itch.io

The new game, 'Spirits', is an homage to the classic platformer N++, with inertial movement (WIP), and support for online coop.

Elements included so far: switches and doors, edge crawlers with beams, mines that rearm, timer and time replenishing pickups. (Many more to be added.)

I'm interested in thoughts/feedback about the control method, because this is central to the game and very tricky to get right (so still to be tweaked a lot).

I'm also interested in trading play-testing, and setting up mutual play sessions with other people developing multiplayer games (as discussed here.

The game is playable in free a browser, including for online play, with no account required (use 'Connect as guest').

Playable link: https://locksteparcade.itch.io/lockstep-arcade

Other games in the arcade include:

- Neon Swarm (a Lemmings retake, single player, multiplayer versus and co-op)

- Pilots (multiplayer battles with homing missiles)

- Serpents (a multiplayer version of the classic snake with inertial movement, single player with high score)

Very nice! Took me a while to understand about the red dice feeding into the multiplier, somehow, even though I played a load of Balatro. :) This run was looking good, just needed to get over the hump of getting those category upgrades going, or maybe I needed some money generation to go with the ladder as well..

So I'm:

1. developing a multiplayer game arcade thing as a hobby project, and
2. interested in connecting with other people for online gaming sessions

I notice that when you look here on Itch, or places like reddit r/playmygame, lots of people are developing games, but it generally seems to be quite difficult to find people who are interested in testing games.

So what I suggest is to get together with other people who are also interested in online games and developing their own games, for weekly sessions where we would go into discord or whatever and have a session where we play each other's games for a bit.

Three or four people would already be enough to start something like this, as long as everyone is interested enough in the games the other people are developing to spend a bit of time playing them each week.

I suggest a restriction to browser based games, so no worries about security issues.

For timing, I guess a weekend morning in the states which corresponds to a weekend evening in Europe would probably be good.

Let me know if you're interested!

Hi, my game, at https://locksteparcade.itch.io/lockstep-arcade does not appear to have been indexed, (never came up on the fresh games list, and doesn't show in a search for 'lockstep').

I read that this can take a while, and waited to give some time for this to show, but it has been more than one month now, so I guess there is some problem with the game page setup or with my account having been flagged for some reason.

I read through the faq, and tried to make sure that everything is set up properly on the game page. (Maybe there is still some problem with the way this is set up, but this is certainly not obvious, if so.)

I sent an email to support four days ago, and got a response code (365202), but didn't get any response to the support email yet.

Why I believe my game should be indexed: It's a hobby game, available for people to play for free in the browser, which I am trying in good faith to get out there for feedback so I can get better at the art of game development and improve the game.

(Seems like this is what itch.io is all about, right? Having to beg to get the game indexed in this way kind of then puts me off the whole platform a bit, I've got to say..)

Anyway, any idea what is going on, here, and what I need to do to get this sorted out?

I got to the right side of the map, and went off the screen, but nothing happened (and I could still jump). Didn't understand why I would get "You lose" after a certain amount of time, is there a time limit?

I wondered about that (whether the new character might be on my side), but I couldn't seem to be able to select them. It also seemed like their threat areas were being rendered the same coloured as the other enemy (but I might be wrong about that). Having an easier first fight is probably a good idea, maybe, with some kind of checkpoint after an initial short fight so you don't have to repeat the tutorial part.

Btw. yeah, the tutorial was perfect for getting the idea of the game, the music is really nice, and it is great to have the leaderboards. 

Nice game! Got 4th place on the leaderboard, on first play through. :) I guess I then feel like I completed it, and don't want to play again. Not sure what to suggest as improvements. The game was enjoyable to play. It would be good if I didn't complete it first play through, I guess (and then I would want to play again to try to complete). Maybe if it felt clearer that what I needed to do to get higher on the leaderboard (time to complete?) was actually important, I might then go back and try to get a higher place on the leaderboard. Also, I guess there is always the possibility to add a meta (rogue like) set of unlocks/upgrades outside of the game itself (and set the difficulty harder so that these upgrades are kind of necessary to complete the game). (But, it kind of feels purer, in a way, without that.)

Interesting game! I tried fairly hard, though, and couldn't beat the first level, so maybe this is a bit too hard. :) I managed to make some progress by repeatedly bracing one turn, then moving out and back into their threat region so they have to move and take my reaction attack the next turn. The thing where you take a debuff and then start losing health every turn put a bit of a spanner into this though, and when I felt like I had finally got it and thought I had killed the guy, it seemed like a second enemy jumped in to the fight?

I played classic mode, which is maybe kind of stupid now the I notice your changes most probably relate to decay mode specifically. In my play through in this mode, however, I never took any damage as far as I could see (so not sure how this even works, it seems like it is ok to be on a black hole for a short time?), and I relatively quickly got to a point where no black holes were appearing at all. It would be better if I would take damage and die, in this first playthrough, and have to learn something in order to succeed. ;)

I felt like I still had to work out the mechanics of when I can play what card, myself, essentially. This isn't actually too much of a problem for me, personally, because I find it kind of interesting to work out stuff like this. More of an issue is that the play feels kind of meaningless before you get to the point where you might actually fail to get through all of the enemy cards, and then take some damage, and it takes quite a while to get to this point. What I would suggest, then, is a small tutorial situation, with a small deck and small number of enemy cards, but with this situation carefully design so that you actually have to make the right decisions to get through this without taking damage.

Hi, so I'm looking for feedback on this project: https://locksteparcade.itch.io/lockstep-arcade

It's a collection of 3 games (currently), built around a shared lobby and network platform.

The games run in the browser and can be played without any signup (if you go into credentials setup and select 'connect as guest').

One of the games (Serpents) is designed to work on phones, and if you load the arcade on a phone you should get a custom simplified version of the UI that enables you to play just this game.

The games all used the same underlying multiplayer networking model, which is that the simulation runs deterministically on each client, with only a very small amount of data sent over the network (key player inputs), and with a delay between user actions and their effect on shared game state integrated fundamentally into each game by design.

The games are:

1. Neon Swarm: A retake on the classic "Lemmings" puzzle-strategy game, reimagined for competitive and cooperative multiplayer! Guide your lemmings from start to exit, managing limited resources and competing against up to 3 other players.
2. Pilots: Fast paced battles between spaceships in a top down view with smooth inertial movement, based on target locking and homing missiles. 
3. Serpents: Combination of the classic 'Snake' game with inertial (asteroids style) movement.

Neon Swarm is the most developed,with a number of tutorial levels that teach some of the basic game mechanics.

I'm a bit divided about where to take this from here. It's kind of just a hobby project at the moment, and a way for me to play around with some game mechanics and a networking model I find interesting, but I need to get people actually playing the games to stay motivated, and I like the idea of doing 'market-lead' development, getting feedback, and making something that people actually find enjoyable and interesting to play.

I think that there is a basic problem for multiplayer gaming in particular, which is that it is much easier to get one person to randomly click on your game and play it than it is to get more than one person to get organised and try something like this together.

Some different paths I could take with this:

• Double down on mobile support, as started with the Serpents game. In this direction it could be good to try and make something targetted at groups of people that are already together and in the same room, and make it as easy as possible for the group of people to get connected and playing something multiplayer in this kind of situation.
• Build up the single player side of these games (e.g. by developing more of a campaign mode for Neon Swarm), as a way to get people interested and playing that, with multiplayer gaming then something that can follow on from that.
• Bring stuff like the high score tables more front and centre, setting things up so that people can see high score changes as soon as the game finished, comparisons with friend's high scores, and so on

Anyway, questions welcome and any feedback appreciated!

Name of System: Lockstep Arcade

Game website

Number of Players: 4 max per game room, currently

Approximate Session Length: 10 minutes

Testing Period: I expect to just keep on developing this, incrementally

Other Details: 

The game code, networking, and lobbying is pretty solid, and there shouldn't be a lot of bugs, but gameplay is a work in progress, so currently limited but will keep improving.

What I need: People willing to test over the next couple of weeks, Feedback on gameplay, balance, and bugs

Ideally bring a friend (easier to get matches going)

Time commitment: ~30-45 minutes total (can be split across multiple sessions)

You can download the game here

You need a credential file for lobby access (fill in the form here for this). There is also an offline tutorial for the Lemmings clone part (no credential file needed for this part).

The game runs on Windows and Mac, and Linux via Wine.

How To Contact: Through the game website, locksteparcade.com