T.W.T.P.B. public beta released

[hObbE]

T.W.T.P.B a stylized shoot 'em up pc video game with tons of action and strategic elements has just been released in a public beta version, there are also new screen shots and a new gameplay video at the T.W.T.P.B. homepage.

The game features intense boss fights, special abilities and strategic thinking as well as the frantic action of a shooter.



T.W.T.P.B. now is in beta state. This means that all levels and features are in place and we'll move on to testing and polishing.

You find the demo download, screen shots and video at the shoot 'em up - T.W.T.P.B web page.

Feel free to comment and enjoy!
/hObbE

[svero]

Nice game. I liked the way the neon is sort of reflected below as a less opaque blurrier version for some enemy ships. Was pretty fun.

[tolik]

1) I'd expect the main ship to be of some geometric form as well for the sake of style consistency.
2) When you die, there's no text saying that you start from the start of the wave. This approach (start from the beginning) is long gone, no wave reset is needed, just remove a life and may be the powerups (geometry wars) or time (warning forever).
3) I'd expect some trance-psychodelic music in the background. Oh wait, music was turned off by default for me.
4) Main menu is confusing - stick to a standard approach, that means - just copy it from some human game, like geometry wars, do not invent something non-linear.
5) Missing 1920x1200 gfx mode
6) while switching gfx modes the game says i lack dx 9.0 while i have it.
7) hit collision boxes are lame
8) shooting sound is more annoying than other cool synthesized sounds
9) missing some first second wow power-up, available on the first second - e.g. bomb
10) it looks like the longer the game is on pause and alt-tab, the longer delay after clicking "CONTINUE" will work. e.g. alt-tab for 5 minutes = delay after continue up to 5 seconds.
11) click credits on pause and click escape. then click escape again - credits continue to scroll instead of pause menu.
12) that 3rd rotary wave in first level is too hard for most of the n00bz not familiar with bullet hell.
13) put some more impressive weapon since level #1 so people will WANT to play this game since first second. you must have first second wow factor impression. it could be a prequel level when you are super high level with invulnerability killing the last boss and then warping back into past.
14) lame fonts for lives (should be cool icons) and scores.
15) stop scrolling the background while on pause. i'm not flying!
16) various indicators need to have some kind of leet borders.
17) when you beat the boss, the main ship just disappears - take a look at some uber cool warp effects, e.g. astropop level complete
18) single mouse click shoots two blasts - I can't check how the scoring really works
19) other than that - some similar gameplay problems that i've experienced in game called gunraven few years ago - http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthr...light=gunraven


---


20) Starting from the beginning, I see that the game doesn't give a clear enough message "USE RIGHT BUTTON HERE AND THERE, AS THE GREEN RHOMBS ARE COMMON!". I think as you get the rhomb the green bar should not just increase, but blink. When you have MAX power, show a word MAX over the bar so people will know you've got plenty of the energy.

[hObbE]

Hey!

Thanx for the elaborate feedback! I'll take a closer look at a lot of these (making tickets). There will be a new release on Friday that will hopefully fix some of your mentioned issues!

/hObbE

[tolik]

So many cool shmups lately... Space Invaders Extreme, Galaga Legions, Geometry Wars 2.

What's up next, Computer Space 1080 or PONG universe?
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/54237

[hObbE]

he he he

That anim is cool

Indeed it seems that smups have something of a resurrection lately! Good I like shmups!

Anyway, I'll be posting your comments on our forum (if you don't mind) to let our community have a say (I definitely agree on many of your pointers).

btw item 7. Lame in what way? (I maybe think the enemy hitboxes are somewhat on the small side...)

Regards,
hObbE

[tolik]

btw item 7. Lame in what way? (I maybe think the enemy hitboxes are somewhat on the small side...)

I'm talking about bullet-player collisions. The bullet could go through the wings, but when ship is leaning - it hits the wings, so hitbox for the ship is weird.

[JGOware]

"DirectX Video Card"

DirectX 6,7,8,9,10?

[Hideo]

Very nice procedural fx. I like the way you animate things.

You BADLY need some cool techno tracks in the background.

[JGOware]

Wont run on my system.

Intel Celeron 2.93ghz
512mb
Intel 82845G GPU

[chanon]

I had this:
http://www.re-mission.net/site/game/index.php
running in the background and thought it was your game's music!

I think it fit pretty well

[hObbE]

Thanks for the comments and sorry for the late response (have a sick 1.5yo son to take care of).

There is a sound track in the game but as it seems the music is turned off by default (bug). It's not exactly techno but rather edgy industry.

And you'll be needing DX9.0c (fixed on homepage).

Thanx for the bug report in the intelcard. We have a bunch of compatibility testing to do so I'm not that surprised. Intel cards seem to be particularly sensitive...

/hObbE

[hObbE]

Wont run on my system.

Intel Celeron 2.93ghz
512mb
Intel 82845G GPU

Looking into it it seems the 82845G GPU does not support shaders at all. This is required for the game to run.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-014257.htm

/hObbE

[hObbE]

Just wanted you guys to know I have made a new release that takes care of many of the aforementioned issues.

Shmup TWTPB - Iteration 22

Thanx!
/hObbE

[JGOware]

Looking into it it seems the 82845G GPU does not support shaders at all. This is required for the game to run.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-014257.htm

/hObbE

Why such high specs for a 2d shooter? The 828 series is installed in quite alot of systems.

[tolik]

I've checked the comments at your forum and would like to come back to some subjects that you've discussed.

0) The beauty of the game is the 4th weapon you've showed on the screenshot. I wouldn't have played the game if I wouldn't see this weapon. This time, while writing the comments beyond I didn't even reach GATE 4.
You just lost a lot of SHMUP fans, as without showing that weapon in the beginning, the game is "just another homebrew" SHMUP.


1) On first launch there's nothing going on in the background, just flying planets - the wow factor would be to run through random levels in the background, same way as you do after the death.
2) non-linear menu... took me like many clicks to understand how i change resolution, this is twisted! why don't you do it the way everyone does it and not frustrate the user? unless you undrestand core usability aspects, don't mess with UI.
3) Assuming I have no idea what "Surrender the heritcs" means, e.g. I'm not a native speaker, I'll never find a way out. Or assume I have no idea what it means and I click on it and quit without confirmation. It's quite creative to have the texts other couldn't understand. Same with "In rememberance of the fallen".
"SURRENDER THE HERETICS" is insta-annoying when you click it after "SURRENDER THE BATTLE".
4) The same with DRM text - "I want to try the game some more" - if it's my first try, it's totally confusing, especially with the layout when this text flies into the logo of "spell of play". I just want to... "PLAY!"
5) Main menu ambience music is awful. Now I understand why the music was disabled by default It gives awful impression on main menu now. Use the game over music instead. How about crossfading of the music?
6) The tip on the main screen to use left mouse button, right mouse button and then scroll wheel. Assume I have no scroll wheel, you should notify about the alt key, e.g. space.
7) The boss that instantly appears on the screen and then flies out to the right and sits for first few seconds out of the screen is still annoying. Is that aspect ratio problem? (16:10)
8) Use the name WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW... to make sure it doesn't fit into leaderboards.


9) Restarting the wave for player each time he dies makes highest score possible only when player will figure out which wave has the highest score and forcing to die exactly at the end of this wave to replay it.
Killing the player and NOT notifying something like "you have x lifes left" sucks.
Still, please take a look at Geometry Wars, any game in Star Defender series - DO NOT RESET THE WAVE. This is annoying. I've just killed all these enemies. I understand this significantly increases the length of the game, but that's a lame excuse.
10) Assume I'm a noob, if I meet the first boss in right bottom corner I insta-die. Could you make collisions (not just with the boss) SUCK the health, not insta-kill? I think that's called "EASY" difficulty.
11) When the boss is killed, the ship just disappears. The easiest thing to do to make it fit into the game is that ship will just fly out of the screen (forward). That's how it was done in Tyrian, Alien Sky, probably in Star Defender, but the coolest effect is still in AstroPop.
12) Communique is insta-skipped when you press left mouse button. In most of the games the click will make the text insta-finish slow writing. The "SHIP CONTROLS" button in most of the games would be named "CONTINUE" and skip the text, however in new abilities upgrades there's no button on the screen. It's weird to see this button on the screen cycling between communique and basically help. While the "SHIP CONTROLS" button in contrary doesn't close/skip with the left click... Think about consistency and usability. Just do it the way players expect it after dozens of games.

13) Make help visual - mouse with lines pointing to buttons and SIMPLE TEXT.

    CHANGE
SHOOT |  POWERUP
   /---|---\
  |    |   |
  ==========    w00t, l33t ascii mouse design from STARK!
  |        |
  |        |
  |        |
  \--------/

w00t, l33t ascii mouse design from STARK!

14) When you start the level, say which level it is.
It looked to me that gate 1 and gate 2 have the same beginning so I instantly wanted to see which wave I'm playing and there's no way - no indication on screen, pause menu or start of the level.
15) After all I think that making powerups the same color as the first enemy in a level (GATE 2) is worrying as player might think it's not a powerup, but a kamikadze (green enemy, green big powerup).
16) I'd still want to play as a geometry figure, and not a ship.
17) Have you seen how beatiful galaxies at hubble/nasa look?
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
Vibrant colors, the space is alive.
Could you at least shift the colorspace for each level, e.g. red, purple, blue, green, etc.
18) Boss #3 - since the collision boxes are not clear, I'm catching too many bullets even in the time slowdown mode.
19) Boss #1 - the blue circle certainly flew in through me at least once, that means collision boxes are not clear again.
20) You could clearly be into enemies with half of your ship, that means that collision boxes are not clear once again

Ok, time to run, have fun making the first second wow experience proper.

[Red27]

Zip version doesn't run on an Asus X51R laptop running Vista Home Premium, 2GB, Core 2 Duo T5250:

Cannot find import; DLL may be missing, corrupt or wrong version File "d3dx9_35.dll", error 126

[Teeth]

Our work firewall blocked your site's downloads after I downloaded the hub software. It now reports your downloads blocked as being trojans. It is a very strict firewall though, so probably not a big issue - unless you really have trojans in your installers