B W wrote:
I, for one, liked the mouse interface after playing a couple of games. I'm of two minds about showing the cursor. On the one hand it makes it clear what's going on in terms of the limited speed movement. On the other, it's kinda distracting. Have you tried hiding the cursor during play?<bryce.schroeder@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:Control scheme interesting and somewhat novel but a little difficult (probably to at least in part to unfamiliarity); there is potential there but it needs refinement. I think I would like mouse to aim, keys to move the ship, personally.Sadly for keyboard and joystick lovers, I'm too sold on the mouse for this one. The nimbleness of the mouse will be much needed by the time v0.0.5 rolls around. I don't think it would be possible to tune the game to swing both ways. If it's tuned for a keyboard, a mouse user would be bored after one-and-a-quarter stages (and give up more quickly than you seem to have). If the reverse, a keyboard user would get mauled (and give up more quickly than the mouse user). :) No, input mode is not going to change. But I might be able to tweak it if presented with some constructive feedback in that area.
Another thought I had (and this probably needs experimenting to work out well) is to try to use the mouse as a directional control rather than a positional control. In other words, currently when I move the mouse to the left, the desired position of the ship moves left; perhaps instead the ship itself should move left. The problem with this is how to specify how much, and also how to retain the speed limit. Mice are designed to be positional controls, so that might be weird.
While I understand your concerns (I'm a perfectionist too on my games) I think having a fullscreen option is the way to go. I modded the source and changed it to use your fullscreen options in game_globals.py, and enjoyed it that way. I think a menu entry to toggle fullscreen would be fine. Also, I would probably lock the cursor inside the window in windowed mode.The graphics are small and difficult to see. Better (larger, mainly) graphics would be a logical improvement at this point.What size is your display? And is your eyesight good or poor? No insult meant by those questions. They are factors I would want to consider when interpreting your comment. And puzzling out how big is too big, how small is too small.
A few other constructive comments: I like the way the high scores work better than other games, where I quickly end up with Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike. However, having to input a player name every time is kind of a pain. Moreover, having to type with the mouse is a double pain. It would be better IMO if you saved the player name (and maybe offered a "change player" button in the menu).
There seems to be a glitch when the invaders return to their home - sometimes they "teleport" from the end of their arcs to their stationary positions. Perhaps a roundoff error getting multiplied out or something?
The stage counter increments immediately when you destroy the last guy, it seems it would be better to increment it when the next stage starts.
All I'm hoping for is that this one, at the end, will offer enough flash and character and maybe challenge to inspire someone to play it longer than the first three player deaths, brag about a high score, and become intrigued enough to look under the hood to see how it was pulled off. Hm, reading back... heh, that is hoping for quite a bit.
I got 27k and stage 8!
Oh, and did I mention Trolls Outta Luckland is HALF-FINISHED? =) Thanks for the feedback, Bryce. There were some good points to it. Gumm
Keep up the good work! I think this is a nice game (despite being refried beans :))
--Mike