PYROCLYSM is finally done!

A massive meteor field is plowing through the galaxy and it is your job to help defend the different civilizations in the nearest solar systems. Pyroclsym puts you in command of defending several civilizations across the galaxy from a massive meteor storm that is ravaging everything in it’s path. It’s your duty to stay one step ahead of the meteors and go to each planet to defend life and survive long enough to go to the next planet and do it all over again. If you fail along the way, then the whole galaxy will be destroyed.
Please check it out everyone and let me know what you think!

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/18222

Hey, performance wise it has definitely improved over the previous version. My fps stayed at a nice 60fps. When you lose however it 'looks' like there is a fps spike, but it could just be the shake+blur effect. I remember you saying you wanted this to be mobile so you should increase the button sizes. Probably at least 2x in size. I also noticed that pausing hides the score and when you unpause the game it shoots two bullets.

As for the game itself. I feel like you should add an upgrade and level system. I got to level 8 I believe and I have a feeling it just keeps going on. You can break it down into selectable levels so that players can actually see themselves progressing and that they can see an ending. As for upgrades, firing speed and an extra life/shield would be nice. Of course you can add more upgrade features but you would have to give the meteors 'hp'. Maybe the larger rocks require more hits to break down, or they can split into 2 when they get hit. Lastly, you should add a life indicator. I think I suggested this before and you said the building image is the indicator but I feel that it isn't obvious enough.

Thanks for the feedback.
I certainly wish we could could add all of those features, but unfortunately our goal is to keep the .swf file under 8 mb and we are really pushing it as is.
We are working on streamlining and if we can get some room, we will definitely add more features like that.
Since you only played to wave 8, you didn't get to see the variety of levels and game mechanics involved. All in all, there are 5 levels with 10 waves each. Each level has some variant of game play. The second level is actually underwater and therefore the weapons fire differently and the meteors act differently as well.
The third level is in the desert with super high winds, the fourth level is on a lava planet and the meteors can be quite erratic. The last level is in outer space and very, very difficult.
At one point, we had some really nice particle effects, but had to scrap it because it was really making things lag.
I wish I could implement a ton of stuff, but we had to pick and choose. If you have any advice on how we could make our file size smaller so we could have a variety of things, (right now, the power ups only speed up the firing speed of your weapon) I am all ears.

Thanks

Oh, so that's how the game progresses. Is there some sort of load to next level feature? I would say that it would take ~5 minutes for a level which is pretty long for a stage of this genre. And if there was no level select feature and a total restart upon death it would put off a lot of players.

As for the file size. If you plan on a Flash release then it does seem a bit above average. For mobile however, I think it can go up a bit more. Have a look at your sound files and try to lower the bitrate through audacity or something similar, you might be able to shrink it by up to 50%. For the images, I have them in PNG format and I would use some compression tools to shrink the file size down. tinypng.org is what I read from other posts. You can do a quick search for more details.

When you die, you have the option to start again on the same level you died on.
We were also talking about having some kind of map that shows all the places you will be and being able to save and select where you want to go, but...file size again

We do plan on adding some things when we port it over to mobile version for sure.
The main thing I want to know, do you think it is fun???

Great artwork and gameplay, and to be honest normally this is not my sort of game but I enjoyed it

On the 3rd (?) level when I saw the first BIG asteroid I thought "oh crap, i bet that splits in two when I shoot it, asteroid style" - I was relieved it didn't, but maybe it's not a bad idea?

Thanks Gruffman! That is another thing we certainly want to implement when we go mobile! It does feel kind of weird to shoot this big meteor, then there is an explosion and it's just gone.

It seems like the game was tough for most people, so I have reworked the whole first level. Now, the power ups come sooner and there are only 6 waves on the first world. I hope this will entice people enough that they want to play the other levels and visit the other planets!

I gave it another try, the game started off on level 2 (the desert theme). I played up to wave 6 or so and I feel like the pace is still slow. Maybe you can try to make only 5 waves and change the difficulty accordingly. That way it gets challenging quicker and there's less 'slowness'.

I let the parachute thing fall to the bottom and I don't think it gave me health. It happened twice and I did not see any indication of gaining anything.

The whole game will be up shortly. We were using that to test each level individually.

The power ups with the red crosses increase the fire rate of your weapon.

I know they look like health boxes because of the red cross. I just wanted to make sure that people understood that they helped so that they don't just shoot them down.

PS, the desert theme is actually level 3.

If you played up to wave six and beat it, then you would have went to the next level. We decided to only give each level, 6 waves instead of 10. 10 just seemed way too long, but 6 is short enough that if you die, you won't mind doing it over.

Here is an updated link to play if the link above is not working for you!

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/18222