[BETA] Rafting Enthusiast

http://www.wesisgood.com/

The game doesn't have instructions, highscores, a way to lose, or a level system set up yet. Mouse wheel will let you switch weapons. Click to shoot. Arrow keys to move. Pretty straight forward.

Let me know what you think. I'm very interested in frame rates. I plan to add more weapons and upgrades. I have a number of them ready, they just aren't actually in this demo. The grey clouds are supposed to be negative thoughts about rafting. The white bubbles are positive thoughts about rafting. Destroy the grey bubbles, but not the white bubbles. The scoring is different for each weapon. You'll figure it out.

This is a remake of my second flash game ever. In the original (which has been lost to the ages) the bubbles had actually writing in them. I want that to be incorporated somehow, but it's not cool to make people read. So any ideas are very welcome. As an example, a positive thought bubble would say "Rafting is the manliest of ventures", while a negative thought bubble would say "Your friends and family think you have a rafting problem" or "Lava would instantly destroy a rubber raft".

What is the best way to get money for a game like this? I've never sold a game before, so I'm very new to that area. I've read a few posts, but there's a lot of information about it and if someone could narrow that information down for me, that would be excellent. Basically, for a game like this, what is the best way to make as much money as possible.

Also, can I get away with using that music in a game which I intend to make money from? If not, I'm not going to sell it. The music is the most important parts of the game, I couldn't deprive people of it.

i dont know what you have been taking... but can you tell me where I can get some too.

As far as money goes bang some ads in it gamejacket.com or mochiads.com

if you are making money from it then I doubt very much you would have a leg to stand on using the music you have chosen. Buy some royalty free stuff for $30 from shockwave-sound.com

Thanks for the tip about shockwave-sound.com . I was skeptical at first, but I've been listening to some of the sample music and it's really not that bad. Although I'm still not sure if there can be a Rafting Enthusiast without Lets Get Excited... It's something I will have to think deeply about. In the meantime, I will be looking for potential replacements on the website you linked me to.

Off-Topic: I get logged out of this forum basically every 5 minutes. It's a pain in the ass. Do you know what's causing that and how to fix it?

I found the gun odd to use in that it shot on release and not on press like I would expect. Is it charging up or something when the mouse is held down? It was hard to tell. If the gun does not charge up, then it needs to shoot on mousedown and not on mouse up. If it is charging, then make it glow or something else visual. I played it muted so I could not tell if it had a charging sound or not.

This is also the weirdest game I have ever seen. I agree with FK when he says he wants some of what you are taking, LOL.

The game could certainly be fun though. I found the way you did the arrow harpooning things and how it kept going as well as changing the rotation of all it harpooned to be interesting.

Good call on the gun. I just changed it. I think there was some reason for it doing that originally, but it has been lost over time.

Also I gotta say, playing this game muted is one of the biggest mistakes a man can make in the course of his life. Also, you lose 100 points for doing so.

Also to anyone else who plays: It can be a bit more fun if you understand the scoring. Basically the gun scores linearly, and the bow+arrows score exponentially.

So if with the gun you shoot 3 grey and 2 white this gives you 3-2=1 points.

But the arrow is a bit trickier. Here's a chart:

1 grey -> 1 point
2 grey -> 3 points
3 grey -> 7 points
4 grey -> 15 points
5 grey -> 31 points
6 grey -> 63 points
etc.

1 white -> -1 point
2 white -> -1 point
3 white -> -1 point
4 white -> -1 point
etc.

1 grey + 1 white -> -3 points
2 grey + 1 white -> -7 points
3 grey + 1 white -> -15 points
4 grey + 1 white -> -31 points
etc.

It can actually be pretty fun, if I can get the player to actually care about the score. The most industrious of rafters will do their best to get long combos of grey bubbles with the arrow, but make sure they never hit any white bubbles with the same arrow. Occasionally if you see one white bubble near a ton of grey ones, you can shoot the white one with the gun, so that you can shoot an arrow through the huge pack of greys and get MONSTER POINTS OMG. Anyways, this all assumes that anyone is paying enough attention to care.

I can only jump, the other arrows don't do anything, and the bullets appear but they don't move... Also, the music sucks big time.

Fall_X: That's all normal. Don't worry, just keep playing.


No, actually, that's a bug I had noticed. It would occasionally happen if I was watching a video on tudou.com at the same time that I started playing the game. Some sort of security sandbox thing with the sound? Does anyone understand this? I really need to fix it, and at the moment I don't really know what it is.

Update: I've been reading a bit about the bug online. The things I read didn't have any solutions. So, I'm just catching the error now if it occurs, so that it doesn't cause all the other problems that Fall_X described. Now it just stops the fancy spectrum flames in the background if it happens. A loss, to be sure, but not a fatal loss. At least doing so improves performance.

I've made some pretty extensive changes. I'm really happy with how it's turning out. Really happy. Perhaps too happy. Check it out here:

http://www.wesisgood.com/raftingenthusiast/

I'm in the middle of implementing the point/buying system, and I still haven't included any instructions or a high score list. But, I would like some feedback on what I have so far, if anyone could be so kind. Is the gameplay choppy? The music is still a demo because I haven't decided which way to go with it. Happy, or ominous and sarcastically imposing?

"Perhaps too happy"

afraid so old boy, your game crashes my browser. Naughty, naughty.

Chris Error x

wtf son of biscuits

any idea why?

I was just uploading an updated version and accidentally hit flash 8 instead of flash 9 and it screwed everything all up, but I think you posted before I did that, which means unless my game sucked you in to a time vortex as it crashed your browser, I have another problem to deal with.

Is it possible that my game is just way too cool and your browser just couldn't handle it?

The new weapons make a huge difference, but you should add weapon switch on keys 1-8

Also some kind of display to show what the hell is going on with the score, particularly when using the arrows, like a "+7" appearing briefly at the cloud position when a cloud is hit, and if you must lose points for missing greys, have "-1" coming up from the ones you miss, to show why you are losing points.

I see about a dozen "issues" with this game if you care to hear them, like why does the lava scroll when the clouds don't? but, you know, if you are happy with it as is you probably don't want to hear 'em ;)

Well lava is a physical aspect of the environment. Thought bubbles are, naturally, nearly stationary with respect to the thoughter who thought them. Obviously.

Good points about the score popping up to show what is going on. This is something that I have been intending to implement in some way, I'm just not entirely sure which way, yet.

But I am very interested in hearing any and all issues. This is my first attempt to polish a game, and I want to do it as right as I can.

As for the 1-8 weapon keys... Well, there's supposed to be one hand on the arrow keys and one on the mouse, so that doesn't leave much room for hitting the numbers. I planned to get around this by only allowing the player to use two weapons per round, which he picks from the ones available to him. That way the mouse scroll wheel will simply switch to the only other weapon available.

"Thought bubbles are, naturally, nearly stationary with respect to the thoughter who thought them. "

Could we have a modern day Lewis Carroll amongst us here at FK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_nonsense


Chris error.

ps. you have a crazy imagination Wes, and I'm only teasing, good luck with trying to finish a game :)

Quote:

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Could we have a modern day Lewis Carroll amongst us here at FK.

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Well we both are/were mathematicians with terrible hair...

love it, leaves me with a feeling of giddy joy and impending doom, kinda like the start of a relationship

or floating in the middle of the ocean on a boat made of candy

p.s.: your relationship example was funnier. I just felt like I should contribute.

Are you satan?

"Are you satan?"


You are the everyman. You are the rafting enthusiast.

Quote:

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You are the everyman. You are the rafting enthusiast.

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I guess you're right.

Can there be only one?

Yes. Now bow for my enthousiasm.

I bet the highlander was enthusiastic about rafting, but had to avoid it because of the sword. It's like that joke about madonna in a life raft. i forget the exact wording but long story short she accidentally cuts a hole in the raft with a sword, i think.