itch.io

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.

Thank you very much for playing and the kind words! Great job S-ranking every mission too. There's a lot more planned and being worked on right now, stay tuned!

I'm afraid due to the engine version (GM:S1.4) it's currently capped to 60 FPS, I apologize. Once I switch engines it should be possible to increase it.

Try enabling the alternate v-sync mode in the settings though, that may affect the framerate.

Thank you for playing the demo and your kind words! A full Steam release is planned, but it will be some time.

Do you have any plans to include significantly smaller and larger human enemy units/vehicles in the game, in addition to the more common standard-sized mechs and tanks (such as the player’s current Crawler and the vast majority of enemies encountered so far)? I noticed that in the comments you mentioned the possibility of larger enemy tanks/vehicles and even large bosses, which I am very excited about.

There could potentially be much smaller enemies now since I've reworked some of the user interface to make the target highlighting a bit easier to read. Powered armor units would probably be around the size of the bison you see roaming around the fifth mission, if not slightly larger. I'm not entirely convinced they'll be readable enough at a glance, but it's certainly something I want to experiment with and see if it works. Having very cheap cannon fodder enemies to space out battles with harder ones like the Minotaur would be nice.

Finally, thank you again for your work. I am really looking forward to the next development log and the next demo update.

Thank you again for the kind wishes and interest! I'm still working hard on the game, but development has been a rather slow process.

Thanks for playing!

I adore the visuals and your artstyle, especially the telephone booth piece, and I'm asking myself whether you would ever be open to do a paid commission?

I'm afraid I have no time for commissions, sorry.

PS: Much has already been said regarding the airstrikes, but I feel like the animation doesn't quite have the expected visual effect. The difference in speed between the initial flame burst and the dissipation might need some tweaking, either the burst should be shorter or the smoke should linger for longer. Maybe you could add some impact frames when the shell hits and a transparent layer that slowly vanishes to imitate thicker smoke? 

I agree, some bigger explosion sprites and longer lasting smoke would go a long way. Generally I try to keep all of the smoke dissipating fast since in testing I found excessive smoke particles can really drag down readability, plus it's not great for keeping things optimized. That said, since these are huge areas being wiped out they could definitely use a bit more flair.

PPS: If wanted, I would be happy to help with a German localization when development reaches that point.

Thanks for the offer! I'll keep it in mind.

Thank you!

Cheers!

Hopefully it will. I've been wanting to replace the map since the first release with it, but I've had some difficulty figuring out how to remake it and create appropriate assets. I might end up making a completely new mission entirely and save the grubs for a different one.

Good idea!

Everything in the game is completely 2D so it's a difficult thing to do, but we'll see what happens.

It's been requested by a few different people, so I'll try it out. I can't promises it'll make it in though, I think the ten grenades that players have now work only because the count is so limited.

Thanks for making a video. There's only one easter egg with the PDA right now, nothing else I'm afraid.

Thanks for playing and making the video! I'll probably leave the destructible walls in even though it doesn't make much sense. It adds more gameplay opportunities and people seem to find it pretty fun.

Hopefully not too long from now, but I can't give any estimates honestly.

Thank you!

I don't want to spoil too much, but both ATGMs and a heavier, slower firing chain gun will be in the next update. I think people will find the ATGM especially fun since it behaves quite differently from any other weapon in the game.

Three more primaries to go!

It's up to 30 pages now! Maybe I'll make an upscaled version as a PDF.