Bullet Candy

[charlie]

Hi,

I've just finished my new game, Bullet Candy. It's an arena shooter in the Robotron/Asteroids vein, but with my own twist to it.

if your interested, please check it out at:

http://www.charliesgames.co.uk

Cheers
Charlie

http://temp.macdock.com/charliesgames/page11/page3/files/page3-1012-full.jpg

[svero]

A small window comes up that says "loading" and then the game just quits and nothing happens.

[Savant]

I started it up but when I click on "Options" I see the options for a second and then they all vanish, leaving me with a cursor and an animating background. I can then hit ESCAPE to exit the game.

[charlie]

sounds like i've got a bug! I'll take a look straight away.

Cheers
Charlie

[charlie]

Ok, i fixed the bug. Sorry for any inconvenience.

To give it a try, please download again.

Cheers
Charlie

[charlie]

Svero, what sort of graphics card do you have? is it integrated or SMA?

Cheers
Charlie

[DadTimesTwo]

I see the options for a second and then they all vanish...

Same thing happens to me no matter which menu selection I choose.

[cliffski]

works fine here now. V impressive effects, but a bit too hard at the start.
Also the music sounds like its breaking up. maybe im an old fuddy duddy and thats what groovy hip-house-trance-hop sounds like, but its awful.
great visuals though.

[Savant]

With the new version, I'm now getting the same thing as svero. Endless loading screen.

[Sillysoft]

I've been playing Bullet Candy for a few days actually, since I saw it appear on the Apple Downloads site. It's a fun game, I have enjoyed it.

I noticed that the version on Apple Downloads uses the macgamestore for sales, instead of going direct to you. You might want to look at getting the version on there to use a direct link if you want to make more on any sales coming from there.

[Speckled Jim]

Works OK for me too.

Some thoughts: The mouse target cursor seems way too big, coupled with the cross lines. I can see your reasoning, as it's easy to lose the cursor on a busy screen, but this seems over done.

I only played the first 5 levels or so, but I noticed everything spawns at once, so the game is only really difficult for the first few seconds of each level while you scramble to clear a safe spot. It really needs to be spawning groups in over time, as this allows you to make levels longer without piling everything on at the start.

[arcadetown]

Defintely one of the more interesting looking games have seen in a while.

Started it and got some config info screen with options for shrapnel on/off and other stuff and was no way to exit that screen or start game. Pressed esc to exit, restarted, then got the standard main menu that expected and was able to play.

[charlie]

Defintely one of the more interesting looking games have seen in a while.

Started it and got some config info screen with options for shrapnel on/off and other stuff and was no way to exit that screen or start game. Pressed esc to exit, restarted, then got the standard main menu that expected and was able to play.

There was no back button listed at the botton of that screen?

Cheers
Charlie

[Nikster]

Works fine here too, very nice candy :) I can't help thinking it's a candy version of geometry wars though, still fun all the same.

[Sol_HSA]

Very pretty.

Some notes:

- Options screen is very confusing. Took a while to figure out that one color means on and the other off, and that other things are radio buttons, and which of those is 'on'. This definitely needs some work.

- In-game items are hard to tell apart. Big powerups look like something hostile, small powerups look pretty same as some of the enemies, and given that bullets and particle effects have higher contrast than the enemies, they're easy to miss. This may all be just me, though, and maybe it was the point to make enemies hard to spot.

- I ended up just running after the small powerups and was surprised whenever levels ended. (I had autofire on)..

- Windows windowed version: I tried to quit by clicking on the top right corner 'x'. The window closed, but the music continued. Had to kill the task through task manager.

[jankoM]

I can't get past menu... anything I click menu disappears and nothing else shows up. I have win2k

[charlie]

I can't get past menu... anything I click menu disappears and nothing else shows up. I have win2k

Try downloading again, i posted a new version earlier in the day.

Cheers
Charlie

[RohoMech]

interesting game, not sure if I'd really call it fast paced, it seemed kinda slow on my machine.

I also had the music play after the game quit, but I hit alt+f4 to leave it.

I don't know who your audience is, but you don't have instuctions for the game, it'd be handy to have a quick screen explain what's going on.

Also, why are the initial loading screens + initial option screens soo small? And its really funny to see the Aqau theme when I'm running Windows....and it'd be nice if the buttons indicated they were being moused over somehow, at first I thought it was just a picture I couldn't click on.

Anyways, good luck with the game, PM me if you'd like more feedback.

[adamw]

Lovely looking game. Good particle system. Reminds me of some PomPom efforts - and that's quite a compliment.

I didn't like the lines from target - good to see that option to turn it off.

It was also too hard for me. It wasn't entirely clear what to shoot (I suspect that's intentional). And things closed in entirely too fast.

I recall a thread here on the forum that made a good argument for easy levels. I suggest you do that - make the early levels almost *too* easy - suck the player in and make it harder later.

[charlie]

thanks for the feedback so far :)

I've done an update that fixes the following bugs:

crashing on the loading screen (now offers a choice of drivers, should now work with PCs with integrated graphics chips or SMA thingies)

music remaining playing after game is quit via the X button in the corner of a window

you can download this version from here:

http://c-knight.madasafish.com/Bullet_Candy_Win_Demo.zip

If someone with an integrated graphics chip/card can confirm that the game runs in directX mode, that would be great (I don't have my laptop with me at the moment)

As far as the difficulty goes, then yeah, it is a little harsh at the beginning. I've made changes to the Mac version but haven't updated the level data for the Windows build yet.

Thanks again for the feedback so far...

Cheers
Charlie

[svero]

Svero, what sort of graphics card do you have? is it integrated or SMA?

Cheers
Charlie

Integrated intel card on my laptop. (815)

[charlie]

Integrated intel card on my laptop. (815)


You should find that the version i posted above works now. using the directX driver.

Cheers
Charlie

[dxgame]

Doesn't work on any of the Onboard Intel Boxes I have. (3 of them. Standard issued Wally-World Compag/HP models, Intel Extreme)

BUT.. it DID work on my Geforce 4MX box. Ran around 30fps when alot of action was on screen. Very cool game. Congrats! :)

[svero]

You should find that the version i posted above works now. using the directX driver.

Cheers
Charlie

Nope. Same behaviour

- S

[charlie]

Svero, rats, i thought i had that bug fixed. back to the drawing board.

I've put a new update on my site, which fixes the bugs mentioned above. It also addresses the difficulty level making it easier for people using keyboard and mouse controls. Most importantly though, i've put online hi-scores in, which you can view from the hi-score menu on the main options screen.

So come on then, show us your scores :D

http://www.charliesgames.co.uk

Cheers
Charlie

[charlie]

Hi again,

i've been working away on Bullet Candy this week for an update released next week. I wondered if i could take five minutes of your time to see if this build works on machines with intel chips. I'm pretty confident about this, as the two machines i've tested it on so far have both run it fine. But i'd like to be sure.

heres the link for the Windows version, it's not got the updated stuff in it yet (i do all the coding on my Mac and then port it across) but it's an improvement on the versions i posted previously.

http://temp.macdock.com/charliesgames/Bullet%20Candy.zip

You'll need to select 'Direct X' video driver if you have an intel graphics chip machine.

Thanks all.

Cheers
Charlie