The gameplay loop isn't bad from what I've seen so far, the controls seem responsive and I LOVE that you used left drag to navigate around the upgrade menu. The number of devs (at least on this site) who seem to think right-drag is the right interaction for that makes me want to break things.
But I'm not sure the controls are quite right. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, but they don't conceptually match the visual cues you've provided for players. You gave us a rocket ship. Rockets are pretty well understood - they have a main thruster and they have maneuvering thrusters. So by making the game's "avatater" a rocket it provides the hint to the player that it should thrust forward in the direction it's facing. Also, there's precedent for an "single button thrust" control scheme in these kinds of games, going all the way back to Asteroids (1979). This makes the controls confusing, especially when you happen to be facing up, and going up, at which point it looks like you do have "up for thrust", and then you turn to avoid an asteroid... and crash into it because you're still going up. The control scheme you're using works great, and would be nice and smooth with an avatar that's expected to be able to change directions on a dime and move in all four directions - but that's not what the visuals suggest.
You give a great and valid point. My avatar moves more like a boat rather than a space ship. I do understand the mechanic of the classic asteroids movement however the fast paced gameplay that dodgeing multiple asteroids requires would turn this from a casual game to souls like difficulty if i forced that movement scheme onto the player. I will look for ways to balance this however. I agree the movement is weird and i need to find a midpoint between what i have now and the classic asteroids gameplay.
I'll happily take your word on that - I haven't gotten far enough yet to see how crazy the gameplay can get. ;)
You might be able to balance it out then by making the direction the ship points and the direction it shoots independent from each other. If the ship faces in the direction it moves then I think that would make it clearer how it works, since it wouldn't feel like the mouse sets the ship direction, and then maybe have just the turret point toward the mouse?
1-- upgrade menu allows you to infinitely scroll around the page, allowing you to lose sight and track of where the upgrades are.
2-- add an ugprade to decrease speed of lost energy.
3-- Make the tower not take damage when running into it.
4-- lock screen onto your rocket ship and allow you to fly around like that in order to make the map feel more spacious, versus only being given a limited amount of viewing space of the map.
5-- maybe also add different types of asteroids or ships in these areas as well.
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The gameplay loop isn't bad from what I've seen so far, the controls seem responsive and I LOVE that you used left drag to navigate around the upgrade menu. The number of devs (at least on this site) who seem to think right-drag is the right interaction for that makes me want to break things.
But I'm not sure the controls are quite right. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, but they don't conceptually match the visual cues you've provided for players. You gave us a rocket ship. Rockets are pretty well understood - they have a main thruster and they have maneuvering thrusters. So by making the game's "avatater" a rocket it provides the hint to the player that it should thrust forward in the direction it's facing. Also, there's precedent for an "single button thrust" control scheme in these kinds of games, going all the way back to Asteroids (1979). This makes the controls confusing, especially when you happen to be facing up, and going up, at which point it looks like you do have "up for thrust", and then you turn to avoid an asteroid... and crash into it because you're still going up.
The control scheme you're using works great, and would be nice and smooth with an avatar that's expected to be able to change directions on a dime and move in all four directions - but that's not what the visuals suggest.
You give a great and valid point. My avatar moves more like a boat rather than a space ship. I do understand the mechanic of the classic asteroids movement however the fast paced gameplay that dodgeing multiple asteroids requires would turn this from a casual game to souls like difficulty if i forced that movement scheme onto the player. I will look for ways to balance this however. I agree the movement is weird and i need to find a midpoint between what i have now and the classic asteroids gameplay.
I'll happily take your word on that - I haven't gotten far enough yet to see how crazy the gameplay can get. ;)
You might be able to balance it out then by making the direction the ship points and the direction it shoots independent from each other. If the ship faces in the direction it moves then I think that would make it clearer how it works, since it wouldn't feel like the mouse sets the ship direction, and then maybe have just the turret point toward the mouse?
nice controls nice progression
Thanks for playing!
1-- upgrade menu allows you to infinitely scroll around the page, allowing you to lose sight and track of where the upgrades are.
2-- add an ugprade to decrease speed of lost energy.
3-- Make the tower not take damage when running into it.
4-- lock screen onto your rocket ship and allow you to fly around like that in order to make the map feel more spacious, versus only being given a limited amount of viewing space of the map.
5-- maybe also add different types of asteroids or ships in these areas as well.
Thanks for playing!
To address your points:
1. Yes ill fix this, probably something that detects if there are no upgrades on the scene and warps the player back if so
2. Yes I can do something like this
3. You arent the first person to complain about this, ill change that
4. The game is kind of based around the fact that the camera is a fixed position but as we playtest more I can look into changing that
5. 6 new asteroids are in the works including an exploding one that does AOE
Again thanks for playing!