Balancing the game

Donnerfaust starts to remind a real game. There is now 10 levels, 6 different fighter planes, 5 different bomber planes. Upgrade system is now implemented to the game and player can upgrade the AA-gun between the levels. Now I have been able to play the game and test how the game play feels. I quickly noticed that since I first tested the game on PC with mouse control, the game was much easier than in phone/tablet with touch controls. The problem with the touch controls is that your finger blocks your view each time you shoot something. I now have to start balancing the game for touch screen devices, since currently the game spawns enemies too fast.

Another problem I noticed was that the random generator for spawning enemies does not work very well. Sometimes it can spawn the screen full of bomber planes which can take multiple shots before they get destroyed. This can cause a situation where it is nearly impossible for the player to destroy the planes in time. I have to implement a system that makes sure that there is not too many bombers in screen at once.

I also wan't to give a player change to catch a little bit of breath every once in a while. Now the game starts spawning enemies faster and faster towards the end and it leads to a situation where player is only shooting bottom of the screen, since there is so many enemies coming all the time that player does not have time to react anymore.

Donnerfaust is NOT dead...

I have been quite busy during the winter and this little hobby of mine got less attention. But however the game project is not dead. I actually started to work with the game again few weeks ago. I have now updated the graphics and all the things mentioned on previous post are implemented to the game.

New plane sprites

There are now more different planes and the planes does not fly only straight line down. They follow randomly generated path, that makes them turn every once in awhile. However this scripts need still a little improvement. The planes also appear in various formations.

I made one major change and made the player's AA-gun to be automatic. So instead a single shots the player can fire three rounds from magazine in automatic mode. This gives me the possibility to increase the game speed and make the game more intense. I also abandoned the idea of different AA-guns, but instead I plan to make the player's AA-gun upgradable. By meaning that player can update the fire rate, damage, magazine size, bullet velocity, etc. I just did not like the single shot AA-gun, since it kinda made the game speed little slow and that made the game feel little boring. The enemy airplanes can also take more shots than before. This gives more pressure to player.

My next steps are to add more levels and enemies. I have already drawn quite a few sprites for enemies. I also try to figure out how to add the upgrade system to the game and then implement the first version of it to the next game iteration.

Bellow is the video where you can see the current state of the game. You can actually see in the beginning of the video that I originally intended to call this game Donnerwand.

Current state of the game

Planning the next prototype

Now I am planning the next prototype. So the feature I am want to implement to the next prototype are scoring system, enemy formations, level progression, enemies ability to attack on player anti-air gun and bonus targets that will travel sideways on the screen. Bonus targets are harmless to player, but if player shoots them he gets bonus score as a reward.

I will also start to plan a system that progressively increases the difficulty of the game as the time goes by. Meaning that at  the begining there will be less enemies, but towards the end of the level there starts to be a swarm of enemies incoming. Since I only have few different enemy types the next prototype will contain only one level and the game ends after the level is complete.

So to summarize what is required for the next prototype. One level with atleast two different enemy types. Bonus targets that provide score boost if destroyed. Enemies may appear in different formations and there needs to be atleast five different formations to choose form. Progressive difficulty so that the game gets harder towards the end of the level. Scoring system to that provides score based on players performance. Finally agressive enemies, so that player needs to look after his anti-air gun.

Also the screen orientation and aspect ration must be mobile device friendly. Currently it's 1:1.

I will not release the next prototype until all features above are implemented into the game. So next time you see video about Donnerfaust, it will contain all mentioned features.

Donnerfaust idea list

As I told earlier I keep track of my ideas for the game, so I thought that I could as well release he current list here, just to show what I am talking about. Here are the current ideas that I have listed for Donnerfaust. Please notice that the list is not in prioritized order.

• Scoring system. System to give player scores based on performance. Combo bonus, multikill bonus, etc.
• Highscore list. List to keep track on highscores.
• Level progression. Game will be easier at first, but gets harder as time goes by. Different enemies, etc.
• Different unlockable AA-guns. Guns with different damage level, loading time, blast radius, and bullet speed etc.
• Special weapons. Special weapons that has limited ammunition.
• Friendly AA-machinguns. In tight situations, player could call for AA-machinegun vehicles to give additional fire support.
• Friendly radar. Player could set a radar unit that will inform player about incoming air crafts.
• Bonus targets. If player destroys these targets they could give player a bonus score or bonus abilities.
• Enemy formations. Enemy aircrafts would attack if different formations. Line, column, wedge, diamond, etc.
• Enemies can attack. Enemy can shoot player’s AA-gun, if it gets close enough. Adds more pressure to the game.
• Google play integration. Enables the online highscores and achievements.

Most of the ideas listed above will be included to the game, but some may get discarded if for some reason I don't find the suitable for the game.

Prototype 2 and a name for the game

I made second prototype which now is following the theme that I established earlier. Now there is an anti-air gun that is controlled by player. It shoots anti-air rounds towards the enemy planes that are incoming from top of the screen. There is not much changes to the game mechanics except that now there is visible bullet flying that explodes after it reaches the point where player clicked. I made two different enemy aircrafts; Fighter and Bomber. Fighter is faster, but can be destroyed by single round. It also does less damage to factories than bomber. Bomber is slower, but it takes two rounds to get destroyed.

The graphics are not yet final, but they are giving the direction. I will keep the graphics as simple as possible. Same goes to sounds. I don’t poses any kind of audio skills, so I have to look up how I will implement the sounds to my game.

Game windows aspect ratio is completely wrong. So I will fix that to the next prototype. If I will play this game with mobile devices, I want to use portrait orientation for display. This way I have more time to react on incoming enemies.

First sprites for enemy aircraft

There is one more thing. I made up a name for the game; Donnerfaust. So now on I will refer this game by calling it Donnerfaust.

Prototyping

Earlier I wrote how I keep a list of my ideas. When I have enough ideas that fit my game I start to plan my next prototype of the game. I will select few ideas that I am going to include to my prototype. After the ideas are selected I start to design them into features. Once features are implemented and tested, I have a new prototype ready for game testing. In this phase I try to see how well the ideas actually fit into game. I seek for flaws and think how I can improve the game more, if some idea does not work, I will remove it from the game. Each prototype must bring new features to the game and they must be playable. By playable I mean that the prototype does not contain any unfinished features that may cause bugs.

After the prototype is tested and accepted, I start the whole process from the beginning and select group of new ideas. I repeat this process until I ran out of ideas or when I am happy with the game. Ok, so I know that in real world it’s not possible to repeat this process as many times as I would like. There will be a time limit when the game must be ready. There is also a thing called budget which limits the amount of money that can fed to the game. So I better start to scope my game to certain limits, otherwise I will end up writing about this same game next summer.

Luckily this game is quite simple so it should not be too difficult to scope it on feature wise. I would like to set a time limit as well, but since I am doing this on hobby wise, I have very limited amount of time that I can spent in a week for this project and that time is very random.

Keeping track of an ideas

When I come up with an idea most important thing for me is to write it down with a brief description as soon as possible. I have noticed that it is very important to write down, draw or even use recorder to store the idea. Otherwise the idea may be long forgotten, because there will be many other ideas coming as well and human mind is poor on keeping track of a list of ideas. Actually any list, if I go to grocery without a list I can be quite sure that I will not remember all the things that I need to buy.

I have noticed that for me the best way to list ideas is to write them to a small notebook. This way you can quickly write the idea down and make even a simple drawing if necessary. However I don’t carry always a notebook with me so smart phone will do as well. The most important thing is to keep all the idea in same place. I have excel sheet on my computer that I collect all the ideas. It won’t help me if the ideas are scattered in different notebooks and smartphone. Especially if the notebook somehow ends up as a drawing paper for my children. Although they could end up on creating some interesting ideas as well.

I will keep a collection of ideas which then works as a sort of to-do list. Every once in a while I go through the list and try to prioritize the list and think what ideas I should use in my current game. Even if some ideas won’t fit in the current game I am developing I won’t discard them. They may become useful later on with other games.

Of course people have different ways to keep track of things, but for me listing them works for the best. I don’t need even to write the idea with detail, because somehow when I see the listed idea I usually immediately remember what it was about. Strange thing the human mind is…