Sargeant Rampage, 2d top down shootem up

Hello everyone!

I'm taking a mini break from my 3rd person shooter before I tackle some heavy stuff, but I couldnt help but play around in gamestudio . Ive been scaling back many features of the 3rd person shooter, in order for it to eventually be done. Then Ive come to realize that I wouldnt have anything to show for my game dev career So just for fun, let me try to actually finish a smaller game!

Here is a WIP of Sargeant Rampage, a 2d top down shoot em up! you control a little dude shooting stuff! The level is read from a notepad, and tiles and static objects are loaded in dynamically. Im going to work on weapons and a simple AI next.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plk4714Xfrc[/video]

It looks nice, old school style. I'm looking forward for a demo

Are you still woking on your 3D project?

ty 3run!

@Pappenheimer

Yes! Ive worked too long on the game to drop it. I actually work on it about 3-4 times a week outside of vacation and other business. At the moment I'm trying to integrate the cover hugging behavior into the AI. I actually have it working and will make a video about it after next week (PAX seattle!)

That's great to hear!
Seems that you work on several projects at once!

Pretty nifty! Nice name, too.

Great !

ha i like the graphics.. really old school design Do you plan to integrate at least basic "physics" (e.g. destroying objects like those trees?).

The explosion should be a little bit more spectacular (at the target).

Hey everyone, new progress on the game.

There are AI's you can fight and kill, new weapon and bullet effects, new player sprites!

Youtube Video Link!

WOO

Not bad, but I find it a bit too rstricting to have only shooting directions. Why not implementing a free 360 aiming?
Would give the player more mobility, and I would prefer a bit slower paced gameplay... they are not running anymore, they are flying literally. A bit more strategy...

Haha I think it looks pretty good and hard. There's one thing that bothers me, though: When you run, f.i., to the left side of the screen, you will outrun the camera a little. As a result, you cannot see much and esp. not what you are shooting at. IMO the camera should either be fixed on the player's position or anticipate player's next position.

Awesome work Bloody rumble! I don't like how sprites turn while movement up and down, but that's just my opinion

yeah, i kept finding myself looking for him to shoot freely when i first started watching. seems more natural. looks fast paced tho. i like it.

I have to advise against all of these ideas. If he does this, it will turn the game into just another bland shooter.

Part of the fun is the fast gameplay and the slightly restrictive controls!

or go contra style and make the type of gun affect its mobility and range. kinda hybrid that into the mouse.

I am sure you are right in your own way.
My suggestions are only my tasted related preference (or something like that...)
But I did this things for my old Topdownshooter (not gamestudio) and it worked
very good.
I would find it rather demotivating to die within seconds,
but maybe it is because I am getting too old and the slower
things are starting to appeal me...
Something that I realize very often lately, when I play old SNES Games.

hey everyone, thanks for taking a look!

@miez

I'm going to slow down the enemy soldiers more, i dont want them to be flying around at that speed all the time. I will however introduce an enemy that would be moving at that speed to mix things up. As far as strategy is concerned, I was looking for a bit more arcadey feel to the game, not too much thinking would be required. If the game would be slowed down, I would need to introduce some A* pathfinding for the enemies, and that would take alot of time to implement.

@superku

thank you! I'll be speeding up the player camera!

@3run

thank you! I agree about the sprites. I thought that I could just rotate the sprite like DigDug on the NES, but it just seems weird. Ill add more sprite directions.

@lostclimate, @redeemer

hmm, a predicament . Should I add mouse support for 360 shooting? Im thinking maybe making it 8 angles of shooting. It keeps it simple for me

8 angles would keep it fun instead of just 2, but not so much freedom that it becomes a generic platform shooter. i like the idea.

i think you should keep the shooting direction as it is now though or it may just look like just another shooter

Yeah, keep it as is. It'd bring all sorts of problems if you had only 4 directions and the player could only shoot in the direction they are moving (which I'd assumed from a cursory glance at the comments above), but as is with the ability to strafe and run backwards while shooting in one direction, 4 directions are plenty (although 8 would also make sense).

I have no doubt you'll design the levels to accommodate any control restrictions, as well.

Jibb

This looks fun

hello everyone! here is a longplay of a big test level in SR!

Changes:

Mouse control! You can shoot in between the cardinal directions!

New weapons!

New ammo pickups!

Health Packs!

New sound effects!

YEA!!

http://youtu.be/vmWDRlbS6aQ

wow thats nice

you switched to mouse aim? looks fun still

Great !
Like a mix of Space ship shooter and Top Down shooter !
What do you use for sprites ? Panels or 3D textured Plane , it seems to be 3D characters and BPS no ?
For ennemy AI and navigation do you use some special algorithm like A Pthfinding ?

Really liked the video! The great effects make the shooting really rewarding.
I'd really like to know more about the AI too.

I know you wrote that it's a testlevel, but you should make the ammunition for the more effective weapons much more scarce.
And since the gameplay seems to be based on weapon handling, you should try to get a lot more different weapons into the game, grenades, rocket launcher, time bombs, sniper (immediate hit), homing missiles, flamethrower..
maybe even (phewphew) lazer weapons?
Just a few ideas that came to my mind. Btw, cooperative multiplayer would fit this game well

Looks much more flexible (aiming) and dynamic! Waiting to play it dude!
Plus, I'll be really grateful, if you could make a tutorial (or explain) how you've made AI.
Could I send you a PM, so you could explain in few sentences how you've made state machine?

edit: I love death sounds

Great work, looks like a very fun game already.

The gun you use first and the one you use at 02:49 are using the same effects still, I think the one at 02:49 could use a thinner line as an effect...

Hey everyone! thanks for taking a look!

The AI is incredibly simple, there is no pathfinding solutions other than

"if I see a wall in front of me, move randomly away and try again"

In the meantime here is a gift to all of you who took time to see my game:

AN ALPHA DEMO LINK!!!!!!

http://sergeantrampage.wikispaces.com/Current+Build

Download the current build of the game and go nuts. If you have the time, I would greatly appreciate a PM here with your comments/critiques/bugs. I have a bunch of bugs and critiques already and are working on them, but let me know anyway!

I tried the demo, runs smooth !

Only probel there is no enought ammo , and when player pass over ammo icon , nothing happens, ammo is not recharged.

You should let your game be fun and not worry player about how many ammo it remains : perhaps lot lot more ammo, and some ammo packs in the level that would recharge alos a LOT !

Another suggestion , even for a demo :
a BIG Panel with a button : "REPLAY LEVEL"
This is borring 3DGS Games demos where you dy and have to quit the game to restart !

Arrow keys to play , why not ?

Moer varied ennemies, and some shooting less, caus actually they shoot fast and a lot like the player.
Make them less powerfull !
Or they could shoot as fast , but only some seconds before recharging ! Perhaps keep that for the bosses.

The game is great , keep it up !
It is on IndieDB site ?

http://sergeantrampage.wikispaces.com/Current+Build

please try the alpha build!

Make some more final built, it's too much alpha

-Ok now the ammo is pick up by the character but where si the reload ? I had no ammo, pick ammo on the level , but it don't have recharged the gun ???
- Ennemies seems to hard to be killed : how many shots to kill them ? Why not making some respawn system : you must destroy some
system that respwan ennemy when one is dead !
- Ennemies fires too much at you : it's hard to see what is going on ?
- Similar color for bullet ennemies and player : hard again to see what is happening
- Cross hair is too sensible (perhas return o a simple system :
-> the player fires in the direction you shoot
-> if you keep pressing space the direction of the firing
weapon is locked
It's too complicated playing mouse and keys, i would prefer dual analog joystick lot more.


Keep up improving it !

ahm, well, i didnt have much fun with it, why? couldnt see what i was doing or shooting at, fix sounds simple though, limit the distance of the crosshairs to the player, meaning, let it rotate around the player, maybe also some laser sights ? i really didnt know what i was shooting at in the middle of a fight.

Technically it seems pretty solid though, also, why am i firing balls? because of the style? i really think smaller tracers would make battles less confusing.

hey ratchet!

You can press 1,2,3,4 to use different weapons! What weapon where you using that you could not fire anymore?


hey darkinferno!

Where your cross hairs going off screen? What resolution are you running at? When you say a circle aroung the player, should it be a "ring" where the cursor cannot go past?

I've played it yesterday and I thought it was pretty fun. Mouse + keyboard control is nice, the crosshair is too sensitive, though.
+1 (it does not go off the screen, it's confusing though that you can change the distance)

I think it's pretty hard to kill someone with the shotgun at close range, maybe because of the sensitive crosshair, I don't know. "No reload" is cool.

+1

It also felt like it was being smoothed somewhat -- that makes it difficult to be precise.

I feel like the "twin cursors" shooting you appear to have in the first video (WASD to move, cursors to shoot in the direction you press) would be more comfortable to play with than how it is now with the uber-sensitive mouse and (I think) mouse smoothing.

I died regularly, but I enjoyed the weapon variety and the allied player

Jibb

my crosshairs never went offscreen but as superku said, changing its distance is confusing; as others said, the aiming also felt too fast/smooth? not sure and i really do think a laser line would help but hey..