ASCII Wars (Version 0.1) Dev Video

This is the first game I have ever honestly tried to make.. I started learning C# through Unity about a month and a half ago. I was a little hesitant to post it on this forum but I decided I may as well. Even though I am much newer than most people here that post WIPs I'm assuming there is a lot I can learn from feedback.

A little back-story on this game.

I love Shoot em' Up games. The games original influence was Geometry Wars (Although not too much).

I like this style of game that stays in one field of play the entire time. I also wanted to shoot for something you could play multiple times in a sitting.

I really need an artist and some help on a few programming things that have been driving me insane. Hopefully I can work out some of those problems soon.


I have a detailed plan of all the features I am adding and have implemented (should I be posting those here as well?).

 

I liked the shooting effect, but I have no idea why it is called ASCII wars and my expectation was very different from what it actually was.

 

Hey,
Great looking game so far, good job. I am a HUGE, HUUUGE fan of Geometry Wars, I made millions of points in the original and got all the achievements on the Xbox 360 years ago. I think it's cool you are doing a similar game (it's kind of sad but Bizzare creations went under and I don't think Geometry Wars will ever get a third sequel). With that being said, be careful if you go commercial with this title, it's a bit too similar to Geometry Wars, even if you made it a free/open source game, companies/copyright holders are mean about games.

Anyway, some technical feedback. The dark blue ship is kind of hard to see on the background (which is bad in a game that gets busy with graphics/fx going on). Also the waves of enemies are kind of boring. Geometry Wars gradually spawns tons of enemies in the corners even leading up to the black holes and those worm things. I mean there would be hundreds at a time (unless you just didn't get that far in the game on yours in the video). The pace is kind of slow for this style of game, even the soundtrack is slow, it needs to be a high BPM dance beat IMHO. The particle effects could be a look more dramatic and should be on one fixed path once they start moving (Geometry Wars is like a "space" game, particles never really floated around they went in one direction like fireworks going off).

Lastly, I'm not crazy about the main menu/settings screen with the old-English (or should I say "lord of the rings") font with the start game, options, etc.. It feels weird for a sci-fi style game.

I apologize if I sound picky, just trying to give you some constructive criticism. I'm not kidding you I put at least a thousand hours into Geometry Wars Evolved on Xbox, I know how that game should play. Keep going, make it a little more exciting and do something to make it your own unique game apart from GW in terms of gameplay. Good luck.

 

Yea, I didn't get far enough.. The game speed gets much faster and a lot more goes on as it gets further.. With the leveling system I added I am only on level 3 in the video I think and playing on Normal Difficulty. It gets much much quicker..

The blue ship is too dark.. I just put the color picker in yesterday and haven't tested it completely.

The Menus suck.. I am not an artist at all lol.. I am working on those all the time.

You don't sound picky, I posted here just for the reason of getting feedback like this.

Also as far as the sound goes, there are numerous tracks that will play in the background.. I always get bored if there is only one song that loops so I made multiple different tracks, some are slow and some are up beat.

As far as the copyright, when I'm done I don't believe it will be too close to Geometry Wars at all (ASCII Wars is a placeholder title). With leveling systems, upgrades and boss battles the only thing similar my be partially the graphic style... which I will probably change a bit once I find an artist interested in working with me.

 

www.studionametaken.com

You HAVE TO HAVE A CONTROLLER.. And honestly it may have to be a PS3 controller lol.. I haven't figured out how to really map gamepad keys yet so there isn't an option on here...

The game is no where near done really but I wanted to let everyone have a chance to play it so they could give me better feedback.

Enter the name "Cheater" to increase your fire speed so you can unlock everything quicker so you can have a better idea of how the game plays..

I am aware of quite a few bugs such as the high score list and a few spawning and GUI issues. But please let me know any you stumble across. If you would like to help with anything let me know,