Protractor by KilledByAPixel
My entry is called "Protractor", it's a katamari shmup! You WILL need the latest version of DirectX! Update if you see a missing dll errors. I also put up a link to an enhanced version with some post-deadline bug fixes and gameplay tweaks. Enjoy!
Gameplay Help
- Kill enemies and collect their parts to build.
- Use left mouse to pull parts to you to attach them.
- Colors indicate health level. Purple is super high health, red is about to die. Your ship will auto recharge health but other parts wont, unless you have a healer attached.
- Weapons are randomized but all have the same DPS so on average they will cause the same amount of damage. Larger bullets represent more damage.
- Try to keep your ship balanced or it will become difficult to control. Use engine placement to help balance things out.
- Triangle - Weapon (random but normalized to the same DPS)
- Square - Healer (auto repairs ship and attached parts)
- Pentagon - Speed Booster (increases speed and turn rate)
- Circle - Extender (allows for expansion)
Controls
- Left mouse - Move parts
- Spacebar or Right mouse - Shoot
- WASD - Move your ship
- Alt+Enter - Go fullscreen (recommended)
Tools Used
- Visual C++ 2010 Express
- Frank Engine (my open source game engine)
- Box2d physics
- SFXR and Audacity for sound effects
- GIMP for image editing
- Tortoise SVN for revision control
Gameplay Help
- Kill enemies and collect their parts to build.
- Use left mouse to pull parts to you to attach them.
- Colors indicate health level. Purple is super high health, red is about to die. Your ship will auto recharge health but other parts wont, unless you have a healer attached.
- Weapons are randomized but all have the same DPS so on average they will cause the same amount of damage. Larger bullets represent more damage.
- Try to keep your ship balanced or it will become difficult to control. Use engine placement to help balance things out.
- Triangle - Weapon (random but normalized to the same DPS)
- Square - Healer (auto repairs ship and attached parts)
- Pentagon - Speed Booster (increases speed and turn rate)
- Circle - Extender (allows for expansion)
Controls
- Left mouse - Move parts
- Spacebar or Right mouse - Shoot
- WASD - Move your ship
- Alt+Enter - Go fullscreen (recommended)
Tools Used
- Visual C++ 2010 Express
- Frank Engine (my open source game engine)
- Box2d physics
- SFXR and Audacity for sound effects
- GIMP for image editing
- Tortoise SVN for revision control
Ratings
| Coolness | 38% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.19 | 45 |
| Audio | 2.07 | 105 |
| Community | 3.40 | 43 |
| Fun | 3.00 | 57 |
| Graphics | 3.94 | 14 |
| Humor | 1.50 | 136 |
| Innovation | 3.13 | 70 |
| Theme | 2.94 | 113 |
If there's one issue I have with the game it's that the controls are too awkward. There's just too many things to think about. Which way is my ship pointing, where is my cursor, having to manually pull ship parts onto the ship... there's just too much to handle. Some of it would probably be best done automatically. Maybe ship parts should gravitate towards you, instead of having to follow the mouse, and you could find some other way to rearrange the ship parts.
Overall, a wonderfully fresh and polished game, which is very fun despite its drawbacks :)
The tractor beam controls are something I want to work on. Right now it's just a simple spring system but I think I can improve that so it controls more tightly. I like idea of them gravitating in. Maybe you there's a new part that sucks other parts to it? I'm also thinking about allowing the player to select multiple objects at once with the tractor beam to speed up part placement.
I didn't have too much time for sound effects but I threw in a little love. There's five different bullet sounds it randomly picks from for each gun. The frequency is scaled by the damage so that weaker weapons sound higher pitched. Then there's a some extra randomness added to the frequency to make it feel a more organic. I used SFXR (which is fantastic) but there wasn't much time to do a real sound pass.
I like the gameplay mechanics, but the weapons are really weak, so you end up just standing there, shooting at the enemy while the enemy shoots at you. Better manouverability could probably help with that, although I guess I could stick weapons to my sides and run circles around the enemies.