Kenneth,
Grats on making your first game!
Critics,
Be nice, all of our first games ran using the template scripts, and was probably simply a little box with a light in it, and we were so proud that we made it. As far as critism goes, if you can't offer good advice for fixing things, keep your mouths shut and your hands off your keyboards.
Kenneth,
Your game looks interesting i'll give you that, however you need to do something about those requirements, and that is what i'm going to help you with.
1. Textures take up alot of video memory, try to keep your images Square. Reduce Image size, Resolution and color bit depth when possible. Don't use too many transparant images, the engine runs checks and removes the keyed color (black) from the images, this takes processing time.
2. Don't have an extremely large number of Active enities(entities that are constantly executing script code), this inludes enemies and anything that contstanly execute large amounds of code. this will decrease processor strain. Also the less of these objects used, the less that needs drawn to the monitor.
3. Reuse your textures as often as possible, use "base" textures for most of your world, then you can add some details with sprites, decals, etc. Reusing textures saves video memory as the objects using the texture simply refer to one memory address. if need be, during your pre-release optimization stage, you can strip down your levels of unecessary textures and use one of your "bases" instead.
4. be VERY careful when building geometry, Intersecting Blocks produce splits in the geometry, try to keep objects close enough that they arent touching, but is unnoticable, use the Precision Flag when building. Splits in geometry causes more visibility calculations to be done, the results of these caculations are used at runtime by the culling system to determine what should be drawn, more splits equals more data that must be processed during runtime.
5. FIGHT THE URGE to add ALL your cool ideas to one level, this will help alot in many ways. Playability and Performance to name two.
well, that's about all for now, one other reccommendation i have, find a team, it will greatly help you alot, i would be NOWHERE without Creatures of Habit(my team), you will learn much from other team members and they will push you to learn more for yourself, not to mention the great ideas that can come out of a good team's studio. Plus, you don't have to do all the work yourself
. If you are interested, i may be able to find a place for you and your brother with our music section, but if not, you should still find a team, it'll be the best thing you ever do.
James