As a child of the 80s, I love everything about this!
I also appreciate the fact it runs smoother than most modern SPAs.
Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#22Nice. I do think portrait would be better for a vertical shooter.
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#23Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#24Nice little game. If your inspiration is Japanese '80s arcade shooters, it's worth taking a close look at them (and their 90s and 2000s sequels) to understood how they held the player's attention. A mistake I see in this game and many other Western shmups is giving the enemies too much health. Slowly chipping away at bad guys gets boring, usually the rule in these games is that small enemies die in 1-2 hits and larger enemies live just long enough to test whether you can evade their pattern of fire. The challenge comes more from weathering swarms of enemies than from any individual foe. Displaying lifebars above non-boss enemies is a sign it takes too long to destroy them. The pacing of arcade games is also instructive; levels usually last just a couple minutes and the enemy patterns are constantly varying.
Other than that the music and aesthetics are great, though there is some funny aliasing of sprites and JPEG artifacts in the backgrounds. The key to this kind of aesthetic is a crisp look.
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#25off to a good start! it's a little slow - difficulty should ramp up more quickly, and player powerups should keep pace, imo. I was so excited to get my first upgrade... only for it to just be the same default gun, with a stronger shot every once in a while. Then I was excited for the next... but all it did was something to my shield, that I didn't have time to examine while playing - and then the third was just... better slow mo?
I just kept expecting things to sort of blossom, get multi shots in different directions, homing shots, lasers, area damage weapons, focus / delay shot weapons.
and then I get to the first boss, and it just... spits bullets in random directions, faster and faster. No patterns or waves, and just a real linear unexciting difficulty increase, until eventually I get hit twice in a row and lose. :(
The hitbox / bullet thing doesn't feel great either - modern shooters have really gotten me used to the idea that your hitbox is mostly just your cockpit, so you can real carefully edge your way between bullets if you have good reflexes and gauged it right - and part of that system is making it real clear where the bullets are, which this design... doesn't.
The bullets blend too easily into the background, and are way way way too similar to the coins. I'm glad the coins autocollect, because if they didn't, it would basically be a nightmare of constantly trying to figure out if you were being baited into 'collecting' a bullet instead of a coin.
what you've got here is really promising, but also needs a lot more work - I'd love to see you put the work in!
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#26Good game. I wonder why they didn't use spritesheets? Each frame of the animated effects seems to be a separate PNG image.
In the beginning its simpler to do and you can focus on the other parts of the game. In the end you may not have to “optimise” because it works and good enough to ship.
Sure, but this game seems polished and tight. I thought maybe there was a specific reason for separate images, such as problems or limitations with spritesheets.
Reason for asking is I'm currently making a javascript spritesheet function for handling multiple animations on page, so it's top of mind. I thought everyone would be using them by now.
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#27Nice little game. If your inspiration is Japanese '80s arcade shooters, it's worth taking a close look at them (and their 90s and 2000s sequels) to understood how they held the player's attention. A mistake I see in this game and many other Western shmups is giving the enemies too much health. Slowly chipping away at bad guys gets boring, usually the rule in these games is that small enemies die in 1-2 hits and large…
Does anyone else think it resembles Halley's Comet (Taito, 1986) [https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8064]?
Re: Pop-shoot: Synthwave styled space shooter, inspired by 80s arcades
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the beginning its simpler to do and you can focus on the other parts of the game. In the end you may not have to “optimise” because it works and good enough to ship.
Sure, but this game seems polished and tight. I thought maybe there was a specific reason for separate images, such as problems or limitations with spritesheets. Reason for asking is I'm currently making a javascript spritesheet function for handling multiple animations on page, so it's top of mind. I thought everyone would be using them by now.
Yes, the initial loading does take time before the game can init. Like I said this is not a showstopper.
You could be focusing on the main app logic rather than the spritesheet functions.
Have you finished it yet? ;)