Gun Ranger X, Thanks for the help!

[Pixel_Outlaw]

First of all THANK YOU to all the people willing to answer my OpenGL questions!

This game would not be possible without your help. The game may seem a bit hard at first but my best player can get to level 50 consistantly. I know that some people don't care for this genre and that is fine with me. Just wanted to show your help is producing fruit guys.


About the game:

This is an arcade style game in which players compete for points. The goal of the game is to be better than your peers via higher scores than they obtain.

Controls are changeable and colors for the game are also fully customizable. Please try and find what colors work for you. Use the setup utility. (Not an installer)

You obtain points by scraping enemy shots. If you fly close enough to them you will scrape them. You get points this way and also fire back in the direction the shot came from. You of course have a normal gun but true highscores lie in scraping. The dot in the center of your ship is the only vulnerable part. If an enemy shot's center hits this you loose a life.

Please notice the line at the bottom of your screen. This is a safety zone, enemy cells cannot spawn below this line.

This game features a bomb too. A bomb does damage to enemy cells and also clears the screen of any shots. If you are feeling pressure to dodge shots bomb. When you scrape enemy shots your bomb gauge fills. When it is full you gain a small marker under your ship.

Controlls (customizable)
Arrows - Move
z button - Fire
x button - Bomb (when gauge is full)



Download host (please enter the given code to get the file)
http://www.usaupload.net/d/fbpmamw995w

or
http://files.filefront.com/Gun+Ranger+G+v97Crar/;13245575;/fileinfo.html

[benny!]

That's pure bullet madness. Runs very smooth here.

Some points about it:

• Music fits - but please allow the player to mute music
• SoundFX - additional sound effects / laser gun fire could be cool. Should
  be mutable, too though.
• I know keys are configurable - but keep in mind that the 'Z' and the 'X'
  are not next to each others on QWERTZ keyboards eg. Plus, there are others
  than QWERTZ and QWERTY around. So maybe you choose some keys which
  fits for most keyboard layouts by default.
• The 'scraping enemy shots' feature is very cool and gives a lot of thrill
  to the game
• About the graphics I would love to see some neon/glowing lines here -
  but it is just a personal preferation ;-)

Good work, dude! Keep it up!

[Pixel_Outlaw]

All good points.

I'll look into adding those!

How taxing is it to do the glowing vector effect?
I wonder how hard it would be to implement with the current visual design. The backgrounds are usually very light and most glowing vector games I've seen require a dark background. Changing the game's colors will probably effect how convincing the effect is.

[Shockwave]

I agree with Benny about the neon graphics but I like this style too, the way that the cells rotate as you are killing them is nice too.

I got to level 10, that's about the bet I'll expect to do I thing.

Totally smooth here too, this is quite an old computer and it ran with no glitches.

Nice one even though BH games are not my cup of tea I still think this is a nice project

[Shockwave]

All good points.
How taxing is it to do the glowing vector effect?
I wonder how hard it would be to implement with the current visual design. The backgrounds are usually very light and most glowing vector games I've seen require a dark background.

Yes, all I have seen too glow on a dark background, you could use the accumulation buffer to make a glow quite simply for your game

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Well after some tests, I think I want the game to appear very sharp. I do like the glowing lines effect but I feel that the style best suited will be a sort of heavy-outlined cell shaded look. Some day I may do a glowing vector style but currently I want to maintain player controlled colors. This means that since there is no dependance on a very dark background I should not impliment a system that relys on one.

I have added cell shading however for perhaps a new visual style. (Which was really very easy to impliment, easier than I thought)

Here is the cell shaded version. ( A bit worried about rendering on different systems now...)
http://files.filefront.com/Gun+Ranger+X+97Dcellrar/;13248302;/fileinfo.html

[benny!]

That's definately does the trick. Judging from the screen-
shot - cell shading fits in it (especially with the right cartoonish
color set).

Nice.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Good. I agree it lacked style.

That color scheme is "Vinyard" by the way and is one of the 20 or so preset color schemes. You can make/save your own under the game_setup.exe program.

I'll work on the other options you mentioned when I get time. As far as the game goes, it is important to get comfortable flying very close to shots. The biggest trick to the trade is to look for the space between shots and fly towards that. I'll probably end the game at around level 30 but for now it is infinite. The cells max out at around 129 ish. They may only spawn above that line at the bottom of the screen so even level 30000 has 129 or so cells.

Main complaints by shmup players.

-No real bullet patterns.
-No real structured levels
-Main shot is not necessary since scraping awards more points and also fires shots
-No smaller enemies
-Game becomes boring
-Player can just scrape and bomb through the game faster than playing it normally and play safe by only scraping when it is safe then bombing when the gauge is full killing all cells onscreen in 3-4 bombs

I think it may be best to add fairly simple and short levels filled with enemies and keep the main game as end level bosses. In this way I could get the non shmup player comfortable with dodging then let them take on an end level boss. This way they don't have to go into shock when the first cell goes into berserk mode since it is alone. Let them shoot down a few simple flying/shooting enemies between bosses.


Also I realize this is a demo code forum. This is not Shmup_Dev nor is it SHMUPS! Forum so I realize that any feedback is extra consideration from my friends here. I will continue to make demos, this is just something started after I failed to finish my LED demo in time. Shockwave mentioned that the site is mostly for demos so I will respect that and not always post games all over the place. This is just a remake of a very special project. The first game after leaving Game Maker. (ewwww yes I know)

[benny!]

Yeah ... don't worry too much about it. You show some
OpenGL 3D stuff with cel-shading. That's demo-ish enough ;-)
Of course I can only speak for myself.

Of course the main focus of this forum is demo coding - but
I guess all of us here like to create a little game here and then.
So, its nice to play a game from time-to-time (Arcade or
Facebook -> Hi Shocky  ) or even code one.

Keep it up!

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Here is a small recording of me playing a crappy round.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAgDclzZKUI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1dEbaLKtXM[/youtube]

[Shockwave]

It's different when someone who loves demos is writing a game, loads of scen people write games, I honestly love seeing what you make so I hope that you never feel bad about posting them

[Rbz]

Very well done P_O, I really enjoyed playing it.

One thing that I would like to see you implement is an effect of flashing when player bullets hit enemy cells, something like on this Amiga game, I think it will improve the visuals of your game.

[Clyde]

Cool man, I hadnt noticed this thread before until now.

That looks wicked, the screenshots reminds me kind of like tetris meets Tempest 2000.

Keep it going, and cant wait to play it.

[nkk_kan]

The game looks simple and has a odd sense of style ..
but the game play is good.. I don't play much BH but i liked this one.. (too much madness )
I like the way those "cells" rotate on hit.
maybe some blur effect would help with the visual part
Music is awesome.. i love it.

Keep up the good work!