[BETA] Guess who's back!? (Shoot for the sky)

[dbarbarian]

Hey everyone. It's been a long long time since I've posted here. I hope everone is doing great.
I have created a game for the Alienware Contest. Some critiques and fps tests are needed.

Instructions:
Aim with the mouse.
Hold the left mouse button to charge up.
Release to fire.
Moving the cursor to the sides of the screen will rotate the turret.
Watch out for the wind!

Bonuses: Faster you shoot, more bonus you get.
An angle of 65 or greater will get you high angle bonus (more for higher angles).
Skipping clouds will get you bonuses (more for skipping more clouds).
Accuracy bonus.

That should be it. Try to get the furthest you can. Your final distance will be added to your bonus to get you the final score.

Have fun and make sure to give me the FPS.

And I'm not so sure if the name of the game is good. Suggestions are welcome.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/dounanthe...ucklaunch.html

Thanks.

EDIT: Changed instructions to "left" mouse button.

[DancingOctopus]

Nice work, really addictive.

I can't find any fault in the gameplay, and the fps was a constant 21, with an occasional stutter mid-flight. Specs: 1.6Ghz p4, 256ram, firefox, latest flash player 7 plugin.

One thing I did notice.. When I was looking into the competition, I got the impression that the silver duck had some significance to the marketability of the games. They don't sell Alienware over here, so I don't know if it's some trademark or something, but leaving it out may make your game less attractive. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's meaningless.

You could have the duck slowly turn silver as you hit more clouds or something.

[Hasufel]

...I get 21/22 fps. Btw, its not the right mouse button to hold, but the left one. Unfortunately, i don't get quite the goal of the game: one try only ? You should give more.

[>flashl!ght<]

DAMN that is addictive, i love the feel. heres my f-back:
1) FPS was pretty smooth, EXCEPT for at certain points it would totally hand for a split second, i dont know why. it appeared to happened always when a cloud was jsut passing by, perhaps a bug in the removal of clouds script. it happened alot(tho it was smooth all the rest of the time) and was quite aggrivating because you would be straining in hopes that the duck hits the cloud you're aiming for, and then a sudden pause just makes you want to scream. (well me anyways)
2) instructions say RIGHT click, it's of course LEFT click, as right click is Flash reserved
3) its great simple as it is, but i think you could make another version withg powerups/floating bonuses, ect. like maybe a one time use powerup that allows you to redirect you, or a rocket that gives a double jump type ability, ect. it should be a different game mode altogether IMHO.
4) the cloud skip bonus *may* be a tad hefty. you can really rack up points by skipping clouds, thats basically how i got all my points every game
5) the wind is a nice touch(though I admit it took me some time to figure out that's why my duck would curve and such, perhaps a label "WIND METER:" over the wind direction/value thing), but somehoe the feel of wind was hard to grasp. maybe the wind could push the clouds, not the duck.

[dogtown08]

Oh great... i am not the only one who is submitting a game to the competition. Well... I lost.

Just a few really picky things to help you win:

•On the first shot, the cannon doesn't move right or left like it does on the clouds. Maybe just make a conveyer belt or something under it.

•The shine on the cannon is a cool idea, but it looks pretty weird and pixilated. I would just make a gradient.

•As flashl!ght said,make the wind meter clearer.

•I am sure alienwere would prefer it if you used the super duck instead of the regular duck. You should figure out a way to integrate the regular duck into the game though. Perhaps make it a backdrop animation or something. I saw one of their ads with the ducks in a magazine, and the idea is the super duck represents an alienwere computer and the regular ducks represent other computers, so perhaps you should make the regular ducks falling to their death in the game

•I got about 10 fps on a mac, which really is not too bad (yes, it is sad though). I bet you could boost up the speed a little, but I wouldnt worry much about it.

[Son of Bryce]

This is fun! I like it a lot.

[mike83]

Fun game, nice work. I got around 8000. The high scores are insanely high. As dogtown said, the highlights on the cannon look weird.

[The_Xell]

Um, the game is locked up... Any suggestions?

[>flashl!ght<]

just skip clouds, 2-3 at a time. you get 1500 for every cloud skipped.

[yakov]

Unsure whether the font chosen for the "replay/submit" screen is alienware-related, but it's really too difficult to read. on 1600x1000-something...

[dbarbarian]

DancingOctopus: At first, I thought it would have been ok to just use a rubber duck. But not that everyone mentions it, I am beginning to feel that I need to incorporate the megaducky into the main gameplay. The problem is, I am no artist, and they only give you one angle on the megaducky, so it would be really hard to add it. Maybe ill make it a loating bonus or something or making the duck silver as you said.

Hasufel: The goal of the game is to get the highest score by shooting into clouds. You only get one try to keep everything quick and simple. RIght now, one game will last somehwere between 2-5 min, or unless you are the person that got the 100000+ score, then I don't know how long that took. If I added extra lives, then that would make the game even longer.

>flashl!ght<: Thanks.
1.On your fps comment, the pause in the game is purposely there to show you that you have actually missed the cloud. In the beginning as I was testing it without the "screenshot", I was sure that I had hit the cloud, since it is hard to read the distance text on the cloud and judge its distance once you are flying. This way, noone will feel cheated.
2. Fixed.
3. That's exactly what I was thinking. However, due to filesize limitations and the fact that I wanted to keep it simple, I decided not to. However, if I don't win, I can just reuse the engine and add powerups for a "new" game.
4.It's hefty for a reason. It is very difficult to skip clouds as the game progresses. So, if you are good enough to do so, I thought you deserved higher bonus points. If other people feel the same (not saying that your opinion does not matter, just wanting more that one person's opinion) then I will decrease it.
5.I'll add the text above the wind meter. The reason I did not have the wind push the clouds is because the clouds would be moving way to fast as the wind goes up to 20.

dogtown08: I don't know what could be wrong with the canon on the ground, it works fine with me. Make sure that your target is at the side of the screen. The canon is pixalated, but it was done in a 3d program (because I can't draw) and rendered low quality to fit the filesize requirements. I'll see what I can do about the megaducky. I'll look into optimizing more.

Son of Bryce: Thanks.

mike83: Thanks. Unsure whether to change the color on the canon yet.

The_Xell: Hmm. Where did the game lock up at? Or did it just not load? (preloader isnt working properly yet, so you might have to wait a bit to load the 200kb).

yakov: I use 1600*1200 and I can read it just fine. I'm not sure what you mean by "the "replay/submit" screen is alienware-related" but I don't think the font chosen has anything to do what alienware wants.

I appreciate all your comments and suggestions. Thank you.

[The_Xell]

When i hit play nothing happened.

Works now and all i can say is WOW! I really like it, nice style and cool idea!

Well done!

[Deaken]

highscore
woohoo got first place. sorry I cheated.

awesome game I played it for a while and think its really fun and original. found a pretty serious bug though. if you roll over the menu or restart button your able to recharge the power meter and then launch the ducky over again so you can skip as many clouds as you want. making easy super high scores.

-

[willie565]

on my pretty good 450mhz machine it ran great and that means a lot in flash goodjob

[dbarbarian]

The_Xell: Thanks =)

Deaken: Wow. Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed it.

willie565: That's good to hear.

[thehumanchimp]

wow, what can i say ... brilliant game, and very addictive ...

[UnknownGuy]

Great game, wish it was mine , good luck with the contest!

[Dr Warm]

That is awesome!!! Couldn't play it with firefox, everything screwed up, but worked with IE. Are you supposed to be able to goto instructions??

Maybe some sort of time bonus if you do it really fast?

[al hack]

Hey very nice, and works so smooth in my in 1Ghz Machine.

[dbarbarian]

Thank you all.

Dr Warm: Did it screw up right after it was finished preloading? The instuctions havent been added, since I might change stuff in the game. There is a speed bonus. The faster you shoot, the more bonus you get.