Light Hero is available now for PC!

[iNCEPTIONAL]

Get it at:
http://store.indiecity.com/game/Light-Hero
or
http://www.indievania.com/games/light-hero.



I made it entirely myself, apart from the music, and I'm really not that great an artist or "programmer" (even though it was made in Game Maker) so it's about as good as I could manage for now.

Hope you like it and have fun!

[lennard]

I like the look of your game. I'm curious if your low price point/no demo strategy works out for you. TBH I would prefer an asteroids game - do you feel that the iOs version would be less fun with an asteroids interface?

[iNCEPTIONAL]

Well nothing is working out in terms of getting any sales just now to be honest. I don't really think a free demo would make sense with this particular game however because there's only 8 relatively simple short levels (with hidden bonus rooms) and an Infinite Mode, so there really wouldn't be much left to convince people to buy the full version after a demo sample.

I'm not sure how I'd fit the controls of an Asteroids game on the touchscreen of an iPhone to be fair, well not in a way that would feel good or be fun (not off the top of my head anyway), and I couldn't do it myself anyway because I'm not actually a proper programmer so I wouldn't have any idea where to start in terms of getting it to work fully on that platform.

So, what exactly were you thinking in terms of it being Asteroids? Do you just mean a single screen game with the ship moving around the screen shooting incoming asteroids and surviving as long as possible, something like the original but with my graphics?

[lennard]

What I'd like? Weelll, since you ask....

Big playfield that scrolls, with some rocks that are armed that you have to take out to clear the level.

Progress bar across the top, radar that shows you where the armed placements that you have to take out are and probably some flying baddies that come in as time goes by.

Make it so you can bounce off rocks which hurts your ship rather than kills you.

10 items to pick up and power up.

Short story with a well defined nemesis who taunts you quickly before each level (or better yet as an overlay in the upper right corner for the first 3 seconds of each level as the game play is starting).

iPad controls won't be perfect. Low right corner is a rotate controller. Lean further in a direction once pointing there causes you to thrust in that direction. Low left is your shoot button. Reversible at startup for South Paws. Will be much more fun on a PC where you use the mouse to point where you want to aim, keyboard to move in any direction (this allows you to shoot in a direction you are moving away from).

[teoma]

You could get more sales if you put more faces in it. When looking over lots of images, people zone in on pictures of faces. It's the same thing with games, if there's a bunch of new games in a portal, the ones with characters/faces will pop out more. So having a key character that serves as a mascot/icon for you game would help if you put it in all your marketing materials.

Think Star Fox - it's mostly remembered for it's characters, even though it was a very abstract space shooter. People will come for the characters and stay for the game.

[iNCEPTIONAL]

@teoma

Well there are a couple of characters in the game, including the main Light Star character, so I could maybe develop them a bit further and use their images on screenshots and icons or something.

[iNCEPTIONAL]

@ Lennard

It's interesting you mention the scrolling playfield with armed rock placements that you have to destroy to clear it because I was looking at a game called Fantasy Zone II the other day and thought it would be cool to use a similar level structure to that game if I make a sequel to Light Hero.

Still not sure about the controls for iPhone though. I really think virtual controls just aren't very well suited to that device.

[electronicStar]

I'l going to give you some advice, not for this game but for the next one (you could reuse the engine maybe).
To attract interest you need to bring something new to the table, when I look at your game, I see a well done but very bland space shooter with generic rocks and spaceships on a generic space background. If you look at the best arcade shmups, you'll notice that either the spaceship or the enemies or the levels have a lot of personality. You could also use a different graphic style or anything .
It doesn't need to be wildly original, but at least a different take on an old genre.
All commercial games should bring something new (unfortunately AAA FPSes tend to forget that rule and rely solely on technical features, that will be their doom)

[iNCEPTIONAL]

I'l going to give you some advice, not for this game but for the next one (you could reuse the engine maybe).
To attract interest you need to bring something new to the table, when I look at your game, I see a well done but very bland space shooter with generic rocks and spaceships on a generic space background. If you look at the best arcade shmups, you'll notice that either the spaceship or the enemies or the levels have a lot of personality. You could also use a different graphic style or anything .
It doesn't need to be wildly original, but at least a different take on an old genre.
All commercial games should bring something new (unfortunately AAA FPSes tend to forget that rule and rely solely on technical features, that will be their doom)

Yeah I think that's a limitation with my artistic capabilities at the moment. I need to figure out a way to make things look a lot more interesting and have a lot more personality visually in general. Something to work on for sure.

[iNCEPTIONAL]

You can now get the game Free for a limited time here: http://www.indievania.com/games/light-hero

Pay whatever you like, be it absolutely nothing or a small amount to support the hard working and struggling indie developer.

[iNCEPTIONAL]

Can one of the mods actually remove the above spam post please (it has been reported twice now)?

Thanks.