Tiny Guns - Wild West action platformer!

I feel like the gameplay needs another layer to it.

Yeah, that's how I feel! It doesn't need anything extravagant; he's got a real solid base going for him that's very slick and effective. It just needs that step or two more to really put it at peak performance and potential.

Although it might be key to remember he's planning this for iOS, which could make things a little trickier.

I found an weird collision issue.

When the player stands on the edges of whatever this thing is



They float!

You could easily swap the collision for the tiles to fix it.

I fixed that issue now, the character's shouldn't float anymore.

I also updated the game with control revamp:

WASD:
Use ASD to Move and Duck. use N and M keys to jump and shoot. Press S while jumping to aim gun downwards to shoot beneath you.

Arrow Keys:
Use Left and Right Arrows to move, Down to duck. use Z and X keys to jump and shoot. Press Down arrow while jumping to aim gun downwards to shoot beneath you.

Are these fine or should I still change some keys? I also fixed the down shooting and the aiming down animation plays correctly when both jumping and falling.

From what I can see it looks like a very good game. I haven't played it so I don't know whether it has paralax scrolling, but from the screens I can see there needs to be a little more differention from the background and foreground, perhpas make the background a little darker or a little less saturated.

Just in my opinion anyway.

Hey, Photon again. Visited your game again and noticed some more stuff:

• Top of jump animation spaz-out. If you're using the premade Animation Manager, just clear the idle animations for that behavior and hopefully that should fix it. If that's not what you're doing... well, then I'm not sure what's causing it.
• I think you might want to do some volume adjustments. Particularly when I have my earphones in, gunshot and death noises sound much too loud compared to others sounds/music going on.
• This one's more preference, but why did you change the boss music? I don't like this new one as much; it lacks the same energy and punch of the first one.

Love it. Very solid. I think the simplicity is working well, will work for a broad spectrum of players (like my kids). My feedback, just small stuff:

- I would speed up the "game over" sequence, I couldn't wait to hit "retry."
- Not sure if this was mentioned already, but all of the enemies look pretty similar. It's cool that they're all wearing their required bad guy outfits, but it feels like there should be more to differentiate dynamite guy from pistol guy, shotgun guy, etc.
- Which crate do I break to pick up the gatling gun?

Thanks for feedback guys!

From what I can see it looks like a very good game. I haven't played it so I don't know whether it has paralax scrolling, but from the screens I can see there needs to be a little more differention from the background and foreground, perhpas make the background a little darker or a little less saturated.

Just in my opinion anyway.

Every level has parallax scrolling. I might look into the backgrounds more in future levels.

Hey, Photon again. Visited your game again and noticed some more stuff:

• Top of jump animation spaz-out. If you're using the premade Animation Manager, just clear the idle animations for that behavior and hopefully that should fix it. If that's not what you're doing... well, then I'm not sure what's causing it.
• I think you might want to do some volume adjustments. Particularly when I have my earphones in, gunshot and death noises sound much too loud compared to others sounds/music going on.
• This one's more preference, but why did you change the boss music? I don't like this new one as much; it lacks the same energy and punch of the first one.

The jump animation spaz out has been thorn on my side for a long time, I sure hope that's what fixes it, need to test this later.

Yeah the gunshots are bit loud. I need to look into those.

I changed the boss music because the old one was taken from unreleased final boss of my unfinished game Steam Rogue, and I wanted this game to have unique soundtrack. You are right it's lacking bit oomph though.. I need to ask Furby if he can make it bit more hectic.

Love it. Very solid. I think the simplicity is working well, will work for a broad spectrum of players (like my kids). My feedback, just small stuff:

- I would speed up the "game over" sequence, I couldn't wait to hit "retry."
- Not sure if this was mentioned already, but all of the enemies look pretty similar. It's cool that they're all wearing their required bad guy outfits, but it feels like there should be more to differentiate dynamite guy from pistol guy, shotgun guy, etc.
- Which crate do I break to pick up the gatling gun?

I'm going to speed up the game over screen with next update.

I'm thinking of adding color variations to enemies, like making the bomb throwers wear outright red clothes, shotgunners could perhaps wear green, etc.. and more colors with more enemies that appear in later levels.

I left multiple weapons out because of balancing reasons, it's incredibly hard to make the game not too easy if you can grap some powerful weapon like bazooka and just outright destroy everything in your way. I would have to red othe current levels to much longer, and much more enemies which hurts the framerate. etc.

Updated the demo with a new level, check it out! http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/20094

I've addressed issues like loud gunshots and glitching downwards shooting animation. Any feedback for improvements would be greatly appreciated!

Sweet! I like. Good mine music, and good usage of a new enemy type. Still challenging but simple to grasp at its core.

But here I go again...

• Death/destruction noises still sound a little sharp and loud. Actually, it kind of sounds like overlapping sounds. Is that's what's happening?
• I noticed that enemies can walk through barricades. Even if that's intentional, it doesn't look right. Happend on level 1 for me, by the way.
• To me, the crystals in the mines look like ice. Maybe that's just me... but I brought it up because I figured you weren't going for ice cavern in the west.
• Why do the two bosses have different damage effects? The first boss flickers when hit, while the second boss smoothly fades out and in.
• I feel the second boss's speed needs to be slowed down just a little bit. I handled it OK, but I think less seasoned players might find him overly tricky to deal with.

Finally, I still feel like the game is missing something... actually, I was thinking about it, and this idea popped into my head. I don't know how much you like people telling you to how to make your game, but I'll take a chance and throw it out there.

You said something about not wanting different weapon types because of balancing issues. Well, what if you did something like allow the player to take one extra weapon into a level? They could choose say a shotgun or dynamite sticks or whatever, and then they get a set, small amount of ammo for it. Once all ammo is consumed, that's it for that run of the level. Getting the weapons could be done through a shop (I keep feeling like I want to earn money from those "bounties"). They could purchase weapons and weapon refills (the former being more expensive but a one-time purchase) from earned bounties they get off grunts and bosses.

This way, the player gets a little more kick and sense of achievement by unlocking new weapons, but its better controlled by strictly limiting its influence for a single run of a level (as opposed to random pick-ups or something similar). They have to think about when and where to use their "power-up", so to speak. They aren't going to be like, "Hey, I'll blow this off for fun and just pick up the next crate later on".

Sweet! I like. Good mine music, and good usage of a new enemy type. Still challenging but simple to grasp at its core.

But here I go again...

• Death/destruction noises still sound a little sharp and loud. Actually, it kind of sounds like overlapping sounds. Is that's what's happening?
• I noticed that enemies can walk through barricades. Even if that's intentional, it doesn't look right. Happend on level 1 for me, by the way.
• To me, the crystals in the mines look like ice. Maybe that's just me... but I brought it up because I figured you weren't going for ice cavern in the west.
• Why do the two bosses have different damage effects? The first boss flickers when hit, while the second boss smoothly fades out and in.
• I feel the second boss's speed needs to be slowed down just a little bit. I handled it OK, but I think less seasoned players might find him overly tricky to deal with.

Finally, I still feel like the game is missing something... actually, I was thinking about it, and this idea popped into my head. I don't know how much you like people telling you to how to make your game, but I'll take a chance and throw it out there.

You said something about not wanting different weapon types because of balancing issues. Well, what if you did something like allow the player to take one extra weapon into a level? They could choose say a shotgun or dynamite sticks or whatever, and then they get a set, small amount of ammo for it. Once all ammo is consumed, that's it for that run of the level. Getting the weapons could be done through a shop (I keep feeling like I want to earn money from those "bounties"). They could purchase weapons and weapon refills (the former being more expensive but a one-time purchase) from earned bounties they get off grunts and bosses.

This way, the player gets a little more kick and sense of achievement by unlocking new weapons, but its better controlled by strictly limiting its influence for a single run of a level (as opposed to random pick-ups or something similar). They have to think about when and where to use their "power-up", so to speak. They aren't going to be like, "Hey, I'll blow this off for fun and just pick up the next crate later on".

I'm open for all suggestions and criticism so don't be afraid to suggest improvements.

Bringing equipment to level would otherwise be fun idea, but there is no access to a shop in levels and setting one up would be hassle. The weapons might run out of ammo pretty quickly.

I was thinking about it and decided that I might add some weapons in after all. Current plan: they are either found in containers around the level or perhaps randomly dropped by enemies. Current guns I might add in would be shotgun and uzi from the original game, when you pick one, it replaces your current gun, but after 8 or so shots, you run out of ammo and revert back into using pistols. Shotgun is exactly the same as the one enemies have. Uzi shoots flurry of bullets with single shot and each bullet deals half normal gunshot worth of damage. I might add in more weapons later.

I'm also experimenting if I can add similar knife attack to the players the enemies have. It would do half the bullet damage, but it pushes the enemy further away. How does that sound?

Oh, I meant have a shop you visit BEFORE you enter a level. You select your one weapon prior to entering a level and you have very limited ammo even still for that run. But yes, some variety to the weapon types would be good.

The main thing that concerns me right now is the sense of achievement in the game. If you only are doing five levels and the only objective is to complete them, the gaming experience is going to be relatively short, especially when you consider how short the levels are. Clear, lasting goals is something I didn't necessarily execute real well on my end for my last game.

Oh, I meant have a shop you visit BEFORE you enter a level. You select your one weapon prior to entering a level and you have very limited ammo even still for that run. But yes, some variety to the weapon types would be good.

The main thing that concerns me right now is the sense of achievement in the game. If you only are doing five levels and the only objective is to complete them, the gaming experience is going to be relatively short, especially when you consider how short the levels are. Clear, lasting goals is something I didn't necessarily execute real well on my end for my last game.

I'm planning of adding story scenes between the levels and two different endings, one for each hero. I wasn't really aiming for the game to have any lasting goals besides clearing the game and seeing both endings. I could add stuff like earning achievements for stuff like clearing a level without taking damage, though.

Oh, I meant have a shop you visit BEFORE you enter a level. You select your one weapon prior to entering a level and you have very limited ammo even still for that run. But yes, some variety to the weapon types would be good.

The main thing that concerns me right now is the sense of achievement in the game. If you only are doing five levels and the only objective is to complete them, the gaming experience is going to be relatively short, especially when you consider how short the levels are. Clear, lasting goals is something I didn't necessarily execute real well on my end for my last game.

I'm planning of adding story scenes between the levels and two different endings, one for each hero. I wasn't really aiming for the game to have any lasting goals besides clearing the game and seeing both endings. I could add stuff like earning achievements for stuff like clearing a level without taking damage, though.

Right. But if you are planning to sell it as an iOS game, my thought was that people might complain about the lack of content, which in turn might hurt sales. But that's more a guess on my part, really.

Man...
I just want to say: Kudos!
Congrats! Keep the excellent work!

Its a joy to see a good work coming to life.
Beautiful game... great theme!

HUGE UPDATE, play now: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/20094

• Enemy positions readjusted. There are near twice as many enemies on the areas now.
• Enemy health adjusted, shotgunners will now also die from 2 gunshots.
• Run against and enemy and press Shoot key to swing a knife. Deals 2 gunshots worth of damage, killing regular black clothes enemies from single hit.
• Adjusted enemy colors, bombers now wear red, minecarters now wear green.
• Readjusted player firing speed, there can be only 2 player bullets on screen at the time.

If I was being honest, I'm not sure this latest update was a step in the right direction.

First, the special abilities feel gimmicky to me. I rarely saw a good opporunity to use the dodge dash, particularly because it typically throws me towards my enemy. Dynamite was OK, but the few times it was actually useful (mass of enemies), I was typically too busy running away from a spray of gunshot, making my dynamite's effect not work on off-screen enemies (if I am not mistaken).

Which brings me to the next point. Why so many enemies all of a sudden? Difficulty has taken on more of a "swarm o' enemies" look than clever positioning and sharpshooting. The difficulty started to feel more "artificial" to me.

The melee attack is a little unorthodox. You literally have to be running into the enemy for it to work (and you can melee barricades too, might I add, though it doesn't damage them). By the time its useful, you've probably already taken a hit. I suppose maybe its more for an emergency situation, but I feel like a bit more flexibility would be nice (i.e. you don't have to hug the enemy).

I've been saying the game needs a little extra something, but I don't think this latest update is it. Its overcomplicating the game's base unnecessarily, in my opinion. The way I see it, it needs something that fits into the simple dynamic you already had. That... and PLEASE turn down the enemy numbers.