So yeah, with so many others (read: Geti and Lizard/Pete) posting their (awesome) games, i figured i might as well post the one i'm working on. So you're probably wondering; what game could my insane mind possibly be satisfied with? Simple, a vertical scrolling shooter in space. I always had a thing for vertical scrollers, so i figured i would make one myself. This mainly spawned from desperation, in that, at the time where i started (June 22nd i think), i had an absolute lack of games to play. While it has progressed far since then, it's still way unfinished. Enough talking, time for screenies.







Also i didn't make the background in the first image (it is made for me though, don't worry), but all other graphics are by me. More credits found in the game itself. Now, a little more about the game itself, which, by the way, doesn't have a name. You control the gray/blue ship, and at your disposal are two different gun systems: The turret and the front guns. The turret is always aimed at your mouse (and fired with your left mouse button), and as such, can fire at enemies without exposing yourself to their guns. Unless they also aim. Anyways, this is all well and good, but the turret alone is entirely insufficient for completing any level, so you also have the front guns. These fire two shots at a time, thus having twice the firepower of the turret, but they can only fire straight forward, meaning you have to get in the line of fire to use them. Also, fire them with the right mouse button.

Once you clear a level (clear is the wrong word because you shouldn't expect to kill more than 50% of all enemies), you get into the shop, where you can spend the cash and skillpoints you earned from destroying enemies. Skillpoints currently have a very limited effect (blame me for my terrible sense of balance), but the upgrades you can buy make a pretty big difference. For instance, the Splinter Cannon upgrade (fourth on the list to the right) gives the upgraded weapon a boost to its damage, plus it makes any enemy killed with that weapon explode into a variable amount of damaging fragments. This is currently very overpowered, though later in the game this will be entirely necessary.

There are also 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Nightmare, where you take 60%, 100%, 150% and 200% damage respectively. Your score is also directly modified by these percentages, so while a game on Nightmare is gruesomely hard, you also score really high if you manage to survive. Score doesn't mean jackshit other than bragging rights right now, but you can probably expect a highscore list later.

As for the amount of levels, i've finished 7 out of the planned 20. It's going really slowly, partly because of my own laziness, but also because it's incredibly tedious to manually place every single enemy. Which i do. Also, level 5 is a short but very difficult bossfight. You have been warned. Every 5th level will be a bossfight.

Now you might be wondering; since this game rarely lets you take your fingers off the shooting buttons, why even have them? Simple, because certain attributes are affected by firing, only regeneration right now though. Regeneration is a buyable upgrade in the shop, and firing slows or even stops (depending on upgrade level and amount of guns fired) it. I might also make it so that your shield (also an upgrade) won't recharge while firing, and later on you might also get a score bonus depending on how much time you spent not firing at all.

And now for a bit more about the level structure. Every level, excluding the first, will end with a fight against increasingly numerous/dangerous sentry guns. These guns are stationary, tough and cracking good shots, so you'll have to keep moving in order to survive. Also of note is that at the end of every even-numbered level, you'll have a small encounter with a new enemy type, which then will show up consistently after that. Every odd-numbered level will feature an upgraded version of a previously seen enemy, which also will keep showing up after that. Finally, after every bossfight (you won't notice it before the next level), you'll see an upgraded version of a previously upgraded enemy, meaning it's doubly upgraded. Tier 1 ships, the first ones, are always decorated with green colors, while tier 2 and 3 are decorated with yellow and red, respectively. Tier 3 ships are obviously the most dangerous, but by the time these come into play, you'll be more or less prepared. Their behaviour might surprise you, though.

Finally, i'll talk about a planned feature: Supercharges. What the crap? Well it's simple, sometimes you'll find yourself in deeper ♥♥♥♥ than you'll ever get out of, and in those situations, you need a big ♥♥♥♥ gun to save yourself. Supercharges are just that. When you use one on either weapon system, that system will then fire a massively souped up version of your current weapon, which generally cause a lot of misery for the enemies involved. Also, if you fire both guns at once, you'll do a special screen-clearing attack, probably a nuke of some sort. How you get hold of these is still being thought out.

TL;DR, feature list:
- Fairly intense vertical scrolling gameplay
- Inter-level shop with many upgrades
- Very limited achievements (you have to load your automatically saved game in order to view it)
- Seven completed levels
- Four difficulty levels, accessed by pressing 1, 2, 3 or 4 on your keyboard while in the main menu
- Help file, accessed with F1 and closed with Esc
- Totally awesome 8-bit soundtrack by two gentlemen known as Aureametaphus and EliteFerrex (not related to each other)
- Many different enemies
- Two separate gun systems, used with left and right mouse buttons
- QWERTY/AZERTY support (press K in the main menu to switch)

Planned features:
- Limited use super guns
- Various aesthetic changes/additions
- More levels
- More enemies
- More upgrades

Download here

Tell me what you think, eventual ideas are welcome too. Keep in mind that it's still very much unfinished, though. Also, my development is slow as all hell, because it's just a little side branch to my main occupation: GAMING. I probably forgot to mention some things, but ehh, you probably won't miss them. Oh yeah, you can move in all four directions, and control with arrow keys/WASD.

I am in on this thing. I've always been a sucker for top-downs, especially the vertical shooter variety.

And look, Shook even intentionally spelt it wrong.

A more vibrant background would be cool, aswell as nicer menues, they are a bit too empty feeling and such.
Pure blocks instead of the curvy borders would probably help.

Looks great, I'll grab it tonight if I've got some time. First impressions are that the ship design is a bit blocky but the effects are quite nice.
Who painted the background behind the start menu? Looks nice

This is cool, but horrendously difficult. ;_;
Got to level six and then gave up, crying myself to sleep.
On easy.

I found the sounds and music to be pretty good without being distracting,

Also, I feel your pain with naming games. Geti needs to do classes or something.

Edit:
Argh, wanted to preview, not submit. ;_;

Edit:
Hurray! Finished it on easy.
I'm tempted to try again on normal.

Anyways, I was also going to say that the graphics are functional if not super pretty.
The explosions and lasers and such are awesome, as I've come to expect from you. :3

I ought to give you some constructive criticism or something. Maybe later.

Not played it, but:
Superpower that is a screen clearing nuke?
Everything has that ;_;
I'd be expecting something super-unique from Shookie.

Like a blast of parasites, that grab enemies and quickly drain health, before making the enemy explode into more parasites...
Or making your ship into something that devours enemy shots and ships, then releases a final blast-beam, power dependant on what you ate...

It isn't set in stone, so who knows, i might come up with something creative instead of the traditional nuke. :U

@Pete: Yeah, level six in particular really needs some adjustment. I find myself struggling to get through if i don't have splinter cannons, and if the developer is having a hard time, the game is TOO HARD. Also, good to hear that you're liking it despite that.

@Geti: The aliens being blocky is quite intentional, as that's their little quirk that makes them... Well, alien. Here on Earth we have smooth, aerodynamic aircraft, so these blocky spaceships appear odd to us. Might have to de-block or even re-design the player's ship though. Also, the guy who painted it calls himself Bojan (or 8OJ4N as it actually appears), and i uhh... Enlisted his aid at the Toribash forum. Whether we'll see more of his art in the game in the future is entirely unknown.

@Lizard: Aye, the menus and in-game background need to be shined up. They're mostly temporary though, so expect to see them changed in the future. I'm kind of liking that "old orange display"-look, though.

@Roast Veg: Indeed, i do enjoy spelling things wrong at opportune moments. :U
Also, glad to see another verticalscrollingshooterinspace enthusiast. Hopefully i won't disappoint you too much!

Also, one thing i forgot to mention: You can skip to the levels 4, 5, 6 and 7, by pressing the corresponding number on the keyboard at any time during level 1. I think level 4 and 5 provide you with ludicrous money, can't remember with 6, but 7 is more or less how it'd be during a normal playthrough. This is a temporary feature, since there wouldn't be much point to the game if you could just skip ahead at your leisure.

Well I have to say your game is enjoyable, if insanely difficult. However, I think it's just not innovative enough. Vertical scrollers are pretty common, and yours doesn't have any special feature to set it aside from countless others. The upgrading system is a good start, but there's much more to be done if you want it to feel great.


The explosion effects were absolutely great, though. Huge props on that.

If you add a screen overlay (every other line bright and the others darker) that makes it prettier and fancier.

Hmm, that sounds like an idea. A good one, even. I'll try that!

@Areku: Thanks! I'm not really trying to be insanely innovative, though. I just want to make a solid and fun game. That being said, i do try to add a few interesting twists here and there, like the separate gun systems, since i'd hate myself for doing an absolute clone of an age-old concept without anything new*. You can also expect to see some twists in future boss fights (final one in particular), though due to their nature, these will remain secret for now. ;o
Also, the difficulty will probably get a tad lower later, though i like my games challenging. Kind of a throwback to the good ol' days, where the length of games didn't depend on a huge amount of levels, but on how many times the player died. It won't be Battletoads-hard though, don't worry. Also i should totally rename Nightmare to Battletoads.

* Exhibit A: LOOK AT ALL THOSE MATCH-3 CLONES GODDAMMIT THE UNORIGINALITY HURTS MY BRAIN LIKE IT WAS BEING STITCHED UP WITH BARBED WIRE

Doesn't look too bad if i may say so myself. Also, those subtle scanlines are pretty neat, thanks for suggesting it, Lizard. Might have to make them a tiny bit more visible, though.

I'd say the scanline is just fine.

Looking good.

It'd be very cool if you could overlay some noise and warp the screen slightly whenever the player takes damage.
Might be tough to make it look good while not being distracting though.

Also, I'm going to try this on normal now.

Name it the Space game o' lasers.
EDIT: This game is impossible even on EASY! I have tried level 3 with every upgrade combo twice and still no luck.

Right, Easy needs to be easier and level 3 also needs some balancing. I think that the addition of supercharges will shift things in the players favor, though. Also, nah, the name should incorporate the word "radtro". :U

@Pete: I don't think Gamemaker (dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun) supports screen warping, but i do already have a very subtle noise. I'm thinking that it should sound more like you were in the cockpit, though, but that sound is kind of hard to find. If any of you happen to run across Also, big hits cause a red screen flash, which you probably noticed, which serves to distract you (because you just got hit by a laser as big as a medium-sized airplane) as well as "oh god you just took a huge hit with your face shame on you". I'll probably implement screen shaking later, which scales according to how big a hit you took.

@findude: Great, thanks.

Also, some of you may be wondering how/if i'm going to convey any kind of story with this game. Firstly, yes, there will be a story, though it obviously won't be nearly as epic as, say, Mass Effect 1/2. Just a more or less standard "earth is under attack go kill the alien general" story, though you can expect to see some humor and fourth wall-breaking in it. It'll be told with small comics at certain points in the game (at the beginning, then before/after each bossfight), provided that I or someone else can make said comics.