itch.io

I definitely plan to have mine clearing line charges as a special weapon in the future, it would be awesome to see. I'd like it to have actual verlet physics and droop over buildings though, so it'll be quite a task to code and isn't much of a focus at the moment. Thanks for the ideas! More to come hopefully in the next two months, I'm working hard on it.

A lot of these weapons will eventually be purchased through a shop system and re-balanced much later on, so certain weapons such as the stack-launcher are indeed pretty OP compared to some of the other options available. As for the missiles, they will be fixed in the next release; I reworked how they launch and strike objects to be a lot less frustrating to use.

Yeah, this is something that I've needed to fix for a while. The missiles when locked-on should have been flying over the buildings at least, but I forgot to actually have them change their altitude despite all the variables being in place. In the next update, the missiles will only strike cars if you've specifically targeted one under your reticule, and they'll also auto-lock if you just rapid press on enemies instead of having to hold down the mouse button.

Work on the project is still progressing steadily, cheers.

It's very kind, thank you. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait.

Hopefully within this month I'll have the next progress report out. Without spoiling it, the reason it's been so long is there's a big feature I've been working on that's very important for speeding up the development and will also be something that players will be able to use as well. It does pain me that it's been so long since an update, but hopefully soon you'll see why it's been taking this much time. Things are being worked on despite the silence, the game has not been abandoned...

Thank you for the kind words and idea!

Different ammo options for the primary weapons is something I've been considering, but with how the weapons are set up and balanced at the moment I think it's best to just choose one option at the hangar rather than having the option of switching while in mission. It's a unique idea though, I'll think about it a bit more. In general the hangar needs an overhaul for some of the new options that will be implemented soon.

Excellent. Now just scale it up and combine it with one of these:

I'm afraid so, but new ones are coming. The game is still a work in progress.

Thank you!!

Thank you!

The finished version will be released on Itch along with Steam. As for keeping it compatible with Windows 7 and older OSes, I will try my hardest to do so, however the game may eventually be ported to GMS2 which may or may not have older OS compatibility.

I do like that people who are still using ancient operating systems and extremely low specs can play the game and have a good time, fewer and fewer games try to have that.

Interesting concept! The next build will have the Vulcan's ammunition increased substantially, so it probably won't be necessary to include. Still, it'd be fun to have other objects that could be towed around for cover perhaps.

Yes, I'm afraid currently there are only 7 missions. Next demo release will have more added.

Hello. Please download and install the DirectX patch linked in the description above.

One will be put up at a much later point.

Hello, I assume you mean the ricochet noises? It's a stylistic, choice, I think it sounds interesting.

I'm very sorry about that. I think Postimages has been having some trouble recently, they take a long time to load sometimes.

Thank you for playing again! I'm always surprised when I hear people are still playing this short demo so many months since the last update. Sorry there still hasn't been a new release, but the progress report I'm working on will show why.

- endless mode

simply put, you fight waves after waves of enemies, each wave harder than the last. however, while the arena is quite large, the terrain shifts between waves. maybe this could be added as a training room for crawler pilots? unrelated note, since we are speaking of terrain,

Yeah, a "simulator" room back at the base you're in with just a sandbox and endless waves of stuff coming at you can be done, or some challenges. It'd be sort of like the VR missions in Metal Gear 1 and 2.

- actual terrain in missions. considering mars has quite a lot of craters, riverbeds, sand dunes and more, it makes some sense that there could be places where the terrain has multiple parts with different elevation. this could make for some good fortresses, especially with minotaurs and turrets in a crater holding an objective, though i dont exactly know if the game engine would allow it.

Elevation is kind of a problem in this engine, I'm afraid. I don't really think it's possible with the current setup unfortunately, both with the way buildings are drawn and the way in general the game has been laid out. I do want more varied environments though, and there'll be a lot more foliage added in the future.

moving onto the crawlers themselves, it might just be me, but the crawlers do look like tank turrets on legs. maybe it makes sense lorewise that they have either a multi-crewed variant for co-op play, or one made for troop/item transport? after all, APCs and IFVs do exist, so maybe they can be enemies?

For sure. There will be more than a few massive crawlers that are multi-crewed, some will be like mini-bosses and others full on main bosses that the stage are centered around. I can't share too much, but you'll hopefully get a glimpse in the next progress post.

last but not least, a new secondary weapon could be fun. - the air/orbital strike by launching a marker, the air force or navy would be alerted to call in support either by conventional bombing or kinetic bombardment. for obvious reasons it wouldn't work underground, but above ground this could be very capable of damaging any static enemy. for balancing, the enemies could either move out of the way or attempt interception of the projectiles, possibly shooting down the jets outright as well.

I've been working on a variety of new secondary weapon options that I'll be showing very soon. If you check the last progress report I put out, there's actually cruise missile air strikes for the tertiary/grenade slot which I've been playing around with. They function pretty close to that:

edit: i reread the intel of the MBTs in game, and it appears that they are significantly larger modern MBTs. how big are they compared to modern tanks?

Probably twice as big at least, especially if on Mars. It varies though.

regarding the co-op idea, i should probably clarify, the driver can operate the weapons normally in singleplayer, but more often than not the driver does get distracted by combat and can get stuck in terrain, resulting in hits that otherwise could be avoided. also, maybe add some reward for S-ranking a mission?

I've since made some changes to what can be destroyed and increased the movement of the player. You'll be able to run over the larger trees in the next update. Some rewards for completing certain objectives and getting good or bad ranks are planned, but I can't promise anything at the moment.

edit 3:out of sheer boredom, is there a chance you will add modding support in the future? i have some ideas for missions and weapons to test

I would love for people to be able to mod the game, but it's difficult for me to say how it would be set up. I will need to look into it more. Right now however, I am working on a level editor tool to create maps and missions, and that will definitely make it into the game at the very least.

Thank you again!

Very cool! I like that you put the crew compartment all the way in the rear. Admittedly, I haven't given too much thought as to what a traditional bipedal mecha would look like in the universe, but something smaller in scale intended for light infantry support would probably make the most sense, seeing as most legged and wheeled vehicles would be outpacing them both in firepower and movement speed.

i can continue to detail this design up if you'd be interested. and keep up the good work man!!

Cheers! Feel free to.

Nice job, thanks for making a video! The blade tactic is cheap but indeed works, I'll probably have to give it a cooldown. The next build will also have the map replaced with a completely new one, so stay tuned!

Definitely!

Thank you!

Have you considered seeking for help with level design? Some people can do only LD and they just love it.

I certainly have, but I need to make a level editor for them to use first. I'll of course let players use it as well.

Also a small heads-up, for some reason I can't see all those gifs (shame)

Which GIFs are you having trouble seeing? Sometimes the site Postimages can be pretty slow to load.

Thank you for the feedback and ideas! I'm working on some melee weapon options that will sort of behave in a similar way regarding the charge-up and damage to buildings. Stay tuned!

Glad you like it!

Thank you!!

Very interesting, I didn't know it's even possible to run it through an Android emulator. Thanks for playing!

Interesting suggestion, thanks! I'll try changing them, maybe there will also be some larger hovercraft that set them off.

I'll see if I can include some details in the next progress report! I'm glad you like the world, a lot is planned for it.

If you download the DirectX patch linked in the description it should work as well.

Nice, thanks for sharing!

My past estimates were incorrect, so I think it's best to avoid giving more false dates at this point. The game is actively being worked on though.

Bonjour. L'idée est de finir le jeu et de le sortir sur Steam à un prix modique. Et merci pour votre proposition d'aide, c'est très gentil. Je ne peux pas promettre que quoi que ce soit sera intégré, mais n'hésitez pas à partager vos illustrations de fans ou vos concepts de boss, ça ne me dérange pas.

Thanks for the kinds words, and nice to hear it inspired you!

Is there a way to contact you or maybe there is lore and info about the setting posted somewhere?

It's being worked on, but for now there's not much I can really share. Next update should have more information about the world though.

Maybe!

Nicely done! I'll look into the keyboard problem, but I haven't encountered it in testing.

Bosses for sure, but I can't promise any of the other things, sorry.

Possibly an endless mode at some point. Multiplayer is very low priority currently, it'll be a lot of work to set up I'm afraid.

Thanks for playing!

Sometimes missiles and rockets just slam into the ground instead of reaching distant targets, which makes long-range attacks kinda unreliable. Is this intended, or could this be improved?

This may be a glitch, I know locked-on missiles currently do not fly over buildings to hit flying targets, but in the next build it should be patched.

Aircraft seem able to detect and attack units hiding inside smoke. Is that a deliberate design choice, or is smoke supposed to fully block targeting?

This is intentional, but I will likely change it as the whole smoke system needs to be revised entirely.

Any plans to buff the Mark-7 autocannon and the GAU-678 rotary cannon? Right now the Mark-7 feels worse than the XM-4 Smartgun in almost every way except fire rate, and the GAU-8’s damage feels a bit underwhelming.

Almost every primary weapon in the game I've actually buffed either in damage, ammo, or sound since the public release. The next demo will have way more powerful feeling weapons along with some new ones.

I noticed the mech turrets have something mounted on both sides that looks like smoke launchers or maybe an APS. What exactly are those, and are there any plans to expand their functionality?

If you mean the Mantis mechs, those are missile tubes mounted on their sides which they fire at you. If you mean the player's mech, the M97, then those are probably the smoke dischargers.

A lot of players feel that mines aren’t very useful at the moment. Maybe you could take some inspiration from real-life systems like mine deployment vehicles?

It's indeed the least popular weapon in the entire game. I have some ideas on how to fix it though, and the next build should have it replaced entirely.

Thanks for playing! I'd like to add sprite variations for each of the weapons too, but I'd like to make sure every weapon is fully implemented in the game before I do it.