Yeah, its done by the new pixel artist, Ryan D.
I just updated it, now there are two layers of parallax scrolling, I also updated the pipes background and made it darker.
Screenshots are updated if you guys want to check them out.
new Episode 4 and Episode 5 are up 
Sounds great! But I can’t see level 5…?
New website, new name, new version.
Virus Effect is the new name.
This version includes a some new episodes, and a cool new title screen. You have to beat episode 4 in this version to unlock episode 5.
Nice site and everything.
Two bugs:
-
In level 5, at the area where you have two door choices (one at the bottom , one at the very top), I took the lower door, then jumped platforms to go up through the other side of the upper door. When I entered it, I was stuck in the wall.
-
If enemies on the other side of the screen somehow get hurt (usually by mines that they triggered themselves), they shouldn’t come find you all the way on the other side of the level.
Thanks, I forgot to fix that map before I updated, it should work now. For the second one I was wondering why the enemies would randomly chase you. I’ll fix that when I work on the game again.
Thanks for the help.
No problem. I think this game is great and I’m really enjoying watching it develop.
I agree. It is getting really interesting now. The new lvl4 is very tricky. I have not had that much time with it. Will try it again this evening (I hope).
I have one large scale issue.
In the beginning, fighting the creeps was hard. The guns and upgrades seemed expensive (even at the current prices).
Then I could afford some upgrades, it become easier to grind levels for money.
Suddenly, the early levels seemed very easy and it was easy to grind them for more money.
Very suddenly I could afford all guns and quickly fill them with upgrades.
Now I am at a point where the guns are maxed out. I have no use for money anymore. The game is now about the tricky levels (and they are tricky, in a good way).
I think the game could do this better. Have upgrades become more and more expensive, but also making the guns better in a non-linear fashion. Of course, this has to be paired with tougher resistance.
Example:
Gun damage from start: 4.
Gun damage with upgrade 1: 5 (cost to upgrade 60)
Gun damage with upgrade 2: 6.5 (cost to upgrade 80 from step 1)
Gun damage with upgrade 3: 8.5 (cost to upgrade 120 from step 2)
Gun damage with upgrade 4: 11 (cost to upgrade 200 from step 3)
I’m sure you have lots of plans… this is merely a suggestion.
Also, is there a way to reset my character?
Thanks for the support, other people have also suggested the same thing about gradually increasing the price for upgrades. So it will be implemented.
We have big plans, slowly but surely we’ll cross them all of the list. As for guns I think I’m am either going to lower the upgrade sizes for the weapons in the store and have enemies drop weapons with random max slots. Or I will have the guns that are droped have different increase sizes for each upgrade, or maybe it begins with a higher stat like damage, and you can upgrade it more.
I will add a reset button on the website so you can start over again, once I get to work on the game again. This might be necessary once I make some changes with weapons.
Sounds great!
I were really carefull and finally finished lvl 4. Also lvl 5 were beaten. Wohoo!
Eager for more.
Leaderboards are up! YAAY! Can you make it to #1?!
Hey everyone I haven’t posted in a while.
I just released an update to VE. I have no idea how anyone will react to it, because my team hasn’t been on in a while. So I would love to hear what you guys think.
I’m also stuck at a crossroads and maybe you guys could help me decide. I am planning on creating a multiplayer version of VE and will be recoding everything. And I cannot decide between LWJGL and JOGL, and also Webstart or Applet. I have done pretty well with Applets of course, but I keep reading all these horror stories on these forums about how crappy Applets are and I hate wasting time.
I am leaning towards LWJGL but I hear all these updates for JOGL and also don’t want to waste time if later on JOGL is better or something like that. So any thoughts appreciated, and I want to hear what you guys think of the gore, lol.
I like LWJGL better because it also includes timers, input, and OpenAL. You may also want to check out Slick. It’s LWJGL with a lot of stuff specifically for 2D games, like particle effects and physics and the like (erm well maybe Phys2D just can come with it, not sure on that one). Either way you’ve already got physics I know so that part of it probably isn’t interesting to you.
I personally would go with Webstart because it’s much more large application oriented. Applets are great but seem better for smaller ventures because of the loading time required and everything, and with Webstart resources will stay cached permanently. Applet caches are subject to browser resets and the like. However, you get the obvious benefit of your game appearing embedded within a webpage, which is nice.
Thanks for the info, so you’re for LWJGL and Webstart. That is what I was going for, but the only reason I stuck with Applets was the embedded fact. I don’t want to lose any potential users with having to download a full application. Although gamers are used to downloading games to play, I wanted to reach as many people as possible.
Is it that much effort to deploy with both methods?
I do acctualy like the applet version as you dont have to launch it separately from the browser.
Hopefully the JavaFX/ Applet thing will take off so that having it as an applet will be significantly more useful in terms of portals etc…
The game is as cool as usual and a multiplayer version sounds awesome!
BIG problems with it (v1.5.6 applet) here;
- Security popup - warn people about this: ‘This game uses special graphics stuff you need to give permission for, etc’
- Long (>2mins) white-screen delay on loading. Use a loader applet or something (Dzzd has done some great work in this area) Most people will think it’s crashed.
- No ‘sound off’ option - you get the music/sound whether you like it or not.
- Painfully slow (W2K Java6u11) FPS says 40 but it plays more like 4. IIRC the earlier demos were ok.
It’s a shame because it looks like a good game - you really need to sort these problems!
I would rather just have one way of deployment. So your for applets then.
- Wow good news, or dumb news, I completely forgot that the only reason I signed it was because of old code that I took out. So there is no need to have it signed, so its taken out. lol how embarrasing…
- Yea the long white screen is due to http loading of music. I know there is a way to have a loading bar, but I haven’t looked into it yet. If anyone could direct me to a thread or tutorial of it, I would appreciate it.
- I’ll start on it right now, I just have to do an options menu, for it.
- I’m pretty sure the slow down is caused by the music, but i’m not sure, hopefully having the music off option will show if this is true or not.
Thanks for replies, all feedback is useful.
2 - You should put music loading in another thread and then run the game while it’s loading.
When I do put it in a thread is there a way to count how many bytes have been loaded? That way I can put a loading bar. Or is there a way to even know when they’re all done? Even with that I can have a waiting screen and you would still be able to play around with enemies or something. I guess at the end of the thread you would do some kind of notification.
*Edit: Ok, I added the options menu, and it turns out having the music play has a big influence on the FPS, as well as the sound effects. So if you want to run the game at its fastest turn both off. Or just turn one off to run a little faster.
Hey, I finally made a game play video of VE. I wanted to tell you guys, just in case some of you don’t feel like signing up and trying the actual game.
Its on the site news and game info page.
www.viruseffect.com
YouTube
I would love to hear what you guys think, for those of you that haven’t seen before.