Re: [pygame] Frantic 0.9.7a

["David Mikesell" <dave_mikesell@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Great feedback again.   I'll begin working on the improvements you
suggested (I especially love the stuff leading up to the ten shot
bonus).   Re: the ship movement towards the ends, I can fix that, but
I've also gotten several requests to "wrap" the ship, like in Asteriods.
 I never really cared for that effect in that game, but maybe that's
because you got going so fast that you could lose control of the ship.  
I'll play around with that.

Thanks again.  

Dave

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:04:52 -0800, "Brian Fisher"
<brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
> Hi Dave,
> 
> I played the version on your site as of Monday March 13th
> 
> Frantic was a lot more fun and addictive for me than the last version.
> It's looking more polished, and I think it has a pretty good reward
> schedule (in that it pays off a little quickly and often, but has big
> rewards that you can't get that often that drive you to keep playing)
> 
> The music is fantastic, quite perfect for the game, I think
> 
> The cloaking mines (with the spinning starfields) look awesome
> 
> > One thing you'll notice this time around is that Frantic only supports
> > keyboard input.  I have yet to invest the time in a workable mouse input
> > that doesn't completely change game play.
> >
> I think you're probably best to drop mouse control as an option and
> just focus on making keyboard control really awesome. I think you
> could make great mouse control, but like you can tell, it would be a
> different game. The time experimenting with mouse stuff would probably
> be better spent perfecting the keyboard control
> 
> The control works nice, but there are still a few places where it
> feels a little sloppy to me. One is when the ship sticks to a side of
> the screen (I'd just zero the x velocity when you hit the side walls,
> and just the y velocity for the top & bottom)
> Also, I think it helps that you slow down the turning rate when moving
> forward or backward (you have a bit more control), but I think the
> turning is too slow in these cases. The ship didn't feel responsive
> when going from a standing turn to a moving one and vice versa
> 
> The one control thing that caused me the most trouble though is the
> way another shot comes out as soon as your current one is done if you
> are pressing the shoot button - I'd make it so that each weapon has a
> fixed repeat rate when the button is held, independent of the number
> of shots out. It felt sloppy when it shot multiple times, but worse it
> ruined my accuracy when I shot something up close (because of the
> second shot) and it didn't feel like my fault
> 
> ... I really wanted good accuracy too, because of that ten shot kill
> all thing. It's a very smart and cool addition that I think improves
> the reward schedule a lot. It's kind of like hitting the jackpot on a
> slot machine. I think it's worth playing it up a whole lot more. I
> would suggest adding some clues for the consecutive shots leading up
> to the 10th hit (maybe starting at the 4th or 5th?). Like some sounds
> that build in pitch for the ones closest to the tenth. Or adding
> something to the explosions as they get closer to the 10th too (maybe
> layer the blue spark effect on top, to tie it in to the final reward).
> Also, it might be nice to have the ninth shot have some mini effect
> (killing a few enemies around it) similar to the 10th (like a
> preview). In addition, If it was really clear when you are about to
> make the tenth hit attempt, it would build the tension a lot. Like
> maybe after nine you have some little effect that plays over you,
> and/or some periodic sound to show you've got some energy behind the
> shot. Then if you miss you could have some descending pitch sound, to
> kind of punctuate the disappointment that you missed.
> 
> I like the way the explosions look like fireworks, since people will
> see them so often the cooler they are the better, and it's a very
> rewarding effect (makes me want to blow stuff up more)
> 
> I like the way the explosions are nice and slow, so that you get more
> chains. The chains are something else I think it would be cool to play
> up more. It would be cool to make it feel more like a chain reaction
> that builds - so like maybe the explosions get bigger as the chains go
> farther (making it more likely to get even bigger chains from those
> that are 4 or 5 long) I'm thinking that the more you can get it to
> feel like occasionally you really hit the jackpot with some huge
> chain, the more it would drive people to keep playing to get that
> reward. also maybe the bonus score could double each time or
> something.
> 
> The sound in general is understated, which I think is good for the
> game. I think it would feel better with some additional rewarding
> sounds (like mentioned above) but all the existing sounds seem good
> 
> I like that you get end of level bonuses based on your stats - I think
> you'd get more mileage out of them by moving the tally from the bottom
> middle up to the center of the screen or something.
> 
> I noticed that the "speed" setting seemed to relate to the number of
> enemies out at once, as opposed to the speed of enemies. It didn't
> match my expectation based on the name of the option, and I think what
> I most wanted to play was levels full of enemies, but where they move
> slower. Also, it made me think I'd like to be able to play a
> "survival" level, like in crimsonland (or like the way the original
> tetris plays...) where the level starts out slow, and just gets more
> and more crazy until you die, and you're ranked based on your final
> score
> 
> All in all, it's quite cool, I'm looking forward to seeing more