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Project: Arrow Clash!
Project Started: 11th June, 2010 Last Update: 27th October, 2010
Project Owner: HitmanN Project Members:
Project Type: Traditional Cave Flier (online) Project Progress:

New version available! Let's play on Sunday!
Posted 23rd Oct 10, by HitmanN  
New version can be downloaded here:
http://www.create-games.com/download.asp?id=8206

Let's play on Sunday!
Like the title says, I request that you try the new version during Sunday, 24th October. If you don't see anyone online, leave the Game Checker Application running on auto-alert. It'll inform you when someone (like me!) is online. I'll visit the server several times during the day, whenever I get a chance.

Hope to finally see more than two people there at the same time. The previous 3 player experiences lacked... polish. xP

(I'll also be around randomly for the next several hours, up to about 4:00am GMT+2)

New in v0.234 (Changelog)

-Players shouldn't be able to fire while exploding anymore.

-A few minor fixes for things that miraculously worked ok despite being essentially wrong. Now they should be completely as intended. Mainly stuff related to communicated data between clients and server.

-New Weapons:
*Psychic Wave. Player's ship releases a short distance wave, which violently pushes other ships within the wave's reach away from the player. Doesn't cause any direct damage, but can be used to push opponents against walls for potentially big collision damage. Limited ammo.
*Energy Bouncer. A small ball of energy is fired forward, which bounces off walls. The ball doesn't do much damage, but can be fired at a decent rate. The projectiles last for 8 bounces, or when they hit an opponent.
*Freezer Crystals. A small, gravity-affected harmless looking particle is fired. Upon reaching an obstacle or an opponent, the projectile expands into a stack of ice crystals. This weapon can be used to cage enemies in the ice or to create obstacles. The ice crystals can be destroyed with some damage, and they also slowly melt away on their own. In a very laggy game, the resulting ice crystal stacks can warp to a different location, depending on what is considered the true point of impact. Also, upon joining a game the new player currently doesn't see any of the crystal stacks created before joining the game.

(consider the new weapons work-in-progress, and please do report any issues you have with them, thank you.)

-Game Checker Application should now work correctly again. It was checking different channel than what the main game used. ^^;

-Some weapon changes also, but I forget what. Sorry. Nothing major.

ALSO NOTE: This version is not compatible with previous ones. The application joins a different game channel than older ones.

[EDIT]
First 5-player session experience!

Big thanks to Sumo, Eternal Man, SortaCore and ETHAN for joining the game soon after posting the update. It was most satisfying to experience so many players in my first ever lacewing game. There are still gameplay issues to be solved for sure, and on my end the game seemed to get tad heavy and framerate went down a bit. I should probably use the 'disable water particles' option I created for the game myself.

Anyways, considering the size of the map, five players might be one too many. I should definitely look into additional game rooms or maps. Well, considering the still low number of players, I think an additional map, acting as a separate game room should do the trick for the time being.

As for the new weapons, freezer crystals didn't seem to work 100%. Shotgun didn't seem to damage the crystals as much as they should've, and couple of times people got immobilized between the crystals and landing pads. Psychic wave is hard to use, but nasty if timed just right. Energy Bouncers did what they needed to do, though they're almost more useful as a directly fired projectile.

Anyhow, I've attached a few screenshots of the session. Don't mind my high kill count there. I dueled with Sumo past 10 kills before the others jumped in, after which it was, as SortaCore mentioned, "chaos".

If anyone has any feedback on the update or the game in general, please please do post 'em. It'll give me juice to keep improving the game further.
Preview

Preview

Preview

Preview


Posted by Eternal Man [EE] 23rd October, 2010

T'was an awesome session of butt-booting! ^^
I really liked the new weapons, didn't experience any bugs with them myself.
Though I do experience players getting a bit "shaky" at times, and it seems like many shots pass straight through enemies even though they should have hit, but that could simply be an animation bug or something.

A suggestion that would be awesome would be showing opponents HP in some way. Would be nice!

Great game, will continue to kick your asses as per usual.
 
Posted by HitmanN 24th October, 2010

Lag causes the shakiness. Everything is smooth as long as there's no packet loss or high ping. As for ammo passing through opponents, that's also caused by latency. Ammo collisions are handled by the player who gets hit, so the shots may at first appear to go through, then later be reported as hits instead. A good ping does wonders in this game. On a related note, one might wonder why not have the client who fired a shot decide whether it hits or not, but the reason is simple. It sucks more to get constantly hit because your connection places you in a bad spot on the opponents' side, than having to simply estimate the advance you need fire in order to hit an opponent. I don't want to die because my opponent's client thinks I'm hugging a corner, when I'm actually completely elsewhere. If this game ever gets big though, it'd be ideal to have the server decide ammo hits, as a middle ground solution.

Ships showing HP would be useful, but it also takes away the element of strategy. Several times I've started to retreat, in order to make it seem like I'm low on HP, then take a sharp turn and go for a shotgun or psychic wave slam when the opponent begins to chase me. Likewise, you need to estimate the amount of damage an opponent has taken, in order to start your own retreat at the right time. Not knowing the HP makes the whole battle just slightly more tactical.

Cave fliers are often games where it's easy to learn the basics, but mastering the ability to survive through multiple battles can be a challenge.

Anyhow, thanks for the feedback. I'll be around randomly during Sunday. Hopefully we'll see some others online as well.
Comment edited by HitmanN on 10/24/2010
 


 



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