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Author Topic: SuperMelee Clone (Beta II In-Progress)  (Read 54361 times)
xenoclone
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #60 on: September 27, 2007, 08:38:17 pm »


Mac and Linux are future possibilities. But for the time being, XP only.
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Resh Aleph
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #61 on: September 27, 2007, 08:55:52 pm »

Mac and Linux! I was merely wondering about other versions of Windows. Tongue
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #62 on: September 27, 2007, 09:36:20 pm »

Mac and Linux! I was merely wondering about other versions of Windows. Tongue

I haven't tried. I've heard reports that the engine won't work in Vista, and it's far too new to have been tested on Win 98 SE. Try it out and let me know if it works for you. Smiley
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #63 on: September 27, 2007, 11:54:29 pm »

Ok, I played it through several games now. First impressions.

You have done a great job and have put alot of time and effort into this game. Graphics and sounds are top notch.

However, Gameplay seems a bit slow to me. The seeking missiles seem a bit overpowered and actually lagged the game with a noticible drop in frame rate.

The ship selection could be a bit more intuitive. There's no reason it couldn't be done with mouse only instead of pressing A and B key etc.

It's also hard to keep track of where you are sometimes due to the way you programmed the view when a ship wraps around to the other side of the playing field. The size of the area you are viewing jumps so dramatically you lose focus.

The ship sprites also seem a bit small. You have some great artwork, why not show it off?

Only dings i could come up with, other than that, great effort. This one will stay on my HD for a while, and thanx again.

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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #64 on: September 28, 2007, 04:46:39 pm »

It does work in Vista. It's fun! Cheesy


Things to improve? I haven't played much really, but here are some immediate points:

Ship selection: I didn't like how the ships run out of the preview "window". It would be nicer if it locked on to them.

I desperately needed a manual, because I had no idea what was going on. What do the various circle graphics mean? Are same-class ships supposed to be balanced? What does each ship do? (It would be cool if ship descriptions were to be added to the ship selection interface.)

Gameplay: The physics are way more realistic than in Star Control, but it's less fun to control ships that way IMO. You need to keep turning around to fire in close range, and naturally it's difficult to do so with realistic space physics. (Hmm, could be interesting if there were front thrusters.) ... or maybe I just need to get used to the game. Tongue

I'd rather have gauges for hit points/energy, since they require less time to read than numbers. Tongue (Hey, it's melee! Every 0.1 second counts!)

Oh, and is it just me or does no key respond when a game is over? o_O


But yes, quite fun. Great job! Cool
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xenoclone
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #65 on: September 28, 2007, 06:13:13 pm »

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it.

Ironically, I did have a manual online but forgot to share the link. Short Guide: http://www.xenoclone.com/downloads/xvsbeta_guide.pdf

I've also got a camera patch I'm working on. If you've got the time interest, would you try it out? It also tweaks a few other things, like game speed.

http://www.xenoclone.com/downloads/xvs_camerapatch.zip

Unzip into your XenoVersusBeta/SpaceMelee/gameScripts sub-directory.
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #66 on: September 29, 2007, 06:06:26 pm »

I'll try the camera patch.
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #67 on: September 30, 2007, 12:57:16 pm »

Hey, I had six more days! Cry



Anyway, after playing a little more:

  • The camera issue is indeed the weakest link. I haven't tried the patch though.
  • It's harder to see the graphics with more than two ships, because the map is often zoomed all the way out. I'm not sure what could be done there though.
  • Is it just me, or do weapons not wrap around the screne edge?
  • If you can launch your ships whenever you want, one could simply wait for all other players to kill each other. Tongue
  • I miss SC's diversity in ships. SC uses extreme properties to make ships more unique. Some are huge, some are tiny, some can stop from full speed and turn around almost instantly, some can cross the entire screen in just a few seconds, etc.
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Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips  /  These are a few of my favorite ships!
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #68 on: September 30, 2007, 08:44:33 pm »

Hey alephresh,

It may just be a bug in the date checker. Try again on October 1. If that doesn't work, no worries. Another beta is just around the corner. Wink

There is a timer on how long you can take to choose your ship. 10 seconds and then whatever you have gets popped into the game.

Yes, the camera is bad. I just tried UQM's camera. It gets away with some tricks using that plain background, for sure. But I'm working on another improvement.

Don't worry about diversity in ships. There are actually 18 more ships in progress not in the beta. You've gotten to play with the small. There are medium and big ships upcoming as well. Plus, mini-ships that can be launched by some of the big ships. Smiley

You are absolutely right about that the weapons don't wrap and the 4-player zoom issue. The former I can fix... the latter I'll have to think about some more

Thanks for the testing and thoughts. I really appreciate it!

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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #69 on: October 01, 2007, 03:28:00 pm »

I had the date bug too, but now it works fine.

I really, really like the graphics, the different characters in the menus, and the nice touches there are in the ship selection screens - ship previews for instance look really cool with the "slice" picture of the character. Also, it sounds like audio department is pretty well in check. Sound effects seem good and the music is pretty fitting, although not really memorable as some game tunes are.

I expected a little more "newtonian" or "harder feeling" gameplay, instead it's feel sort of soft, like steering inside a pudding. I don't feel like I can directly "import" my supermelee playing skills into this game, since the gameplay feel is so different. Taking a match with 3 AIs was rather chaotic, but I played a match against a single computer opponent and I'm beginning to see how to make a difference in the battle. I can't say the gameplay clicked instantly with me, but I'll need a few more games to say more about that.

I might have sounded a tad critical, but I do think it's great work so far! I was especially wow!ed with the graphics.

--Eino
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #70 on: October 01, 2007, 07:15:04 pm »

There is a timer on how long you can take to choose your ship. 10 seconds and then whatever you have gets popped into the game.
Another option is to avoid combat until only one other player is left. Cheesy

The game works now. I finally managed to survive a game with three AIs, but an AI bug stopped me from fragging the last one: it kept running to the edge of the screen. I couldn't do anything since the game view was constantly wrapping around. I had the red ship and the AI had the yellow one.

By the way, I'm still confused about the meaning of some things, like  that weird green stuff and small graphical details like ship trails.
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Marines on Maulers and limpets on Earthlings  /  Bright Podship plasma and warm Kohr-Ah death rings  /
Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips  /  These are a few of my favorite ships!
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #71 on: October 02, 2007, 06:34:46 pm »

Eino: I want you to be critical. Otherwise, how could I improve things. I like your feedback. Compared to SuperMelee, my game does feel a tad sluggish, I agree. The music is actually just temporary, as are certain sound effects. I've had a few people express interest in writing the music, but I haven't heard any samples yet. Smiley

alephresh: The ship trails are just there to show you your momentum. Nothing more. The weird green stuff... you mean when you go thru the exhaust of the big + shaped thing? It just temporarily freezes your weapons. (The same as if you get hit by the Chakra's laser beams.)

 I have some good news. I finally figured out how Star Control does its camera! It took a paradigm shift in thinking, for sure. Right now I'm busily implementing two game modes; "classic" 1 on 1, which will have a camera like Star Control, and "free for all", which will support 4 players and use the camera style that comes with that "patch" I offered up for download. I like the idea of two game modes... one for the fans of SC, one for people looking for something new. So, I think those will both be part of the next beta, along with at least one more level and 9 more ships. Cheesy
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #72 on: October 02, 2007, 07:47:19 pm »

alephresh: The ship trails are just there to show you your momentum.
Since you want us to be critical... I'm going to tell you that the trails show your velocity, not your momentum (i.e. mass times velocity).  Wink

"free for all", which will support 4 players and use the camera style that comes with that "patch" I offered up for download.
Are you sure you want to also keep the weapons-don't-wrap-around thingy, though? Fights near the edge are weird with it.

Also, to take advantage of this change, you might want to shift the "camera-arena" (by this term I mean the area to which the camera focus is restricted, or otherwise said, the area around which the camera is not allowed to wrap around.) when ships get near each other in fact, but far from each other on-screen - that is, when, say, two ships are on the right edge, and the other two are on the left edge.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2007, 07:49:19 pm by Valaggar the Wackrazy One » Logged
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #73 on: October 02, 2007, 08:04:34 pm »

The graphics are good. I would recommend some anti aliasing being done one some of the character images. I got very annoyed while trying to play this though. The ships are harder to control then in SC2. I also got very annoyed trying to kill the chakra, it regenerated faster then I could do damage to it.  I was also very annoyed that bullets would not wrap around. Also the tracking logic for the missiles seams not to lead the target making them very easy to avoid with fast ships.
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Re: SuperMelee Clone (Beta on Page 4)
« Reply #74 on: October 02, 2007, 08:28:52 pm »

The ship trails are just there to show you your momentum.
And the occasional circle trails?

Another thing: I don't like the way the ship spins after entering the game zone or after taking a bonus. I want to have full control of it. Talking of bonuses, why would I want a level-down? o_O

The showstopping AI bug I mentioned happened to me again already.
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Marines on Maulers and limpets on Earthlings  /  Bright Podship plasma and warm Kohr-Ah death rings  /
Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips  /  These are a few of my favorite ships!
       © meep-eep
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