Hovercraft

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#1

This is a project I’ve been playing around with for a while now during my commute to work.
It’s called Hovercraft and it’s a game where you fly a weird little ship collecting gems and avoiding obstacles on your path to the landing zone.
you control the ship by firing any of your craft’s jet engines, it’s fairly hard to control so most levels can be completed in less than a minute.

It uses Google+ for leader boards and achievements.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bornander.hovercraft

The game is using AndEngine with Box2D for physics, the graphics is a low-res version of a Kenney tile-set.

The game is currently in alpha testing in Google play, here’s a video of me trying it out on a tablet;

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#2

So this project is pretty much feature complete, it now has 56 levels, a leader board ,15 (I think) achievements and the game play is not too buggy.

I am pushing it into beta-testing to tune the levels, if anyone is interested in trying it out please let me know and I’ll add you to the Google+ group that is the group of beta-testers. I would appreciate any comments you might have.

#3

I’ve moved this game out of beta and into prod now.
It’s available on Google Play (free and no ads or in-game purchases) for anyone who wants to try it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bornander.hovercraft

If anyone does give it a go I would very much like feed back on the difficulty. I’ve deliberately made it difficult (to to point where I expect a beginner to have to try several times to complete the first level), but I obviously don’t want it to be too difficult.

Any feedback is appreciated.

#4

I’ve been playing this game on my phone for little over a week now, and I can tell you that I’ve had a ton of fun. I think today only I already played over an hour. It’s a really good game for when you have a small moment. The graphics aren’t what you would call fancy, but I like them nontheless. It’s a bloody hard game though. And the level difficulty differs every time. Some of them are rock hard but I also finish some of them in one go. That’s maybe something you can think about but other than that, good work!

#5

This made my day!
The fact that you liked it and took the time to tell me so is something I appreciate very much. It motivates me to finish off the game by ironing out the last bugs (sorry about them) and adding a config options that allow the player to tweak the controls a bit.

I know the levels aren’t exactly incremental in difficulty, I’m writing this game on my commute to/from work and level design is something that I haven’t given the priority it needs (I’ve gone for finishing the game instead). I know that’s an area I have to work on and I’ll try to do better.

Again; thanks for the feedback and for telling me you like my game.

/bornander

#6

I love it!

#7

And I love that you took the time to tell me so! :slight_smile:

Thank you for trying it and thanks for commenting on it.

/bornander

#8

One think I didn’t quite get was the hovercraft you get with the red hull. Is it heavier than the first one or something?

#9

Yes. Their weight is proportional to their size, so the red one is more sluggish.
A few chapters later you get a smaller yellow one, with is more agile. In all honesty, those to chapters are there to stretch out the game as they’re both contain only copies of previous levels, that you now have to navigate with a different hover craft.

#10

Yeah I figured they were copies when going to the next chapters.

#11

Yeah, every third chapter is a re-hash of the previous two.

#12

I’ve gotten some comments about how the game is very difficult and how the controls are a bit small on small screen devices so I’ve released an update to the Google Play where there’s a Settings screen where the player can tune this a bit.

I would love to hear if changing the Controls setting makes the game more playable.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bornander.hovercraft

Thanks.

/bornander

#13

I’ve tried the game with the new settings and they make it a lot nicer. Not only the bigger buttons are very nice, but the control difficulty slider is a nice addon as well. I still can’t manage level 7 of chapter 4 though, but I think that’s just my lack of skill.

#14

Thanks for trying that, I’m glad you found it easier with the controls adjusted.

The trick is not to try to go up through the propellers, but always go around and fall down through the gap :wink:

#15

I played it for two days now. It’s fun!

Here are some things you might want to improve to make it even better:

The contrast between light-blue sky and white letters is weak. There are way to solve this:

  • add a dark outline to each letter (this solution is the best, but I assume needs most work)
  • make the sky a little bit darker
  • make the letters black or maybe some gold/yellow shade

As for the gameplay, there are two frustrating moments:

  1. when you fall on the “roof”. You have to restart the level, but there is no button on the screen for it, I have to use the back button on the device to get it to show. Looks like a nitpick, but making the game dynamic is what made Flappy Bird a hit.

  2. falling all the way down. You have to wait until it gets there. Of course, having a restart button on the screen would fix that. But maybe, you could add a huge horizontal platform at the bottom that bounces. So if you fall off, you could bouce and try to climb back up.

Also, could you please enable the immersive mode on KitKat. My son keeps hitting the back and home button on the device all the time. If you’re not sure how it’s done, and you’re using libGDX here’s the code:

http://bigosaur.com/blog/32-handle-immersive-kitkat

#16

Cool, I am glad you think it’s fun.

Do you mean the text in the actual levels that says things like “Land here” and “Collect all gems…”, or the ones in the menues?
in either case I’ll look in to increasing the contrast.

Both very valid points I think. I am not asking you to design my UI, but where would you put such a reset button?
Maybe move the “compass” to the top and have a reset button where the “compass” is now?

It’s not built using libGDX (in hind-sight I probably should have used that), but in any case; I’ll enable immersive mode.

Thank you so much for commenting and providing such detailed and valuable feedback.

/bornander

#17

So I am working away implementing the comments given to me when a user emails me this screenshot from him playing the game.
He somehow managed to land the hovercraft with no landing gear or no engines attached.

I might just have to add an achievement for that particular scenario ;D

#18

I’ve implemented these now. If you’re on a KitKat (or higher) device the game will go into Immersive Mode. Doing that forced me to fix your other two points as well as there’s no way to restart the game when the back-button is hidden.

I added two buttons at the top of the screen (took some re-shuffling of the HUD), one for quick-restart and one brining up the game’s standard pause-menu. The problem is that the buttons aren’t that intuitive so at the beginning of the level a message is show to tell you what they do. That message fades away as soon as the game starts;

I hope this will remove some of the frustrations you had.

/bornander

#19

Here’s how I’d do it (since you asked) :slight_smile:

Move the fuel and time to top-left corner one underneath the other.

Move the restart and menu button into top-right corner. Use the standard graphics:

  • rewind icon for restart (just like the one you use when the player drifts too far away)
  • pause || or hamburger (3 horizontal bars) button for menu.
#20

Damn it Mr Babuskov! That is a way better suggestion than what I actually implemented, couldn’t you have let me know before I rushed off? :slight_smile:

Right, I’m starting version 1.5 tonight where I’ll re-jig the HUD to what you suggest. It will be known as the mbabuskov update.

Thank you for the feedback.