The last version of this, Robokill, got a great response here so I thought I'd post the sequel as well. We've redone pretty much everything, resulting in what I think is a much stronger product. Love to know what everyone thinks!
The first version was awesome. I'm looking forward to playing this one. How many people work with you, do you make these yourself?
Also, I would love to know how many people buy the game, though I understand if you wouldn't want to disclose. Not that I would be able to duplicate this level of polish anyways.
Love it. My wife's just called me again; apparently I said I'd be heading to bed an hour or so ago :P
Few comments
- Few more weapon choices would be nice
+ price seems OK, but I haven't finished the first stage yet.
+ Edges are fine by me
+ so are traps
+ Like the idea of unlimited lives, but you lose rooms
+ Love the RPG aspect, and I'd really really like to see this taken further in a shooter (perhaps Robokill 3?) - what about being able to personalise other aspects of your robot, as per a traditional RPG, so introduce some attributes like speed, defence, accuracy etc. This way, I could work towards building up a heavily armed but slow 'bot, or a fast accurate one that's fairly vulnerable.
Robokill 1 is the only Flash game I have ever paid for, and I did so happily - very much looking forwards to this.
My only complaint was that by the final few levels, my robot was so heavily armed that finishing was never in doubt - it was just a matter of time. That, and that the final boss "room" was pretty lame and short.
I'm really impressed with it overall. Great sound in particular - love the the level up sound. After a few falls, I sure wished those edges had railings.
I'm a sucker for statistics and I'd like to see some more on my gameplay: total damage dealt, item usage, favorite weapon, and -- of course -- my very own (in)effectiveness ratio: total rooms lost to death / total rooms captured.
How about a confirmation when clicking main menu? I didn't realize that would forfeit all my progress on that mission.
If you don't mind me asking I'm curious about the business side of this. I don't expect you to put any real numbers out here but can you make a living of this or is it something you do in your spare time? I would be great if you could elaborate on this a bit. Thanks!
I enjoyed playing/beating the first one. But to be critical for a moment, I do feel like 10 bucks is a little steep for a flash game. Even though the fact that it's flash vs directx vs anything else shouldn't matter.. it does.
On top of that, Torchlight launched at just 20 and quickly fell to 10 and even 5 dollars overs the holiday Steam sale.
It might be a bit high compared to some of the Steam sales, but I think we're well into the territory that, for US customers at least, it's an impulse buy. I'm sure volume would go up at 4.95, but not sure about by 2x (plus there is overhead like support etc).
i don't think there are any otherquality plane games, that are played from that perspective...it's always side or top view always moving...which gets boring.
The game is a lot of fun! I spent a bunch of money playing Smash TV back in about 1992 and this is a lot of the same fun gameplay and a couple of similar graphics. A couple of suggestions:
* Make the weapon recharge happen automatically when the level clears or you die, so the player doesn't have to stand there and wait for the recharge.
* Disable the traps after all regular enemies are dead. There is no additional challenge or fun from killing a few slugs while you run around and collect your big prizes.
* Automatically do something sensible with charge ups and get rid of the store and equipment screen altogether. The fun factor of shopping is not high.
* Make a big cursor indicator so it's easier to see the player and the target at the same time using peripheral vision.
* I would get rid of falling off the edge.
* I kept hitting the map button on E by accident and I want to move it.
Awesome game, just spent like an hour playing haha.
+1 on disabling traps. It just makes the game slower.
+1 on auto weapon recharge when dead. There's no reason that I should have to wait.
The edges are fine imo, they add a bit of challenge. Otherwise it would just be possible to randomly press awsd without looking much.
Also, I enjoy the shopping. It's fun to think about different play styles and shotgun vs blasters.
One thing is that I just ended up using mostly just blasters. Without being able to switch between 4 shotguns and 4 blasters quickly, it made more sense just to stick with blasters.
Not sure about disabling the traps after regular enemies are dead - I kind of like that! And a lot of the appeal of the full version is the RPG aspect, I think we'd probably do a lot worse if we toned that down. But I like the rest of your suggestions!
Unfortunately being software rendered we had to pull too many performance tricks to make parallax even remotely possible. In hardware we'd probably have used many layers.
Agreed - there were some comments about putting in railings; don't do that. The falling is good and adds to the challenge if the player can clearly see the edges. Find some way to make them stand out.
I hate to be the only one who is ragging on the thread. It's really slick & clearly the product of hard work. But...
1) on a laptop the controls are cumbersome (hard to aim with mousepad)
2) the game takes forever to load and then does not fit inside my screen resolution..it's just a tad bit too big
3) the store graphics are hard to decipher (blue on black) and it's not clear how much starting capital i'm allocated
* It took almost 5 minutes to load
* It gets noticeably slow and the FPS drops to a single digit on
the first screen with an Ambush.
* The openings in the floor are way harder to recognize as such
compared to version 1. When I fell through one, I honestly
thought it was just a pattern on a floor.
* The Inventory screen needs to some tweaking. It took me a bit
to understand where the Sonic Pulse weapon should go on the
left hand side.
Overall, purely from the "user's perspective" it does not look like a super improvement over v1. It is more of an opposite given the lag and the loading times. That's not to say it is not beautifully done, it certainly is.
Man.. I pressed Menu and then Main menu and it took me out of the game. It didn't even ask me if I wanted to live. I was about to finish level 4, now I have to restart level 4. Great game but that really killed the mood.
Agreed. I was happily playing through until, in the course of a particularly involved battle, I paid too much attention to my enemies and stepped a little too far up and had to go back two rooms. This was frustrating enough that I decided to move on and stop playing.
I didn't mind it. At first it caught me by surprise, but then it's just another thing in the room to beware of. I'd leave them there, but perhaps make the danger markings around them a bit clearer (less dirty yellow?)
Sometimes I'd let the splash screen just sit and loop, so I could listen to the pounding theme song, and watch the gun particle effect. So simple, so good!
Rooms should not disappear from the map. It is OK to hide unknown rooms, but once it has appeared on the map it should be visible forever (perhaps grayed).
Mark rooms where you have died with a little sign in the map. So you can avoid them for some time.
Why do American dollars, of all things, drop when some enemies die? I understand the game mechanic, but seeing cash appear on Mars when I shoot an alien is a little jarring.
Nice, I like the "bio" direction here! I bought the first Robokill, and was a fan, and may buy this one too.
1. Are uncommon and rare items gone? I didn't see any through the first base. If so, why? That was one of the most fun features.
Edit: Nevermind! I see they do appear.
2. Please please please don't listen to people who want all the frustration gone, e.g. you can't fall to death. Perhaps recognize that not all gamers are equal, and give difficulty settings, e.g. on normal you can't fall to death but on hard you can. Heck, I was a fan of hardcore (restart on death) no-shop runs in the first game, maybe you could even unlock this kind of thing as an actual mode on beating the game (for the extreme masochists.)
Game sounds all come from more or less the same big professional libraries, so frequently you do end up using the same sound as another game (or movie, tv show etc).
65 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadLast thread was here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=218322
Shot 1: http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/static/robokill2/shot1.jpg Shot 2: http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/static/robokill2/shot2.jpg Shot 3: http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/static/robokill2/shot3.jpg
Great work-- looks good so far.
Also, I would love to know how many people buy the game, though I understand if you wouldn't want to disclose. Not that I would be able to duplicate this level of polish anyways.
Few comments
- Few more weapon choices would be nice
+ price seems OK, but I haven't finished the first stage yet.
+ Edges are fine by me
+ so are traps
+ Like the idea of unlimited lives, but you lose rooms
+ Love the RPG aspect, and I'd really really like to see this taken further in a shooter (perhaps Robokill 3?) - what about being able to personalise other aspects of your robot, as per a traditional RPG, so introduce some attributes like speed, defence, accuracy etc. This way, I could work towards building up a heavily armed but slow 'bot, or a fast accurate one that's fairly vulnerable.
Oh, if I buy it, does it include a Save function?
My only complaint was that by the final few levels, my robot was so heavily armed that finishing was never in doubt - it was just a matter of time. That, and that the final boss "room" was pretty lame and short.
I'm a sucker for statistics and I'd like to see some more on my gameplay: total damage dealt, item usage, favorite weapon, and -- of course -- my very own (in)effectiveness ratio: total rooms lost to death / total rooms captured.
How about a confirmation when clicking main menu? I didn't realize that would forfeit all my progress on that mission.
If you don't mind me asking I'm curious about the business side of this. I don't expect you to put any real numbers out here but can you make a living of this or is it something you do in your spare time? I would be great if you could elaborate on this a bit. Thanks!
On top of that, Torchlight launched at just 20 and quickly fell to 10 and even 5 dollars overs the holiday Steam sale.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Badim/red-storm
btw if you want a really addicting game to "clone", do something like this: http://www.addictinggames.com/skystorm.html
i don't think there are any otherquality plane games, that are played from that perspective...it's always side or top view always moving...which gets boring.
* Make the weapon recharge happen automatically when the level clears or you die, so the player doesn't have to stand there and wait for the recharge.
* Disable the traps after all regular enemies are dead. There is no additional challenge or fun from killing a few slugs while you run around and collect your big prizes.
* Automatically do something sensible with charge ups and get rid of the store and equipment screen altogether. The fun factor of shopping is not high.
* Make a big cursor indicator so it's easier to see the player and the target at the same time using peripheral vision.
* I would get rid of falling off the edge.
* I kept hitting the map button on E by accident and I want to move it.
Great game, just like the first one.
+1 on disabling traps. It just makes the game slower. +1 on auto weapon recharge when dead. There's no reason that I should have to wait.
The edges are fine imo, they add a bit of challenge. Otherwise it would just be possible to randomly press awsd without looking much.
Also, I enjoy the shopping. It's fun to think about different play styles and shotgun vs blasters.
One thing is that I just ended up using mostly just blasters. Without being able to switch between 4 shotguns and 4 blasters quickly, it made more sense just to stick with blasters.
Fun game!
1) on a laptop the controls are cumbersome (hard to aim with mousepad) 2) the game takes forever to load and then does not fit inside my screen resolution..it's just a tad bit too big 3) the store graphics are hard to decipher (blue on black) and it's not clear how much starting capital i'm allocated
love, zack
Sometimes I'd let the splash screen just sit and loop, so I could listen to the pounding theme song, and watch the gun particle effect. So simple, so good!
Mark rooms where you have died with a little sign in the map. So you can avoid them for some time.
Could you tell us perhaps a bit more about the creation process of this game? After all this is hackers news and not an indie games forum ;)
Gold Coins (Mario style)? Diamonds?
1. Are uncommon and rare items gone? I didn't see any through the first base. If so, why? That was one of the most fun features.
Edit: Nevermind! I see they do appear.
2. Please please please don't listen to people who want all the frustration gone, e.g. you can't fall to death. Perhaps recognize that not all gamers are equal, and give difficulty settings, e.g. on normal you can't fall to death but on hard you can. Heck, I was a fan of hardcore (restart on death) no-shop runs in the first game, maybe you could even unlock this kind of thing as an actual mode on beating the game (for the extreme masochists.)