Dyad

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#1

Shoot and dodge; a simple game. Initially it was supposed to be a week-long project to help me learn networking through building a coop mode, but it ended up as a month-long project without coop (networking is hard :-). Yet, I’m pretty happy about it as it’s one of the few projects of mine that I consider as fairly complete. I’d be nice it if you’d help me find and fix any bugs. Built with libgdx, mainly made for Androids, and not very resolution-versatile.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dyad.android&hl=en

Desktop (last updated July 04 2014): https://www.dropbox.com/s/iju0qn3d3n7vom2/dyadDesktop20140704.zip

Global high scores are unavailable for desktop.

Thanks

#2

Its really addicting, and the simplistic graphics are pretty as hell :slight_smile:

I would recommend putting the points underneath the ship. Its hard to flip your eyes to the corner to a fast paced game like this, also try putting the +10 for each ship you kill on the same location of the ship you killed. Like I said, its kinda hard to flip your eyes to the score. Either way, you could leave the scores at the bottom, and that could fix the +10 part.

Also, its really easy to hold the ships guns down and credit farm like that. I suggest a kinda cool-down thing. Like it keeps getting slower and slower until the ship gets completely red and stops for about 1 second. Make the heat-up timer really low. So their forced to use short bursts, which gives the player a more tactical feel, like they need to reserve shooting times.

#3

nice

#4

Meh goosta.

#5

Hi

Very nice thing. I played on PC. Took a minute to figure out the keys cause the help only says tilt the screen, but A and D have been my second try after the arrow keys. Its a fun little game for several runs. But I am not much of a high score chaser, so I dropped it quickly. I imagine its far easier to control on PC with keys to move and shoot than tilting and putting your finger on your phone :). It is very minimalistic in a positive way. You used very few colors, shapes and whatever and made a game. Its like the rule “its perfect when you cannot remove anything else”.

I like it, and when I may, I will look into the source at some point to learn something about libGDX.

The only thing it maybe lacks is the depth to be a longer lasting fun.

A few somewhat issues:

  • The game over sound feels louder compared to the rest like shooting and explosions. But maybe its just because its a longer sound.
  • High Score display did not do something. I got a textfile in my directory but just crap in it.
  • It feels like the placement of obstacles got so random at around 800+ points, that there is not always a real winnable way. I got into some kind of dead end and that makes me feel cheated. I do not know if this is just a feeling or if your game already always checks that there really is a managable way to go on. Otherwise there should be. When someone crashes, he should always feel like he could have made it if he steered right, not because the game placed the obstacles in a way you cannot avoid them.

Good work overall!

#6

Just noticed by accidently clicking the wrong button and scanning the jar with my antivirus, it detects a possible trojan/exploit. No exact idea why. It seems to trigger on some sort of loading external stuff in the \com\badlogic\gdx\utils\SharedLibraryLoader.class.
While it says high danger, it seems minor to me because it did not trigger after download or during running the jar. Still who knows how other antivirus programs react. I am using AVG AntiVirus Free.

#7

Thank you all for the feedback, constructive criticisms and praises.

[quote]I would recommend putting the points underneath the ship. Its hard to flip your eyes to the corner to a fast paced game like this, also try putting the +10 for each ship you kill on the same location of the ship you killed. Like I said, its kinda hard to flip your eyes to the score. Either way, you could leave the scores at the bottom, and that could fix the +10 part.
[/quote]
Thanks, I’ve changed that according to your suggestion.

[quote]Also, its really easy to hold the ships guns down and credit farm like that. I suggest a kinda cool-down thing. Like it keeps getting slower and slower until the ship gets completely red and stops for about 1 second. Make the heat-up timer really low. So their forced to use short bursts, which gives the player a more tactical feel, like they need to reserve shooting times.
[/quote]
Yeah, might as well have it automatically shooting the whole time with the current gameplay. I might do something like your suggestion.

[quote]The only thing it maybe lacks is the depth to be a longer lasting fun.
[/quote]
Yes, I’m trying to think of ideas that will add depth to the game while keeping simple gameplay.

[quote]It feels like the placement of obstacles got so random at around 800+ points, that there is not always a real winnable way. I got into some kind of dead end and that makes me feel cheated. I do not know if this is just a feeling or if your game already always checks that there really is a managable way to go on. Otherwise there should be. When someone crashes, he should always feel like he could have made it if he steered right, not because the game placed the obstacles in a way you cannot avoid them.
[/quote]
Obstacle placement is totally random. I’m thinking of a way for the player to learn the map, which involves changing the map every day and not every round.

[quote]Just noticed by accidently clicking the wrong button and scanning the jar with my antivirus, it detects a possible trojan/exploit. No exact idea why. It seems to trigger on some sort of loading external stuff in the \com\badlogic\gdx\utils\SharedLibraryLoader.class.
While it says high danger, it seems minor to me because it did not trigger after download or during running the jar. Still who knows how other antivirus programs react. I am using AVG AntiVirus Free.
[/quote]
That’s kind of odd, although for my Windows Defender it occasionally detects some dll of libgdx as malware.

I noticed that the pause button for the desktop version doesn’t work; I’ll fix that on the next update.

#8

Pros:
*The simple art style does the simple game justice. Less is more is what they say.
*Controls feel perfect. The speeds are just right and the tilt effect when strafing is powerful.
*Full package. Features an option menu and a tutorial screen.

This game is, to me, an easy enough concept, packaged with a clean finish. Its looks and gameplay invites you to give it at least one try.

Cons:
*Unclear hitbox. I’m having trouble knowing if I’ll get hit by something as my hitbox is smaller than my ship.
*No music? Maybe that’s just me.
*(Desktop version only) The tutorial screen is wrong for desktop.

Now for a more complicated flaw. You shoot the red ships to rack up points. However, there’s no penalty to shooting. There’s nothing stopping me to hold down the spacebar and fire my lasers for eternity.
This kind of defeats the purpose of the red ships, as they have no chance of getting to you.
An easy solution would be making the fire button a single-shot only. This means that if I held the spacebar down, the ship would shoot only once. In order to shoot once more, I’d have to release and press the spacebar again.

Considering the scope of this project, this game truly delivers in the end! I would definitely play this on Android!

#9

Updated.

-Fixed pause button issue on desktop.

[quote]*No music? Maybe that’s just me.
[/quote]
-Fixed music issue. It was related to some music formatting.

[quote]*(Desktop version only) The tutorial screen is wrong for desktop.
[/quote]
-Created different tutorial screen for desktop (it’s not pretty but it does the job).
Thanks for the feedback VaPS.

Added/changed somestuff as an experiment (desktop only):
-The map changes daily now, not every round, so that the player might be able to learn, “fix his mistakes”, and improve his score.
-As an aid to learning (like above), added a trail of the top scoring play of the map (the dots).
-Added thrusters (left shift) to speed yourself up. There’s no bonus points for using it nor a limit; it’s just for convenience.

I’d like feedback with the changes.

I’m planning to add overheating for a shooting limit.

Thanks.

#10

Minor “complaint” but having to use the mouse to pause the game might be distracting. It’d be nice to also have a keyboard option (esc perhaps?).

A good change but I suggest you give the player incentive to use it. Right now it’s a major risk (hitting something because of travelling too fast) with next to no reward (getting some hundred pixels ahead).
The most obvious reward would be added score based on the speed of the ship.
A more complicated but more interesting reward would be the ability to break through small meteorites and or red ships. This would help players get out of tricky, sometimes unfair, situations where there’s too much clutter on the screen coming toward you. You would then be able to burst through it.
This would not make the game a cake-walk in any case. You still have to worry about the bigger meteorites and bullets, now with increased speed.

Overall amazing improvements!

#11

Updated.

-Added shooting overheating to limit overpower.

-Thrust now enables you to destroy enemies and blue obstacles.

-Daily high score trails can be enabled/disabled

Pic:

Any suggestions on additions and tweaks are welcome.

Thanks