphics and levels, but the old game still had the same gameplay, just not as refined. We had a publishing deal that died pretty horribly, and to ensure all things were good, we re-did everything.

Thanks again for the response people,


Rob

[Chaster]

Looks like a cool game - noticed a little typo on the game description page:

"physche" - I think you meant "psyche"?

Chaster
p.s. Glad to see someone else doing something similar to us (donating money to help others!)!

[serenity]

Thanks Chaster, that's exactly what we meant :).

Nice site you've got, and a far more fleshed out method of donating, with your Good Samaritan Games project. Great idea!

Currently removing nag screen delay, making nag buttons 'bright', and looking at the more gameplay oriented suggestions from Ricardo and techbear.


Rob

[terin]

I love my titles... no clue why.

You really need to change the emphasis of your website from purchasing the game to downloading the demo.

More screenshots!

-Joe

(Today is broken sentence day)

PS: Game crashes on a win98 machine.

[serenity]

Thanks Joe,

will emphasise being able to grab the demo more. Good idea.

Hmmm, runs fine on our win98 test machine ...

Hate to ask the obvious, but your win98 system does have an open gl compliant graphics card, right?

[serenity]

We've updated the website to make it less confusing, friendlier, and much less likely to 'trap' people into going to the purchase page. Thanks for the feedback in that regard Joe.

We've also updated the downloadable demo to remove the delay on the nag screen, and to make the buttons that navigate back to the main menu much easier to see.

Thanks all,


Rob