United3dArtists Archive

Hey guys,

As some of you know, I've really been getting into Unity lately. My first game entitled "Butterfly Fury" is nearing completion, and I'm looking for as much feedback as I can get. It's a pretty basic game, but I'm curious if the controls are easy enough and the game play is balanced out decently.

I do still have some more sound FX, background music, and a few other various tidbits to add and polish up yet. I have the newest beta build posted in the "in development" area on Wooglie. They're a site dedicated to Unity made content, so that's where the game will be when it's done.

Anyway, if any of you feel inclined to give it a test run and let me know what you think, it would be very much appreciated. I'm particularly curious to know things like; Are the controls easy to pick up?, Is it easy enough to figure out how to use the special weapons?, How many waves did you get through?, etc.

There aren't many models in this game, but the models that are there were made with tS.

http://www.wooglie.com/playgame.php?gameID=183"

Thanks

I think I'll need to be the first...

Sorry for my poor comment, I have just basic knowledge on programming, so I'll just feedback and give ideas, that I don't know if it's easy or not to implement.

Firstly I want to say that the game looks pretty cool, simple and it's a good start!

Now I would say that it is too repetitive and you probably already know that... but that's not mean that this game is out of place, how to avoid it:

More action: several kinds of droids in the same scene. Some kind of physics to add some movement, because those explosions should shake earth or demolish those droids and not make them disappear as magic... they should have an death animation... something simple, like even they going down to the ground with a Bipz sound.

More goal: Destroy alien droids as a butterfly should sound strange and non sense, but if you make the user/player be able to constantly upgrade things with a ''between waves pause'', it would make them play not to kill the enemies as a crazy butterfly Rambo, but they would have some kind of strategy.

More Consistence: As I said butterflies firing on droids isn't a normal things, but in games we can do whatever we want... so to make things less confuse you can try to add an initial text telling the history (more than 4 lines would make players rapidly skip it) or even a video. I know there is a introduction on the menu section, but I almost didn't saw that, and most people would just click play or check the controls (or even not, because it is down the page).

Now you just need to evaluate if you really want to take this serious and do all changes I said to make it win some good ratings or you can take it aside after some few upgrades and then go to another game that would be THE GAME, the game you will put your efforts to make it better for really long time, and even plan to launch series (Butterfly 2, 3...).

Hope it helps. If you want, we can talk by skype.

Thanks for the honest feedback leanregis!

I definitely plan on making the droids explode when they die, that should add a bit of gratification. I'm also considering adding a laser or pulse from the butterfly when the player fires.

I agree that it's kind of repetitive, I was hoping that the special weapon upgrades would help mix it up a little. Give the player something to work towards collecting, and provide different ways to destroy the droids. Did you use the special weapons much? Perhaps I need to throw in another element or two with regards to the enemies to keep it more interesting. I'm also planning on adding a leader board for a bit of player to player competition.

Thanks again for the feedback. I haven't been getting much constructive criticism, so it's nice to hear some.

Do a nice explosion (different from the bullet ones), and with a cool sound, like a mix of robot being turned of and nuclear blast.

Those special weapon upgrades are something towards to what I said in More Goal. I use it in several cases but after I discover you lose energy when you use it I started to use it less. I also started without reading the tips to see how intuitive the game is, and I can say to you that in a 1-10 scale you had a 10 grade on this!

Also another thing you could add, and I don't know if it's possible... is something that most games from 5 years ago used. I don't know how it's called but I'll call it Level of Damage or LOD (isn't level of detail). When your health goes to 70% some scars are displayed on the butterfly... when you reach 40% some holes appear on the wings and so on... so you use a different object or texture for each level of damage, and it transmit a better feeling of action, like that those weapons are really causing damage and not just taking my health away.

The upgrade page I spoke would add a ''XP'' number that you win each time you kill an enemy, so in the end of the wave you can trade those XP to: Less use of Energy, Faster Fly, More Health, More Power in one Bullet and so on... a lot of games use this, so you might consider it, I would like to hear your comment on it.

Another thing is that I was able just to reach the middle of the second wave, but I think that if I try hard and start getting better I can reach 4 in some luck game... but people don't like to say:0 _Hey man I got to level 4 and you? _Oh I got to level 5. _God! I barely killed two enemies on 4.
They want to say, level 12 was hard, etc... big numbers normally indicates hard things so level 5 being the hardest don't sounds too right. I propose you to make things more easy in the start and in wave 8 things should look like wave 2 is today.

Again I hope that it helps...

Hey Dele!

I am extremely busy for a few days so I will take a shot at the game and give you feedback as soon as I can.....

What a great idea Dele....

I played the game 5 rounds and my high kill count was 41... wave 2.

My observations are these:

1) The base weapon might allow better scores with a slightly larger damage area.

2) During the rounds I played I found it very difficult to pick up any collectibles. They disappear very quickly and do not have any cues that they have been created at all. It is quite easy to kill a droid, create the crystal and have no idea you have done so.

I suggest both an audio and a visual cue that the reward has been generated, and picked up. Given that this is a shooter I suggest the visual indicator appear in the vicinity of the butterfly ... perhaps a semi transparent glowing indicator on the vector between the butterfly and the collectible....

3) In addition, the zone for picking up the rewards could be wider and higher. The threshold for picking up a crystal appears to be at quite a low level which is very difficult to navigate. When I was getting near the crystal the butterfly usually started to flap its wings for elevation passing the opportunity by. Essentially the frustration level on collecting rewards is high and will dissuade playing the game more than a few times.

4) The instructions in the menu do not explain how to collect rewards. A simple line indicating you earn new weapons etc by flying directly over the crystals would be sufficient.

5) It takes a really long time to fly to the edge of the map.... .

6) I suggest adding a health boost for every wave cleared.

leonregis wrote: Also another thing you could add, and I don't know if it's possible... is something that most games from 5 years ago used. I don't know how it's called but I'll call it Level of Damage or LOD (isn't level of detail). When your health goes to 70% some scars are displayed on the butterfly... when you reach 40% some holes appear on the wings and so on... so you use a different object or texture for each level of damage, and it transmit a better feeling of action, like that those weapons are really causing damage and not just taking my health away.

Good idea, I'll see about adding something like that towards the end. I want to keep the game around 5mb. If I can squeeze enough out, I'll add some better visuals like you suggest here.

leonregis wrote: The upgrade page I spoke would add a ''XP'' number that you win each time you kill an enemy, so in the end of the wave you can trade those XP to: Less use of Energy, Faster Fly, More Health, More Power in one Bullet and so on... a lot of games use this, so you might consider it, I would like to hear your comment on it.

I see what you're saying, yeah there are a lot of online games that have this system. I kind of want to keep the game moving though. I'm not sure I would want to pause between waves. It is a good idea though, and I will consider it.

leonregis wrote: Another thing is that I was able just to reach the middle of the second wave, but I think that if I try hard and start getting better I can reach 4 in some luck game... but people don't like to say:0 _Hey man I got to level 4 and you? _Oh I got to level 5. _God! I barely killed two enemies on 4.
They want to say, level 12 was hard, etc... big numbers normally indicates hard things so level 5 being the hardest don't sounds too right. I propose you to make things more easy in the start and in wave 8 things should look like wave 2 is today.

I actually had it easier at first, but then the game play was lasting 30min or more. I just don't think people are going to play a game like this for that long. I would like to keep the game play around 5 to 10 minutes. I could try starting with fewer droids though, maybe like 10 or so. That way the game play would still be shorter, but players would get through more levels.

Thanks again for the feedeback. Good ideas! Gives me some things to think about. I appreciate it.

v3rd3 wrote: I played the game 5 rounds and my high kill count was 41... wave 2.

That seems to be the about the average. I was hoping people would be getting to level 3 or 4 on average. It really gets more fun when you've collected most of the special weapons, and that doesn't usually occur until around level 3. I'll have to tweak that a bit I guess.

v3rd3 wrote: 1) The base weapon might allow better scores with a slightly larger damage area.

I'll try increasing the range a bit and see how that works.

v3rd3 wrote: 2) During the rounds I played I found it very difficult to pick up any collectibles. They disappear very quickly and do not have any cues that they have been created at all. It is quite easy to kill a droid, create the crystal and have no idea you have done so.

I suggest both an audio and a visual cue that the reward has been generated, and picked up. Given that this is a shooter I suggest the visual indicator appear in the vicinity of the butterfly ... perhaps a semi transparent glowing indicator on the vector between the butterfly and the collectible....

Yeah, that's one thing that I haven't gotten to yet. I do plan on adding some audio cues for the collectibles. I'll consider a visual cue as well. Perhaps I'll have the collectibles last a bit longer too.

v3rd3 wrote: 3) In addition, the zone for picking up the rewards could be wider and higher. The threshold for picking up a crystal appears to be at quite a low level which is very difficult to navigate. When I was getting near the crystal the butterfly usually started to flap its wings for elevation passing the opportunity by. Essentially the frustration level on collecting rewards is high and will dissuade playing the game more than a few times.

4) The instructions in the menu do not explain how to collect rewards. A simple line indicating you earn new weapons etc by flying directly over the crystals would be sufficient.

Ah, I did forget to mention how to pick up the collectibles. You are supposed to shoot them. I suppose this is a rather important detail that I missed.

v3rd3 wrote: 5) It takes a really long time to fly to the edge of the map.... .

Yes, it's a pretty big area. The play area for the droids dropping increases with each wave, so I wasn't sure how much room I would need. I suppose I could have the map area increase respective to the play area.

v3rd3 wrote: 6) I suggest adding a health boost for every wave cleared.

Good idea. I think I'll do that.

Thanks for taking the time to give it a good run through. I appreciate the feedback. Between you and leanregis, I have a good idea of where to focus my efforts now. Thanks!

Ok, now that I can collect collectibles I have played a couple of rounds....

The scatter collectible does not really benefit the player much. The damage area of the explosions is too small for the effect to be beneficial. You can line yourself up for a strafing run on a group of droids and not hit one of them using multiple scatter bursts. The area of dispersion seems fine but the perceived benefit of scatter would be that multiple targets would be struck.

The jump collectible achieves this quite well given the precision of the blast area.

I would suggest that the scatter collectible use a different type of projectile entirely, possibly a group of rolling spheres that explode n seconds after all of them have hit the ground. The damage radius should be reasonably large but I would not increase the damage value.

I really like the magnetic collectible. There are few games that make such good use of a tool to reduce the enemy strength as a player benefit.

Another thought would be to give the player a pronounced visual reward for clearing a level. A small fireworks display or a flash and a change of the butterfly color.

Dele this is a great concept. Congratulations.

Thanks, I'll consider tweaking the scatter weapon, though it is meant to be the lowest level upgrade. Each of the upgrades use a different amount of energy. The order from least energy use to greatest is; Scatter, Jumper, Drill, Magnetc Pulse. I think I might make this a bit more pronounced.

The Scatter and Jumper really aren't that useful by themselves. Not sure if you tried this, but one of my favorite things to do is to charge into a group of droids, hit the Magnetic Pulse to drop their shields, then use the Scatter or Jumper to quickly take them all out. Since the their shields drop to virtually nothing, even a blast near them will destroy them. So the Scatter becomes fairly useful in this case. The Jumper still works better, but the Scatter is still likely take a bunch of them out for less energy.

I was curious if anyone would try using them in tandem like that. I haven't heard anyone else trying that yet though. Perhaps I could add a hint in the menu somewhere.

I'll try that strategy next chance I get to play.

Feedback soon.

Ugh, I had gotten another virus and ended up reformatting my HD again. Twice in one year. I guess my anti-virus software is not doing it's job. It detected the trojan, but did not stop it in time. My computer kept freezing up and crashing. Even though Shockwave.com totally denies it, I'm positive that's where this trojan came from. It was the only site that I had open when the attack occurred. Ah well, what do you do.

Anyway, I had everything backed up really well this time so I got up and running again pretty quick. It wasn't too bad. Wasted the whole week though. I got back to work on the game today and have some of the suggestions from you guys implemented. I should have a new beta up on Wooglie sometime next week.

Bad news... I recommend Kaspersky to you, was the only one that really solved a huge problem here, without formating...

Sorry to hear about the virus Dele... they are a pain.

I look forward to seeing your updates.

leonregis wrote:Bad news... I recommend Kaspersky to you, was the only one that really solved a huge problem here, without formating...

Thanks, I'll have to look into that. I'm getting pretty sick of McAfee. They were alright a few years ago, but they've been getting worse every year.

I have a few programs that can save restore points, but I never seem to get around to using them. I suppose I should.

The only problem with Kapersky is that once you go on you cannot get off.

The program invades every dimension of your machine. Basically, you cannot remove it once you install it.

Antivirus is just one of those things that is really tough to crack.

Right now I use a combination of AVG and Radialpoint provided by my ISP. I am looking for a replacement solution when I have the budget for it.

If you are seriously considering Kapersky research it carefully.

Virus's suck, I stopped using Nortons and McAffee because they were just too big and cumbersome. I tried AVG, to me it seemed to be a tad bit too "into my system", This laptop came with Trend Micros Suite, it seems ok, though I think any of the anti-virus thing is just a trade off between too cumbersome and well protected.

I hope everything works out good for you.

Demo looks like fun, I've been playing off in the corner here

Rich

Thanks guys, I guess I'll have to research the various options a bit. Make sure I'm getting something that I'll like. My McAfee subscription is paid up until August, so at least I have some time to look around.

Well, I finally got another beta release of Butterfly Fury posted on Wooglie.
http://www.wooglie.com/playgame.php?gameID=183"

Some of the things I added/changed:
1. The waves are now in multiples of 10 instead of 25, and the droids are a bit weaker. So the player should move through the levels a bit quicker and easier.
2. The droids now explode with a pretty lens flare. That adds a bit of gratification I think.
3. I added a subtle glow to the magnetic pulse, and it has a sound now.
4. Collectibles have a sound when you pick them up.
5. There is a new "tips" menu page that explains how to pick up collectibles, amongst some other hints.
6. I flattened the ground a bit so the droids aren't so close in some areas.

I also spent a couple of days hunting down a bug. I thought I had squashed it, but it showed up again today. Grrrrr. I think the collision event is triggering more than once per frame every now and then causing an extra droid to pop up inside another one every so often. I think the web build is limited to 30fps though and I don't think this bug shows up in the actual game, only when I play it back inside Unity. I'll have to look into it a bit more though and make sure.

Anyway, let me know what you think.