By the way, I was just checking the tags in your game, and they don't mention 'Touchjam' or 'Construct2' (though you have put 'construct'). I seem to remember it mentioning somewhere in the forum that these should both be in the tags if you're entering the competition (just wanted to make sure you don't miss being entered, on account of a technicality).

farflamex

sometimes after putting so much effort into a game, it's good to take a little break from it.

I wouldn't say that Kongregate has been a disaster for you, as there's a lot of positive feedback there, and most of the negative feedback simply relates to the badly positioned Ad preventing people from being able to play the game properly (and a few browser issues relating to IE). What you've learnt from that experience is to be careful in your ad positioning in future (though there will always be people who downrate your game simply because it has an ad in it, and they believe everything in life should be ad-less and free. Bloody hippies!). Also the constructive criticism on Kongregate seems to mirror what other people on the Construct 2 forum have been saying; the near static planet backdrop restricts the feeling of speed, and the combat can be a bit unexciting (being 8 way directional travel, this is a tricky one to tackle. Perhaps by just adding a Thruster for speed bursts, and some homing missiles to get the player started, it might help ease the player into the game and experience the deep world you have on offer).

I think the way to go with Korelos sales is either selling on your own site as an exe, or through Windows 8. Might also be worth looking into MarketJs and seeing if you can get a publisher interested there.

Anyway, as far as Board Horde is concerned, things are going well. The A.I. is functioning reasonably well for getting all three characters out at once, and it's managed to beat me on a few occassions even though its choices are entirely random. As I don't have a free day until Friday, I'm spending most of my evening 'sofa time' finishing off art assets on my ipad (I've created a retro style font, and a few more death animations etc).

The tricky part is going to be optimising for iphones etc (as I don't have an iphone, though I have an ipod touch which should at least give me an idea of what to expect size-wise). There's definitely going to be a need for the ability to zoom, as the characters are very tricky to select on a phone due to their tiny size.

anyway, thanks for the words of encouragement, and I will play your game some more when I get the chance (not just because I'm testing it. I really enjoy playing it and discovering new things each time).

—

I just had a lot of fun finding gems and being eaten by zombies, so thanks for that. So far, this is my favourite of the Newgrounds entries that I've played as the power-ups etc give it a bit more lastability. I managed to kill 20 zombies before I died, which is much more than I've ever managed in real life.

I did notice a few spelling mistakes here and there, but with the amount of text you're using it was inevitable (still, it might be worth a touch up before the end of the competition).

I'm hoping to have my own contribution finished before the deadline, though I've got a lot of optimisation to do for smaller mobile devices such as iphone (since that seems to be the main device Tom Fulp is testing on. Most of the issues he's experienced with the current batch of games seems to relate to the audio, which is always a problem with Html5)

Anyway, best of luck with the competition.

• Dave

farflamex

I think the reroll lockup bug is possibly a result of me having fiddled with the reroll system one time too many. I was aware of it, and will try sort it out in time for Saturdays update (aiming for Saturday this time as its the only day I have free to work on the game).

I did try what you suggested with the 'getting a hero out and rolling for him' idea before I actually introduced the rolling a six thing, but it lead to a few awkward balance issues and made it more tricky for the other player to break away from the pack. Once I've finished with the bigger additions, such as fully functioning a.i. and a scoreboard, I will then focus more on getting the game balance right.

With regards to the potions, as well as better positioned text objects which will alert you to having gained a certain power, I'm also hoping to have an in game menu the can be accessed from the top right of the screen, which will contain useful info on what does what for anyone who forgets. Hopefully with that and the Status Effect icons that will appear on the HUD pics, I'll have most angles covered.

Thanks for the input again, and I'll get round to testing your space game again soon.

Kuso

Fair point about the a.i. Taking ages to roll a six. I'll probably speed up his dice rolls a bit to make it less tiresome. I did try implementing farflamex idea about having the heroes reappear on the entrance square on the next roll after they die, but this threw up an unexpected error; if blues last hero died, followed by reds last hero, blue would appear on the entrance square, then on reds go he would appear on entrance square and kill him. Then blue would appear and kill him, and so on in an endless cycle!

I'm currently working on some status icon designs which will appear on the HUD profile pictures (lightening bolt for haste etc). If I get time, I might put some visual effect on the heroes who have been affected by potions.

harrio

The automatic moving hero when there's only one out should be easy enough to do (he says optimistically, yet with a due sense of dread) so thanks for the idea.

The trap and potion signs coming up early is something I hope to sort out by the next weekend update, though there's lots of other bugs to squash first. I've just discovered one when the a.i. managed to get characters out that had already escaped, so I best try and put a stop to those sort of shenanigans!

Thanks again for all the suggestions, you brilliant marvellous people!

pixel perfick

Heh! The first part of your comment amused me (and gave me a title for my autobiography).

The a.i. settings will basically improve how observant the a.i. Is when moving a hero. At village Idiot level it will simply move heroes at random without worrying about what they're going to land on. The more advanced settings will check to see what their hero is going to land on; if it could move a wizard onto a potion, or a warrior onto a trap, then it'll choose the wizard. The highest level a.i. will check to see whether there's more potions on the board than enemies, then select from the HUD the hero most suited to the task and will also do more complex things like moving a hero who is closest to the exit.

Considering the amount of problems I've had just trying to get the a.i. to have more than one hero out at once, its likely I'll only get as far as Village Idiot A.I. before the Newgrounds competition deadline.

Getting the exact number on the dice needed to escape is something I had considered but forgot about, so thanks for reminding me. I may give it a try if I get the time, and see if it works ok. I'm hoping to eventually have lots of options on the menu screen that you can change to alter the feel of the game (such as Rogue mode, where you only get one life per hero, or Massacre mode where wins are based on the amount of enemies killed). Before all that I next hope to get a scoreboard up and running, sort out all the text objects and exterminate all the bugs!

Thanks for giving me some more ideas, and best of luck with your Dungeon Crawler.

ahr ech

Now I believe I love this game even more!   I always wondered what Lovecrafts Beard would've looked like, so thanks for clearing up that mystery.

Please let me know when there's a new demo up, as I'll be very keen to play it.

Snooba

Damn fine looking shootemup!    And challenging, too. I was only just getting started on level 2 when I bit the big one. It runs very smoothly on my ipad 3 using Safari. There's some occasional slowdown whenever encountering the turret with the great big green laser beam, but apart from that it all worked nicely. Nice simple controls, too.

I'm sure it'll prove very popular, so well done.

harrio

Although the option to pass on a move is a nice idea, I think it might take the challenge out of it. Part of the fun is in being driven to make a choice that might potentially kill your hero; and when your wizard kills an enemy or your warrior fails to trigger a trap there's a nice feeling of 'In Your Face, Fate!!!'

Maybe I'll give it a go at a later date, and see if it works.

Cheers!

Righto,

The latest version of Board Horde has been uploaded to the front page. Here's the list of changes;

1. Basic 'Village Idiot' a.i. has been added. At the moment the a.i. can only get one hero out at a time, though after an entire day of swearing at the computer I've almost got it fully functional (so expect a better challenge in next weeks update)

2. The HUD graphics have been updated to reflect the heroes in play.

3. If there are no heroes at all on the board, instead of having to roll a six to get one out, both players are given a hero on their next dice roll (six or not).

4. A temporary Back button has been added so people stop accidentally hitting the board horde logo and having the game reset to menu.

Plus lots of interesting new bugs (and many old ones). The most irritating being occasionally the dice will roll an extra time when its not supposed to, and the game will freeze (just press the back button if that happens, and curse my name). I've probably broken a few other things whilst trying to make the a.i. work as its being a right mind melter and no mistake!

All feedback is appreciated, and many thanks to those who've already given me lots of new ideas to make my life interesting!

Perhaps you could have a terribly English game over message that, instead of stating Game Over whenever you die states: YOU HAVE MET YOUR DEMISE!

I look forward to the updates.

mineet

I also think pixel perfik suggestion is a good 'un, though I'm going to try out the suggestion of harrio first (changing the dice colour to match the colour of the player). I did try implementing novelty style dice, such as a heart which you stab to roll and a skull but they were just too confusing (sometimes a conventional idea is better than trying to be flash).

ramones

The rolling a six thing doesn't always cause a problem, but its really noticeable now I'm trying to put an A.I. Player in there. Sometimes it can take ages for that rascal to get a hero out.

The Board Horde reset button was just put in there for testing purposes (I've pressed it myself by accident a few times, as it is quite large). It's already been replaced in the upcoming update by a much smaller back button, which in turn will eventually be replaced by an 'are you sure you want to quit' style warning menu.

Cheers for trying the game out, and here's hoping I manage to iron out a few bugs in time for tomorrow's update (then again, I have wine, and Life Aquatics on the telly. The luxury of sleep seems unlikely!)