Fixed! Now users will have to press (X) + (^) to start (and continue if all lives are lost).
The change was initially implemented to prevent players that were mashing the shoot button from accidentally continuing the game when all lives were lost. Thank you for understanding!
Hi ! did you REMOVE the shot limit in the game!? I really praised your SHOWING the shot limit of the game in my video! I do actually like it a bit more without the shot limit ... but that part of your design was genius :) Awesome game! take care - my take on it is in this video:
Yeah, I ended up removing it. Though I felt the design was very clever (and I really loved the reload mechanic) the majority of feedback I received commented that just trying to keep the Iron Egg from leaving the screen itself was an engaging challenge. On top of the fact that I had run out of token count and that I wanted to implement a few other things (i.e. the Iron Egg bouncing off the ship on contact), the shot limit had to get cut.
That said: I am considering uploading a version of the game prior to the shot limit removal ("Vanilla" Scramble, Scramble!!) and leaving a comment in the developer's notes that the shot limit is the "intended experience."
EDIT: Also just want to add one tidbit!
Take what I say right here with a massive grain of salt because I'm a very inexperienced, hobbyist gamedev:
One big lesson I've learned from this project is that even if I think an idea is very good (i.e. limiting bullets in order to artificially enforce player engagement with the Iron Egg's positioning) it doesn't necessarily mean the player will enjoy it. The most common feedback I'd get after explaining why the shot limit was implemented was:
"But it's not fun :C why you gotta narc my fun?"
If I received that comment only once I'd still feel confident in my gut feeling that the game mechanic was fine. But after receiving that comment from many people, I realized it just had to go.
Lesson learned! Just because a mechanic is theoretically defensible does not mean most of your players will like it.
Thanks for this awesome response! I love your lesson learned. This happened to me during development as well. Just because something is logical and skill based doesn't make it fun! In my game back during development, when you got hit and your ship was on fire, you could no longer shoot until you picked up a repair... I wanted to force some dodging and you could smuggle or save a bomb to make this process easier but it just wasn't fun... So I got rid of powerloss completely! And instead I focused on making the game more fun without that power loss or forced dodging.
And in your case, I agree with the change, I enjoy the game a lot more, and if you wanted to introduce more difficulty you could have more bullets to dodge! That would be great fun. There's always ways to increase engagement without decreasing played abilities that ultimately are a bit tedious (unfortunately), though some players may be into that specific skill.
I love your comment about experimenting further with the game's mechanics! In hindsight, maybe I should have done more of that as well. Unfortunately I ran out of token count, but maybe if I optimize my other code, I could bring back the shot limit while keeping the new feature of the Iron Egg bouncing off the ship.
Its such a cool game, I wonder if you can take it to another platform and do more with it. I honestly could see this being much bigger if you wanted it to be!! what you did with the current token limit was astounding to me ... but im no wizard! haha well done either way
Heads up - I ended up reverting back to the limited ammo system.
To repeat what I wrote in my patch notes:
While the feedback I received was generally positive, I found that this invalidated the core game mechanic of juggling the Iron Egg as a main source of damage entirely. Players reported that though juggling the Iron Egg with limited ammo was tricky, juggling the Iron Egg with unlimited ammo "felt like a chore" - it became too easy and trivialized the entire game.
Looks like I learned another lesson! Just because a lot of people complain does not mean the alternative they're providing is necessarily a good idea haha
I hope you'll give my game another go and let me know what you think! I've kept things like allowing the Iron Egg to bounce off the ship, and also polished up a few more things (i.e. changing button inputs to start, re-start, and continue game).
A really cool concept and different take on the SHMUP genre. Easy to pick up the concept but a high skill ceiling for balancing dodges and hitting that egg. Also great title screen music, nice and catchy.
One sentence review: "You can't save a galaxy without shooting a few eggs"
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Why do I have to use the keyboard to start 1.3?
What do you mean?
EDIT: Oh I may have been slightly a dingus here.
Thinking about it now, I imagine people playing this title on a handheld may have trouble pressing the (<-) and (->) buttons at the same time...
I'll release a quick fix for this tonight. I imagine changing it from:
(<-) + (->) to something like (X) + (^) might work.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Fixed! Now users will have to press (X) + (^) to start (and continue if all lives are lost).
The change was initially implemented to prevent players that were mashing the shoot button from accidentally continuing the game when all lives were lost. Thank you for understanding!
This game is mesmerizingly beautiful.
Hi ! did you REMOVE the shot limit in the game!? I really praised your SHOWING the shot limit of the game in my video! I do actually like it a bit more without the shot limit ... but that part of your design was genius :) Awesome game! take care - my take on it is in this video:
Yeah, I ended up removing it. Though I felt the design was very clever (and I really loved the reload mechanic) the majority of feedback I received commented that just trying to keep the Iron Egg from leaving the screen itself was an engaging challenge. On top of the fact that I had run out of token count and that I wanted to implement a few other things (i.e. the Iron Egg bouncing off the ship on contact), the shot limit had to get cut.
That said: I am considering uploading a version of the game prior to the shot limit removal ("Vanilla" Scramble, Scramble!!) and leaving a comment in the developer's notes that the shot limit is the "intended experience."
EDIT: Also just want to add one tidbit!
Take what I say right here with a massive grain of salt because I'm a very inexperienced, hobbyist gamedev:
One big lesson I've learned from this project is that even if I think an idea is very good (i.e. limiting bullets in order to artificially enforce player engagement with the Iron Egg's positioning) it doesn't necessarily mean the player will enjoy it. The most common feedback I'd get after explaining why the shot limit was implemented was:
"But it's not fun :C why you gotta narc my fun?"
If I received that comment only once I'd still feel confident in my gut feeling that the game mechanic was fine. But after receiving that comment from many people, I realized it just had to go.
Lesson learned! Just because a mechanic is theoretically defensible does not mean most of your players will like it.
Thanks for this awesome response! I love your lesson learned. This happened to me during development as well. Just because something is logical and skill based doesn't make it fun! In my game back during development, when you got hit and your ship was on fire, you could no longer shoot until you picked up a repair... I wanted to force some dodging and you could smuggle or save a bomb to make this process easier but it just wasn't fun... So I got rid of powerloss completely! And instead I focused on making the game more fun without that power loss or forced dodging.
And in your case, I agree with the change, I enjoy the game a lot more, and if you wanted to introduce more difficulty you could have more bullets to dodge! That would be great fun. There's always ways to increase engagement without decreasing played abilities that ultimately are a bit tedious (unfortunately), though some players may be into that specific skill.
I love your comment about experimenting further with the game's mechanics! In hindsight, maybe I should have done more of that as well. Unfortunately I ran out of token count, but maybe if I optimize my other code, I could bring back the shot limit while keeping the new feature of the Iron Egg bouncing off the ship.
We'll see if I have time for that though *shrug*
Its such a cool game, I wonder if you can take it to another platform and do more with it. I honestly could see this being much bigger if you wanted it to be!! what you did with the current token limit was astounding to me ... but im no wizard! haha well done either way
Heads up - I ended up reverting back to the limited ammo system.
To repeat what I wrote in my patch notes:
While the feedback I received was generally positive, I found that this invalidated the core game mechanic of juggling the Iron Egg as a main source of damage entirely. Players reported that though juggling the Iron Egg with limited ammo was tricky, juggling the Iron Egg with unlimited ammo "felt like a chore" - it became too easy and trivialized the entire game.
Looks like I learned another lesson! Just because a lot of people complain does not mean the alternative they're providing is necessarily a good idea haha
I hope you'll give my game another go and let me know what you think! I've kept things like allowing the Iron Egg to bounce off the ship, and also polished up a few more things (i.e. changing button inputs to start, re-start, and continue game).
A really cool concept and different take on the SHMUP genre. Easy to pick up the concept but a high skill ceiling for balancing dodges and hitting that egg. Also great title screen music, nice and catchy.
One sentence review: "You can't save a galaxy without shooting a few eggs"
I'm glad you enjoyed my game! Love the 1-sentence review!
It's brilliant and beautiful.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!
Fun game! I like your sprite guys.
Thanks! Considering my limited experience with sprite art, I'm pretty proud of how they turned out!
Fantastic! I love how this is a bit like Brick Breaker / Arkanoid combined with a Shmup, great job and congrats on your first game
Thank you! I hope you enjoyed playing my game!