edit:Updated video with new menu/ UI and current sounds shown

The music is placeholder and is going to be replaced soon. I also plan to replace some of the art for the bullets/projectiles as mentioned in this thread. I also plan to change the rate that the all weapons powerup drops as well as make it harder by adding in more enemies.

 Video 2

 

Hey all, well I finally got around to recording some of my current gameplay for my shooter that I've been working on the past few months.

Its a standard top-down vertical shooter with multiple waves coming down from the top and a boss at the end. I haven't recorded the boss fight yet because some thing still need to be tweaked, but this vid shows some alright things minus the audio and UI going to be changed some.

youtube vid

The gameplay consists of currently four different enemies, three different powerups ( will be five) , a basic machine gun weapon, a piercing laser attack, a multishot attack , a exploding rocket and a nova bomb.

The player destroys enemies and gains red green or blue energy from them when they die. The energy is then used to fuel the different kind of weapons. Weapons can be switched to either through 1-4 or by going to the next weapon by Q or previous by E (kind of a first person shooter control scheme). I currently only have a windows version for now.

I will put up the source and install in a few weeks when I get it more polished.

dzeligman:

I will put up the source and install in a few weeks when I get it more polished.

Wow, source would be fantastic... it would be nice to see how you did some of the effects.

Looks good. From the video it was kind of hard to tell the enemies from the score/health pickups baubles? Looks like the enemies were just dark colored. Also looked like at the end of the video your horizontal scrolling code is a little off because it look like I can see line between two of your scrolling images. Overall looks like a great start and congratulations on getting a game finished and especially on volunteering to share the source! I love it when members of the community help others out like that.

Thanks for the initial feedback.

I actually noticed that slight line and my code is actually fine, its just that I cropped the image off by a pixel so the line appears :P.

The energy pickups I guess should probably be changed I made the art for them in about 30 seconds a few months ago and havent really changed them as my friend has been making the ship sprites for me.

I modified the game state management sample today and made a much better menu system and "turned on" most of my sounds for all the projectiles and explosions. I'm now mostly just waiting on some more art for the UI, background music and some idea on how I want to handle multiple levels.

Sadly currently I hardcode the initial level and thats all there is

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I recommend some flashier bullet effects. Just a glow and a flash of white light would do wonders for the feeling of shooting I think. Right now it looks too dinky. Study how the Japanese shmups do it for reference.

All my effects right now are done by a modified mercury particle engine so it can support a lot, but in what aspects in particular?

I know the actual bullet art isnt anything special. I havent tinkered with it enough to really see if I get get some good alpha glows, but do you mean when the bullets are fired, are just alive, when they hit things, when things explode? I've tried to find some good examples to reference, but I've mostly just been winging it.

The hit and explosion effects look good. I especially like the blue particle explosion on the bigger ships. The bullets your ship fires are too simple and slow though and they don't mesh with the rest of the game. They aren't intimidating or powerful looking, just a small line. It's hard to explain but it ruins the feeling of the game to me. Just my early impressions, it will look better by the time it's done.

Nice job man - looks like a good start.  I've always liked these types of games. 

A small suggestion - might be cool and relatively simple to have the ship tilt left/right when you move.   A subtle change that would add some realism at the cost of a couple more sprites. :)

Keep us updated!

I think you made a good progress, dzeligman, Fusion might be a clone to the shooting game: Raiden. I'll might review Fusion(if I can get my premium account) if I want.

Only 1 advice, I see that your gameplay is in standard 4:3 aspect ratio, so remember to support native 4:3 in Xbox, I am sure users will not like playing in letterbox a 4:3 game using a 4:3 TV.

ciao.