First of all I would like to thank Tom and all of NG staff for the madness day contest and honoring me at the 2nd place among the best games. Also all users and everyone who shared their support, enthusiasm and critique towards my game. You're the most awesome people in the world!
Enough gay stuff. :)
I wanted to share some thoughts about Madness: The Stand.
I felt bad after two summers of no submissions by me and I really wanted to participate in some NG-organized event. Around 1 month before madness day I decided that I'll make a game for it. I've done all art (going into Krinkels's style was fun) and animations(pure pleasure) in 2 evenings and started gathering all my previous code in order to connect it all. I didn't have much time nor occasion after that and 14 days before the deadline I started to work full time on the game at a very high pace.
My starting point was simple: particles, physics, gore. For me madness is all about shooting bad guys and doing brutal things to their corpses and a destructible ragdoll can never go wrong. At first i I wanted to make a deathmatch-type game but I also really enjoy a defend yourself horde type of game and so I decided to choose option # 2 and I'm really happy i did that.
Due to limited time I had to cut some really awesome features (I'll leave them to myself right now as a leverage in my next project(s)) as I literally wouldn't finish the game on time. I had only 1 day for each major feature. I played the game as you know it for the first time the exact day madness day started! (good that I'm 6 hours ahead) I actually finished fixing bugs and adding some quick features like pause, pseudo hud and weapon selection shortly before uploading it. My head really wanted to explode.
Obviously because of this the game has some flaws but I was happy to see that only one major bug snuck in - kill the last enemy in a round as he kills you and you're stuck in limbo(worse than dying in your dream under heavy sedation ;) ).This week I wanted to upload an updated,rebalanced version of the game with NG api (i had some problems with it earlier, also - why the NG madness preloader doesn't show up in my game?) but I couldn't get to it. I'm actually sick as I'm writing this but whatever.. yesterday's news made me happy as a child.
As small this game seems to be it has a lot of nice features and it sums up a year (actually a small part from it cuz I'm lazy sometimes :( ) of me learning and experimenting with as3. In a nutshell the game has a:
- particle system
- box2d particles
- box2d wrapper
- projectile system integrated into box2d (bullets are not box2d bodies but they can react with any body with graphics anyway :) )
- simple AI (take cover behind physical bodies in a dynamic environment)
- animation management
...and some more.
Things I wrote allow me to quickly create effects and build bodies as I really hate writing many lines of repetitive code. This allows certain flexibility and I could focus on some more interesting things like mines or taking cover by the ai. There's a lot of things to improve but I'm really optimistic about the future. Hope that all this doesn't sound like I'm a douche or something. ;d
My next game is under consideration and hopefully next week I'll tell you what I'll be working on.
cheers!!
Also:
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lawlmaster
I really like your new game, but the spawning can be a bitch, especially when two dudes with shotguns spawn right where you're standing and rape you. Loved the weapon designs and the physics are sweet.(peppering the map with shotgun bullets until all the guys are dead takes a while, but it's fun) Anyways i found that the cover would go batshit insane when shot and fly everywhere. that and it only covers half of your body. Wish you put in a crouch mechanic.I like the AI though, they retreat behind boxex and shit if they're almost dead. But in your next madness game(if you ever decide to make another like this one)you should put in melee weapons, and more guns. Also an ammo counter and a reload mechanic. Too many times have i had to face a shotguneer with a pistol and fire the last bullet and have to reload(most of the time i die) Oh and the little dash you had int here was pretty cool. Overall i really liked this game,but the background and stage was kinda meh.
mmankt
Thx. I agree with your comment. I know how to improve spawn mechanics so i won't make the same mistake twice. i don't know about melee weapons. enemies would walk to you as you mow them down. i would have to think it through a lot. reloading was supposed to be in there but it didn't work after pressing a button(wtf) and i didn't have time to fix it.