SeanEBaby Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 I (@DrSeanWalton) have been working on a space simulation game with my brother in law Barry (@Half_Hit_Points). The game has realistic gravitational effects i.e. the gravity in the solar systems you explore are fully modelled, asteroids orbit planets which orbit the sun. This (we hope) makes things interesting but tricky, so I'd love some feedback on the controls. I have implemented gamepad support using phaser but a recent chrome update stopped it working, I will be adding it back in the future, for now it's keyboard. It works best in chrome. You can play the game here http://waltonia.co.uk/slingshot/ More information can be found on my blog here http://sean.crossproduct.co.uk and Barry's blog here http://barry.crossproduct.co.uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nacs Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 The graphics look good and the game has potential. Unfortunately I wasn't able to play it for more than a minute or so each time I tried as the controls weren't so good. It seemed like the ship had massive mass or really weak engines or something as it took a lot of thrust to get it moving. The real problem though was actually changing direction after the ship was moving -- it was virtually impossible to slow it down or go in the opposite direction as no amount of thrust would get it to change direction. A full 180 turn with full thrust seemed to have almost no effect in slowing the ship down and it just continued drifting in the same direction it was already going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 I may say I have a similar experience with the controls and holding the right or left "a"/"d" for a longer period start cousing me dizziness But it's funny effect. So I'll be glad to check it with a little more refined controls. Also when shooting it's quite unrealistic and funny how i can shoot a lot of rockets and then they travel slow in the direction a was heading so after that i can just go faster than my bullets and "catch" them. And when i look right with the ship the rockets till point left like they are shoot in reverse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted May 27, 2014 Author Share Posted May 27, 2014 Thanks for all the feedback. I'm going to try reducing the strength of the gravity while increasing the power of the engines. The whole game is a realistic simulation of space flight, it's pretty much kerbal space program with guns in 2D. This means the guns work like they would, since you are accelerating you can catch your bullets up and depending on the way you are travelling they might not fire straight out the front... ....I wrote a blog post about this if you are interested http://sean.crossproduct.co.uk/2014/05/14/in-space-games-everyone-can-hear-you-scream/ It all makes the game quite tricky when you start playing, you can eventually figure out how to control the ship, but at the moment the barrier to entry is too high as you guys are pointing out. Thanks again. Mike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted May 27, 2014 Author Share Posted May 27, 2014 I've just posted an update which I hope improves the controls Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nacs Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 I've just posted an update which I hope improves the controls Definitely an improvement in controls now. The controls also make a little more sense now that you mentioned you're going for a more Kerbal-feel. I think the problem is that's not communicated well. The graphics and such make it look like a arcade type shooter where you expect to move quickly and the ship to respond quickly to input. A tiny image of a ship in a world that's extremely zoomed out makes it feel like the ship should be nimble. Kerbal on the other hand almost fills your entire screen with controls and the image of the ship to convey that bulk and size and more real-life type physics (plus the fact that you spend more time building than flying helps convey the realism). Perhaps a more detailed ship (like actual thruster/jet image on the side of the ship when you're rotating for example instead of huge bubbles as big as your ship coming only from the rear of the ship) and zooming in more while the ship speed is low and zooming out when the ship picks up speed may convey the realistic-movement you're going for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted May 29, 2014 Author Share Posted May 29, 2014 Perhaps a more detailed ship (like actual thruster/jet image on the side of the ship when you're rotating for example instead of huge bubbles as big as your ship coming only from the rear of the ship) and zooming in more while the ship speed is low and zooming out when the ship picks up speed may convey the realistic-movement you're going for. Thanks for the feedback. I think you have hit the nail on the head here.... The next thing I'm going to work on is a tutorial of sorts which will hopefully make this clearer.... Zooming the camera is a good idea, although I'm not sure how to do that in phaser, I know I tried and failed to do it once before.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 1, 2014 Author Share Posted June 1, 2014 Made lots of updates this weekend, mainly based on controls and camera. Gone more arcade-ey without losing the gravity effect, I hope! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 Another new build up, improvements (I hope ) based on lots of player feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 7, 2014 Author Share Posted June 7, 2014 ....another build up hoping things are a bit more intuitive now https://twitter.com/DrSeanWalton/status/475300072155283456 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 10, 2014 Author Share Posted June 10, 2014 Just put up a new build. Been improving performance which has allowed me to include more enemies, which is almost turning the game into a bullet hell shooter. This will allow us to include lots more enemy types moving forward. http://waltonia.co.uk/slingshot/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 I pushed out a big update this weekend. The enemy AI has been improved, and what's more is that the longer you stay in a single the system the smarter they become.... However the longer you stay in a system the higher your score multiplier becomes, so it adds a push your luck element to the game. I would love some feedback on this aspect. ....also since my last post missile turrets Play the game here http://waltonia.co.uk/slingshot Read how I implemented the camera here http://sean.crossproduct.co.uk/2014/06/14/thinking-about-cameras/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzi Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 very nice work!reminded this game: btw, can you provide any source? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 23, 2014 Author Share Posted June 23, 2014 Thanks ruzi. What is the name of that game you posted a screen shot of? I haven't released the source yet, but I'm going to go through all of the systems and how they are implemented on my blog as we lock things down http://sean.crossproduct.co.uk (you wouldn't want to see the source, I'm an academic engineer - it's messy and hard to follow) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukaMis Posted June 23, 2014 Share Posted June 23, 2014 Great parallax scrolling effect. Nice 3D illusion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzi Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 Thanks ruzi. What is the name of that game you posted a screen shot of? I haven't released the source yet, but I'm going to go through all of the systems and how they are implemented on my blog as we lock things down http://sean.crossproduct.co.uk (you wouldn't want to see the source, I'm an academic engineer - it's messy and hard to follow) google img: space rangers hdi'm start learn phaser and want make own space game like you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 29, 2014 Author Share Posted June 29, 2014 Just pushed out another update. Biggest change is the addition of a plasma/laser turret whose projectiles are not effected by gravity... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Gatland Posted June 29, 2014 Share Posted June 29, 2014 Hi, I tried it a little bit. I find it hard for my eyes to pick out what is important and what is just the background. In particular, I had trouble reading the text up the top and picking out my ship from all the stars in the background. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted June 30, 2014 Author Share Posted June 30, 2014 Thanks for the feedback Matthew. Oddly I had the same feeling when I posted that screenshot... The text is only there as a place holder at the moment, we are going to have a better UI. The plan is to make it feel like you're standing over a screen commanding your ship, so there will be some kind of targeting overlay which might help pick out the important stuff. Otherwise I think we need to tweak relative sizes of things. Thanks again for the reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted July 13, 2014 Author Share Posted July 13, 2014 I managed to find some time this weekend to push out an update. I updated to the latest phaser version which means you can now use a 360 controller instead of the keyboard... I've also made a big change to the weapon upgrade track, it's more like how we want each of the systems to be, I'll leave it to you to discover the effect each gem has on the projectiles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted July 20, 2014 Author Share Posted July 20, 2014 Big update this weekend, try it out Firstly I've added a lot of tutorial type stuff to introduce some of the more complex mechanics. I've also added a lot more feedback text for damage received and points scored. The projectiles and units are now larger which makes it easier to see them against the star field. Less units spawn at the start of the game which hopefully stops it turning into a button mashing fest and puts more emphasis on good piloting skills. ....I've been really working hard to polish the game loop (not the programming one the player one ) the next big thing I want to add is leaderboards. I'm just trying to figure out what API to use. As always I'd love any feedback, we are still very new to this so anything is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted July 26, 2014 Author Share Posted July 26, 2014 I've recently implemented two new features into the game... 1) Test Leaderboards - when you die you submit you average score per system you visited. At the moment I've used a random name generator to attach a name to the score, I'm going to add a user log in but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do that. At the very least this will give you something to compare your score to. 2) Persistent cross universe corpses - Now each time you die the system coordinates and position in that system of your death are uploaded to a server. Every time any player jumps into a system they download all the locations of player deaths and a wreckage is put into orbit at each position. Now space is big and wreckages are small, so it's going to be hard to find these... hence I'm eventually going to put some kind of pick up nearby - like fuel or something even rarer like health... for now I think it's an interesting layer of emersion and I'm quite chuffed with the results. Have fun, and as always I'd love any feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanEBaby Posted August 9, 2014 Author Share Posted August 9, 2014 Just pushed out an update which introduces player created rips in space. If you warp from system A to system B a wormhole to system B is created in system A. All players see this wormhole in their game and can use it to travel at a reduced fuel cost. Check it out http://slingshot.waltonia.co.uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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