Incredible game!!! I've played it close to a dozen times trying to get a perfect run. Does it check to make sure that it doesn't send too much of one color bomber? In my last few runs I thought I had near constant fighter production but I sometimes got so many of one color in a row that it doesn't seem like I could've stopped them all. I could just be bad though and be doing worse than I thought. Regardless, a genius game. I cannot wait to see how it develops
Also, if you make it less hectic, please keep this version around as a hard mode or something :D
That's interesting, it should be random, but I can see how getting the same colour repeatedly would take the fun out of it. Think I will add some guard rails to ensure a roughly equal split rather than totally random.
In terms of hectic-ness, think there is definitely a balance to be made. I think it should probably start slow and get harder. Not sure if it should be level based or not.
I played another ten or so games. It feels much more fair with the colors being more balanced. I still haven't quite gotten perfect (best is 3 missed) but I think it's possible.
In regards to the hectic-ness, I had to restart like three times before grasping what was going on my first time playing so I don't think an easier start is a bad idea.
Also, there appears to be a bug that causes the game to crash just before the fifth wave. I have it roughly half of my games. I tried Firefox and Edge so I don't think it's my browser
Out of curiosity, did you increase the prep time at the start?
Hi, yes increased the start time, felt like sometimes you just couldn't get ready in time and it was meant to get harder over time, hopefully it's not too much. Will look into that bug, thanks for finding it. Yeah I think the game isn't self explanatory and nobody wants to read instructions, I will think today how to add instructions in-game. I would like to add features, but I don't know if thats just expanding the scope of what is naturally a simple game. Also thinking if I do expand it, should it be level based, or more rogue like and maybe gets more complex every wave etc.
I think it's a good mindset to try to keep the game simple, but I do think you could expand it without damaging the game. As is, there aren't a lot of choices to make. In a game where it's really difficult to play perfect this is fine because where your attention goes is how you create your play-style, but in this game, I've played for about two hours and I think I'm closing in on that perfect game. If you were to add features, I think you should try to make the game more complex from a strategy perspective than adding more to manage. That said, you made a better game than I can so I trust your judgement
RE: Levels vs Roguelike?
I think it depends on what features you add. If you want to play with the nature of the game, I think levels is the way to go. You could have one level where you are told in advance which color bombers are coming and gain the ability to change your arming slots so you can produce enough of the right fighters or one where it's cloudy and you can't see some of your slots so you have to remember what you put where, one where almost all your slots are full so it's hard to move planes around, etc. I think that would take a lot of work to make cool. It would probably be easier to make it rogue-like so each bomber destroyed gives you xp or money or something you use to upgrade/buy planes and the fun of the game comes from experimenting with upgrades to figure out what deals best with the more difficult waves. I think the levels sounds cooler but easier to mess up and more work
It's very hectic, but I can see some fun possibilities here! I'd love to see upgrades for faster taxi/rearm/refuel/repair times, additional landing slots, and stuff like that, as well as additional aircraft (maybe trading off fuel for longer lingering times but needs to rearm after each sortie?).
Great ideas, thanks! Yes think upgrades make a lot of sense, will look at adding once the core game loop is enjoyable. I didn't want it to be too hectic to start, so sounds like it needs some balancing in relation to timings, wave size etc. In relation to you last idea, could you explain? Currently planes need to rearm when they land if they attacked after takeoff. I added 2 fuel slots rather than just fuel = true/false (like damage) as I thought it made a more interesting player decision eg refuel now or risk it and do later.
I was thinking it would be nice to have a sort of Combat Air Patrol (CAP)-style thing going on, that way you could preemptively handle an incoming enemy should you get caught off guard, or fail that, the ability to stage a plane or two to launch with a single key?
But with other changes to timing and such that might not be an issue, but it was definitely something I had been wanting while playing this. It also may have been my misunderstanding of planes, as it seemed like planes would land while retaining their color/armament, just needing refueling/repairing; I do enjoy the idea of deciding if you want to refuel now or later, it's something I picked up after a run or two!
Thanks for the quick reply, I wish you luck in your continuing development of this!
After another run I found mix results on if a plane would need rearming or not, but I think that was just unclear if it was actually able to intercept the enemy or not. Sometimes they came back uncolored for rearming, sometimes they didn't. Probably just me being dumb!
Yeah it seems a confusing mechanic that doesn't really add anything, think for consistency I will make all planes need rearming when land. I do like the idea of queuing up small squadrons of planes to launch on a key press, it really rewards players for planning ahead. Will have a think about best way to do it so player has enough info to make the decision (eg allow player to think - aha I should have 3 reds ready to go!)
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Incredible game!!! I've played it close to a dozen times trying to get a perfect run. Does it check to make sure that it doesn't send too much of one color bomber? In my last few runs I thought I had near constant fighter production but I sometimes got so many of one color in a row that it doesn't seem like I could've stopped them all. I could just be bad though and be doing worse than I thought. Regardless, a genius game. I cannot wait to see how it develops
Also, if you make it less hectic, please keep this version around as a hard mode or something :D
That's interesting, it should be random, but I can see how getting the same colour repeatedly would take the fun out of it. Think I will add some guard rails to ensure a roughly equal split rather than totally random.
In terms of hectic-ness, think there is definitely a balance to be made. I think it should probably start slow and get harder. Not sure if it should be level based or not.
Thanks a lot for playing and for the feedback!
ok colours fixed, no more blocks of same coloured enemies in a row. It was a good call, it was very unfair and annoying when it happened!
I played another ten or so games. It feels much more fair with the colors being more balanced. I still haven't quite gotten perfect (best is 3 missed) but I think it's possible.
In regards to the hectic-ness, I had to restart like three times before grasping what was going on my first time playing so I don't think an easier start is a bad idea.
Also, there appears to be a bug that causes the game to crash just before the fifth wave. I have it roughly half of my games. I tried Firefox and Edge so I don't think it's my browser
Out of curiosity, did you increase the prep time at the start?
Thank you again for making such a great game!
Hi, yes increased the start time, felt like sometimes you just couldn't get ready in time and it was meant to get harder over time, hopefully it's not too much. Will look into that bug, thanks for finding it. Yeah I think the game isn't self explanatory and nobody wants to read instructions, I will think today how to add instructions in-game. I would like to add features, but I don't know if thats just expanding the scope of what is naturally a simple game. Also thinking if I do expand it, should it be level based, or more rogue like and maybe gets more complex every wave etc.
Thanks again!
RE: adding features
I think it's a good mindset to try to keep the game simple, but I do think you could expand it without damaging the game. As is, there aren't a lot of choices to make. In a game where it's really difficult to play perfect this is fine because where your attention goes is how you create your play-style, but in this game, I've played for about two hours and I think I'm closing in on that perfect game. If you were to add features, I think you should try to make the game more complex from a strategy perspective than adding more to manage. That said, you made a better game than I can so I trust your judgement
RE: Levels vs Roguelike?
I think it depends on what features you add. If you want to play with the nature of the game, I think levels is the way to go. You could have one level where you are told in advance which color bombers are coming and gain the ability to change your arming slots so you can produce enough of the right fighters or one where it's cloudy and you can't see some of your slots so you have to remember what you put where, one where almost all your slots are full so it's hard to move planes around, etc. I think that would take a lot of work to make cool. It would probably be easier to make it rogue-like so each bomber destroyed gives you xp or money or something you use to upgrade/buy planes and the fun of the game comes from experimenting with upgrades to figure out what deals best with the more difficult waves. I think the levels sounds cooler but easier to mess up and more work
It's very hectic, but I can see some fun possibilities here! I'd love to see upgrades for faster taxi/rearm/refuel/repair times, additional landing slots, and stuff like that, as well as additional aircraft (maybe trading off fuel for longer lingering times but needs to rearm after each sortie?).
Great ideas, thanks! Yes think upgrades make a lot of sense, will look at adding once the core game loop is enjoyable. I didn't want it to be too hectic to start, so sounds like it needs some balancing in relation to timings, wave size etc. In relation to you last idea, could you explain? Currently planes need to rearm when they land if they attacked after takeoff. I added 2 fuel slots rather than just fuel = true/false (like damage) as I thought it made a more interesting player decision eg refuel now or risk it and do later.
I was thinking it would be nice to have a sort of Combat Air Patrol (CAP)-style thing going on, that way you could preemptively handle an incoming enemy should you get caught off guard, or fail that, the ability to stage a plane or two to launch with a single key?
But with other changes to timing and such that might not be an issue, but it was definitely something I had been wanting while playing this. It also may have been my misunderstanding of planes, as it seemed like planes would land while retaining their color/armament, just needing refueling/repairing; I do enjoy the idea of deciding if you want to refuel now or later, it's something I picked up after a run or two!
Thanks for the quick reply, I wish you luck in your continuing development of this!
After another run I found mix results on if a plane would need rearming or not, but I think that was just unclear if it was actually able to intercept the enemy or not. Sometimes they came back uncolored for rearming, sometimes they didn't. Probably just me being dumb!
Yeah it seems a confusing mechanic that doesn't really add anything, think for consistency I will make all planes need rearming when land. I do like the idea of queuing up small squadrons of planes to launch on a key press, it really rewards players for planning ahead. Will have a think about best way to do it so player has enough info to make the decision (eg allow player to think - aha I should have 3 reds ready to go!)