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Work in Progress / Ballz(working title), action/puzzle? game. :P

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enderleit
16
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Joined: 30th May 2007
Location: Denmark
Posted: 13th Nov 2011 12:29 Edited at: 13th Nov 2011 12:33
BALLZ (working title)

I started working on this remake of an old Amiga game I remember. I can't remember its name though. Some of you might recognize the gameplay.

Here's a quick video:


And just for fun, I made a timelapse of the development:


Press the download button to get the current "demo" of the game.

At this stage I am looking for feedback on its difficulty, speed settings, etc...
1. Is the gameplay too Hard/Easy?
2. Are the balls too Fast/Slow?
3. Is the player moving too Fast/Slow?
4. Anything else you feel is wrong...

Some plans for expanding the gameplay:
- Power-ups(drops) that gives you more ropes, quicker run-speed, slowdown of the bubbles, and extra lives.
- A time limit to destroy all the balls.
- Obstructions at ground floor that you jump over.

BTW. Controls:
Left/Right Arrowkeys = Move left/right
Up Arrowkey = Jump
SPACE = Shoot

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Quel
15
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Joined: 13th Mar 2009
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Posted: 13th Nov 2011 14:17
Is it surely a good idea to be able to throw kinda a wall, instead of simply a projectile? Makes it look very easy to me. Was it like this in the original?

(or have a game mode which uses a single bullet!)

-In.Dev.X: A unique heavy story based shoot'em ~35%
-CoreFleet: An underground commander unit based RTS ~15%
-TailsVSEggman: An Sonic themed RTS under development for idea presentation to Sega ~15%
enderleit
16
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Location: Denmark
Posted: 13th Nov 2011 14:24 Edited at: 13th Nov 2011 14:28
It was like this in the original game. He shot harpoons upward... Not sure about if the bubbles broke when they hit the side of the rope, or just when they hit the tip. But I started out with it only breaking on the tip, but then it was incredibly hard to hit them.

EDIT: I was pondering, having only the tip breaking them, but if they hit the side of the rope, they will bounce back.

TheComet
16
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Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 13th Nov 2011 23:03
No offense, but I noticed you have very poorly commented code... While this may not seem relevant to you at this point in time, it is still bad practice, and makes it nearly impossible to maintain your project.

The game mechanics are too jittery.

Improvements I can suggest:

-smooth camera movement
-harpoon acceleration (starts slow, keeps getting faster)
-balls bounce off each other

Features I can suggest:

-Harpoon angle could be variable? Maybe make it possible to determine the angle you can fire it at.
-Fancy explosions? You're free to use my library for that, it's completely free : TheComet's Library.
-Triple Shot Power Up : Lets you fire 3 harpoons at once
-Fast Power Up : Harpoon is much faster
-Slow Motion Power Up : Slow down all of the balls

Names I can suggest:

-Ballz of Steel!
-Ballz of Fury!
-Da Ballz
-Bally Ballz
-Bob
-I suck with names, don't I?

TheComet

Dr Tank
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Location: Southampton, UK
Posted: 14th Nov 2011 04:36
I had an Amiga too. Never played Pang on it but did have a copy of Super Obliterator, which was pretty sweet.

It's cool. Maybe a bit slow or too "smooth". Actually the difficulty is pretty good, but the first time i played i didn't i realise that i was losing lives. There should be more player feedback when they die!
enderleit
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Joined: 30th May 2007
Location: Denmark
Posted: 14th Nov 2011 11:36
Quote: "No offense, but I noticed you have very poorly commented code..."

Haha... yeah. But actually the code is pretty well commented now.
I just usually write some code, and then I comment it once it does what I want, then I code some more, then I comment it.
Maybe that's a bad habit...

Quote: "The game mechanics are too jittery."

Not sure what you mean here... is it lagging?

Quote: "1. smooth camera movement
2. harpoon acceleration (starts slow, keeps getting faster)
3. balls bounce off each other"

1. Not sure about camera movement, since the screen doesn't move.
2. I'll try that out, and see how it looks/feels ingame.
3. I actually thought about that. They don't collide in the original game, but that doesn't necessarily mean mine shouldn't.

Quote: "-Harpoon angle could be variable? Maybe make it possible to determine the angle you can fire it at."

Not sure if this is what I want, but I'll think about it. Part of the "challenge" is to only be able to fire upwards.

Quote: "-Fancy explosions? You're free to use my library for that, it's completely free : TheComet's Library."

At some point I was going to add like a pop-animation when you burst a bubble. Is the library something with particles?

Quote: "-Triple Shot Power Up : Lets you fire 3 harpoons at once"

One of the power-ups planned is that you can fire more than one harpoon, but you have to fire them individually. Is that what you meant? Or did you think like 3 harpoons at an angle to each other?

Quote: "-Fast Power Up : Harpoon is much faster"

Good idea... that's one I didn't think of.

Quote: "-Slow Motion Power Up : Slow down all of the balls"

Already planned...

Quote: "-Ballz of Steel!
-Ballz of Fury!
-Da Ballz
-Bally Ballz
-Bob
-I suck with names, don't I?"

I do too... as you can see by the working title...

Quote: "There should be more player feedback when they die!"

The way you lose lives is temporary atm. I want to have it kind of like Pang, where you have some lives and if you get hit you die and the level resets. Does this seem good/bad. (evil?)

PS. Sorry if I sounded dismissive at some of the suggestions, that was not my intention. I appreciate all feedback.

The thing is I actually have a pretty good plan in my head.
There is going to be stages/levels like in the original game, and the graphics are going to be much nicer.
There is going to be a life-indicator of some sort in the upper left corner, maybe some hearts or small icons of the Hero.
In the upper right corner I would put the Timer.
There are several planned power-ups already.
I'm going to create a level-editor where you can place various blocks that the balls can bounce off, and some that you can shoot/destroy.

TheComet
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Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 14th Nov 2011 16:24
Quote: "Is the library something with particles?"


The library is a set of functions I programmed to do cool things. One of them does showcase particles. In my first post you'll see a video somewhere of particles, if that's of interest to you

Quote: "Not sure what you mean here... is it lagging?"


The game movement I find too harsh Some more smoothness could be programmed.

Quote: "One of the power-ups planned is that you can fire more than one harpoon, but you have to fire them individually. Is that what you meant? Or did you think like 3 harpoons at an angle to each other?"


3 harpoons at an angle would look cool.

TheComet

enderleit
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Location: Denmark
Posted: 15th Nov 2011 10:00 Edited at: 15th Nov 2011 10:02
Quote: "The library is a set of functions I programmed to do cool things."

For some reason I hadn't noticed the link you had put RIGHT there.

Quote: "The game movement I find too harsh Some more smoothness could be programmed."

You mean the player right? Cuz not sure there is much to do about the balls. But I also find the player to be a bit jerky when you change directions and stuff...

enderleit
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Location: Denmark
Posted: 15th Nov 2011 10:06 Edited at: 15th Nov 2011 10:21
Found a video of the original game.



Looks like he actually can't jump in the original, but there are ladders.

TheComet
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Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 15th Nov 2011 19:28
Quote: "But I also find the player to be a bit jerky when you change directions and stuff..."


My thoughts exactly

TheComet

29 games
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Posted: 15th Nov 2011 21:56
Ok, I've now played the demo about a dozen times (it's probably more like 2 dozen) so I can say that I like this.

I'm not getting the jittery player movement but I do sometimes getting jittery movement of the game, a bit like its struggling every so often although the frame rate seems to be a consistent 154 fps (my computer's rather old so don't take the fps I'm getting to be a sign the game's slow). In all honesty I didn't find it that much of an problem.

I think the speed of the game and the controls are pretty spot on.

I like the idea of adding jumping over and possibly onto obstacles but I'd have the player jump higher than you currently have it, maybe three times the height of the white box.

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