Titan Attacks!!!!

[princec]

http://www.puppygames.net/titan-attacks

There you go, done. There are bugs, but I'll fix 'em in a bit. No Linux (Webstart) version yet, will do that tomorrow.

Cas :)

[soniCron]

w00t!! PuppyGames in da house! :)

[Savant]

CRAP! It shuts down immediately for me after presenting me with a buy screen - I guess because I had the beta versions installed before? Is there any workaround for this? :( I'd love to play the new demo...

[princec]

Oh er um woops, please redownload it anyway coz that's the debug build I uploaded last night that starts on level 81 .. with no guns or anything :/ (Your demise 3 seconds later is assured)

If any of you guys wants a "code", PM me or drop me a line. I think you deserve it for all the help.

Cas :)

[Dylan Fitterer]

Good stuff - I played for much longer than planned. It was a lot of fun to try and keep saving for the better upgrades while fueling my consumption of shields and nukes.

[Nexic]

I dunno what it is but this version seems a lot more fun than the last. I think the mouse movement speed is pretty good, though maybe it should be a little faster from the start? Early on I found it really hard to hit things (because I couldn't keep up) but after getting the first speed upgrade it didn't feel anywhere near as frustrating. Also when I upgraded my gun I couldn't see any obvious indication that it had got more powerful... perhaps it should change colours slightly? For example it could gradually change from blue to red, red being the highest power level.

Eitherway I really like this, and to be honest it's one of the best Space Invaders style games I've played. I think Alien Sky is a little bit better (I liked their graphics more) but other than that TA goes unchallenged.

I would really like to see this sell well :)

Oh and I wanted to post my score but it said the highscores were unavailable? I did set my firewall to allow it.

[princec]

Sorry, was just bouncing the hiscore server to get rid of all the beta hiscores.

Cas :)

[cliffski]

Sorry, was just bouncing the hiscore server to get rid of all the beta hiscores.

Cas :)


my mate tom will be in tears at this news...

[Savant]

New version does the same thing. :( Mucho sadness...

[Sharkbait]

Glad to see this game out at last... I really dig the graphical style!! :)

[DangerCode]

Congrats, princec. I'll check it out soon.

I know you've been through this debate countless times but you're selling youself short at $9.95.

[BIGZIPZ]

*purchased*

Cost me about £5.50

I could have bought a KFC meal for that little money. I think your efforts are worth so much more, this is a quality game mate.

[princec]

Oh I dunno, I think that works out about right for value-for-money. An evening's greasy entertainment followed by rolling around and groaning, or a bargain bucket with coleslaw. Your choice :)

Cas ;)

[Savant]

Rockin', thanks for setting me up Cas! :)

I think the challenge stages were changed for the worse - so much so that I don't even care about them anymore, which is a shame because I used to look forward to them. Ah well. The rest of the game is great though, really having fun with the mouse control!

[cliffski]

I still find the challenge states very difficult. Its a great game, it all falls apart so rapidly once you reach your mental/dexterity limits.
I predict good sales, I'm guessing 100 the first month at least :D

[Savant]

They're insanely difficult now. I probably just suck but I can't even hope to get a perfect without at least 3 smart bombs.

[Stu]

Nicely done. I like what you did with the sound FX and I'm pleased to see the mother ships hanging back a bit instead of getting down in my face. My only gripe is those nasty challenge stages with the saucers zipping by at light speed.

Maybe you'll give some sales stats after a while? I suspect you will make some good money on this. Congratulations, and go make another one.

[Nikster]

Nice nice, all good.. only thing I can see that maybe be wrong is the power up buy menu thingy at the end of each stage, you seem to be able to select a non existent option. To see what I mean, just push up when on the purchase power up screen.

[princec]

Just uploaded a challenge fix for you girls.

Cas :)

[Savant]

Thanks. It's much better now. It's still hard, but I now feel that it's my fault when I don't get it rather than thinking that the game is bullshit. :P

[BIGZIPZ]

hey princec. i paid by paypal earlier and my email does not seem to have been activated?

[princec]

Paypal unfortunately takes something like 3 days to clear :( Nothing I can do about it. When you get the email from BMT it'll be ready to go.

Thanks for your support :) Chaz will have a beer on you.

Cas :)

[Storm]

Excellent news, downloading right now!
Been waiting for this for a loooong time :)

[Anthony Flack]

Chaz will have a beer on you.

Now I'm reminded of that time wandering around Shinjuku with Chaz, searching for a place that sold beer that was cheap enough.

[princec]

Rich we certainly ain't :)

Sold 4 copies now in 24 hours now! w00t!

Cas :)

[Schik]

Another great game, Cas. Congrats.

But MAN, it seemed like a really short demo. I had a few shields left when I got to mothership 2, and suddenly I died, or at least thought I did. Then I realized the demo had timed out. Anyways, I love the visual style of this game.

[RohoMech]

yea, pretty neat stuff, I really liked the visual style a lot!

[AlexN]

Congrats! It works on my intel-based Macs. (MBP) :)

[princec]

Congrats! It works on my intel-based Macs. (MBP) :)
Hurrah! Great news.

Cas :)

[Larry Hastings]

Rich we certainly ain't :)
Sold 4 copies now in 24 hours now! w00t!
Well, it's at least five now, 'cause I bought one ;)

Excellent game--I love the visual style. It is, as Hanford would say, "chunky".

[Storm]

Why, oh why did you decide to turn off the Highscores at the time when I had my best score ever and almost completed all the stages twice in one game! :eek:
:)

[princec]

Arrgh! Well, I didn't turn it off, it was probably just a web glitch. Must figure out a nice scheme to send scores later if they fail the first time. And a local hiscores table. Etc. etc.

Actually I will have to wipe the hiscores in a few days coz I'm changing the game a bit for 1.1 and the difficulty will be quite different.

Cas :)

[Savant]

And what was up with those 3 at the top with over 24 million? Is that even possible? The 4th spot only had 4 million so I'm guessing the top 3 were cheating or spoofing packets or something. :)

[princec]

No, they've discovered a flaw in the gameplay/scoring system which I will be fixing in the next release (1.1, few days from new). And yes, I'll be wiping those hiscores :) I might well leave the rest intact as they obviously haven't discovered the technique yet!

Cas :)

[princec]

And while I'm at it how come after all the moaning about how slow Java is and how crap garbage collection is no-one has complained about the glaringly obvious garbage collections that keep stilting the gameplay on Windows?

That, too, will be fixed when I give the game a few more megs to run in :)

Cas :)

[Larry Hastings]

That, too, will be fixed when I give the game a few more megs to run in :)
How many more does it need? It was already eating > 140MB on my computer. Now, I have plenty of memory, so I guess memory pressure is low. But I am left wondering what it would be like on a RAM-strapped computer.

[princec]

Most of that memory (well, in fact nearly all of it) is down to the vagaries of the OpenGL drivers and so on. On my system for example it only uses 90mb. A lot of it is probably swapped and forgotten.

It needs at a guess around another 4mb of RAM so the garbage collector doesn't have to work so hard.

Cas :)

[HunterSD]

And what was up with those 3 at the top with over 24 million? Is that even possible? The 4th spot only had 4 million so I'm guessing the top 3 were cheating or spoofing packets or something.
Nah, 'nice try guys' is me, I played it without cheating. I even suicided because it was a bit boring the third time through. The game is basically broken now, the bombs are way too powerful. Even 100 or 200 million would be pretty easy to get, it's just a matter of playing the same game for hours. It doesn't get harder very fast once you play through it the first time.

I'm looking forward to trying to get a high score in the new version... hopefully all the scores will be wiped though because even 4 million might be a bit of a challange if he does what I think he'll do. It's trivial to get at the moment.

[Savant]

Nah, 'nice try guys' is me, I played it without cheating. I even suicided because it was a bit boring the third time through. The game is basically broken now, the bombs are way too powerful. Even 100 or 200 million would be pretty easy to get, it's just a matter of playing the same game for hours. It doesn't get harder very fast once you play through it the first time.

I'm looking forward to trying to get a high score in the new version... hopefully all the scores will be wiped though because even 4 million might be a bit of a challange if he does what I think he'll do. It's trivial to get at the moment.
... so any information as to what it is or how you do it? If he's fixing it, the information isn't going to hurt the game any. I'm curious.

[princec]

Oh, I'll tell you then, seeing as it's going to be fixed this weekend :)

There are two basic tricks:

The first one takes advantage of the cheapness of smartbombs. After playing through the easier levels at the start of the game and getting the ship suitably powered up, just spend your money on smartbombs. As soon as a remotely difficult level comes along, smartbomb your way out of it. You can easily smart your way through several levels at a time before an easier one comes along with enough aliens to earn enough money to buy another smartbomb or two.
Solution:Smartbombs are going to get $100 more expensive every time you buy one. Your tenth smartbomb is going to cost $1500!

The second trick takes advantage of the save/restore game feature. If it looks like you're going to get twatted, whack escape. Game instantly saves. Then restore the game; you get half a second of invulnerability which effectively means you can get out of any tight spots without even losing your multiplier.
Solution:There will be a half second delay when you hit escape now before the game stops, and the invulnerability time will be considerably less on restore, which should make save/restore still useful but very difficult to time correctly to take advantage of and abuse.

Known Bugs
Just so you don't need to tell me about them any more:

Some Windows computers have a problem with "sticky buttons". LWJGL problem. Very difficult to solve, so can't fix for 1.1.
Sometimes some particle effects remain stuck on the screen until the level ends. Java bites me in the ass! You C++ types would have experienced a complete game crash and been forced to fix it before release. Java just soldiers on and I got away with it :D
If you've got max shields and you win a small prize of a bonus shield it actually tries to give you two shields, causing an immediate ArrayIndexOutOfBounds crash when you go to the shop screen and tries to fill in the shields bar with one more than it's supposed to have
Garbage collection on windows makes the game jerk a little. Have increased memory by a few megs so it won't collect that often any more.
The bomber aliens bomb the hell out of you and are practically impossible to kill without losing your multiplier, which is fundamentally unfair. So they will be restricted in their ability to bomb.


Cas :)

[Savant]

Oh OK ... I use smart bombs in that way anyway but that's because I suck. :) Anything remotely difficult and I pull the smart bomb rip cord. Heh.

I hadn't thought of abusing the save/restore though. Damn!

[HunterSD]

I didn't use the save/restore thing, I'd consider that cheating.

[HunterSD]

Anyway, when are you going to put this game in your clone blog?

[princec]

I didn't use the save/restore thing, I'd consider that cheating.
Of course it was svero who discovered that one, the cheating bastard.

Cas :)

[BIGZIPZ]

Whats to stop people just editing the memory address strings, using say Artmoney, to get a super high score or something... can anything be done about that?

[princec]

Ignorance and laziness on their part, vigilance on mine.

Cas :)

[PaulCunningham]

Whats to stop people just editing the memory address strings, using say Artmoney, to get a super high score or something... can anything be done about that?

Mangling the score / lives, etc in memory (e.g. storing an XOR'd value) tends to slow the hackers down a bit.

[Savant]

Weird bug to report. I was at the end of the first challenge stage and was pissed because I missed one. I hit the right mouse button, just for the hell of it, and the smart bomb explosion went off - only, I didn't have any smart bombs. I then purchased one at the store and it still showed I didn't have any, so I assume that the weird one that went off sent me to -1 smart bombs, and buying one reset to zero because the NEXT one that I bought showed up properly.

[Jamie Cheng]

Amazing game! A couple of nights ago I binged on indie games to unwind and get a feel of what was coming out, and this was definitely the one I had the most fun with.

Thanks!

Small suggestion: it'd be nice if the installer asked if I wanted to run the game immediately instead of having me run it manually afterward.

[princec]

One day... one day...

btw your Eets game just looks absolutely utterly beautiful and is one of the most stylish games I've seen since the last Flacktastic release years ago. I hope it plays as well as it looks!

Cas :)

[Jamie Cheng]

Wow, that's high praise!

We're confident the game won't disappoint ;)

[Larry Hastings]

First, the good: TA told me automatically that 1.1 was out. Hooray! Now the bad: I am no longer allowed to play 1.0. It doesn't just suggest that you get the new version, the old version is now incapacitated. Nor does it offer to download and install it for you. It just stares at you; your only option is to exit. Sigh.


Second of all, I assume the 1.1 "super duper speedy fast saucers" are deliberate, but I think that's kinda teh suck. I am missing most of the saucers right now; for instance, when one comes early on a level with lots of bad guys, there is no realistic way to punch a hole through the cloud of bad guys to get a shot up to the saucer before it zips off screen. I, as a Casual Gamer, prefer the older, easier-to-hit saucers.

Perhaps you could strike a comprimise: the more aliens there are left, the slower the saucers are. A fast saucer in a clear sky is okay.

[princec]

Er, sorry, missed a mouse click trap there... hit ESC to clear the pink message and you can carry on with 1.0. Except you've got the new one now so never mind :) Still, it got you to upgrade which is what I wanted! I will work on some way of automatically downloading the new version I think but not just yet, got more important things to do.

About the saucer speed - it's now rigged to your ability as a player, but might be rigged a bit too hard right now, so I'll slow them a little in the next release, which should have a few more tunes and fixes in it.

Cas :)

[cybermonk]

I have to agree with Larry. Less saucers is less $$$. And combined with more expensive smartbombs, the game became a bit frustrating now for me. I liked 1.0 better :)
But at least I'm not bombed to death anymore in the levels before the moon boss!

[princec]

Tweaked, uploaded, enjoy.

Cas :)

[Larry Hastings]

Tweaked, uploaded, enjoy.Woulda been nice if you'd revved the version number. It still says 1.1. And it still tells me there's a new version available, even though I only downloaded it thirty seconds ago.

And, yes, I am certain I am using a fresh installer; I kept all the old ones, and sha1sum says this one is different. (The sum ends in AA75.)

[princec]

Haha, that's because I updated the message before I uploaded the new versions, teehee. What a fool am I. Download again ;)

I didn't rev the version number because 1.1 was only out for a day and the change is very, very minor.

Cas :)

[Larry Hastings]

A handful of feedback on TA 1.2:

Here's a fun question for the Titan Attacks player!
Q: How do you tell the difference between "alien is flashing because it's taking damage from your shots" and "alien is flashing because it's about to use its railgun at you?"
A:If it fires its raygun and you lose your multiplier, it was the latter.
Could you maybe change the visual effect? Like, maybe, invert its colors when it's charging up.

Also, I still think the saucer speed should increase over during the level. It's consistent with the rest of the game: the fewer aliens there are, the faster they travel.

You haven't killed all the stray particle generators; I still get 'em now and then. Mostly from destroyed asteroids I b'lieve.

Titan on TA 1.2 is freaking impossible. What changed? I think there are way more guys onscreen now. Were those "guys who leave behind trails of heavily armored guys" there before?

Finally, and this is just a vague suggestion, and not one I expect you to do anything about, but: it would have been nice if your alien shapes had more meaning than "here is an alien for you to shoot at". Like, an alien with a particular shape always behaves the same. Those boxy aliens which, the first time you see them, don't move? They should never move. Those mean Sinistar guys who dive at you? They should always dive at you. Furthermore, changes in what they shoot at you could be distinguished by color variations. The boxy stationary aliens are initially blue, and drop normal shots. But watch out for the dark gray ones, as they use railguns.

[Savant]

I pretty much agree with everything Larry said except for the saucer speed. I kind of liked having the saucers be harder to get. It made them seem more special and cool. Having said that, I hate tagging one and having it drop points now. I don't want to have to work and plan that hard for points. :)

[princec]

Titan's meant to be pretty difficult, but I've not actually made it any harder or changed it in any way... the game does adapt to your skill though, so it's giving you a bit of a challenge.

As for aliens and behaviours - well, yeah, did think of doing it that way, but decided to vary it between worlds, just for the hell of it. Can't be arsed to change it now! I've got a new game to write :D oh, it's just gonna kill you.

Cas :)

[svero]

A handful of feedback on TA 1.2:

Here's a fun question for the Titan Attacks player!
Q: How do you tell the difference between "alien is flashing because it's taking damage from your shots" and "alien is flashing because it's about to use its railgun at you?"
A:If it fires its raygun and you lose your multiplier, it was the latter.


Hahahaha. Perfect.

[aristid]

congratulations on the game.
very nice! :D

[Larry Hastings]

Okay, so, more questions:

If you have the laser ($8k addon), and there are aliens below you (happens a lot on Mars), the laser will actually fire downwards. Is that intentional?
How come it told me I didn't beat my all-time best when I just got #4, which I assure you is my highest score yet?
How do their lil' parachutes work on the moon? ;)

[svero]

How do their lil' parachutes work on the moon? ;)
[/list]

This one I can answer. By the time Titan/Human technology reaches a point where we can go to war against eachother the moon as been using Moon-o-Matic atmosphere generators and is actually a pretty cool low grav space golf resort.

[princec]

Hahahaha. Perfect.
Ok smartasses, I'll change the colour in 1.2, which won't be out particularly soon :)

Cas :)

[Jamie Cheng]

RE: Joypad support:

I was like "sweeeeeeet" then plugged in my PS2 joypad adapter. Unfortunately, TA didn't seem to recognize it. I use the EMS joypad adapter, and it works for other games, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Damn, I really wanted to try TA on a PS2 controller.

[princec]

Bugger!
I don't suppose you could take a peek in the install dir and find the log files for me? Maybe there's some errors logged in there.

Cas :)

[Jamie Cheng]

There's a ton of stuff there but this is probably what you're looking for:

No gamepads or joysticks enabled due to org.lwjgl.LWJGLException: Failed to initialise controllers

What's your email? I'll forward you the log file.

[princec]

No need, that's enough. Bah. Wonder what's wrong with it..

Cas :)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Wow - this has gotten MUCH harder. The smartbomb price escalation makes a big difference. I think it's too hard now, as there are a number of levels where you pretty much HAVE to smart bomb at the start or you get hosed. I was quite good at the old versions, but in the new, I can never make it past level 50 or so (in 4 or 5 tries). I think you've over-compensated.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

OK, I played one more game and got a lot further. Things get much easier, and money rolls in a lot faster, once you get to Saturn. I finisihed easily, then made it all the way around again to the last mothership (i.e. level 200) before losing.

I'd suggest just ending the game after 100 levels. Perhaps unlock a 'hard' difficulty then. Playing the game a second time through with all upgrades maxed out is dull.

Also, I've got a sound glitch - at the beginning of a level, I often get random, incorrect sound snippets (multiplier deactivated, etc.)

[Sillysoft]

I really like this game. I would agree with Phil about it becoming kind of dull after beating the homeworld and wrapping around though. I think once you get here, it would be OK to go super-hard on the player, make them really work to get through more.

[svero]

My personal opinion, and part of the reason Im not playing for a highscore with this, is that the game should just end after you beat the last baddie.

- S

[Pyabo]

Um... where is the gamepad support? Am I missing something...

[cliffski]

Keep playing guys, once it loops round twice, and you get to the new ships at Europa, things get really cool.

[Escapee]

i resist downloading the new demo of Titan assault because i know it's going to eat up at least 2 hours of my time ... Resist Resist ... resist the temptation, use the power of now :D!! .. anyway Congrat to u prince