GoldSpace (Working title: Space Pirate)

I have several conceptual suggestions
1. make difference in color, contrast or tone between interactive objects and decorative elements. Now boxes and floor looks as one thing and all objects on the screen is mixing
with each other
add well visible shadows maybe and make floor more monotone
2. make motion of the actor snapped to grid. sometimes it is real hard to enter/exit doors.
3. you need to optimize performance, game is freezing very often on my notebook.
when a game is not smooth it is not very pleasant to play in it.
4. do not start the game from clues, like when you started in the closet room and need to make explotion. it is confusing.
5. check for errors, game is freezing when I tried to fly on the shuttle.

overall, I like the game, good setting and great theme!
Keep up the good work!

thanks a lot!
I am on vacation this week and will get back to you nect week.
Cheers!

Back in action!
Some questions reg your feedback:

1. make difference in color, contrast or tone between interactive objects and decorative elements. Now boxes and floor looks as one thing and all objects on the screen is mixing
with each other
add well visible shadows maybe and make floor more monotone

Good point!

2. make motion of the actor snapped to grid. sometimes it is real hard to enter/exit doors.

I will rather widen the doors a bit because it realy changes the experience. It feels very limited when i snap it to the grid and becomes realy difficult as well

3. you need to optimize performance, game is freezing very often on my notebook.
when a game is not smooth it is not very pleasant to play in it.

This is very important. I didnt try a slower computer for a while because i was assuming that an exe will have no performance issues at all. I will look into this and optimize (trioed an old notebook myself yesterday). Could you send me your operating system info, RAM, graphic card?

4. do not start the game from clues, like when you started in the closet room and need to make explotion. it is confusing.

Not sure about this one. Most of the playtesters so far liked it a lot but i will keep an eye on it.

5. check for errors, game is freezing when I tried to fly on the shuttle.

Could you name me the level? Alien, small, bigger? I cant find that bug.
Again, thanks a lot for your input!

I worked a bit on performance and uploaded a new version to the same link (but still more to do).
I experimented a bit with shadows but i am not a huge fan yet.
I think a more dynamic light system would be necessary to make it look much different and nicer (which could be a lot work or above my coding skills )



Thoughts?

I actually like the shadow in your screenshot. Been a while since I visited your project, and it amazes me how much progress you've made. Keep up the good work and hopefully one day you'll release a full-fledged game. I'd even pay for current version as early access-title for example.

This game looks awesome, I'm glad you have a free demo to try it out and see what's new. Although I can't seem to get the audio to work? I've made sure my speakers aren't muted, and the sound files are there. I've also deleted and re-downloaded it, but it's still quiet. D:

EDIT:So i've played a bit further, and the police ship had music, but the start level and the purple planet this didn't.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

I'd even pay for current version as early access-title for example.

It is very important for me to get this sort of feedback.
It is very difficult to work on a game on your own for a long time as we all know and this keep motivated.
Send me your email via PM or to "info at mabafu.com" and i will send you the full version for free when its realeased.

This game looks awesome, I'm glad you have a free demo to try it out and see what's new. Although I can't seem to get the audio to work? I've made sure my speakers aren't muted, and the sound files are there. I've also deleted and re-downloaded it, but it's still quiet. D:
EDIT:So i've played a bit further, and the police ship had music, but the start level and the purple planet this didn't.

Thanks for the feedback!
I never encountered this issues. Interesting. There should be music in start and selcet screen. All ship level should have music and sound effects (expcept the planets as you mentioned). Let me know if you have further info for me. I could not find a problem in the code or the files.

Update:
Space Pirate is on IndieDB to get more testers and reach.

I worked this week a lot on performance optimization and will get back to features soon.
I want to add some effects and make the enemy "AI" smarter (humans and so on).
Also work on the graphics. Shadows, planets, particles and so on.

Join the mailing list HERE of Space Pirate to receive newest updates (no spam)!
Every stencyler who joins will get a Space Pirate copy for free once its released!
Happy looting!

Hey,
i worked more on the shadows and added walls on the top (atleast inside):

• Shadows and walls are on the left of red doted line - this will be tiles
• Objects/actors will have smaller shadows in the actor + smaller shadows on top if on wall (tiles)
• I dont think that i will add the "outside wall" in the lower part (red sketch) - it makes it look like a cutted box

Please let me know if you like it or prefer:

• The way it was before (right of doted line)
• Walls and shadows (left of doted line)
• Simple shadows like below from former post

Every voice helps!

Love it, Love it, Love it. Did I say, I love it?
So exciting watching your journey in making this game. It's so inspiring and educational.
Cheers

Thanks a lot
Do you have an opinion on the whole shadow/wall thing?
Cheers!

I am advancing the communication system and embedding the first talking heads!
The heads will have a talking animation setup by code.
I am also adding loot to killed enemies (finally) and adding particle effects.
Take a look:

Let's talk a bit about performance.
I so far had the impression that this is not an important topic for me anymore having decided to go for PC/MAC download. Especially if you follow the progress of Ghost Song which shows how much is possible in a desktop version.

Looks like i was wrong. I didnt realize until i got a lot feedback regarding the last version which had low fps on weaker and standard notebooks. I worked a lot this week to improve it.
I think the main reason and difference to Ghost Song is that i am simulating more things in the background and have a lot of dependencies. Adding a lot particles is also no problem in this game.

Two things which seem to help (and are somehow obvious):

• replacing all "always" blocks with "every x second"
• using the "disable behaviour" block when a behaviour is not needed anyomre or not yet needed

I hope that i will have a better version next week.
Stay tuned!

Whenever I have something I want to happen often, but not every frame, I put it in a custom event, and fire it anytime I need to. That way, the code runs exactly when I want it to, and only when I want it to. The downside is that you have to remember to place a "trigger event" block wherever it is needed, whereas with a "do every" event, you can just create it and slack off.

Awesome work, by the way! I'm loving how this is turning out. I personally like the look of the shadows in both 2 and 3, but my preference is 3, as the walls are more consistent than 2. I say you should either keep your walls completely top-down, or make them completely top-side-view, like the Pokemon series. Consistency makes me happy.

Thanks for that comment and feedback!
I started looking into custom events some days ago but i am not sure if i understood 100%. Maybe you can help. I have a lot of systems in Space Pirate that kind of needs "always" or atleast "every x seconds".

Examples:

• A terminal which checks if the actor is still touching it
• An enemy that needs to check where the player is and adjust its state
• Spreading fire (which checks where it could spread to next)

I understand how i setup custom events but i am not sure how that would save performance.
Lets stick to example 2:
Would it save performance if i put the "trigger custom event block" into "always/every x second" and the whole function into the custom events instead of having the whole thing in the  "always/every x second"?
Any idea?

Cheers!

First of all , I love it.
looks great game , I don't know how long it is cuz I couldn't find the save button or something (I guess that on purpose) but I'm sure I'm gonna find out when I have some spare time.

now for what's bugs me the most...

this game is very unfriendly for lefties like me  ... I find myself crossing my hand  on the keyboard in a weird way.
please make the simple option of switching controls so moving will be arrows and shooting will be "WASD"

good luck with this awesome game..