[Show] Mechanaught

[alillm]

Hey guys,

The activity here is really getting bad, but it wouldn't be right to not pimp my stuff here! I have a few games all waiting to come out in quick succession, this is the first of them. It's called Mechanaught.

http://www.alillm.com/mechanaught.html



Let me know what you think . Opinions always valued.

Thanks.

Ali

[jide]

Right away there was something to the visual style which reminded me of this: http://www.kongregate.com/games/were...ewolf-thriller.

I only played a few levels, I know I'm not a very good play-tester. To be honest I lost interest in your game where I didnt lose interest to the game linked above. The difference I think is th sense of story. You mechanics are very good, but I can't care about the character.

[ImprisonedPride]

I loved the game until somewhere in level 4. You hop down into an area to take out to two overhead turrets and enter the portal to get the flame thrower. When you come back, the two turrets are back(why? where's the level persistence?). I lost 5 guys trying to get out of that hole and finish the level (you have to face 3 more mechs trying to open the gate in front of the portal). As usual your quality shines through; audio/visual was stellar. I'm just a little raw from that part that I mentioned above.

EDIT: Didn't know you could continue... continuing on...

Started to have inconsistencies between saves. Certain switches would already be activated when I got back, but all the mechs and turrets would be respawned. One time I continued I had no bullets in any of my guns? On the first level there are like 5 missile launchers, there was a significant amount of fps loss. Still liking the game thus far though.

[Squize]

Excellent work mate, and great to see it live.

I've heard talk that one game portal has described it as the hottest game of 2009, which is pretty sweet

Squize.

[alillm]

Cheers guys.

jide - I guess that's just something some people like and others don't. There is a small story of sorts in there, but it's mainly about the action. Thanks for giving it a go.

IP - Thanks, glad you like it. The enemies respawn when you enter a room mainly because it would be pretty difficult to save every enemy you have killed so that when you load they are still dead. Many games do this, one prominent one that springs to mind is cave story. The switches on the other hand aren't so common and when you leave a room they sometimes still need to be switched if you re-enter the room, therefore they are also saved.
Thanks for the feedback. You like shmups right? I should have something you will like coming out in a month or so .

Squize - Cheers mate. It's good to have it live, it seems like ages ago I started it.
Yea, pretty good that eh? . Just waiting for it to start being spread now to get the plays coming.

Ali

[mr_malee]

slick stuff, very cool style you've got going.

And thank you for bringing back the spring.

[UnknownGuy]

I played through to level 5 or so and just made some notes that I've cleaned up while I was playing. Some of the things I mention are just commenting on design decisions, so it isn't really a good or bad thing, but just different choices.

• I liked the polish
• I liked how signs shut off when you leave them, felt like a pretty nice way to show the user what to do
• Save slots(at least at the beginning) didn't feel too memorable as to what they were. The second one I ran into I didn't remember what it was.
• I would like to be able to use mouse-wheel for weapon change.
• I found the moving around of the flying enemies cool(when they weren't attacking and when they were attacking for that matter)
• I liked the ways the turret attacked(starts shooting before it aims on the way)
• It didn't really feel clear to me if activating certain switches was ever not a good idea, and when I didn't have to do anything special to reach them, some felt unneeded(like they were just along the only path).
• I found the turrets shooting me when they were off screen was annoying
• All the switches with the arrows pointing down on them(or whatever they were) I never understood throughout my playing the game
• Part of me thinks that the main character should turn around when shooting backwards..but I'm not sure really, it may be just best to obey the walking direction as you did
• I felt when it some situations when it was hard, I couldn't do anything about it. (Once I was trapped by running from things collapsing on me on the right directly into fighting a turret and another guy, and the turret shooting me when off screen didn't help)
• The progression throughout the game of physically moving up was cool(to the different levels)
• Save interface was smooth, would like feedback of what level I was on during save and having a hand cursor on the buttons couldn't hurt
• I would like to be able to switch weapons by pressing the number keys
• I liked the music switching when entering combat
• The level where it was all the jumpy blocks on the ground was fun
• I got pushed horziontally into a wall once..should be crushed and die? Instead I got pushed into the tile, which I could escape from
• I got a one-up once and all I could do was die after, this confused me
• I felt sort of a disconnect of activating a switch and seeing what it opened. I was just like "activate all switches I can" and then later I didn't necessarily know what I had worked for.
• I was confused when there was multiple paths, like did they all converge later or should I backtrack etc..
• One level part way through(5-3) was really laggy on my comp while everything else was fine
• The fighting I really enjoyed was against the flying guys while jumping around on platforms(not necessarily the "jumpy" platforms) with spikes around. I also enjoyed fighting the turrets.
• I didn't enjoy so much fighting the walking guys I encountered, they seemed much more "random" or I just hid in a place they couldn't hit me. Basically I felt I could either "cheat" them or just take a certain amount of damage, my skill didn't feel as important
• I found the rocket guys pretty hard, especially since it was a 1-hit kill. I might've liked it more if it was a 2-hit kill
• I found the background changing interesting, but I feel a little off now . I realize that is part of the "alternative indie" feel of your games(or of what I have seen), but I suggest strobing a bit less

And yes I realize there is only so much time to make a game, so some or many suggestions are in a perhaps perfect world. There are of course always more features or polish one can add, I just mentioned things regardless if they were beneficial enough to invest time into.

Overall it seemed like a pretty cool game, and I'm sure a lot of love went into it. As I mentioned I enjoyed most the turrets and fighting the flying guys while jumping on platforms around spikes the most, so I would be interested in seeing that aspect(for myself) more fleshed out.

Nice job!

[ImprisonedPride]

The one-up is a trick. You can see it from the moving platform above, encouraging you to hop down and grab it. It's a nifty lil' programming trick for good laughs.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I occasionally ran into a "switch" that made a weird noise but did nothing, nor did the switch "activate" or change the level in any way. I checked my ammo and health and did not notice a change there either. What are the uses for these things? I don't remember seeing them identified on the television screens.

Also, would have been a bit of sexin' up if the televisions had that curved "glossy" look that old televisions and CRT monitors had (i.e. curved glass covering) with maybe some displacement to the screen, but you're already pushing enough objects around to have to worry about it.

[UnknownGuy]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I occasionally ran into a "switch" that made a weird noise but did nothing, nor did the switch "activate" or change the level in any way. I checked my ammo and health and did not notice a change there either. What are the uses for these things? I don't remember seeing them identified on the television screens.

Yes, I too never knew what they did.

[alillm]

Cheers Mr M, . Good old springs.

Unknown guy, thanks a lot for the very detailed feedback mate, I should have had you there when I was showing it for testing! Although the game is done and dusted now, this kind of post game feedback is still always helpful for me to know what people like and don't like so I can make future games better.
IP is right about the 1up, it was just a joke, you get an extra life but then you are forced to lose it in order to continue.

I think the "switches" you are both talking about are items. It tells you in the message box at the top what you get. The ones that make a weird noise but nothing happens are ammo which you can't pick up because you don't have the correct gun. For example you can't pick up a fuel tank if you don't have the flame thrower. I can't remember if I put a message in to explain that, but I guess I forgot to.

Oh and the monitors do have a slight border to them to try and give them a bit of an old monitor look but I could have done more with that yea.

Thanks again guys.

Ali

[ImprisonedPride]

That would explain it. After I ranted about that one part, every time I went through that stage afterwards I just skipped the flame thrower all together. Also, the tv's are fine the way they are now.

[charlie_says]

I think it's great! Although, I've got a soft spot for platformers...
Despite that love, I'm never sure how well platformers perform with players generally (altho, adding the shooting works in its favour.)
But, i think it looks & plays really well!

[alillm]

Cheers charlie . I also have a platformer in the works that doesn't involve shooting (I have a lot in in the works! I'm never going to finish all this before uni starts).

Ali

[organburner]

Nice game, mechanically similar to something I'm trying to achieve at the moment.

I did seem to have one slight problem, in one of the level with the horizontally moving platforms with spikes underneath I kind of hit the edge of the platform and then died.

Or maybe I just missed it.

[mentuat]

sweet! - great presentation and style, nicely balanced difficulty level with quick and addictive level playability

had a feeling charlie_says would like it - tapping into that tasty acorn electron charm and gameplay!

[tomsamson]

been locked away cranking on a client game for a whle and now that its pretty much done i thought i could check into fk in between and have a look at what you other guys have been doing meanwhile =)
I´ll play em one by one now and started with yours =)
I really like the kinda semi new wave cubism color candy look of this, definately feels like one of your games instantly
The character could be animated a bit smoother, his base actions felt a bit stiff to me in motion but i like the effects a lot when shooting and overall the game has a nice sorta metroidy touch to it which i like a lot =)
I also dig being able to save often which is ideal for guys like me who usually only get to check out and play flash games in between during coffee breaks =)
Thanks to then i can play it onwards next time and then give some more feedback

[alillm]

Cheers guys.

organburner - Thanks, I'm not quite sure what you mean about that bug though.

mentuat - Cheers mate . Glad you liked it.

tomsamson - Thanks, I'm glad it's recognisable as one of my games .

Ali

[tomsamson]

yeah,totally, i feel like your stuff is becoming more and more artsy. Which is totally meant as compliment

[PhobiK]

Great game you have there, I'm glad to see something new from you

I like the style of the game, very polished yet simple. The background color changing looks pretty cool. I also like those tv's, they give it a nice feel. The messages were cool too. I liked the one that said that I have not enough AI (or something like that), which seems to have been proven as I didn't get too far from there :S

Overall awesome work: great graphics, cool sound, easy gameplay, new weapons, pretty good difficulty curve. Just some things I think could be better: autofiring for the first weapon would be nice; more life items; weapons could evolve faster; advancing through levels could be more noticeable, like having a level number, but it's not too necesary. Some minor things ... Awesome work overall!

[ImprisonedPride]

You're shown what level you're on when you save.