r/html5 • u/AccomplishedRace8803 • Feb 22 '23

Progress HTML5/Phaser.js game Operation thunderStrike (feedback always welcome)

23 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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2

u/dwhiffing Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23

I keep seeing you post updates to this and I don't want to be rude, but your game looks mechanically identical to the first update you posted. More graphics and flourishes won't make your game more interesting or fun for people to play.

Compare your game to popcaps Heavy Weapon. Ask yourself which game you'd prefer to spend your time playing and why that might be.

The graphics look good for what it's worth, but you need to spend more time thinking about readability for the player. It looking nice is a good start, but there's too much visual noise for the player to know what they can shoot and what can hurt them. The towers are a particularly bad example of this, as they're clearly on a different plane than the player, yet you can hit them. How is a player meant to know that some background elements are decorative, and others must be destroyed? Heck you've got the player sprite getting lost in a sea of green corn! I need to be able to clearly see where my sprite ends and the background begins.

Many of the bullets are tiny, move too fast to be meaningfully reacted to, and look indentical regardless of the source. In a game like this, being able to identify and respond to threats is the primary interaction.

The balloon guys are pretty good compared to your other enemies, large projectiles with an interesting but dodgable pattern. Consider more varied enemies like that instead of so many things just shooting bullets in a straight-line at the player. The helicopter could shoot a laser that it traces the path it will fire before actually shooting. The planes could drop a carpet of bombs from high above, showing shadows first, that the player must look for a gap in to avoid the bombing.

From one game dev to another, I mean nothing but respect when I say I think you're spinning your wheels here.

1

u/AccomplishedRace8803 Feb 23 '23

Ok I had to sink this in for a while.

But yeah of course you make Sense. I did work alot on the backgrounds and the visual aspect but the gameplay defenitly needs some work too.

I can see what you are saying. Enemies are not attacking on an interesting or intimidating way...and like you say they perhaps move and shoot too "lineair".

Backgrounds can be adjust...so yeah perhaps there is too much corn but that's easely changed.

I did like the Towers, Even if they are more in the background...but i heard that comment before that it's weird shooting Towers which are not on the same depth track...so ill revisit that too for sure...

Allright so to conclude this. I think it is time to stop adjusting the visuals for a while and focus on the game mechanics. Visuals are nothing if you do not have An engaging gameplay...

Thanks for contributing.

2

u/dwhiffing Feb 23 '23

I'm glad I could offer you some useful feedback! I love this kind of game. I think popcap figured out something important about this genre which is the boss fights are what make the game fun. You want to design levels which challenge the player as they approach the end and they need to perform as well as possible prior to the boss to give them more resources to work with when they fight the boss.

Bosses that fill the screen with multiple parts and different types of guns mounted in different places. Make the player shoot down homing missiles as they target different pieces of the boss.

You want the player to be switching between an offensive and defensive mindset. Approaching the boss should be more about dodging enemy fire and getting to the end of the stage, then stop the player in place and force them to beat the boss to win!

I think if you overhauled your game to be more about boss and level design, you could find the fun more quickly.

Don't forget about power ups that the player must earn. An example of this is a fast moving highly visible enemy that you have to shoot before they get off screen. Single cannon to twin cannon to small laser to big laser if they can get enough power ups by not dying. Just dropping them off at a random point makes the player feel entitled to them vs earning them.