The game’s equal parts frustrating and interesting. I can see two main development paths for it depending on whether you want to lean more heavily into the bullet hell shmup aspects or the stealth and cover aspects.
If you want to do the former, boost the movement speed of the mech - even when not dashing - let the player plow through buildings, remove the ammo mechanic for the primary weapons, and widen the streets so it’s easier to move around without hitting your head against a building constantly. This would make the game play more like a Smash TV-style twinstick shooter, but with the addition of using buildings for cover. And no, it wouldn’t matter that the mech destroys buildings it moves through, because the mech still has relatively low health, so you still want to use buildings for cover, so you’d only want to crash through buildings to duck and dodge and not just to wander around between firefights. Also, make enemies occasionally (say, a 5% chance per armor layer missing) drop repair pickups and ammo pickups. Then the (seemingly) endless hordes of enemies become something you can actually enjoy fighting instead of just a slow inevitable grinding down of your resources and health.
On the other hand, if you’re going for more of a stealth-focused gameplay style, you NEED to fix the enemy AI behavior. They spawn way out in the corners of the map and then seem to automatically know where you are and head in your direction long before they’re even visible on your main screen. Give the enemy mechs a visible vision cone ala Metal Gear Solid so you can get them from the side and behind and ambush them. Also, reduce the spawn rate and maximum spawn count, since this play style would be less about taking out hordes of enemies and more about sneakily ambushing and killing enemies Hotline Miami-style. This doesn’t sound as personally fun to me, but it would at least be a way to do the “tactical stealth” concept properly.
The cursor/crosshairs for targeting are really hard to see in a firefight. They blend into the explosions and motion way too easily, especially since they’re RED and your HUD turns RED when you take damage and enemies light up with a RED outline when they spot you. Maybe let the player customize the HUD/crosshair colors, maybe just decide on multiple colors that stand out from each other and the environment better. Even just a black or white outline for the crosshairs would make them stand out way better. Also darken the environments a touch - bright grey-white streets and buildings, bright white and orange explosions, bright orange and red fires, they all make it hard to focus on the crosshairs.
On the topic of weapons, maybe I’m just not privy to the underlying mechanics, but I can’t tell much of a difference between the Autocannon and the Rotary Cannon. The Thermal Launcher is at least clearly different, being essentially a flamethrower with a funny name, but the other two both seem to just be rapid-firing machine guns. My advice would be to replace one of them with either a melee weapon, like a sword or katana, or with a slow-firing, high-damage, sniper rifle-like Railgun. Or add both!
Also, do the missiles have lock on? I don’t think they do, but sometimes the enemies would develop a red box around them that made it LOOK like I was locking on. I’m actually inclined to believe that was intended to convey to me that the enemies were aware of my presence and going into attack/alert mode, but I couldn’t tell a meaningful difference between attack/alert enemies and unaware enemies, so maybe instead of a red box, the enemies should physically change somehow to indicate they’re alert and coming after you. Like having panels open up to make them look more spiky and aggressive. Assuming that even matters and you don’t decide to retool to more of a fast-paced shooter like the first suggestion.
That’s all I can think of for now; I hope these ideas are helpful for you! They’re just my opinion, and you’re free to take or leave them. This game certainly has promise, and I’d love to see it refined and rebalanced as a complete game someday!
Thanks for playing and writing this honest feedback, I appreciate it greatly.
If you want to do the former, boost the movement speed of the mech - even when not dashing - let the player plow through buildings, remove the ammo mechanic for the primary weapons, and widen the streets so it’s easier to move around without hitting your head against a building constantly.
The current city level is a test for the most part. I'm not sure I'm going to leave it as an actual stage in the game, it's mostly there to serve as a tech demo. I agree the roads could be a little bit wider, but I think the claustrophobia adds to some of the gameplay style I developed. Originally it was much wider and open - I ended up downsizing it three times since it just felt too empty and enemies didn't really pose as much of a threat to the player.
As for the ammo, it's just my preference but I like that the player actually runs out and has to find reloads. I think with the firing rate of some of the guns and the level of destruction they can do, giving the player unlimited ammo would make them too powerful and have less of a reason to play strategically.
Also, make enemies occasionally (say, a 5% chance per armor layer missing) drop repair pickups and ammo pickups. Then the (seemingly) endless hordes of enemies become something you can actually enjoy fighting instead of just a slow inevitable grinding down of your resources and health.
Similarly, I also felt that because the player's health is so limited it adds a level of tension to the combat, especially nearing the end of a mission if you're really low. It makes you have to care about what you're doing and not always run into things Rambo style. That said, I agree and I'll try to implement armor upgrades and pickups on some levels. I understand that the low health can make things pretty frustrating when there's a lot of enemies.
On the other hand, if you’re going for more of a stealth-focused gameplay style, you NEED to fix the enemy AI behavior. They spawn way out in the corners of the map and then seem to automatically know where you are and head in your direction long before they’re even visible on your main screen.
I realize this isn't immediately clear to the player but when you blow up buildings specifically, enemies on patrol will actually head to the area to check out what's happening. You can even bait them like this by blowing things up and waiting for them to come looking around and then ambush every one. In the city mission they have about a 10% chance of spawning with the last known player's position loaded, so only a few should really be looking in your immediate area.
Give the enemy mechs a visible vision cone ala Metal Gear Solid so you can get them from the side and behind and ambush them.
Can do.
Also, reduce the spawn rate and maximum spawn count, since this play style would be less about taking out hordes of enemies and more about sneakily ambushing and killing enemies Hotline Miami-style. This doesn’t sound as personally fun to me, but it would at least be a way to do the “tactical stealth” concept properly.
I'm thinking missions will vary quite a bit. Ideally I'd like to do both horde stuff and stealth depending on the area you're in with the game's world. Really I'm trying to keep things as fresh as possible since I think if every mission was like the three in this demo, the game would get repetitive very fast even with more weapons and upgrades.
The cursor/crosshairs for targeting are really hard to see in a firefight. They blend into the explosions and motion way too easily, especially since they’re RED and your HUD turns RED when you take damage and enemies light up with a RED outline when they spot you.
Yeah I've seen some other people having trouble with the reticule too, I'm going to probably change it to be white with black outlines for better readability.
Also darken the environments a touch - bright grey-white streets and buildings, bright white and orange explosions, bright orange and red fires, they all make it hard to focus on the crosshairs.
There'll be darker environments too, maybe even some night time missions (depending on how badly it affects game performance.)
On the topic of weapons, maybe I’m just not privy to the underlying mechanics, but I can’t tell much of a difference between the Autocannon and the Rotary Cannon.
Originally the rotary cannon was single fire and pretty bad, but now it's dual fire like the autocannon. The rotary cannon has a higher firing rate, maximum ammo, and a larger bullet spread, but also faster ammo depletion and half the damage on impact. It's better for crowd control on lower HP enemies like mechs and grubs on mission 2.
My advice would be to replace one of them with either a melee weapon, like a sword or katana, or with a slow-firing, high-damage, sniper rifle-like Railgun. Or add both!
There'll be a sniper-like railgun, high energy laser, and also a "pilebunker" which will basically serve as a really close range 1-hit kill dash weapon, kind of like a knife.
Also, do the missiles have lock on? I don’t think they do, but sometimes the enemies would develop a red box around them that made it LOOK like I was locking on. I’m actually inclined to believe that was intended to convey to me that the enemies were aware of my presence and going into attack/alert mode
If you hold the right mouse button it'll draw a laser line and if you mouse over an enemy while holding it (you need to have clear line of sight) it'll lock onto them and show the red square. You can lock onto as many as 15 enemies with it, and when you let go of the right mouse button it should launch a salvo.
I couldn’t tell a meaningful difference between attack/alert enemies and unaware enemies, so maybe instead of a red box, the enemies should physically change somehow to indicate they’re alert and coming after you. Like having panels open up to make them look more spiky and aggressive. Assuming that even matters and you don’t decide to retool to more of a fast-paced shooter like the first suggestion.
You mentioned MGS earlier; they actually do make a little ! when they see you, but it's very tiny - about 8 pixels in size. I think I'll eventually add a sound effect like a radio chirp to indicate that you've been sighted.
I like the idea of panels opening up or lights though, that sounds pretty cool.
That’s all I can think of for now; I hope these ideas are helpful for you! They’re just my opinion, and you’re free to take or leave them. This game certainly has promise, and I’d love to see it refined and rebalanced as a complete game someday!
This was great, thank you again for your in depth critique and feedback, it's very helpful and I'll definitely take it into account. I hope to make the final game much more refined and rebalanced as you said!
I could perhaps have different difficulty modes and on easy it'd show them on the radar. I don't intend to have them on the actual battlefield like headlights, I agree that'd be too easy.
I know military aircraft like the F-22 or F-15 have Missile Warning Receiver or RADAR Warning Receiver that notifies the pilot with an audio cue if they're being pinged/detected by RADAR waves. Maybe something similar could be applied?
This is just a GREAT game. Great graphics, music and gameplay. Reminds me of the cult anime of the 90s. It's already very enjoyable to play. I can't wait for customization and more levels. I think p2p would look interesting too. I'll definitely buy this on PC and it would also be cool to have controller support or if it was available on Nintendo Switch.
From the gameplay, I would like to see two more things:
- Weapons like a tank cannon or something similar. With a long reload and high projectile speed. A gauss cannon, for example, or just a tank cannon. This would open up such sniper gameplay.
- Different types of accelerators in the game. The one that is currently available by pressing the shift button is an accelerator with medium speed and medium energy reserve. I would like another type of accelerator that allows you to dodge: high speed, but a small energy reserve.
Glad you liked it, thank you for playing and the ideas!
Reminds me of the cult anime of the 90s.
That was indeed a lot of the inspiration, it'll be much more apparent once I get cutscenes in.
I think p2p would look interesting too.
Multiplayer would be a lot of fun but also very difficult for me to program on my own. I'll need to recruit some people to help with the networking code, it's something I have almost no experience with.
- Weapons like a tank cannon or something similar. With a long reload and high projectile speed. A gauss cannon, for example, or just a tank cannon. This would open up such sniper gameplay.
I'm thinking there will be a chargeable railgun weapon that can go through a dozen buildings on screen. An actual tank cannon and shotgun is planned as well, though I'll need to figure out how to balance them with the other weapons.
- Different types of accelerators in the game. The one that is currently available by pressing the shift button is an accelerator with medium speed and medium energy reserve. I would like another type of accelerator that allows you to dodge: high speed, but a small energy reserve.
Definitely going to have different engines with various boost levels - I like the sound of "accelerator", I might just call it that. Eventually there'll be water in levels, so it might help to also have ones with different performances for different kinds of terrain.
Good game honestly, very fast. Would love to see some laser beam weapon or a railgun. Maybe different kinds of secondary missiles. The art is beautiful. I have a very low end pc so... it kinda slows down a bit in the more cluttered places, but i suspect its more of a gpu problem of mine given how gm handles drawing a lot of objects. Goooood shit really!!! I loved it
Would love to see some laser beam weapon or a railgun. Maybe different kinds of secondary missiles.
All of that is planned, particularly a railgun and laser weapon.
I have a very low end pc so... it kinda slows down a bit in the more cluttered places, but i suspect its more of a gpu problem of mine given how gm handles drawing a lot of objects.
Could you tell me which area in specific it began to lag the hardest, if possible? I assume it's the second level as some of the structures like the fountains are a bit redundant with their size and tend to slow down on my computer as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with your GPU, I'm not even sure if GM:S uses GPUs to draw anything.
Yeah, in the second level it lagged a lot but i dont think is an issue knowing the level is a test one. In the third it also lagged, i assume its the amount of objects drawn in screen that cause the issue. When i mess with gm i ussually have to keep an eye on the amount of instances of objects and what they are doing step by step otherwise my potato pc gets a little anxious. I tend to just opt to deactivate everything thats out of sigth and is not doing something important .I believe gm uses directX, at least gm8.1, the oooold one i mean. Aaaaand also i reaaaallly like the pixel art in the game, its very good, particulary the buildings.
Good day. A couple of thoughts after completing three demo levels.
It is often difficult to distinguish one object from another when combat gets intense. Might be worth increasing visibility for player's mech and opponents, maybe tweak the color scheme.
Although performance is generally okay for a demo version, frame rate still drops sometimes, even in the alternative sync mode. A little work on optimization is definitely necessary. Additional visual settings (primarily more screen resolutions) will be appreciated too.
If my understanding is correct, at this point the game only features a female pilot. Some players might want to play as a male pilot, so it might be nice to add one further in development.
Also, if you consider adding more languages, I might help you with the Russian version in particular.
It is often difficult to distinguish one object from another when combat gets intense. Might be worth increasing visibility for player's mech and opponents, maybe tweak the color scheme.
Visibility will be improved, I think some additional indicators will help.
Although performance is generally okay for a demo version, frame rate still drops sometimes, even in the alternative sync mode. A little work on optimization is definitely necessary. Additional visual settings (primarily more screen resolutions) will be appreciated too.
Right now I am working on a patch that will make the game run way smoother in combat and also fix the minigun complaints. I'm running this on a very low end laptop myself so I understand the complaints. Update might be out in a few days or so.Update now live!
If my understanding is correct, at this point the game only features a female pilot. Some players might want to play as a male pilot, so it might be nice to add one further in development.
There will be other characters, maybe different pilots you play in different areas of the game.
Also, if you consider adding more languages, I might help you with the Russian version in particular.
I do want to have localization settings in when possible, but it will probably be done when the game is finished so I don't have to keep editing script files for each language. Will definitely have a Russian, Japanese, and Spanish language setting.
I'd have to puchase a Macintosh computer to make a dedicated build with GM. If possible though, maybe you could find a Mac version of a virtual machine and load Linux/Windows on it to try it for now. I know that's a lot of work and very far from ideal, but I don't have an ability to make a Mac version currently, sorry!
well. using port proton with steam proton 8.05 game works fine.
I will add a few wishes on my own: 1) it is necessary to make the player's technique more readable, relative to the color scheme of the environment 2) add support for non-standard screen resolutions
PS: maybe I'll try to launch it on steam deck a little later
1) it is necessary to make the player's technique more readable, relative to the color scheme of the environment
Understood, I'll see what I can do to improve that.
2) add support for non-standard screen resolutions
This one will absolutely be added when I can, it's just a very tedious thing to program as I have to factor in a bunch of things with Game Maker's application surface resizing and I also don't have a way to fully test whether it works on all monitor sizes. Nonetheless, it's an absolute necessity and I'll have it done when I can.
PS: maybe I'll try to launch it on steam deck a little later
I'm not too confident it'll run on a Steam deck, but it'd be an interesting experiment to see if it does! Thanks.
Seems it's once again the DirectX drivers not being installed or up to date, sorry! No idea how this would be fixed on a Steam deck. I wonder if I could bundle an official DirectX driver with the game so people don't have to go looking for it.
I've read through most posts so I guess everyone knows rotary cannon was kinda lacking lol, glad it's getting some love.
Performance wise, it runs extremely smooth on my potato, but the default options almost ruined it with low frames, making the game run at like half speed. Alternate sync instantly fixed my issues. It seems none of the settings properly save and I had to change to fullscreen every time I run the game, thankfully it does read from the ini file to always have alt sync on.
I showed this to a dev friend and he was very impressed, but he did comment that it felt like a tech demo. With some further objectives and (potentially) a procedural game mode, I can see myself spending hundreds of hours on this at least.
Difficulty felt a bit inconsistent at times: on the same level, enemy spawns, I believe, seem somewhat random, at least for certain enemies (mostly the mechs on mission 1). Mission 2 is very WIP, but I do love the overwhelming bug forces and how it felt like a change of pace from the mechs. Mission 3's beginning can be extremely hectic and I wish there were more situations like that: enemies surrounding you from all directions and aggro'ing the player, but as soon as I move away to a safe position and start taking out enemies, this sense of thrill is somewhat lost. I understand it's likely the intention to make it somewhat stealth-focused, but the hectic dogfighting is so much fun. It reminds me a bit of the Synthetik 2 situation, where enemies used to struggle with aggro and can be easily taken out from a distance, splitting the engagements to many tiny parts of the map where enemies are grouped up, instead of a more fluid experience where player is constantly under pressure. Personally I prefer when enemies come in bigger groups from many directions to really force me to be somewhat strategic and take them out effectively, instead of them showing up one by one which can be easily solved by a missile salvo + gun burst, allowing me to play it safe and wait. Similarly, tanks can be super threatening when mixed with mechs, and I love how deadly they can be!
Finally, big fan of the simple and arcadey movement, maaaybe overdrive felt a little weak overall without much noticeable effect, but considering the planned future upgrades, it might be okay. Running out of energy needs clearer visual and sound cues though. I also prefer showing enemy positions around the player instead of the cursor so it's easier to tell and not as demanding on my eyes.
Apologies for the text wall, this is my kind of game and I'm so glad to have discovered it so soon ;D
Seems a ton of people are finding this game from that one video, I only wish it had better FPS haha.
I've read through most posts so I guess everyone knows rotary cannon was kinda lacking lol, glad it's getting some love.
Poor rotary cannon! I still love it even if it's basically playing on hard mode. Will receive a major buff next build.
Performance wise, it runs extremely smooth on my potato, but the default options almost ruined it with low frames, making the game run at like half speed.
Good to hear! Sorry that it was running at half speed on default. It runs well on my own potato and I don't have to use any of the V-sync settings, but I realize people's rigs vary greatly so I implemented those options. I was worried from watching people's streams and let's plays that the game isn't optimized enough, but it seems like it's mostly the recording software that makes it chug.
Alternate sync instantly fixed my issues. It seems none of the settings properly save and I had to change to fullscreen every time I run the game, thankfully it does read from the ini file to always have alt sync on.
There actually shouldn't be any .ini files saving, it's strange that alt-sync is remembered. I guess that must be an internal Game Maker thing. Both the main menu and options menu are very quick placeholders thrown together in two days for a jam. It'll be replaced with proper ones that save your settings as soon as I can. Had I known so many people would be playing it I would've worked way harder to polish that aspect, sorry.
I showed this to a dev friend and he was very impressed, but he did comment that it felt like a tech demo. With some further objectives and (potentially) a procedural game mode, I can see myself spending hundreds of hours on this at least.
It's definitely a tech demo... for now. I hope to have more missions and hopefully a proper campaign in, assuming things won't be downscoped.
Difficulty felt a bit inconsistent at times: on the same level, enemy spawns, I believe, seem somewhat random, at least for certain enemies (mostly the mechs on mission 1)
Mission 1 does have randomized spawners in each corner that go off at different times. It's to keep it fresh each playthrough. But I see how it can cause the difficultly to ramp up hard sometimes, especially depending on where you go in the city.
Mission 3's beginning can be extremely hectic and I wish there were more situations like that: enemies surrounding you from all directions and aggro'ing the player, but as soon as I move away to a safe position and start taking out enemies, this sense of thrill is somewhat lost. I understand it's likely the intention to make it somewhat stealth-focused, but the hectic dogfighting is so much fun. It reminds me a bit of the Synthetik 2 situation, where enemies used to struggle with aggro and can be easily taken out from a distance, splitting the engagements to many tiny parts of the map where enemies are grouped up, instead of a more fluid experience where player is constantly under pressure.
I have to say it's been super interesting seeing how greatly people's experience and preference vary. Some people say it's way too easy and they beat every level on the first try, others like you figure out pretty quickly that enemies have a cone of vision and you can actually use cover to ambush them and play strategically, dodging missiles and wiping out formations. Meanwhile some other people haven't been able to finish even the first mission or figure out how to turn off screenshake and change the resolution, c'mon it's literally in the single settings menu.
I'm with you in that I think tight street fighting and being surrounded is exhilarating. I love how tense it can get especially when you're low on armor, which is why I intentionally didn't put any health pickups on the map.
Personally I prefer when enemies come in bigger groups from many directions to really force me to be somewhat strategic and take them out effectively, instead of them showing up one by one which can be easily solved by a missile salvo + gun burst, allowing me to play it safe and wait. Similarly, tanks can be super threatening when mixed with mechs, and I love how deadly they can be!
I have plans for a lot more different enemy types to mix it up and put a monkey wrench in the long distance/missile spam. I'm thinking every enemy should have a clear and choreographed behavior, like the noticeable difference between the mech and tank enemies. Oh, glad you liked the tanks by the way! They can really filter more casual players lol.
Finally, big fan of the simple and arcadey movement, maaaybe overdrive felt a little weak overall without much noticeable effect, but considering the planned future upgrades, it might be okay. Running out of energy needs clearer visual and sound cues though.
Yeah the current state of the overdrive function in this case would be your starting level boost. A lot of people have suggested that you should be able to boost into enemies to damage them, I think that'd be a fun upgrade. Appreciate you also pointing out the overdrive needs a better indicator, I'll have the box turn red like the armor indicator and maybe put a quick beep sound if it hits 0/80. Thanks!
I also prefer showing enemy positions around the player instead of the cursor so it's easier to tell and not as demanding on my eyes.
I can probably put that as a setting in the options to toggle, along with being able to turn off the camera smoothing which some people find nauseating.
Apologies for the text wall, this is my kind of game and I'm so glad to have discovered it so soon ;D
Not at all! Thank you for the in depth comment, kind words, and feedback! I will use your suggestions to improve it!
(Sorry about your previous comment disappearing, I was experimenting with the different board layout and it seems I cannot have both.)
The issue with the particles not clearing on redeploy will be fixed in another patch. Also the protagonist and other art on the page will return in color. Thank you again.
And yes thank you for feedback on both! In love with the protagonist, she's very pretty. Very excited about this game. I've been play-testing this game basically daily and I record footage so let me know if you want me to recreate any gameplay parameters for bug-fixing.
The only other glitch I've encountered was that sometimes when I try to launch missiles they seem to not fire at all. For reference I play with V-SYNC on at 1920x1080.
Glad to hear that. Drawing characters isn't something I'm very experienced with, so I'm glad she came out appealing!
Very excited about this game. I've been play-testing this game basically daily and I record footage so let me know if you want me to recreate any gameplay parameters for bug-fixing.
I'd be interested in seeing the particle issue recreated, if possible. I had a friend show me a glitch occur where smoke trails from exploded enemies would just be frozen if they alt-tabbed back into the game, they also played on 1920x1080 but with V-sync off I think. Might need to look into having the game detect whether or not the player is focused on the window, right now the default game engine code is handling all of that.
The only other glitch I've encountered was that sometimes when I try to launch missiles they seem to not fire at all. For reference I play with V-SYNC on at 1920x1080.
Hmm, interesting glitch. Are you using the lock-on or just trying to blind fire them? There used to be an old glitch where they wouldn't fire if you held the right mouse button for exactly 15 frames as that was the time it checked whether or not to start drawing the laser line, but I have since fixed that on update V.05 and 5.1 which I put up a few days ago. Will try playing with V-sync on when I can to see if I can recreate that.
Oh, if I may ask you one more thing - how's the FPS? I tried to optimize it a lot if you're playing on 5.1; there should be far less lag during heavy combat if you were having any. Thank you again!
OK I'll try and recreate the particle issue today. I'll host the videos on YouTube. I'll keep the same conditions for gameplay on (1920x1080 with V-SYNC on).
Here's a link to the missile glitch I described earlier. It's around four minutes and thirty seconds.
I'll set up an FPS count when I play next time. It was pretty good. I am playing with an Intel i5 (10th Generation) on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX-3060.
Already tons of fun in this early stage, shooting feels great. Rotary feels the best of all weapons but it also seems the weakest?
Just needs a lot of unlockables and I'll be hooked for hours. Dash, jump, shield, smoke grenades, stealth, deployable minefield, sidegrades and upgrades :]
I see the tracks from lion eats tonight are back, they fit great here.
And lastly the artstyle is very nice, especially that last pic on the game page. What are those, tactical abs? I'm on board
A bangin' soundtrack to match would be great but I can always put something on myself in the background
Already tons of fun in this early stage, shooting feels great. Rotary feels the best of all weapons but it also seems the weakest?
Cheers for playing! Rotary cannon is pretty poor indeed; I admit I kind of nerfed it compared to an older build since it basically made the autocannon unnecessary, but in hindsight it's much too weak now. I'm solving this problem by making it dual fire like the autocannon, next build it'll be way more fun to use.
Just needs a lot of unlockables and I'll be hooked for hours. Dash, jump, shield, smoke grenades, stealth, deployable minefield, sidegrades and upgrades :]
There's going to be more weapons and unlockables, including grenades with maybe different types (EMP, smoke, thermite, etc)
I see the tracks from lion eats tonight are back, they fit great here.
Glad you noticed the track effects are from TLET, I ended up reusing them since their code was already perfect, haha.
What are those, tactical abs?
They sure are!
A bangin' soundtrack to match would be great but I can always put something on myself in the background
Indeed, a lot of people have been asking for a soundtrack to go with it. I've composed a few tracks myself such as the main menu and mission end tune, but I'll probably need to recruit some real composers since music isn't something I have a lot of experience with. Thanks again for playing and the feedback, it's much appreciated!
I'm kinda surprised that although its clear that the project is on the very early stage of development it has already pretty good core gameplay and excellent gunporn! Seriously it's very important for shooter game make shooting fun. Most games with guns just don't have this feeling and you're already achieved it! I like the action here is already more than in Brigador. And your art style is very cool! Hope you'll finish the game so looking forward for its further development!
Thank you for playing and your kind words! I'm glad you find the shooting satisfying. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to feel right and put as much destruction detail in as I could. There'll be more to come soon, hopefully!
GREAT game, one small issue players sometimes get trapped easily in the 2nd mission, it would be a great mechanic to barge through the horde or jump or stomp over them, also adding more use to shift would be nice.
Love the idea of charging through hordes, will definitely see if I can add that in. Second mission will be overhauled entirely too, it's just a placeholder level for now.
Hello, found this from your youtube video being suggested, looks cool, I am however having this error upon starting a mission:___________________________________________
Hey, sorry about that! Are you using Linux/Wine? This is a known compatibility issue that I think can be solved by compiling a Linux build of the game, but at the moment I don't have a setup to do that. My apologies.
Okay, I researched this specific error in Game Maker, it seems to be related to your graphics card drivers or DirectX. From what I can tell looking at other people with this same problem, it should just be an issue with DirectX not being up to date, so try updating that and if that doesn't work try maybe your graphics card driver. That should hopefully fix it.
Maybe see if you can find a different emulator to run it for now, perhaps you can find one that says it's designed to handle newer DirectX compatible shaders. From what I've found looking at support forums, Linux OS reads them slightly different from Windows which is what causes the error.
Sorry to the Linux users here, again I don't have the ability to compile a dedicated build at the moment.
Thermal projector is OP and chain gun is just useless (damage to low and fire rate is to high, ammo ends very fast). In other sides game is awesome. Waiting for complete version. Sorry for my english
Agreed, the rotary cannon needs a buff. It works best at close quarters combat in the first level when you have the enemy mechs close to each other, but against heavy enemies like tanks it's pretty bad. Thanks for the feedback!
Just played through all 3 missions ( haven't beaten the 2nd yet ) and this was really damn good
Love everything about this, although I think the rubble left over from the destroyed buildings makes it hard to actually see enemies sometimes. I think either the rubble or the enemies should have a different colour pallete
Same in the second level where it became kinda hard to see the worms among all the blood. I guess in a way this atleast teaches a player to keep moving, but I think it's still worth noting
Either way, this is a fantastic base for more. Can't wait to see what else you do with this
I didn't use shift much in the demo version, perhaps the developer could consider the mecha can damage enemy by impact and take less damage from enemy impact when using shift. This effect could appear in the direction of move as a shield.
There will be upgrades for the boost and engine. Will definitely have an ability to damage enemies by slamming into them or reducing damage when boosting; currently I'm working on implementing a proper hangar for that. Thanks for playing!
Really cool! Digging the art style and aesthetic a lot. How did you make the sprite stacks for all the "models" in the game? Voxels converted to slices? Either way cool stuff!
A mixture of voxels converted to slices, conventional 3D models downscaled to voxels, and sometimes hand drawing each of the slices. Thanks for playing!
Glad to hear people with older hardware can run this. I'm working hard on trying to get resolution resizing working, something is messing it up. I apologize you and other people had to play it in such a small resolution.
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The game’s equal parts frustrating and interesting. I can see two main development paths for it depending on whether you want to lean more heavily into the bullet hell shmup aspects or the stealth and cover aspects.
If you want to do the former, boost the movement speed of the mech - even when not dashing - let the player plow through buildings, remove the ammo mechanic for the primary weapons, and widen the streets so it’s easier to move around without hitting your head against a building constantly. This would make the game play more like a Smash TV-style twinstick shooter, but with the addition of using buildings for cover. And no, it wouldn’t matter that the mech destroys buildings it moves through, because the mech still has relatively low health, so you still want to use buildings for cover, so you’d only want to crash through buildings to duck and dodge and not just to wander around between firefights. Also, make enemies occasionally (say, a 5% chance per armor layer missing) drop repair pickups and ammo pickups. Then the (seemingly) endless hordes of enemies become something you can actually enjoy fighting instead of just a slow inevitable grinding down of your resources and health.
On the other hand, if you’re going for more of a stealth-focused gameplay style, you NEED to fix the enemy AI behavior. They spawn way out in the corners of the map and then seem to automatically know where you are and head in your direction long before they’re even visible on your main screen. Give the enemy mechs a visible vision cone ala Metal Gear Solid so you can get them from the side and behind and ambush them. Also, reduce the spawn rate and maximum spawn count, since this play style would be less about taking out hordes of enemies and more about sneakily ambushing and killing enemies Hotline Miami-style. This doesn’t sound as personally fun to me, but it would at least be a way to do the “tactical stealth” concept properly.
The cursor/crosshairs for targeting are really hard to see in a firefight. They blend into the explosions and motion way too easily, especially since they’re RED and your HUD turns RED when you take damage and enemies light up with a RED outline when they spot you. Maybe let the player customize the HUD/crosshair colors, maybe just decide on multiple colors that stand out from each other and the environment better. Even just a black or white outline for the crosshairs would make them stand out way better. Also darken the environments a touch - bright grey-white streets and buildings, bright white and orange explosions, bright orange and red fires, they all make it hard to focus on the crosshairs.
On the topic of weapons, maybe I’m just not privy to the underlying mechanics, but I can’t tell much of a difference between the Autocannon and the Rotary Cannon. The Thermal Launcher is at least clearly different, being essentially a flamethrower with a funny name, but the other two both seem to just be rapid-firing machine guns. My advice would be to replace one of them with either a melee weapon, like a sword or katana, or with a slow-firing, high-damage, sniper rifle-like Railgun. Or add both!
Also, do the missiles have lock on? I don’t think they do, but sometimes the enemies would develop a red box around them that made it LOOK like I was locking on. I’m actually inclined to believe that was intended to convey to me that the enemies were aware of my presence and going into attack/alert mode, but I couldn’t tell a meaningful difference between attack/alert enemies and unaware enemies, so maybe instead of a red box, the enemies should physically change somehow to indicate they’re alert and coming after you. Like having panels open up to make them look more spiky and aggressive. Assuming that even matters and you don’t decide to retool to more of a fast-paced shooter like the first suggestion.
That’s all I can think of for now; I hope these ideas are helpful for you! They’re just my opinion, and you’re free to take or leave them. This game certainly has promise, and I’d love to see it refined and rebalanced as a complete game someday!
Thanks for playing and writing this honest feedback, I appreciate it greatly.
The current city level is a test for the most part. I'm not sure I'm going to leave it as an actual stage in the game, it's mostly there to serve as a tech demo. I agree the roads could be a little bit wider, but I think the claustrophobia adds to some of the gameplay style I developed. Originally it was much wider and open - I ended up downsizing it three times since it just felt too empty and enemies didn't really pose as much of a threat to the player.
As for the ammo, it's just my preference but I like that the player actually runs out and has to find reloads. I think with the firing rate of some of the guns and the level of destruction they can do, giving the player unlimited ammo would make them too powerful and have less of a reason to play strategically.
Similarly, I also felt that because the player's health is so limited it adds a level of tension to the combat, especially nearing the end of a mission if you're really low. It makes you have to care about what you're doing and not always run into things Rambo style. That said, I agree and I'll try to implement armor upgrades and pickups on some levels. I understand that the low health can make things pretty frustrating when there's a lot of enemies.
I realize this isn't immediately clear to the player but when you blow up buildings specifically, enemies on patrol will actually head to the area to check out what's happening. You can even bait them like this by blowing things up and waiting for them to come looking around and then ambush every one. In the city mission they have about a 10% chance of spawning with the last known player's position loaded, so only a few should really be looking in your immediate area.
Can do.
I'm thinking missions will vary quite a bit. Ideally I'd like to do both horde stuff and stealth depending on the area you're in with the game's world. Really I'm trying to keep things as fresh as possible since I think if every mission was like the three in this demo, the game would get repetitive very fast even with more weapons and upgrades.
Yeah I've seen some other people having trouble with the reticule too, I'm going to probably change it to be white with black outlines for better readability.
There'll be darker environments too, maybe even some night time missions (depending on how badly it affects game performance.)
Originally the rotary cannon was single fire and pretty bad, but now it's dual fire like the autocannon. The rotary cannon has a higher firing rate, maximum ammo, and a larger bullet spread, but also faster ammo depletion and half the damage on impact. It's better for crowd control on lower HP enemies like mechs and grubs on mission 2.
There'll be a sniper-like railgun, high energy laser, and also a "pilebunker" which will basically serve as a really close range 1-hit kill dash weapon, kind of like a knife.
If you hold the right mouse button it'll draw a laser line and if you mouse over an enemy while holding it (you need to have clear line of sight) it'll lock onto them and show the red square. You can lock onto as many as 15 enemies with it, and when you let go of the right mouse button it should launch a salvo.
You mentioned MGS earlier; they actually do make a little ! when they see you, but it's very tiny - about 8 pixels in size. I think I'll eventually add a sound effect like a radio chirp to indicate that you've been sighted.
I like the idea of panels opening up or lights though, that sounds pretty cool.
This was great, thank you again for your in depth critique and feedback, it's very helpful and I'll definitely take it into account. I hope to make the final game much more refined and rebalanced as you said!
I actually don't like the idea of a visible vision cone. It makes the difficulty too accessible in my opinion.
I could perhaps have different difficulty modes and on easy it'd show them on the radar. I don't intend to have them on the actual battlefield like headlights, I agree that'd be too easy.
I know military aircraft like the F-22 or F-15 have Missile Warning Receiver or RADAR Warning Receiver that notifies the pilot with an audio cue if they're being pinged/detected by RADAR waves. Maybe something similar could be applied?
Will look into it!
This is just a GREAT game. Great graphics, music and gameplay. Reminds me of the cult anime of the 90s. It's already very enjoyable to play. I can't wait for customization and more levels. I think p2p would look interesting too. I'll definitely buy this on PC and it would also be cool to have controller support or if it was available on Nintendo Switch.
From the gameplay, I would like to see two more things:
- Weapons like a tank cannon or something similar. With a long reload and high projectile speed. A gauss cannon, for example, or just a tank cannon. This would open up such sniper gameplay.
- Different types of accelerators in the game. The one that is currently available by pressing the shift button is an accelerator with medium speed and medium energy reserve. I would like another type of accelerator that allows you to dodge: high speed, but a small energy reserve.
Glad you liked it, thank you for playing and the ideas!
That was indeed a lot of the inspiration, it'll be much more apparent once I get cutscenes in.
Multiplayer would be a lot of fun but also very difficult for me to program on my own. I'll need to recruit some people to help with the networking code, it's something I have almost no experience with.
I'm thinking there will be a chargeable railgun weapon that can go through a dozen buildings on screen. An actual tank cannon and shotgun is planned as well, though I'll need to figure out how to balance them with the other weapons.
Definitely going to have different engines with various boost levels - I like the sound of "accelerator", I might just call it that. Eventually there'll be water in levels, so it might help to also have ones with different performances for different kinds of terrain.
Good game honestly, very fast. Would love to see some laser beam weapon or a railgun. Maybe different kinds of secondary missiles. The art is beautiful. I have a very low end pc so... it kinda slows down a bit in the more cluttered places, but i suspect its more of a gpu problem of mine given how gm handles drawing a lot of objects. Goooood shit really!!! I loved it
Thanks for playing!
All of that is planned, particularly a railgun and laser weapon.
Could you tell me which area in specific it began to lag the hardest, if possible? I assume it's the second level as some of the structures like the fountains are a bit redundant with their size and tend to slow down on my computer as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with your GPU, I'm not even sure if GM:S uses GPUs to draw anything.
<3
Yeah, in the second level it lagged a lot but i dont think is an issue knowing the level is a test one. In the third it also lagged, i assume its the amount of objects drawn in screen that cause the issue. When i mess with gm i ussually have to keep an eye on the amount of instances of objects and what they are doing step by step otherwise my potato pc gets a little anxious. I tend to just opt to deactivate everything thats out of sigth and is not doing something important .I believe gm uses directX, at least gm8.1, the oooold one i mean. Aaaaand also i reaaaallly like the pixel art in the game, its very good, particulary the buildings.
Game is fun time
Good day. A couple of thoughts after completing three demo levels.
It is often difficult to distinguish one object from another when combat gets intense. Might be worth increasing visibility for player's mech and opponents, maybe tweak the color scheme.
Although performance is generally okay for a demo version, frame rate still drops sometimes, even in the alternative sync mode. A little work on optimization is definitely necessary. Additional visual settings (primarily more screen resolutions) will be appreciated too.
If my understanding is correct, at this point the game only features a female pilot. Some players might want to play as a male pilot, so it might be nice to add one further in development.
Also, if you consider adding more languages, I might help you with the Russian version in particular.
Hello. Thank you for playing.
Visibility will be improved, I think some additional indicators will help.
Right now I am working on a patch that will make the game run way smoother in combat and also fix the minigun complaints. I'm running this on a very low end laptop myself so I understand the complaints.
Update might be out in a few days or so.Update now live!There will be other characters, maybe different pilots you play in different areas of the game.
I do want to have localization settings in when possible, but it will probably be done when the game is finished so I don't have to keep editing script files for each language. Will definitely have a Russian, Japanese, and Spanish language setting.
No idea how much work it is, but *raises hand* one mac player here that would love to play this!
I'd have to puchase a Macintosh computer to make a dedicated build with GM. If possible though, maybe you could find a Mac version of a virtual machine and load Linux/Windows on it to try it for now. I know that's a lot of work and very far from ideal, but I don't have an ability to make a Mac version currently, sorry!
Hello o/ . im linux user.
well. using port proton with steam proton 8.05 game works fine.
I will add a few wishes on my own:
1) it is necessary to make the player's technique more readable, relative to the color scheme of the environment
2) add support for non-standard screen resolutions
PS: maybe I'll try to launch it on steam deck a little later
Hey, glad to hear that!
Understood, I'll see what I can do to improve that.
This one will absolutely be added when I can, it's just a very tedious thing to program as I have to factor in a bunch of things with Game Maker's application surface resizing and I also don't have a way to fully test whether it works on all monitor sizes. Nonetheless, it's an absolute necessity and I'll have it done when I can.
I'm not too confident it'll run on a Steam deck, but it'd be an interesting experiment to see if it does! Thanks.
Hello Commander. o7. I launched the steam deck on a clean version of proton 8.0-5. Actually, here is a screenshot, after launch mission:
Seems it's once again the DirectX drivers not being installed or up to date, sorry! No idea how this would be fixed on a Steam deck. I wonder if I could bundle an official DirectX driver with the game so people don't have to go looking for it.
a little later I will try to find time for a comprehensive study of the problem
This game speaks to me... Thanks to YT algorithm!
I've read through most posts so I guess everyone knows rotary cannon was kinda lacking lol, glad it's getting some love.
Performance wise, it runs extremely smooth on my potato, but the default options almost ruined it with low frames, making the game run at like half speed. Alternate sync instantly fixed my issues. It seems none of the settings properly save and I had to change to fullscreen every time I run the game, thankfully it does read from the ini file to always have alt sync on.
I showed this to a dev friend and he was very impressed, but he did comment that it felt like a tech demo. With some further objectives and (potentially) a procedural game mode, I can see myself spending hundreds of hours on this at least.
Difficulty felt a bit inconsistent at times: on the same level, enemy spawns, I believe, seem somewhat random, at least for certain enemies (mostly the mechs on mission 1). Mission 2 is very WIP, but I do love the overwhelming bug forces and how it felt like a change of pace from the mechs. Mission 3's beginning can be extremely hectic and I wish there were more situations like that: enemies surrounding you from all directions and aggro'ing the player, but as soon as I move away to a safe position and start taking out enemies, this sense of thrill is somewhat lost. I understand it's likely the intention to make it somewhat stealth-focused, but the hectic dogfighting is so much fun. It reminds me a bit of the Synthetik 2 situation, where enemies used to struggle with aggro and can be easily taken out from a distance, splitting the engagements to many tiny parts of the map where enemies are grouped up, instead of a more fluid experience where player is constantly under pressure. Personally I prefer when enemies come in bigger groups from many directions to really force me to be somewhat strategic and take them out effectively, instead of them showing up one by one which can be easily solved by a missile salvo + gun burst, allowing me to play it safe and wait. Similarly, tanks can be super threatening when mixed with mechs, and I love how deadly they can be!
Finally, big fan of the simple and arcadey movement, maaaybe overdrive felt a little weak overall without much noticeable effect, but considering the planned future upgrades, it might be okay. Running out of energy needs clearer visual and sound cues though. I also prefer showing enemy positions around the player instead of the cursor so it's easier to tell and not as demanding on my eyes.
Apologies for the text wall, this is my kind of game and I'm so glad to have discovered it so soon ;D
Seems a ton of people are finding this game from that one video, I only wish it had better FPS haha.
Poor rotary cannon! I still love it even if it's basically playing on hard mode. Will receive a major buff next build.
Good to hear! Sorry that it was running at half speed on default. It runs well on my own potato and I don't have to use any of the V-sync settings, but I realize people's rigs vary greatly so I implemented those options. I was worried from watching people's streams and let's plays that the game isn't optimized enough, but it seems like it's mostly the recording software that makes it chug.
There actually shouldn't be any .ini files saving, it's strange that alt-sync is remembered. I guess that must be an internal Game Maker thing. Both the main menu and options menu are very quick placeholders thrown together in two days for a jam. It'll be replaced with proper ones that save your settings as soon as I can.
Had I known so many people would be playing it I would've worked way harder to polish that aspect, sorry.It's definitely a tech demo... for now. I hope to have more missions and hopefully a proper campaign in, assuming things won't be downscoped.
Mission 1 does have randomized spawners in each corner that go off at different times. It's to keep it fresh each playthrough. But I see how it can cause the difficultly to ramp up hard sometimes, especially depending on where you go in the city.
I have to say it's been super interesting seeing how greatly people's experience and preference vary. Some people say it's way too easy and they beat every level on the first try, others like you figure out pretty quickly that enemies have a cone of vision and you can actually use cover to ambush them and play strategically, dodging missiles and wiping out formations. Meanwhile some other people haven't been able to finish even the first mission
or figure out how to turn off screenshake and change the resolution, c'mon it's literally in the single settings menu.I'm with you in that I think tight street fighting and being surrounded is exhilarating. I love how tense it can get especially when you're low on armor, which is why I intentionally didn't put any health pickups on the map.
I have plans for a lot more different enemy types to mix it up and put a monkey wrench in the long distance/missile spam. I'm thinking every enemy should have a clear and choreographed behavior, like the noticeable difference between the mech and tank enemies. Oh, glad you liked the tanks by the way!
They can really filter more casual players lol.Yeah the current state of the overdrive function in this case would be your starting level boost. A lot of people have suggested that you should be able to boost into enemies to damage them, I think that'd be a fun upgrade. Appreciate you also pointing out the overdrive needs a better indicator, I'll have the box turn red like the armor indicator and maybe put a quick beep sound if it hits 0/80. Thanks!
I can probably put that as a setting in the options to toggle, along with being able to turn off the camera smoothing which some people find nauseating.
Not at all! Thank you for the in depth comment, kind words, and feedback! I will use your suggestions to improve it!
あなたのアートスタイルが気に入りました、特に自機のデザインは素晴らしいです！
それと、フィールドの作りの細かさにも驚かされました。
プレイ中気になったのは敵の視認性が少し悪めな事ですね、これは敵に枠を付けるなどで改善できそうです。
日本語でのコメント失礼いたしました。
プレーとコメントをありがとう！
視界が改善されるべきだという意見には賛成です。敵が見えやすいようにHUDの要素を追加してみます。
日本語でコメントを書いてくれてありがとう。とても感謝しています！
I love you for this. Ever watch Patlabor?
Cheers! I've seen all three films and the original anime, love Patlabor.
(Sorry about your previous comment disappearing, I was experimenting with the different board layout and it seems I cannot have both.)
The issue with the particles not clearing on redeploy will be fixed in another patch. Also the protagonist and other art on the page will return in color. Thank you again.
Don't worry about it, I totally understand.
And yes thank you for feedback on both! In love with the protagonist, she's very pretty. Very excited about this game. I've been play-testing this game basically daily and I record footage so let me know if you want me to recreate any gameplay parameters for bug-fixing.
The only other glitch I've encountered was that sometimes when I try to launch missiles they seem to not fire at all. For reference I play with V-SYNC on at 1920x1080.
Glad to hear that. Drawing characters isn't something I'm very experienced with, so I'm glad she came out appealing!
I'd be interested in seeing the particle issue recreated, if possible. I had a friend show me a glitch occur where smoke trails from exploded enemies would just be frozen if they alt-tabbed back into the game, they also played on 1920x1080 but with V-sync off I think. Might need to look into having the game detect whether or not the player is focused on the window, right now the default game engine code is handling all of that.
Hmm, interesting glitch. Are you using the lock-on or just trying to blind fire them? There used to be an old glitch where they wouldn't fire if you held the right mouse button for exactly 15 frames as that was the time it checked whether or not to start drawing the laser line, but I have since fixed that on update V.05 and 5.1 which I put up a few days ago. Will try playing with V-sync on when I can to see if I can recreate that.
Oh, if I may ask you one more thing - how's the FPS? I tried to optimize it a lot if you're playing on 5.1; there should be far less lag during heavy combat if you were having any. Thank you again!
OK I'll try and recreate the particle issue today. I'll host the videos on YouTube. I'll keep the same conditions for gameplay on (1920x1080 with V-SYNC on).
Here's a link to the missile glitch I described earlier. It's around four minutes and thirty seconds.
I'll set up an FPS count when I play next time. It was pretty good. I am playing with an Intel i5 (10th Generation) on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX-3060.
Cheers for the video, it's very helpful. I just saw the glitch in action, I've added it to my to-do-list of things to fix.
Sweet!
Thanks!
Already tons of fun in this early stage, shooting feels great. Rotary feels the best of all weapons but it also seems the weakest?
Just needs a lot of unlockables and I'll be hooked for hours. Dash, jump, shield, smoke grenades, stealth, deployable minefield, sidegrades and upgrades :]
I see the tracks from lion eats tonight are back, they fit great here.
And lastly the artstyle is very nice, especially that last pic on the game page. What are those, tactical abs? I'm on board
A bangin' soundtrack to match would be great but I can always put something on myself in the background
Cheers for playing! Rotary cannon is pretty poor indeed; I admit I kind of nerfed it compared to an older build since it basically made the autocannon unnecessary, but in hindsight it's much too weak now. I'm solving this problem by making it dual fire like the autocannon, next build it'll be way more fun to use.
There's going to be more weapons and unlockables, including grenades with maybe different types (EMP, smoke, thermite, etc)
Glad you noticed the track effects are from TLET, I ended up reusing them since their code was already perfect, haha.
They sure are!
Indeed, a lot of people have been asking for a soundtrack to go with it. I've composed a few tracks myself such as the main menu and mission end tune, but I'll probably need to recruit some real composers since music isn't something I have a lot of experience with. Thanks again for playing and the feedback, it's much appreciated!
I'm kinda surprised that although its clear that the project is on the very early stage of development it has already pretty good core gameplay and excellent gunporn! Seriously it's very important for shooter game make shooting fun. Most games with guns just don't have this feeling and you're already achieved it! I like the action here is already more than in Brigador. And your art style is very cool! Hope you'll finish the game so looking forward for its further development!
Thank you for playing and your kind words! I'm glad you find the shooting satisfying. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to feel right and put as much destruction detail in as I could. There'll be more to come soon, hopefully!
BTW I set this girl as my desktop image on the phone. That's how I liked your art style. ^_^
<3
I believe this project already have a solid foundation. Can't wait to see more content in missions or build.
Thank you for playing! There will be much more to come.
GREAT game, one small issue players sometimes get trapped easily in the 2nd mission, it would be a great mechanic to barge through the horde or jump or stomp over them, also adding more use to shift would be nice.
Love the idea of charging through hordes, will definitely see if I can add that in. Second mission will be overhauled entirely too, it's just a placeholder level for now.
Keep up the amazing work!
Hello, found this from your youtube video being suggested, looks cool, I am however having this error upon starting a mission:___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in Vertex Shader compilation
ShaderName: shd_outline_old
D3DXCompile failed - result
at gml_Object_o_player_Draw_0
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stack frame is
gml_Object_o_player_Draw_0 (line -1)
Hey, sorry about that! Are you using Linux/Wine? This is a known compatibility issue that I think can be solved by compiling a Linux build of the game, but at the moment I don't have a setup to do that. My apologies.
Im actually using windows 10, im on integrated graphics on my dell 7414, stock except upgraded to 32gb of ram.
Okay, I researched this specific error in Game Maker, it seems to be related to your graphics card drivers or DirectX. From what I can tell looking at other people with this same problem, it should just be an issue with DirectX not being up to date, so try updating that and if that doesn't work try maybe your graphics card driver. That should hopefully fix it.
I actually am using wine, and it gives the same error, is there a way to fix it?
Maybe see if you can find a different emulator to run it for now, perhaps you can find one that says it's designed to handle newer DirectX compatible shaders. From what I've found looking at support forums, Linux OS reads them slightly different from Windows which is what causes the error.
Sorry to the Linux users here, again I don't have the ability to compile a dedicated build at the moment.
Man the combat feelss soo good! this is an incredible work of art!
Thank you, glad you liked it!
really cool game
Thanks, more to come!
Thermal projector is OP and chain gun is just useless (damage to low and fire rate is to high, ammo ends very fast). In other sides game is awesome. Waiting for complete version. Sorry for my english
Agreed, the rotary cannon needs a buff. It works best at close quarters combat in the first level when you have the enemy mechs close to each other, but against heavy enemies like tanks it's pretty bad. Thanks for the feedback!
Just played through all 3 missions ( haven't beaten the 2nd yet ) and this was really damn good
Love everything about this, although I think the rubble left over from the destroyed buildings makes it hard to actually see enemies sometimes. I think either the rubble or the enemies should have a different colour pallete
Same in the second level where it became kinda hard to see the worms among all the blood. I guess in a way this atleast teaches a player to keep moving, but I think it's still worth noting
Either way, this is a fantastic base for more. Can't wait to see what else you do with this
Thank you for playing!
Second level will be redone completely. I'll see if I can improve the readability further in the next build.
Good game.
I didn't use shift much in the demo version, perhaps the developer could consider the mecha can damage enemy by impact and take less damage from enemy impact when using shift. This effect could appear in the direction of move as a shield.
There will be upgrades for the boost and engine. Will definitely have an ability to damage enemies by slamming into them or reducing damage when boosting; currently I'm working on implementing a proper hangar for that. Thanks for playing!
Really cool! Digging the art style and aesthetic a lot. How did you make the sprite stacks for all the "models" in the game? Voxels converted to slices? Either way cool stuff!
A mixture of voxels converted to slices, conventional 3D models downscaled to voxels, and sometimes hand drawing each of the slices. Thanks for playing!
No more downloads? :’(
It's up again!
Wow! Thank you! Game is amazing already!
Awesome destruction, fun combat, good work! excited to see you continue with this! thank you mezz!
Can't wait for a finished game
Thanks for playing!
Great sound effects and UI! Took me straight back to 80s anime.
Glad you like it and noticed the 80s anime inspiration! The ricochet sounds are straight from Patlabor and Gundam.
This game got so much potential !
Oh, it runs on mine 32 bits potato, nice.Mine only complaint is that everything being beige makes it hard to see thing on the small window
Glad to hear people with older hardware can run this. I'm working hard on trying to get resolution resizing working, something is messing it up. I apologize you and other people had to play it in such a small resolution.