Little comments about this :
On the top left is the health, and each of those LEDs (those are LEDs, yeah) represents one HP point. I may also add a numeric counter next to it instead, but I'm not entirely sure yet.
It feels weird having that many LEDs. I know many of us have played the Gameboy Zelda(s), where you had many hearts worth of HP, but you began with 3 and you could gain the HP lost really easily (so it didn't matter whether you had 8 or 10 HP after fighting a mob because you would go back to your max breaking the jars in the room). Here, it feels counter-intuitive. The player won't know how many HP he has left without spending time counting, and I still have to find a game where counting your HPs is fun.
On the top right are the mutations screens, which indicate what mutations the player has evolved. (currently I've set the limit to three)
This may be unnecessary. Indeed, you need to display the mutations to the player, but they seem long-term entities, so the player may not have to check them and they may not be hard to remember (as they're only maximum 3 ).
On the bottom right are the three weapon slots (red = primary; blue = melee; green = explosive)
I find it weird. I know this is more a feeling than anything else, as there aren't any real convention for weapon order recently. I will always have Doom in my head, where you have short-range / long-range / explosive.
It may also be relative to the danger rating of the enemies : "easy" can be handled in melee without a risk, "normal" will be taken out with SMG/shotung to be effective, "hard" will require explosive because the player will use his most powerful weapons.
All of these sound reasonable. As I said, this was only the first version and I'm willing to change it.
I'll change the HP to be more easy to look at without having to count the LEDs (I may still leave them in but put a little counter next to them)...I will experiment and see how that goes. It does in fact go against my rule of readibility (which is also why I may or may not make the mutations and weapon upgrades directly visible on their sprites, since they could very easily make it hard to tell what you're up against, with a few exceptions such as, say, glowing eyes for the Highlander mutation - small, but still immediately recognizable changes.).
Also the weapon order is weird, I guess, and I've been thinking about another combination ie. primary-explosive-melee (in a bit more TF(2)-style).
This is also why I scrapped the Sniper Rifle in favor of the bow - to make it differ more from the shotgun, since it had a very similar sprite and that way it'll be held differently.
Of course I may have failed that slightly with the melee weapons, but oh well, I believe they're different enough.
Also here are some ideas for weapon mods:
Extended Magazines (SMGs) - +n rounds, +n% reload time
Homing Sensor (Hand Missile) - allows the missile to home onto the nearest enemy, has a short arming time
Bang-for-Buck (Shotgun) - causes the shotgun to knock the user and the enemies hit back a bit (can be used for mobility purposes in a rocket-jump-esque fashion)
Extra Blast Charge (all Explosives) - increases the explosion size by n%.
Rubber Shell (Bow/SMGs/Shotgun?) - allows the projectiles to bounce (ricochet) off terrain
Empowered Shield (Riot Shield) - reflects enemy projectiles, sending them back at the enemies. (user can still be hit by them)
The general idea is that the upgrades, well, are more like sidegrades now, really, even if not directly. (Homing Sensor can sometimes cause the missile to hit an obstacle instead, Extra Blast Charge can result in the player hitting themselves with the increased blast radius, same for Rubber Shell)
They have their advantages, yes, but the existance of (not necessarily direct, except for maybe the Extended Mags) downsides makes players who don't have the modifications bought yet less disadvantaged against players who do.
Of course it might as well be a terrible idea and I should just make upgrades actual upgrades, but we shall see...
Sometime. *shrug*
(Also, I've been considering writing up a short-ish story for this, but I have PhD in procrastinating, so I'm not sure if it'll work out very well...
Author
Topic: Gun Francisco (conworld) - deviantArt, attention split etc. (Read 11666 times)