I'm VERY impressed and in awe. I got all the way to the chest for that artifact, then got eat alive by bugs.

You don't play very nice, mister! LOL

This is a very solid incarnation of a 16-bit game. The animations are smooth and the character art is distinct and shows a great deal of expressions and personality. I appreciate the small gestures the characters make at key points in dialogue and interaction. Very creative.

This is mostly likely due to C2's issues with seams between tiles, but it was very evident during movement. But, that's also forgiveable (especially since it's not fair to expect everyone's graphic cards to be running as it did on a dedicated hardware like the SNES).

I was at work and had the sound down, so I couldn't comment on that. I suspect it's equally noteworthy, though.

The introductions and back story feels rich. I liked the way you sought to lay a foundation for the story rather than just say, "Here, go on an adventure." You set the stage in a well-executed manner.

I did find the controls and menu systems a bit difficult to navigate through at first...it might just be because I'm not as accustomed to keyboard controls like this. I'm usually a console man. Still, after some time, I grew better acquainted and all seemed well.

The only other minor complain I have is that the ally seemed to rush up to attack before I ever got a chance to line up my shot. And I wasn't sure if I had to be "within range" or line up the attack with the bugs more precisely. I couldn't tell what the hit detection was like.

All in all, though, this is a SOLID start and I'm impressed. I even loved the puzzle element of following the directions. I would have liked if the clue wasn't so quickly given by the character's dialogue and allowed the player to decipher it (I'm a major fan of the Professor Layton series on the Nintendo (3)DS and can't resist a good puzzle). So I'd like to recommend changing the dialogue there to allow the player to work out the path through the maze of tunnels.

AMAZING game! Please keep up updated!

Already looks to be an epic and beautiful story and sidescroller!

And I REALLY enjoy a good story!

NAME: GRADIENT RUN

GENRE: Shoot-'em-up

PLAYERS: 1

PLATFORM: PC, web

TAG LINE: #GotQuarter

RELEASE DATE: April 26, 2015 (phase 1), July 31, 2015 (phase 2)

What if you had to fend off aliens in Pacman's maze while dodging asteroids? The real question is: Got Quarter?

I'm bringing 6 coin-op games from the Golden Age of arcades (plus one modern console as inspiration) to C2 and a PC near you.

SUMMARY: Blast through a series of battlefield mazes as an endless gamut of enemies rush at you. Dodge (or destroy) giant asteroids careening all over the maze to slam into you. Your mission is to destroy each enemy base before waves of alien forces overtake you for good. Decimate the opposition - even capture them to use as friendly-fire - with upgradeable weapons! With an original, dynamic soundtrack and 3D-stylized graphics, Gradient Run will be a game you won't want to step away from.

QUICK LIST of FEATURES

• Old school Golden Age coin-op gaming meets new-school mash-up frantic action
• Battle it out against waves of alien forces in Pacman-inspired mazes
• Upgrade your weapons in three categories: rapid fire, burst, and directional shots
• Asteroids
• Capture enemy units and use them against each other as your own wingmen
• Charge up your shots and destroy large groups of invaders
• Lots of asteroids
• Dynamic soundtrack that's never quite the same each time you play
• Game conditions affect the music
• 3D pre-rendered graphics
• HUGE asteroids!

View full image

Version 3 of the player's ship

Gradient Run is as an ambitious entry to the Construct 2 Coin-Op Game Jam (#construct2coinop). Drawing inspiration from seven games (yes, seven...first it was three...then five...now seven). The goal is to survive escalating waves of various 3D pre-rendered (think: Donkey Kong Country Trilogy) enemies in maze-like environments and destroy four crystals in each round. And in each round, the enemies become more numerous, faster, and generally more gregarious (translation: annoying) than before.

Like any good shoot-'em-up, you'll only start with your little pea-shooter of a weapon and have a few options to upgrade. These include rapid-fire, charge shot, and even some wingmen, and a couple others. Oh, and the asteroids come out to play, too. Yeah, I'm tossing that in there, as well.

Quicklist of features and the games I'm adapting each one from...

• ASTEROIDS - Controls and the asteroids floating across the maze.
• GALAGA - Capture enemy units to use a forced wingmen against the opposition.
• PACMAN - Level design.
• XEVIOUS - Borrowing the air-to-surface attack and adapting as a surface-to-air attack against the asteroids beyond the maze walls.
• R-TYPE - Charged shots to blast away large groups of enemies
• GRADIUS - Similar to the delayed power-up system of Gradius, players will collect pellets dropped by enemies to build up to the next level of weaponry depending on the colored pellet collected.
• GEOMETRY WARS - All the fast-paced hyperventilating action!

The game will feature original music by my talented brother, Ryan Miller, and original 3D art by Emily Eason (herself very talented while also being very new to the world of 3D modeling and, even more so, video game art).

BELOW in the comments are further updates.

Welcome to my world, friends. Welcome!

— - Uh...thanks.

They aren't mine. I downloaded them from an art asset store. They fit best for what I had in mind.

Aphrodite - OH! Thanks!

Off the top of my head...

1. Particles: the ability to set the facing angle (not the angle of motion) of each particle.

2. Particles: collision detection of each particle (understood that this may prove to be problematic on the overhead...so this is just a fun idea).

3. Conditional events that check for on refocus and on unfocus. There is already a Pause on unfocus, so already there is a system check for it.

Commenting so I can read later...

Colludium - Thank you for the explanation. I will surely need to study up, but I think I follow at least a little. I may call on you later for further assist.

Also, what is an "arccosine". Even in my brief time in Trig/Calc in high school, I do not recall ever learning about this.

Colludium - Alrighty...looking over your revision, in the first Function, "speed and velocity calc", you take the square root of the the sum of the X and Y velocity values each squared.

Why the square root? What is the meaning of the maths here? LOL

Colludium - Just tested your example... WHOOOOAAA!!!

That might work!

sqiddster - "In terms of 'why use physics at all', it's definitely a valid question, but if you've seen how bad the car movement felt when running into anything (i.e. it would come to a dead stop when just skimming a wall), then you'd be able to see why I suggested the move to physics."

THAT was more of my doing because, given the drift settings in the Car behavior, certain collisions resulted in odd sideways movement that ought not to have happened. It was the lesser of two programming evils. I was trying to figure out a work-around and that was what I came up with at the time. ALSO why I decided to push back the near- and on-track obstacles as we had talked about.

Colludium - Thank you. I shall check it out.

One of the things Daniel has been trying to help me with is to keep to the KISS principle so I can actually FINISH a game AND make it FUN. So, I've been struggling to strip back features while still maintaining a quality game at its core. I've spent the last two years slooooooooowly learning how to do that AND how to program with C2, itself. Anyway, long story short, I appreciate the feedback and the suggestions. I need it so I can try things out and figure out what works for my ultimate goals.

spongehammer - I realized (or Daniel pointed out to me) that part of the problem was that the wheels are attached at a single joint and not being made to stay straight. They were simply reacting to the in-game physics...even if I was applying force dead-center.