Cannot wait to play!!!

Hihi, yes the graphics are recognizable...

UfoPilot 1 was made way back in 1994 in Pascal, and consisted of just flying around in caves to reach a landing platform. I don't have the source or even a working executable, I remember there being no timer code at all...

UfoPilot 2 introduced the whole rescue theme, as well as the mouse based control scheme, and was completed in 2002. It has been mutating into a lot of different projects since then. The Hub version is basically the original 2002 version with some more effects and the addition of Time Attack mode, something that a friend wanted to try.

Multiplayer versions do exist, but they don't seem to be very much fun, probably due to the fact that you can fly as fast as you want, and the levels are generally too small and cramped for all out dogfighting.

AstroCreeps (full name UfoPilot : Astro-Creeps) is really a sequel to UfoPilot 2, a sort of "in-between" game.

I like some aspects of the gameplay in UP2, and have been thinking about making a sequel. A number of things in UP2 ended up coming together in a quite arbitrary manner, such as the way the upgrades work, as well as the flow between planets, end game boss, and I'm not really fully happy with those things.

I like what has happened with AstroCreeps, in that it is a more directly accessible game, the weapons are more self explanatory, etc. I wonder what might happen if some of those aspects are cross-bred with the whole UfoPilot "rescue dudes" gameplay.

I don't like the whole mission flow in UfoPilot 2, as it is slightly too slow, and I don't like the way that once the level is "clear" of enemies, there is a bit of going back and forth just to pick up the remaining dudes, depending on how your upgrades are setup.

If anyone has any input on how the "franchise" could be evolved I'd love to hear your ideas.

I just cleared the first planet, although I'll be going back to get perfect on each level (I accidentally blew up some pilots on some missions). So far I don't really have a lot to complain about, it's a good solid game. I can complain like no one else though so here's some criticism.

1. It feels like it takes a while before you get into the real missions, the first few (5 or so) feel more like tutorials. It would maybe be better to get to the juicy action right away, with the option of doing a tutorial if you want to. The tutorial might be better as one long mission, with some narrative text to guide the player through all the basics of the game.

2. I wouldn't mind if you increased the target/cursor range slightly for each upgrade.

3. On the levels with lava in the terrain, the lava looks like things you want to go rescue on the minimap, which is kind of confusing. This might be intentional though, but I find it inappropriate.

4. Since the player's ship gets fully repaired every time you return a pilot to the mothership, it's quite easy to avoid getting killed. Maybe it should just repair the ship a little for each pilot rescued?

5. The powerups seem to stay between missions, even if you go back and redo old missions. So it's possible to hoard powerups for a particular mission if one wants to. Not sure if I like or dislike this though. Just thaught I'd mention it.

6. The user interface window to the left vanishes when you get close to any terrain, which seems a bit strange. I think it should just vanish (become transparent) when you are close to the window itself, in other words when you are hugging the left wall.

Again, I'm picky. I really like the game though! So don't dispair!

I definitely think you should keep the gravityforce inspired controls, for me this is one of the basic premises for the UfoPilot series.

Why not make a more puzzle/navigation inspired single player game. What I mean with this is to focus more on the navigation of the ship through tricky places and not so much on fighting enemies.

Maybe add fuel so that you need to save on the throttle (maybe connected to score)...

This could also open up for just having a bunch of levels you can just play and then have online high scores.

just some ideas...

/hObbE

Alright, your feedback about the controls is helpful, because there are lots of different ways to go with this, and each one has its own can of worms

I have also been thinking along the lines of puzzles, i.e. a more dynamic and changeable world.

Your idea about health / shield being tied to the firing of bullets is interesting, but I'm assuming that there is some kind of automatic recharge (?) Won't the player be able to kill himself by simply firing?

4) Not sure here, I still think that the third planet is insanely hard (levels not made by me and you need all the help you can get.

The levels were all sort of painted by hand. The materials still tile of course, and the edges in the first and third worlds are algorithmically added (the grass for example), but yes it was a big pain. I was very inspired by Worms2 at the time.

The upside is of course the flexibility of being able to embed bitmap images into the level and have them become background or solid geometry automatically (the collision is all pixel based). The downsides are things like the time it takes to make a level, as well as complicated compression schemes for the file format, and a big chunk of memory at runtime to handle what is basically a big bitmap. Bigger levels are pretty much out of the question.

As mentioned I'm looking into techniques which will make the levels much easier to build. It will probably be primitive based in some way, but I have to do experiments before deciding on a definitive method. It all sort of depends on the direction of any possible follow up game.

Sorry to hear about your crash problems, I'll take a look at it. Indeed there is a tasty ending that I put a lot of time into, intended to be a reward for the players you actually made it to the end.

Looking forward to thoughts about UP3

Just tried it out and now it's working! Boyah for end sequence goodness!

I wasn't thinking about an automatic recharge for the shield actually. I was pondering how to do this and I'm leaning towards either powerups that increase it (can be dropped by enemies perhaps?), places where you can recharge it.

The most natural place to recharge would be the mothership, but it would be possible to have recharging stations on some of the bigger levels. These can either have a fixed amount of power they can recharge before being depleted, or have an infinite amount, or build up power over time, either solution will work.

Powerups from enemies also seems like a reasonable idea, giving you a reason to kill them all, yet still have to be careful to not waste more power than you can gain.

And yes the player can kill himself by firing, that's partially the point. It takes away the blast first and think second type of play, forcing the player to use other tactics.

4) The cities were incredibly hard yes.

I was actually thinking of worms when I saw the grass. I read an article on making this type of gfx candy and also generating maps. It didn't do anything advanced for map generation though, just randomed out ellipses.

A tile based solution seems like a good way to go, I imagine it will take a lot of fiddling to get it right, but in the end it will be worth it.

I don't know how much Gravity Force has inspired johno on this one, as far as I know he was not an Amiga kind of guy back in the days (I myself went to the PC in '97).

Actually Gravity Force and UFO Pilot series are quite different, even though they feature gravity I guess we should credit the mass of earth for that one then

Anyway Gravity Force is a great game, though Gravity Force 2 made by a friend of mine from university (Jan Kronquist) is much better

Finally! I couldn't for the life of me remember where the heck I saw those little guys before. OIDS ruled!
---------------
Solid Core Entertainment
Developer of Roadclub

I have updated the credits to reflect my sources of inspiration!

/johno
"you can't stop the change"

hehe, video game archaeology is fun

Oops, double post, didn't think the first one went through.

And yes, the NES has a big place in my heart That's what started my whole interest in games and computers after all.