Improved Mighty Rodent

[Nexic]

First off, just want to half appologize for making a new post. I just feel that no one would bother looking if I were simply to reply to the previous thread.

I've now made some improvements to Mighty Rodent, in order to make it a bit more fun early on, and to try and set it futher apart from Heavy Weapon. I didn't end up doing everthing I had planned, but I think the game is now a lot better. Thanks to all those who gave me feedback!

Improvements:
More levels (35 as opposed to 21 in the last version)
Levels are shorter (2/3 as long as before)
Special events during levels
Enemies drop coins that have to be collected to earn score
You start with the Xeno Assault style beam laser.
Modified the colours a bit on the first level so it isn't so hard to look at.
More interesting enemies earlier in the game.
Revamped upgrade system

I've reset the trial time for this version, so anyone downloading should get the full 30 minutes again.

**** PLEASE NOTE: If you played it before you should make sure to delete your old profiles.dat file, it is not compatible with this version. ****

Game Page: http://www.jaggedbladesoft.com/mightyrodent/
Screenshot: http://www.jaggedbladesoft.com/mightyrodent/screen1big.jpg
Download: http://www.jaggedbladesoft.com/mightyrodent/MightyRodentDemo.exe

Please let me know what you think! (especially those who thought the last version was a bit on the boring side)

[lowemark]

Hey, just wanted you to know that your bottom image on the mighty rodent game page is linked to the same large image as the top one (screen1big.jpg). :)

[Nexic]

RATS!!!

(mwahaha)

[arcadetown]

I like a the modifications overall but things need some fine tuning. In general now things feel like I get a bunch of stuff really fast thus there's no anticipation or reward feeling for accomplishment.

- like the dropped coins idea but it's way overdone thus no "reward" feeling. I'd like to see normal scores for destroying things and occasionally they drop a coin that you pick up for upgrade.

- push part where drop tons of coins to only after destroy a boss. Right now it happens all the sudden, no idea why, and there so much of it constantly happening it feels more like a chore rather than a reward.

- way to much given out right away in the first level. Also you introduced 2 new enemies on first level right about 50% which felt like too much to fast. I'd like some time to get used to a new enemy before adding another, plus throwing things out so fast killed any anticipation factor that drives people to keep playing.

- Levels still feel very long. Would have expected a new level to start right about your current 60 - 70% mark that was right before all the new enemy types appeared.

- By making the first level even shorter you get to the upgrade store faster. Upgrades are where it's at. Once people see that they'll be more interested. Unfortunately I don't think many users will even get to that point since the first level is so long.

p.s. I'd really like to see a more woman friendly name that also plays off the character better. Something like "Dirty Harry" I could see getting tons of clicks. Of course that could cause legal issues but not sure a mouse character in a video game would infringe a human movie character. Anyhow I'd shoot for a uber cool name that won't turn off women plus won't have any potential legal issues.

[Indiepath]

Doh! Thanks for letting me know :)
You are supposed to say "RATS!"

[Nexic]

Man, I have real problem coming up with names. Anyone got any ideas for one along the lines of what Brian suggested?

Seriously if I try to come up with a better name I'll probably end up with an even worse one.

[RohoMech]

That's a pretty cool looking game, for some reason it sounded sorta soft on my system, I expected more bass from the sounds.

I did have fun playing, just a few comments:

The bomb item is a triangle pointing to the right, how come its not the same bomb icon that shows how many bombs I have?

Also, the laser bar being on the left middle side of the screen was kinda annoying to look at, any way you could put it around the cursor? Like a circular line around it or something, that way I don't have to look away from where the aciton is.

[Bmc]

1 thing that you should change-
A user shouldn't have to restart the game for a Display change to take effect

[Hamumu]

For the coin issue, the first thing that came to mind was that combos should drop coins. Normal kills, you just get paid, but when there's a combo, a coin or coins drop relative to the value. I think that would be fun and less of a constant rain of coins.

Speaking of rains of coins, I really think the Look Out and Coin Drop events add a lot of excitement. But those spring-loaded badguys are WAY more evil than anything else. I am guaranteed to lose a minimum of 1 shield each time they pop out, often a life. While I'm breezing through the rest of the game mostly unharmed. I think if they had less horizontal momentum they'd be a lot less deadly, since they wouldn't end up sliding along the ground for so far.

And speaking of dying, I think the "You Suck" and "You just got your ass kicked" gravestones need to go (obviously my opinion here, even though that sounds like I'm dictating your game to you!). If you want a kiddy fun game, you can't have adult rude comments in it, or you will get yelled at by moms*.

I got to the robot boss who stomps and had Heavy Weapon flashbacks. I don't think you need to change him, but there was that same itching frustration that HW bosses caused, where you had a boss you where fighting, but you couldn't point your gun at him because to do so meant driving into his death zone. SO annoying. But it's really fine, just my own issue, and it is a way to add a different sort of challenge (much more tolerable here where the boss doesn't take 6 hours of shooting to kill). I would definitely prefer more bosses of the giant fish of doom sort than stomping, though.

Shorter levels were nice. Could be shorter still, but I liked it alright.

Weirdness: it always is odd to me when a game has you buying permanent powerups, but offers the same powerups in levels, only those aren't permanent. I guess that's fine, but it doesn't make any sense. If the level ones were time-limited, it would be more logical, although also fairly annoying.

Also weird: the gun pretty much alternates between blue and green bullets as it upgrades. It would be a lot more meaningful if it went through a sequence - blue bullets are weakest, then green is better, then purple, then red, or whatever. And of course get bigger, faster, wider. As it is now, one level doesn't look more powerful than the previous, just different.

I would like more things to buy. This is really just my own thing, as I am obsessed with upgrading stuff. Ideas: split beam laser powerups into "charge time" and "power", so you could make it recharge more quickly if you were more interested in that than making it deadlier (I almost couldn't use the beam anymore after 5 or 6 levels, there was too constant of an attack). Similarly the gun could be split into "fire rate" and "damage". Missiles same deal - rate of launch, damage. More weapons... mines you drop (out of...somewhere) every so often that, after a moment, flare a beam straight up into the sky, zapping everything in a straight line. Air mines that float up on balloons and don't hit anything, but explode after a while shooting bullets in every direction. Non-seeking missiles that fire when the beam laser does as a twist (giving you another way to beef up that damage). Nuclear Shielding, explodes in a big radius around you (like a lesser superbomb) every time you lose a shield. Shield Charger, gathers energy when you're not shooting eventually healing shields you lost (like if your non-shooting time adds up to 30 seconds or so you gain one). Bomb Charger, builds up as you kill things, eventually earning you a bomb. Buzzsaws, because buzzsaws are good bullets. Shocker that continuously zaps nearby enemies for a tiny bit of extra damage. Other kind of shocker that zaps bullets out of the sky that get near you, but can only zap one per second or so. And of course all of these things have 10 levels of upgrades, possibly in two different ways, although I'd let you get away with just one type of upgrade per weapon if you had all those different weapons.

And then if you arrange all that stuff into categories and have hamster scientists you pay to research the different categories before you can buy from them, your sales** quadruple!

And then let me buy bonus challenges, little mini-levels where you deal with a specific and obnoxious onslaught and have to do it without getting hit (no actual penalty for dying, and you get money for succeeding). There could be one for each boss, plus others like a rain of bombs, a wave of kamikaze planes, whatever.

If you need somebody to map out all these new additions for you in detail, you should be aware that I offer pro-bono game design work.

So as you can see by the twelve page post, I'm excited about the game, seems like a winner to me (which means a failure in the portal world).

*The original Dr. Lunatic said "You Suck" when you died, if you flipped a switch in the options menu from "Sanitized" to "Classic", and I never got any complaints. But then again, that was before there were portals! And of course it was a bit hidden.

**To me and clones of me.

[Christian]

Ok, i liked the graphics, very nice, the music, sounds but some sounds i think need to be more emphatized sometimes just a little, i liked the hamster a lot too :) (i had one guinea pig that lived for 8 years).

What i didnt like:
- In the begining i started avoiding the coins because they dont look like coins, they look like yellow balls that alines shoot at you, when one touched me i realized they gave me money, but not until then.

-When i died i couldnt read some messages (too small font size), but i readed "you suck" and it hurted my feelings...

-I didnt like to have no idea how long the boss was going to resist, that is a game design flaw, you need to put some way of knowing how the player progresses (like the "amost imperseptible" (no offense meant) progress number on the top part of the screen) in killing its enemies, specially if its a long fight.

- i didnt like the "almost imperseptible" progress bar on top of the screen, how about a little hamster that indicates the progress along a bar? if the hamster is at the left, it is just starting, if the hamster is close to the right of the bar, then it is close to finish the level.

- I didnt like that i cant jump, i was hoping, specting that the hamster was able to jump... this game reminds me of army moves of the commodore 64.

Other ideas:

- weapons that dont just go where the pointer is, but do other movements, like, they follow a trail, or are just fixed at an angle.
- many weapons at the same time.
- enemies that are on the floor
- the ability to stop
- rescue hamsters (?)

Good luck with your game, its really good.

[RohoMech]

oh one more thing, how about a life-bar for the bosses?
Heavy Weapon has one....

[svero]

Honestly it's hard to know where to begin. The thing is just a mess to me I'm afraid and this version isnt really that much better than the last. It seems a little all over the place... not quite bad.. but not quite good either. Anyway.. others seem to like it so perhaps it's just me.

I will say that I agree with the comments about the coins. They fall way too often. Tone that down. I also agree with changing the tombstones. In fact as death sequences go that's rather boring... I think you could do better although Im not exactly sure what. Maybe a lot of fur and him spinning off the screen or something.

[dxgame]

I just hope developers realize we HAVE To take our own comments about each other's games with a grain of salt. ;) When ever possible, use your existing customer base for more realistic "paying customers" feedback. :)

Can you imagine how perfect our games would have to be if "we" were the typical end users? ugh.... lol. :)

[Nexic]

Honestly it's hard to know where to begin. The thing is just a mess to me I'm afraid and this version isnt really that much better than the last. It seems a little all over the place... not quite bad.. but not quite good either. Anyway.. others seem to like it so perhaps it's just me.


Funnily enough the whole reason I made this game was mainly because of what you (svero) said about Desperate Space. I think it went along the lines of "Interesting game but I don't think it will sell that well, I think instead you need to apply the same level of polish to a more casual game"

Well this is it, and you don't like it so that about sums up my luck with shareware game development.

I still don't know why it's a mess to you... Are we still talking visually or gameplay? If visually then I might understand to a small extent what you are saying, if gameplay then I have no idea what the big deal is? Is it just that you don't like the HW control system? (even though you liked HW)

The bomb item is a triangle pointing to the right, how come its not the same bomb icon that shows how many bombs I have?

Really have no idea what you mean? A bomb powerup is a circle with a bomb icon in the middle (one that looks exactly like the bomb on the HUD) and on the upgrade screen it shows the exact same graphic as on the HUD. I don't think there is a single powerup or upgrade that looks like a triangle pointing to the right.

I want to say thanks for all the neat ideas Hamumu, but too be honest I doubt I'll add all of those features, simply because I only have about 60 years of life left, and I doubt those features could be added in that rather short amount of time! Eitherway I'm thrilled you like it.

I would definitely prefer more bosses of the giant fish of doom sort than stomping, though.


That is the only stomping boss :-) As I mentioned before, I thought HW was really bad for having ground units and that kind of enemy so I've kept that sort of thing to a minimum.

[svero]

>Funnily enough the whole reason I made this game was mainly because of
>what you (svero) said about Desperate Space. I think it went along the
>lines of "Interesting game but I don't think it will sell that well, I think
>instead you need to apply the same level of polish to a more casual game"

Right. And I still believe that statement was correct. I've been following you with much interest. I thought xeno assault 2 was a very good game. I thought desperate space an improvement overall in quality and your skill, but hard to market due to the control mechanism and style. So I do think you took the right direction are are ultimately headed towards goodness. I just feel its kind of a crooked path you're taking to get there. All the stuff isnt quite coming together as fast as it should. The idea, making a shooter with more coloful bright graphics and with a more casual accessible interface was a very good one. My complaint isnt with the direction you took so much as the specific implementation and the game you chose to emulate.

>I still don't know why it's a mess to you... Are we still talking visually or
>gameplay? If visually then I might understand to a small extent what you
>are saying, if gameplay then I have no idea what the big deal is? Is it just
>that you don't like the HW control system? (even though you liked HW)

Right.. Well it is hard to articulate. I think I'd sum it down to a number of factors.

I kind of liked heavy weapon and would have been happy to see it succeed, but there are elements about that game that I didn't really care for. I think it sort of squeaked by and stayed interesting because, while on some levels I think it's a flawed title, it brought a level of polish to the table that saved it. Your game seems to take the so-so interface and applies it to something that doesn't quite have the same level of polish and flare as the popcap title. So to my mind, you chose a game to emulate that wasn't really a big hit to start off with, and then took the so-so parts from that game and redid them more poorly than the original. It wasn't the best game choice to use as a model.

As well the direct comparisons between your game and HW jades me a bit. Even though Im not a big anti-cloning advocate by any means, (I really like to take games and remake them with twists etc..) I don't like to see games that emulate others too closely in style when it's not necessary. Why did it have to start out with a snowy looking level? Why did the right mouse button have to be a super bomb? etc... There's a ton of directions you could have taken while still emulating the general casualness of the game and maybe even improving on it. It's not really all that constrained a genre. It seems some of the elements you emulate weren't necessary. The comparisons between the two games really didnt have to be so easy to make.

There are a number of specific other points but it gets quite long to detail it. I would simply say.. look at how things attack in platypus vs how they attack in HW and your game. I pefer the cleaner cleverer attack patters that Platypus has to the somewhat random cluttered feel of HW.

I actually think you're a really talented developer and I admire you for taking steps in the direction of producing something more marketable. I think ultimately you'll succeed at producing some really solid sellers. I dont know how this will do for you relative to your other stuff. I think it will probably sell better than desperate space as it is defintely more accessible than that title was, but I suspect you have it in you to have produced something a lot more interesting.

[bentlegen]

I've got to say, although I'm not a big fan of this game (I got bored of Heavy Weapon as equally fast), I'm quite impressed with the level of presentation you've put together. A nice colorful UI, big easy to read fonts ... I thought it was very well done.

As for comments about the game itself, this is nitpicky, but I found the "basic" gun to be pretty weak. It seemed pointless to use, even when upgraded, when I could just wait two seconds, charge up the laser cannon, and clear the screen with a swipe of the mouse. Also, although I liked the effect, I often got confused between the ships flying in the background and the projectiles in the foreground.

[EJSainz]

Hello, EJSainz here,

I've played the game for 20 minutes and I've got some good and bad things to say. As for the goods, the overall looking is very professional, and the gameplay is straight, and easy to learn.

As for the bad things, I've got some complaints about the difficulty and the time it takes to feel like "I've played the same scene one minute ago".
-About the difficulty, I feel that the trick of "the first bonus you get when you are out of lives is a live" makes the game quite previsible, thus making lives something expendable until higher levels (in my first game I played 26% of the normal mode) .
-About the "I've played the same scene one minute ago" sensation, I think the game has a wide variety of elements, but the use seems just randomist. I really believe that focusing the waves in a somewhat "puzzle" manner would help to create "situations" that could make one level very different from other levles.

Right now you've created some "situations" by combining different kinds of enemies in a moment. The problem is that the way to solve the situations is simply the same in every moment: fire and evade. There's no place for any kind of strategy, or for taking a decision. Consider a situation as a moment where your intelligence and skills will really make the difference between life and death.

As an example inspired on your game: after a coin rain, two starships appear at both sides of the screen projecting a laser beam, and slowly approaching the center. The more you fire a vulcan at them, the less they seem to care for you. Instead, if you fire a laser beam at them, they'll 1) step back a little and 2) open some device that hides a vulnerable part. Now that they are vulnerable, vulcan damage does really matter.

In fact, this single situation can be used even three times with little and interesting variations:
1) The two ships are the only ones in the screen, so it's easy to charge the laser beam
2) There are many other little ships, so charging the beam is somewhat difficult
3) The ship vulnerable part fires at you, so opening both ships vulnerable parts is nearly a suicide

Of course, this is just an example and the implementation could result a fiasco, specially with the rodent control system (it would have to go back and forward to get a position where it could aim at the ships without stepping under the laser beams), but I believe it illustrates the idea of situations as a very good way of changing the players way of playing, thus having to develop new ways of playing, thus giving them a lot of variation and fun.


I hope this helps :) . Keep up the good work!

[EJSainz]

Of course, this is just an example and the implementation could result a fiasco, specially with the rodent control system

Thinking a bit further, have you considered the control of the rodent to be independent from the control of the cursor? Something lika A left, D right, mouse aiming (SPACE jump????). This could make you have a more flexible way to create situations like those I described before.

[Bmc]

Thinking a bit further, have you considered the control of the rodent to be independent from the control of the cursor? Something lika A left, D right, mouse aiming (SPACE jump????). This could make you have a more flexible way to create situations like those I described before.


that's just an all-around bad idea if he wants this game to appeal to the casual crowd.


I say you just cut your losses and release it as is. It probably won't appeal to casual gamers like you hoped, but when you make assumptions instead of doing research stuff like this will often happen.

[Anlino]

I have to agree with Bmc. If you continue to polish it, you may spend months on it - just because someone says that this and that should be so every time. You can't please everybody anyhow, so my avice to you is to release it, and start on something new.

[Nexic]

but when you make assumptions instead of doing research stuff like this will often happen.

I think it's a wild assumption to make that I didn't do any research. You are all talking as if I'm doomed to failure without having a clue how well it will sell. You are basically saying that because a bunch of developers don't like it, that the customers, who are in most respects totally opposite in opinion, won't like it.

Imagine how stupid you will feel if I do hit some top tens...

[princec]

I think it's a wild assumption to make that I didn't do any research. You are all talking as if I'm doomed to failure without having a clue how well it will sell. You are basically saying that because a bunch of developers don't like it, that the customers, who are in most respects totally opposite in opinion, won't like it.

Imagine how stupid you will feel if I do hit some top tens...
Here in the UK we love an underdog and I hope it does well just to spite us :D Actually it doesn't even have to make a big pile of cash, it's just got to make you a profit, and I suspect it will, and that'd be cool. Remember the Puppytron experiment!

Cas :)

[Nexic]

Well I haven't made a game in the last year and a half that hasn't made a profit ^.^

[princec]

Then you can safely say you're doing about 1000x better than I am as none of my games have even broken even :) I'd ignore everyone and just get on with another game if that's how it's worked out for you!

Cas :)

[Bmc]

Imagine how stupid you will feel if I do hit some top tens...

I don't think I'll be feeling stupid anytime soon.

I think it's a wild assumption to make that I didn't do any research. You are all talking as if I'm doomed to failure without having a clue how well it will sell. You are basically saying that because a bunch of developers don't like it, that the customers, who are in most respects totally opposite in opinion, won't like it.

I'm not making any assumptions.... and my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the opinion of anyone else in this thread. My opinion is based on playing your game.

I KNOW you didn't do ENOUGH research. If you had you wouldn't of made some of the mistakes you have.

The game is not awful by any means... it's just not going to have the mass appeal you think it will.

ps. I apologize for the original comment, as it was kind of out of place... but I do believe I'm right

[EJSainz]

that's just an all-around bad idea if he wants this game to appeal to the casual crowd.


I say you just cut your losses and release it as is. It probably won't appeal to casual gamers like you hoped, but when you make assumptions instead of doing research stuff like this will often happen.


Maybe I'm wrong, but by the look of Nexic's homepage, and his moto "we supply the enemies, you supply the destruction", I dare to guess what kind of visitors is he having, and it's not exactly the casual kind. Therefore, maybe it's a matter of positioning: if your current customers are not casual, and you are doing well, then going casual may not be the best idea.

Of course, if Nexic plans selling on portals where no specific kind of players are to be found (call them casual), aiming widely sounds like a good idea, but I've always liked to think that word spreading helps as just as much as a good review from sites where the reviewers are nearest to think as a developer than as an average person.

But of course, in the end I just won't know until I publish my first game :D , but talking is sooo cheap ...

[terin]

I think this game will do fine Neil. It will perform like HW did, which from the Popcap perspective WAS a failure- but I daresay their goals are a WEE bit higher than yours ;-)

I'm sure 95% of the devs out here would like to have the sales volume that HW has/had... I know it wasn't a Bookworm or Bejeweled, but I daresay it made a small heap of money (unclear if that meant a profit for Popcap).

Anyway, my instinct is it will outperform your last couple games but will not set any new records for shooter sales. I'm quite sure it will recoup your time investment :)

-Joe

[Nexic]

Anyway, my instinct is it will outperform your last couple games but will not set any new records for shooter sales. I'm quite sure it will recoup your time investment.

Just so you know, I never thought this game could become the best selling shooter ever and make me ten squillion dollars, I'm not totally stupid ^.^ My aim was simply to get it accepted on a few bigger portals like Real, and then hopefully make a small and brief appearence in their top ten (like HW did).

Eitherway Joe, hearing that from you will make me sleep easier tonight :-)

[Leper]

1) I bought the game.. It's pretty good!
2) I am at mars already (3 hours in game) in medium (should be 16 hours to mars I thinks, unless u have more levels)
3) I have all the power ups already (but I did replay desert levels :))
4) I've never lost all my lives, and I'm on MARS (the last world right?)
5) One of the bosses in mars totally screws up the game..
http://www.mattmcfarland.com/MR_bug.jpg
It causes all the bullets to stay still and yes, hurt you too..

Other than that, the game is good, but it lacks in variety. What I mean is, it would be nice for other enemy weapon types like weapons that degrade your powerups, or make you unable to shoot for 5 seconds or more. Maybe areas where you have to jump (although that would cause a lot of recoding, it would stilll own heavy weapon)

You've made improvements for sure, the catching Gold thing is great (works very well and makes you want to move more) but its just not enough!

I'm not a big Heavy Weapon fan, but I do like Mighty Rodent, it is unfortunate that the game is this short, this easy(on medium), and still repetetive. Overall, it's still pretty good compared to most of the games on reflexive ;)

My only gripe with your games is, Nexic, they're too short, and too easy! Just for fun, make a hard game ;) I bet I'll buy it!

[arcadetown]

Checked latest build and see you did many of people's suggested mods. Nice! A little more...

- Coin dropping from dead enemies about about right except every so often I randomly get 2 or 3 coins right next to each other after killing a few enemies. Perhaps add extra logic so never 2 coins dropped right after each other.

- was playing level 4 or 5 and got 2 different coin drop modes on same level and also had one on level 2. Still too much. Also should they be at end of a level or during levels?

- laser seems too powerful on beginning levels, perhaps needs toned down. Be careful as figure any tweaks can hurt later levels so just do on beginning?

[Nexic]

Thanks for the comment Matt, and thanks for buying it!

Gotta say though, maybe you should have played on Hard or Insane? Really if has taken you 3 hours to get to Mars then you are looking at a total completion time of over 4 hours, which I think is actually pretty good compared to most downloadable shooters. I can't think of any that have taken me that long to complete. And it's at least a lot longer than Desperate Space, which you completed in like and hour?

But really Matt, are there any other shooters you have played which lasted as long?

I'll fix up that boss and email you once it's done.

Doing some of those minor changes won't take me long Brian so I'll have them done soon. Right after GD that is.

[Chris Evans]

Yeah I think 3-4 hours is pretty good, IMO. There's a lot of dowloadables (even non-shooters) that have much less time than that.

[aristid]

finally found the time to check out the rodent, and here's my opinions on it:

my personal expectations from a game of this type, is for it to be challenging, not last too long, rewarding and exhausting (in a good way!), so I'm not your typical casual games player.

I agree on most parts with EJSainz, the fact that it seems random. I understand you have set up 'spawning situations' (for lack of better words) based on the percentage of level completed, but it just doesnt seem enough. Thinking about it, the fact that a ship appears exactly when the other dies gives away the spawning mechanic and reminds you you're fighting a computer, not the aliens. Maybe waiting a random bit before respawning a saucer could help in this in some situations, mix it up a bit. In later levels this is not so apparent as all hell is breaking loose anyway! but I'd pay special attention to the first level, as this is what everyone's confronted with initially.

reminder: this criticism is meant to be helpful.

I enjoyed how the little guys point at you with their guns (hilarious!), the kamikazee, and love the weapons. Don't really mind the rodent. If that's your character, it's ok by me. Presentation is well done and a bit too casual for my tastes, but thats what youre actively aiming for, so it should be fine.

I feel the easy part drags for too long (you knew it was coming!)

I think having such a great similarity in the level selection screen with platypus' (the globe) is not good for the game. I personally got an uneasy negative feeling when I first saw it, and it's something I'd want to avoid having. Gets me in an immediate 'compare with platypus' mode.

reminder: this criticism is meant to be helpful.

background travelling aliens definitely need a way to be distinguished. A blue hue (platypus again) should do it very well. After level 4, when they get big, it starts being a serious problem.

Overall, the game feels repetitive, and it shouldnt, as there are many enemies and situations. The HW mechanic is not one of my preferred ones to say the least.
Major part of the repetitive feeling, in my opinion, comes from the fact that the backgrounds are very static (a parallax scrolling background that is being called static, that's a first!) The first thing I would do is create some variety in the backgrounds. I'd get a few more graphics in there and create landscapes. They can even be randomly generated. I dont think it will be hard to do, and I'd definitely go for it. Players will want to have a journey, esp. as it is a side scrolling shooter with parallax backgrounds, and, at this time, we're not having one.
Even if this doesnt happen (which I strongly think you should go for it), I'd definitely swap the first level to one of the later ones.

reminder: this criticism is meant to be helpful.

overall, I feel the repetitive background situation is what needs to be addressed to. As the rest of the game is in place, I wouldnt suggest tweaking all that much.

I wish you the best of luck with the game, hope it all goes well, and, yes, you're very young. I know it can get annoying (people used to tell me that when I was younger also), but at your age I was so stupid I cant even believe it.

cheers.

[Nexic]

reminder: this criticism is meant to be helpful.

You know, I didn't find anything you said close to insulting ^.^ But now... I kinda do, because YOU were thinking it was insulting! :p

:D

[svero]

Just out of curiousity are you finding this game is more accessible to players? Have you noticed increased sales relative to xa2 and desperate space?

[aristid]

a bit overprotective, there, I know. didnt mean disrespect.
some people are simply not open to honest (but always in good will) criticism, which is the type I try to do, and I didnt know if you were in that group.

[Nexic]

didnt mean disrespect.

Don't worry, I won't send the boys round on this occasion. :p

As for sales, they have been quite good so far, much better either XA2 or DS were doing this long after release. However with the relatively low volume I get at my site, it's really hard to know anything for sure until it appears in some larger places. So far most of the sales are coming from my newsletter base, which is a little larger than it was for DS and XA2. Conversion for subscribers is around 10% (larger than DS but lower than XA2) and CR for non subscribers is around 0.8% (larger than both DS and XA2). 0.8 seems low, but I've never had a game do better than 0.5% with any audience. But as I say it's early days to know for sure, especially as I don think my own audience is really casual enough to go for this game currently.

On the good side of things RealArcade seems to be quite interested, but nothing is set in stone as of yet.

I will probably show my first months sales figure for it as I always do.

[svero]

Well if real takes it and its selling better then I guess you've met your goal. I really think you can bring it on solid though. Looking forward to the next one. Please wow me... I think you've got it in you.