Top down old-school shooter

Jantaaa

Hey polycounters, this is my older artwork I made when I was enthusiasthic enough to say, Hey Im going to make awesome game (actually a game I want to play...)! Well it didnt go how I imagined it (mostly because my programming skills are = 0).
I thought at least some of you, would like to see it and maybe enjoy it. Maybe when I found some buddy with programming skills who would help me I will resume to my enthusiastic alter ego and make it alive.

Im open to any critique, I need it, anyone here need it
I love to find out what is wrong, to make my work better.

Hope you will enjoy it, and criticize it.

loki1991

not liking the colour scheme too much. it's a tad monochrome. your cool blue on the ships sort of makes them blend in to the cool blue background. the engine lights and explosions do stand out a lot more because of that though. however the ship was almost hard for me to locate within 2 seconds of looking at the image which is really bad. the player ship should stand out a tad more. i do like the different types of ships and think there is some cool designs but some more color variation or even a different background would be good. try looking at a color wheel and mix and match them with the ships a bit to see what works out.

you want the player ship to have a significantly different color to the enemies but don't have the other team all so bland together. and i think for the larger ships the boss ships you should really have some nice detail to them and make each sort of engagement with them different if possible.

all up i think it's a cool idea and a nice beginner project.

Stinger88

I like the art style you're going for but agree with loki. Shmups need to follow certain rules so the players can see whats going on.

The scene looks "muddy" and I can't make out the ships are instantly, which is essential for players especially in Shmups. The bullets are to small, they also need to be highly visible.

The players should be able to see where their own ship is even if they aren't looking at it. Players will be looking at the top half of the screen most of the time. If you do that with your image, the player ship vanishes.

I like your HUD a lot, nice and clean, and easy to read at a glance.

I suggest you try Construct2 (free on steam). I have zero code ability and was able to put together a simple Shmup with in a few hours of playing with it. Very easy tool to use for this kind of thing.

Jantaaa

Totally agree with you guys, thank you for your responses. I thought, that it needs a little more subtle background for the sake of the ships and projectile visibility, also player's ship do really need to pop up the most with projectiles. Still my idea was to make it little more realistic looking - like camouflaged ships etc. I really do like oldschool japanese shmups especially coinop ones, Jets n Guns and Tyrian. But I wanted to approach it little differently.

The fact that bigger ships lacks detail is something elementary I forget about, thank you for reminding me, totally agree!


For the construct, I tried it but I ended up with a shmup that I didnt like I wanted more complex system of Ship damage, weapon behaviour and custom weapons and ship parts. And I was afraid that it isnt possible. If you would be so kind Stinger88
show me some complex game made in construct - link

In other words, I think it is too complex to make it in construct. Anyway thank you for the tip !

Im really happy from your responses, also it gives me the idea to actually do something with it again

loki1991

it shouldn't be too hard to give it that realist feel while still making the plains pop out at you. there is nothing worse in this type of game then losing track of your ship because it blends in to much or being unable to see an enemies before he kills you. why else do people hate stealth chars in open world pvp games.

ErichWK

As a massive SHMUP fan The worst thing you can have is a distracting Ui. The second worse thing you can have is bullets than blend in with the background. The third worst thing you can have is a distracting background. Right now everything is so noisy and hard to distinguish. Minimalist (or no Ui) is preferred. Also make sure all ships stand out and all bullets stand out even more so.

DWalker

I'd have to agree with simplifying the in-game interface. Keep the screen as clear as possible. A score box in one corner (possibly with a high score in the opposite side), a small icon for ship/shield health, and small icons for the current weapons. If you MUST have both ammo and heat for weapons, then represent them with small bars under the weapon icons. If you want to show disabled ship systems, then color part of the ship icon red.

Expecting the player to actually read text during an arcade-style game is a definite no-no.

Jantaaa

Thank you guys for your feedback. Once I have a new graphic tablet and some free time, expect some progress. Anyway ErichWK I apprecieate your shmup-fan angle of view, I didnt looked at it that way, the UI pops out too much I guess, but I always liked UI in Tyrian and havent the problem with focusing on the gameplay itself. In fact I did that big UI on purpose because I recognized, that the gameplay area needs to be more narrow. Player get the feeling to see more ahead then on sides. Of course I should narrow the whole screen, but I wanted to do it another way. It is also because I want the UIs to change with different types of ships, to strengthen the feeling you have new ship.
Well, I will change the UI, but maybe not that much to become too minimalistic. But I wont forget to do minimalist UI either. I respect shmups fans and it will be mainly for them so it is logical that I do changes like this (Im one o them too anyway ).

Muzzoid

When designing a visually heavy game like a shmup function always comes before form.

Maybe pay some serious attention to ikaruga?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8MoniJKCjY"]IKARUGA 1CC Superplay [Hard Difficulty] - YouTube[/ame]