Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Nova Slayer

A topic by Improvus - Game Development created Dec 25, 2020 Views: 305 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 2

Hi there!

My name is Esteban Joel Slobodianik, I’m 27 years old, I’m from Argentina and I’m studying game programming. I present you my first project made in Unity called Nova Slayer:

Nova Slayer is a 2D Shoot’Em’Up game with four playable levels and three difficulty modes.

This is the first game I made since I started learning Unity3D and this is one of the most time I dedicated on development.

I hope you like it and I’d love to recieve your feedback in order to improve and, in the future, I could release it as a full game.

For now I only have a Windows x64 build but in the future I can make versions for x86 & Mac too.

Download link: https://estebanjoelslobodianik.itch.io/nova-slayer

(+1)

Hoo boy.  Lots of thoughts playing this.

First off, the good.  The opening cinematic is excellent, feels like something straight out of the Genesis era, which is not a bad thing.  Background graphics and enemy design is also pretty good, could use a bit of polish and animation to really make it stand out but the look is fine.

Next, the horrible.  GET RID OF THAT TUTORIAL.  I don't need a forced 2 minute practice room where all of the controls are locked except the ones I'm "supposed" to use to understand "WASD to move, left click to shoot, right click to use special weapons, middle click to use bombs."  I expect a lot of players will quit right there.  Either make a single popup screen to explain the controls, or if you want to be really fancy make them pop up on screen during the first level when you encounter appropriate enemies.  

Okay, now on to the gameplay itself.  It took me about until the third level to understand what you were going for, up until that point I figured it was just a terrible game where the enemies had way too much health.  It feels like you're going for a sort of "bullet hell" gauntlet of fights where you have to defeat each "wave" of enemies before you can advance, and you have a bunch of special weapons with different effects to deal with them.  Almost like an RPG series of battles.  This is an interesting concept!

Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, the execution is bad.  Most fights are extremely boring.  When you're just sitting there shooting at a randomly-placed bunch of enemies that take way too many hits to defeat, and the enemies just sit there and shoot straight ahead, there is no real challenge, you just have to position yourself in the right spot, then shoot a bunch of times.  There are also a bunch of times when several enemies are placed on top of each other, and they have a continuous beam of bullets.  In this case it is practically impossible to shoot them without being hit, and also it looks ugly.

The first thing you should do is come up with a system for placing enemies deliberately, instead of randomly.  Use fewer enemies, but plan out each wave in ways that will present interesting challenges, don't just throw a bunch of bullet sponges at the player.  At least do something to stop them from being spawned in clumps.  I know it's the easy way to make a shooting game but it's lazy and feels bad.

The game could also use some more interesting enemy behaviors.  Make some of them actually move, and fire in different patterns (there are a few, but most just shoot straight ahead).  Some can even interact with each other, like maybe some could generate shields to protect their allies, so you have to hit those first.  Plan out each encounter carefully, and you could have some very interesting situations for the player to deal with.

Another interesting thought that might work for a game like this - give each battle a time limit, after which the enemies pass, and reward the player with upgrades for defeating them before they escape.  This way, mastering the early parts of the game could make the player more equipped to deal with the harder parts later.

This game has potential!  It's bad right now, but with improvement it could be a lot better.

First of all, thank you so much for the feedback!

Next,

I know the tutorial is horrible right now. I didn’t have the needed time to make it how I planned it, it’s very like your suggestion and I’ve scheluded for the next version.

I had a lot of problems with coding about the enemy waves and the few patterns I created (and lots of patterns like movement, pathfinding, and others that I couln’t applicate because of the deadline) and I prefered spawn the enemy positions randomly so it doesnt became a pattern you have to learn where te enemies will be each wave so you have to make a different estrategy every time you start a new game. So I will have to check all of these scripts, polish them A LOT, and maybe I’ll have more decent enemies next time hahaha.

I liked the idea of having a time limit for every wave and I’ll deffinetly use it for the next version, and I also want to make the options menu (that I forgot to remove the button from the Main Menu :P), add some narrative and make an autosave for every level completed or a range of waves completed at any level.

I really appreciate your reply and I’ll take note for every single thing you told me to make it better and more enjoyable for the next version.

Thank you so much!! n.n/