[BETA/SHOW] Christmas Cannon

[Viza]

Hey guys,

Here's what I've been slaving over for the last 2 weeks: PLAY CHRISTMAS CANNON

It's not quite finished, but it's very close to completion now. When I first released this as an ALPHA, you guys gave me heaps of great usggestions and ideas, hopefully you can do the same again. Unfortunately I've already passed my personal deadline for this one, and so I won't be able to make drastic changes, but certainly any suggestions you've got will be considered.

ENJOY!

Viza.

[mr_malee]

nice, I like it.

Only thing I would say is beef up the effects, gameplay seems right.

[Ray Beez]

It's too easy. You don't do anything to force the player to move their mouse, so all I do is set a mouse position, then correct it slightly the next time. Now if you forced me to move the mouse (say, to click a "Next" button) then it wouldn't be so easy to do that.

[ChaseNYC]

Ray beat me too it! Good game regardless but that fix is a necessary!

[TOdorus]

I disagree. Not having a reference point would make this game that much harder from the get go. Now the difficulty builds up more gradually and also pulls in more casual players. On a more personal note: I would be irritated if I had to guess my last shot everytime.

[renderhjs]

isnt that from last year? o_O

[Viza]

@Malee: Sweet, glad to hear you liked it.

@Ray & Chase: Yeah, believe me, this is something I've heavily considered. I saw two main flaws though: 1. It'd be REALLY annoying having something pop up saying "RELOAD" right in your face all the time. 2. I tried to design the levels with a good learning curve so that players begin by making small alterations but later are required to pick a path carefully and take many shots before they even hit the target (meaning making small alterations plays less of an issue).

@TOdorus: Yep, I think the same. Plus, you also have to consider the target audience. I'm trying to appeal to as many people as possible; so even though you guys probably think the first 10 or so levels are too easy, my younger cousins would've found it almost too dificult. Trying to find a balance has been very difficult.

@RenderHJS: Hahaha! Pretty much. I started this in January, and at that time everyone thought I was n idiot for doing a christmas game that early. The plan was to get it finished very early to give me heaps of time to market it. The game only got finished a couple of days ago, which just goes to show how inactive I've been on the Flash scene. Besides, the game has evolved a ton since I lat posted it here; I even paid for an artist to do some gfx, so I'm hoping this game does well.

Viza.

[tomsamson]

Nice game, good work
I had had a bug several times that it wouldn´t let me shoot or continue after shooting so i had to reload. Speaks for the game though that it was fun enough to make me want to reload and retry
I found it a bit boring/ too much on the easy side in early levels but then it got more fun/challenging, but yeah, i agree that there´s all sorts of people and what is too easy for one might already be too hard for the other so it really depends on what´s your target audience.
Also its funny, i made something similar not long ago for a game of mine (its no flash game though ).

[UnknownGuy]

I enjoyed, nice job.
The graphics were good and I enjoyed the game (and the hint system was a nice touch). I wrote a list of things I would look into to try to make the game all it should be from the gameplay.

A couple suggestions:

1. I did not keep the mouse still during turns, and thus found the difficulty ramped up quite quickly(probably too much for me). Maybe you should start with a couple more credits? (Or earn them as you go, maybe you do, got to lvl 6).

2. I find it a bit off that every level the user is presented with a Next Level button right beside the Quit to Menu button. IMO, the Quit to Menu button should probably not be there; it just seems to easy to quit the game. I can understand that after the first level or two they may want some help, so maybe you could have a help button (or maybe not needed, given the hints). But all the user can do if the quit is a) start again, b) get help, or c) see highscores. It seems they would not want to do a) or c) so much if they are already playing.

3. After the last shot of a level, the transition is a bit jerking. It starts to slide back to the elves, then zooms all the way out, and then back to the elves. Maybe it should just go directly?

4. I found the initial menu a bit confusing/not working if I want to do anything other than hit play. I understand the highscores may not be in there, fine, but if right now if you hit highscores, and then hit it again, and then hit help, the help does not appear. But when you hit help a second time, it appears, but now the buttons are underneath it.

For the menu, I would suggest that if you like the sliding away part of it, that you slide as you do, but slide the Play, Help and Highscores completly offscreen, and then have a Back button slide in. As of right now if you are viewing the help, and you hit play, it just slides the menu back and you need to press it again, which I find confusing.

5. The help should perhaps some sort of backing to it, instead of just being directly over the background, somewhat hard to read at places. Also the help says one always gets 4 shots, which be not the case.

[Viza]

@Tom: Haha! That's great to hear that you wanted more (it gives me a good indication that at least someone enjoyed the game ). I'm sorry you had that fatal bug though. I've only been able to replicate it a few times however, and so it's hard to understand why it's occuring. Tell me:
1. Did it occur after replaying (so you lost, and went back to the main menu, and then on the next game it occured?)?
2. Did it happen when you had 0 shots left (and you should'e been presented with either lvl failed, lvl completed?
Yeah, like I said, I wouldn't probably play this kind of game myself, and so it's hard to determine what's fun and what's too easy, etc. The early levels (particuarly the first 2 levels) are really there for people to get used to the controls and to read the hints (which pretty much repeat the instructions - which most ppl probably wouldn't have been bothered to read at the beginning).
Btw, have you got any videos or screenshots of your game?

@UnknownGuy: Glad to hear you liked it, and I appreciat you putting the effort in to make that awesome list. In responce to your suggestions:

1. Yeah, making a way to earn more credits seemed like a good idea. I've thought baout this, and to be honest I didn't want to add complexity to what should be a simple game. I'm hoping that this 'simple'/bare bones version will do well, and if it des than all of those ideas I've got bottled up can always be introduced into a sequal.

2. Yup, very good point! It's probably a bit late in the game to change it (and I really don't want to re-design those transition screes; I've had enough trouble with them as it is, lol), but certainly it's something I'll also consider if I make a sequal.

3. Yup, again I agree totally. It's easier said than done, 'cause the way the zooming is set up may make things difficult to change. I'll think about this one.

4. Yep, you just found anotehr bug 'm aware fo where the HELP button sometimes doesn't do what it's supposed to and the instructions will pop up when they're not supposed tobe there. I'm pretty sure I've eliminated this bug now. Th menu design was designed very late, and was more a passing though rather than something I'd pondered about for a while. Now that I've got hscores working and those menu bugs worked out, I think it works OK, but yeah, it's not the smartest/best design. I wanted to keep the main menu still on-screen for some reason which I can't remember now (LOL) while you still veiwed the leaderboard/instructions. I've gone through too much pain implementing this damn system to want to change it now, but I think in a sequal I'll ditch that menu system. Thx for confirming my thoughts

5. Yeah, I've also considered this but I personally think it'd look ugly, so Iopted out. Also, cheers, I missed that mistake in the instructions (4 shots... it was a late change to make each level's shots unique).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to play the game; hopefully it was fun. Big thanks to the peeps who gave me a nice review, it's been very helpful.

Viza.

[tomsamson]

forgot about this first thread on the game for a while after that second thread
from what i remember the bug mostly happened in between tries, so let´s say i shot one time and then it didn´t trigger me beeing able to shoot again next time, not sure about the exact details though, i tried to reproduce it but couldn´t get it to happen every time, seemed more to be happening randomly in between, as if several things have to (mis)act together to cause it.

Regarding the game of mine that is similar: here´s a video capture of it:
http://www.stimunationgames.com/artS...iewCapture.zip
its rough art side and also made for iphone constraints, also that cannon mode was intended to be only one of several game modes in the game, but yeah, it still felt a bit bummer style to work on that for a while to then see your game which is pretty much the same concept.
Well, sure its not the most original concept by itself, still felt weird to see something so similar already during the dev cycle of mine..
well, yours is cool for the christmas vibe and all and mine should be nice for having other modes, so yeah, not all bad

[Viza]

OK, thx for the bug report TomSamson.

That game of yours looks pretty cool! Weird how a few things are pretty similiar (zooming is kinda the same, shooting ppl out of cannons, heads get stuck in target board, etc.). Out fo curiousity, what is your game made with?

Unfortunately it seems like my game has missed its prime chance and overall will/was a substantial loss financially. I've learnt a lot though from this second game, probably more than my first. If someone were to ask me whether I think making a seasonal game is a good idea I would tell them "hell no". Unless you're being contracted for this kind of specific job, you wont be more succesful with a specialised game than if you were to make a normal game (no theme). In fact, most people don't play seasonal games over regular games, and considering now that there are heaps of christmas games out there yours wont have much of an edge over the competition.

I think if I had released this game at teh start of the month, and found a sponsor, it could've been a big hit for me. Unfortunately, due to many reasons the game's deadline kept getting dragged on (despite me cutting out features as each day after the deadline passed) until it was absolutely too late. I'm really looking forward to a break from this crap so I can live a stress free couple of weeks, but hopefully this next mini-game I've got half made will return my lost money.

In case anyone feels like spreading the xmas love, check out this link for the full game: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/475499

Viza.

[tomsamson]

OK, thx for the bug report TomSamson.

np, sorry its not that specific.

That game of yours looks pretty cool! Weird how a few things are pretty similiar (zooming is kinda the same, shooting ppl out of cannons, heads get stuck in target board, etc.). Out fo curiousity, what is your game made with?

yeah, the cannon minigame in mine was mostly inspired by the cannon mini game in pilotwings 64. I knew of course that there are similar shoot guy out of cannon to hit bullseye flash games, i thought i´d make mine a bit more varied by adding obstacles like burning rings etc i had in the trucks games, well, then i saw yours so ,hm, that obviously didn´t make it that much more original
I´ve already got some other things going now besides the cannon mode, so the focus is still some different,but yeah, the cannon minigame teaches me to do more original game modes or not wonder when i see something similar as i have done the next week
Its coded in C# using unity in case you were asking that.

Unfortunately it seems like my game has missed its prime chance and overall will/was a substantial loss financially. I've learnt a lot though from this second game, probably more than my first. If someone were to ask me whether I think making a seasonal game is a good idea I would tell them "hell no". Unless you're being contracted for this kind of specific job, you wont be more succesful with a specialised game than if you were to make a normal game (no theme). In fact, most people don't play seasonal games over regular games, and considering now that there are heaps of christmas games out there yours wont have much of an edge over the competition.

I think if I had released this game at teh start of the month, and found a sponsor, it could've been a big hit for me. Unfortunately, due to many reasons the game's deadline kept getting dragged on (despite me cutting out features as each day after the deadline passed) until it was absolutely too late. I'm really looking forward to a break from this crap so I can live a stress free couple of weeks, but hopefully this next mini-game I've got half made will return my lost money.

cool, good luck with that
and yeah, i agree, its problematic with seasonal games and also games which are related to current day news in any way; they have a chance to
become the big en vogue thing of the day if they launch at the exact right date and through some pimping and luck become the more picked up by the press thing than all other games etc that are related to the same event (see that shoe throwing at bush game) but yeah, you´re right, there are so many games etc on that same news/event that each has a very small chance to get noticed and then news and events of the day are alrady less important to people on the next day.
well,don´t be sad though, your game is still nice by itself and i´m sure all you learned will be helpful when making your next game
Like with mine i don´t expect mine to bring much money either, its more a learning experience for getting used to iphone dev and make something fun while getting there