Hi there,
anyone remember “space taxi” from good old c64? Here’s what we made out of it:
http://monksofcool.net:8080/PizzataxiWeb/
It’s an applet game made with PulpCore, and it’s not finished yet. It has only a few levels, and no sound at the moment. But it’s playable and should be enough for a first look.
thanks for making such good looking Applet !! I really hope that Webstart & opengl addict will follow your way…
and inded thanks to Brackeen for its nice pulpcore
what are the controls?
nvm figured it out.
it is like lunar lander on drugs 
i suck i can barely control the ship haha.
It looks great ;D
Looks really really great! Did you make the graphics yourself?
But it’s dam hard! You need to make much easier levels before the first one. Maybe the controls are not intuitive? What are the game mechanics you want to implement?
I agree, it looks great but it’s too hard in the beginning.
Where did you get those graphics? they’re excellent!
Game is hard, couldn’t figure out graphics, controls are nice.
Where did you get those graphics? they’re excellent!
Thanks a lot! The graphics are created with 3D rendering software and photoshop.
We are 2 people working on the game, I’m doing the programming and a friend of mine does the gfx.
I heard it quite often now that the game is hard to play. What would you suggest? Making the ship slower?
At the moment you can advance to the next level by pressing CTRL+N. Have a look at levels 4 and 5, THAT is hard ;D
uli, I think you have the symptome that a game developer fears his game is too easy and thus not challenging. I had that problem with Incredibuilder and I’ve seen it multiple times here at JGO. I highly recommend you to find average, weak and hard code players and ask them to play your game. This is crucial if you want to balance the difficulty. About controls, I’m afraid they’re not intuitive, too odd and I’m pretty sure that makes the game that hard. The game mechanics you’re trying to achieve seems great but I think you need to come up with much better control scheme. Again, I have experience about that with Incredibuilder. I learned that lesson the hard way but I learned so much! Finally, why not changing just the controls for the better and post that version here? I think we’ll be happy to tell you how it feels. Prototyping with user feedback is essential I think.
Can you make it so the ship can bounce off a few obstacles before it crashes? That would be a bit easier.
Well great job by you and the artist. Menus and animation look cool too. Pulpcore was a great choice
So close in getting first on the high score!
The game is a little tricky to start, I think there should be a easier stage first.
I thought the game crashed at one point. But it was changing lvls. You might want to add a load bar or something saying its changing lvls.
Yes, you are absolutely right. I was amazed that so many people say it’s hard to play. I really though of the first 2 levels beeing too boring. We will add some easier to play levels at the beginning.
The controls are the same like in that old c64 game, and actually I don’t have an idea about how I could improve it other than by lowering the acceleration. Do you have a suggestion what to change?
Good point! Indeed the game might seem to “hang” when changing levels, because it loads the gfx for the next level. Depending on your bandwith this might take a moment. We will put some information (loading bar, hourglass, …) on the screen when that happens.
Well, thank you all very much for testing and for your feedback! It helps a lot!
And special thanks to David Brackeen for his great PulpCore, it’s really powerful and easy to use.!
Old games generally SUCKED when it comes to input… If there’s one thing I don’t miss about the good old days, it’s the input and user accessibility.
For example, why does the user need to press space before being able to move left/right? Why can’t the landing gear automatically go up when travelling sideways, and automatically drop when standing still?
very cool game, still a bit hard, its instant kill if you touch the top of the screen, maybe allow the ship of bounce of a few times before being destroyed (health bar?).
also agreed that the controls are a bit awkward, landing gear should automatically raise when away from the floor so no need for the space button.
[quote]The controls are the same like in that old c64 game, and actually I don’t have an idea about how I could improve it other than by lowering the acceleration. Do you have a suggestion what to change?
[/quote]
What about using a combination of keyboard and mouse? Use space bar for throttle and use the mouse to steer. Just an idea. Do you want to stick with keyboard only?
Okay, considering the feedback I got so far I think the next steps will be:
Simplyfy the controls. Automatic landing gear or maybe no landing gear at all. I think I’ll stick to keyboard controls at first, we’ll see what the other changes will bring.
Bouncing. That won’t be so simple, because for realistic looking bounces I have to calculate the correct angle. Maybe we’ll have to let the levels consist of more regular shapes. I will experiment with it. This may take a while.
Loading bar / hourglass when level changes.
Thanks again for the help!