Sshhhh.... don't tell anyone - Derelict is finally done...

[Mark Fassett]

So, 16 months later, the easy part is done! Now it's time to figure out how to market the thing, do submissions, etc... I was going to wait until I had a press release to post here, but - well - I realized it's going to take me weeks to write a good one :)

So anyway - check it out if you dare - site and all. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, but most of all, this is just a shout of "I'm Done!!!" Now, the real work begins.

http://www.laughing-dragon.com

[Nikster]

Downloaded the demo (Win32) clicked to play the game, took me to a screen with a character select and level difficulty, and clicking 'Play' didn't do anything :) only the exit button functioned..

I seem to have acquired Microsoft XML 4.0 Parser SDK as well, this wasn't in the Derelict install was it ?

[Mark Fassett]

Hi Nikster - can you post a screenshot? I wanna see what all the options are set to... F2 should take a shot (though I don't remember if it works in the menus ;) )

Also - did you try the previous build and change some settings, and perhaps either not uninstall, or not delete saved games when you uninstalled?

The reason I ask is like maybe you clicked on the character arrows to cycle the character and left it on the guy - game won't start in that case... I also won't start if you have selected none for a controller (you can select none if you have a gamepad plugged in).

And no - I use a custom written xml parser - msxml 4.0 came from somewhere else :)

[Nikster]

Doesn't seem to take any screen grabs (not in the default install dir anyway) I thought I might have clicked on something that messed with the defaults but tried all variations of character and level, still no joy... where can I get an older version to try ? naughty me, it's the first time I have installed it :)

Also I didn't chnage anyt settings, I tend to dive straight in and I don't have a joy pad, just a lonely mouse :)

[Mark Fassett]

Strange...

The screen grabs are in your "My Documents/Derelict Demo Player Data" (or something very close)...

Also - can you try selecting the Play button with your keyboard? (enter key)

[Nikster]

Ah... nop ;) only derelict.cfg and scores.xml in there although looking at the config file both p1 and p2controller = -1 dunno if that would be correct ?

[Mark Fassett]

hmm - that's not correct - try setting p1controller=0

What DX version do you have? OS?

[Nikster]

That lets me get into the game, but I cant control the character and I got a crash when I clicked on the key settings..

I can break anything :) (typical Windows user ;) )

I'm using DX9 running under win2k

[Mark Fassett]

Well - seems obvious to me that it's not finding your keyboard for some reason. There should be a "logs" folder in the program directory... can you send that to support at laughing-dragon.com? Hopefully it says something useful.

[Nikster]

Sent, maybe I should set up a new company, "I'll break your stuff for $10" ;)

[Mark Fassett]

I just wish you'd tried it last week :)

[Nikster]

Ok, it turns out that having keyboard/mouse emulation set in direct input (SDK) blew it up and as Mark said to me, it's safe to assume that a majority of customers won't have such things :) then we somehow drifted onto saying how crap my keyboard is because you can't have ctrl+up cursor key and either left/right cursor key combo, but I'm not going to send the thread off on a tangent and it's 3:30am.... ta ta :D

[Sillysoft]

I played your game before and I liked it. I hope it does well for you.

Some things I would do to your website:
- put a demo download link on the http://www.laughing-dragon.com/default.aspx homepage
- put some text/links for Derelict at the bottom of your Free Games pages.

[whisperstorm]

Very nice! Gauntlet meets cute alien shooter. I had quite a bit of fun playing it. Thank you for making the demo level limited instead of time limited.

[Jack Norton]

Congrats on this release Mark. Seems a very nice game, some parts remind me the old Amiga game "Alien Syndrome" (I bet no one here remembers it!!).

Hope you do well with it, you deserve it! ;)

[Jeff Evertt]

Looks really good - Congrats Mark!

-Jeff
www.evertt.com (http://www.evertt.com)

[Reactor]

"some parts remind me the old Amiga game "Alien Syndrome" (I bet no one here remembers it!!)."

Yep, it didn't work too well on the Amiga 1200, but I remember it. Here, download and play it if you like :) (you can get it on www.back2roots.org)

[Nikster]

It was originally an Arcade game by Sega wasn't it ? Alien Syndrome that is.

[Mark Fassett]

I've never played Alien Syndrome - bet I would like it. Unfortunately, don't have an amiga anymore :)

[MattInglot]

Congrats on the release. My only complaint is that the tutorial is very long and requires a lot of reading. You may wish to try and shorten it so that people's attention doesn't disappear before they get to the good stuff. People have shorter and shorter attention spans these days and a general aversion to reading.

[Mark Fassett]

Thanks.

I don't know what to do about the tutorial. Personally, I don't think it's that long, but that's because I just run through it to grab the extra key and the 3 extra bombs :) The thing is that I want people to be able to play the game without having to read the help. I guess I will see how it goes :)

[MattInglot]

The strange thing is that I felt myself obligated to read the help just because it was there. If it hadn't been there I would have figured out most of the stuff myself (save for special attack and strafe). The main problem is that the tutorial is too verbose and too long for the skills being taught. Maybe shrink down the level by getting rid of the extra walking and combining different skill sets together. FPS games have tutorials this long because they are typically more complicated to play.

Have you considered doing the help in the style of those tips that pop-up the first time you come across something, and give the player an option to turn them off? Make beating the first level mandatory to gain access to the other levels (Commander Keen style) and just have that serve as a tutorial level maybe. The first time your character approaches a locked door she can think to herself "Gosh, I need this red key to open the door"

It's definitely a challenge to provide the right amount of guidance to a new a player, but the reward of reworking the tutorial would be getting players into the game much faster (and hopefully decreasing the amount of people that quit before giving the game a fair try).

I think the key to this problem is to look at how all the old successful 2d platformers handled this stuff. Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Cosmo, Halloween Harry, etc. Your game uses a different visual perspective but the gameplay elements are very similiar.

[David York]

Mark, you shipped!!!! Congratulations!!!

[Alchemygames]

That looks very nice, and was instantly playable.

Well done... :)

[Mark Fassett]

Thanks. It's been selling pretty well, too - at least up til this weekend. Was getting roughly 3 orders a day for the first week or so, but this weekend has been barren. Highs and lows :)

[Cogin]

One suggestion: I you could make that big image (with guys) on homepage antialiased it would look much better.