HIVE BOMBER (retro arcade game) Announcement/Feedback?

[Ramses]

For the past year, I've been working on my little homage to early 80s arcade games. Development is nearing it's last leg, however there is still room for me to add things and/or make changes. I wanted to make a post here to see what your thoughts are and if any of you have any suggestions regarding features, etc. I'll also be looking for 2nd phase beta testers soon so if anyone's interested, let me know. I'll be selecting a handful.

In this game, you play as the Hive Bomber, the destroyer of hives. The story is bizarre and almost non-existant like many early arcade games. It's not finalized yet but the basic gist is that Mother Nature summoned the Hive Bomber as a method of population control against the ever expanding horde of Cyber Bees. I'm thinking about keeping it as weird and vague as possible.

During the early design phase, I decided to treat it as if it was an HD remake of an old arcade game. I'd describe the graphic style as faux-vector/raster hybrid, if that makes any sense.

The game itself is basically a mix of Breakout, Gyruss, Centipede/Millipede, and Geometry Wars. You control the Hive Bomber which flies around the hive on a circular path (like Gyruss). With shooting controls similar to Geometry Wars, you fire bouncing cannonball-like projectiles at the hive hexes. Your goal for each level is to find 4 randomly placed honeycombs which are hidden in the hexes.

On odd levels, once all 4 honeycombs are found, the hive self destructs (did I mention this game is pretty abstract?). On even levels, you need to also kill the queen which is hidden somewhere in the middle of the hive. If you release the queen before all of the honeycombs are found, she will have an impenetrable bubble shield that won't be deactivated until all honeycombs are retrieved, so it's best to avoid releasing the queen too early if you can.

The Hive Bomber has many forms. Forms are essentially powerups that are hidden in the hives - 1 form powerup per hive. Each form has specific cannon attributes (light repeating, heavy, Y-shot, etc.) as well as a special ability (bubble shield, flat shield, wind push, gravity well, etc). You can "carry" up to 2 forms at a time - switching between the two by the press of a button. All forms have the ability to teleport as long as you have at least one teleport unit. Other powerups include speed increase, cannonball bounce increase, and satellites.

I plan on releasing it on PC first and maybe port it to mobile platforms later.

 

That's the basic rundown. I'm trying to keep this from being a huge wall of text at the moment. I'll elaborate more if there are any questions. Any thoughts? Does this look/sound like something anyone here would be interested in?



THE MAIN ENEMIES


THE BEES

 

Worker Bee: Repairs the hive as it gets damaged.

 

Avenger Bee: Equipped with a light plasma cannon. Pursues the Hive Bomber and fires in slow 3-shot bursts.

 

Defender Bee: Defends the hive and protects other bees and allies. This bee is equipped with a heavy plasma cannon and a rechargable bubble shield.

 

Queen Bee: There are a few different variants which have different attacks. All queens have a bubble shield that can only be deactivated after finding all honeycombs.


BEE ALLIES

 

Mosquito: Weak enemy that flies across the screen in an erratic manner.

 

Stag Beetle: Heavily armored enemy. Can only be killed by hitting one of his weak points. Fires a cluster plasma bomb.

 

Jumping Spider: Hops around on the hive. Fires webshots that can entangle the Hive Bomber. Also equipped with a light plasma cannon.


OTHER

 

Bee Killer: Kills bees. The more they kill, the more powerful they become. After killing a set amount of bees, they will then set their sights on the Hive Bomber.

[+cvga]

Looks fun. I really like the graphics. I would definitely give it a try.

[Ramses]

Thanks. It looks even better in motion at 60fps. I'm hoping to get a video preview finished soon as well as a playable demo.

[edweird13]

Geometry Wars Galaxies is one of the only reasons I had a Wii. Would love to see another game in that style. I am a sucker for vector graphics.

[TPA5]

Looks like a great game, I love projects like this!

 

Is it going to be a Windows-only title, or do you plan on porting it over to Linux or OSX? What kind of specs will we be needing? Plus, will you enable joystick controls in the game? This is the sort of game that would be a pile of fun for me to build a little dedicated bartop arcade machine for, especially with the art style. Would look slick in a cab-form!

 

If you need any help beta-testing, I'd be willing to give it a jig. I like to think I'm pretty good at giving constructive feedback. If not, that's fine too! I'd just wait for the full release

 

(PS, release a video!)

[Ramses]

Your excitement is encouraging

 

It will be Windows only. The specs shouldn't be too crazy. It runs on my 5 year old Intel Core2 Duo with 3 GB Ram fine and there are options to lower some of the graphical effects to make it run faster if need be. It also runs on my tiny HTPC as well - forget the specs off hand. I won't be able to port it to Linux or OSX due to the development kit I'm using. I would like to try and port it to IOS and Android though. I just need to figure out the best way to implement touch controls for this game.

 

I was actually thinking about making a little arcade cabinet for this as well On the PC, it plays best with a dual analog stick controller (although it will also support keyboard and mouse). It would need two 360 degree analog joysticks for an arcade cab and I'm not sure if anyone makes those. Another control option is dual spinners which could be pretty cool.

 

Cool, I'll keep you in mind when I release the next beta.

 

Unfortunately, it might be a little while before I can release a proper video demo as my machine is too slow to both play the game and record it at a decent frame rate.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Ramses

[TPA5]

Your excitement is encouraging

 

It will be Windows only. The specs shouldn't be too crazy. It runs on my 5 year old Intel Core2 Duo with 3 GB Ram fine and there are options to lower some of the graphical effects to make it run faster if need be. It also runs on my tiny HTPC as well - forget the specs off hand. I won't be able to port it to Linux or OSX due to the development kit I'm using. I would like to try and port it to IOS and Android though. I just need to figure out the best way to implement touch controls for this game.

 

I was actually thinking about making a little arcade cabinet for this as well On the PC, it plays best with a dual analog stick controller (although it will also support keyboard and mouse). It would need two 360 degree analog joysticks for an arcade cab and I'm not sure if anyone makes those. Another control option is dual spinners which could be pretty cool.

 

Cool, I'll keep you in mind when I release the next beta.

 

Unfortunately, it might be a little while before I can release a proper video demo as my machine is too slow to both play the game and record it at a decent frame rate.

 

Sounds great!

 

I have a quad-core gaming rig, so if you wanted me to record gameplay for you then send you the raw video over my OneDrive account I could do that.

 

Also, if the game needs analog joysticks then the UltraStik 360 from Ultimarc would be the way to go: http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html

They aren't cheap, but they're a true 360-dgree analog stick that connects straight to the PC via USB cable. Spinners would also be great, but they can be even more expensive than the UltraStik. Although, I have seen people make spinners out of old ball mice. I think I have a few old-school mice buried in a box somewhere, so I may see about giving that a shot.

[Bill Loguidice]

It looks really great! Out of curiosity, what did you develop it in?

[Ramses]

 

Sounds great!

 

I have a quad-core gaming rig, so if you wanted me to record gameplay for you then send you the raw video over my OneDrive account I could do that.

 

Also, if the game needs analog joysticks then the UltraStik 360 from Ultimarc would be the way to go: http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html

They aren't cheap, but they're a true 360-dgree analog stick that connects straight to the PC via USB cable. Spinners would also be great, but they can be even more expensive than the UltraStik. Although, I have seen people make spinners out of old ball mice. I think I have a few old-school mice buried in a box somewhere, so I may see about giving that a shot.

 

Thanks for the offer. I'd prefer to record it myself if I can, though I'll let you know if I run out of local options.

 

Good to know about the Ultrastik 360. I wonder what the best option would be considering there are a couple of extra buttons, two of which (teleport and special ability) would need to be easy to push quickly while you're moving the sticks. Are there any spinners that you can press down on that will act as a button push? I've heard of push / pull spinners, but I've never seen them in action, and I'm not sure how well they would work for this. I wonder if it could be fabricated with the ball mouse idea i.e. Pressing down the "X roller" spinner activates the left mouse button and pressing down the "Y roller" spinner activates the right mouse button.

 

It looks really great! Out of curiosity, what did you develop it in?

 

Thanks! I'm using Fusion 2.5

Edited November 13, 2014 by Ramses

[TPA5]

Good to know about the Ultrastik 360. I wonder what the best option would be considering there are a couple of extra buttons, two of which (teleport and special ability) would need to be easy to push quickly while you're moving the sticks. Are there any spinners that you can press down on that will act as a button push? I've heard of push / pull spinners, but I've never seen them in action, and I'm not sure how well they would work for this. I wonder if it could be fabricated with the ball mouse idea i.e. Pressing down the "X roller" spinner activates the left mouse button and pressing down the "Y roller" spinner activates the right mouse button.

 

Hmm, that's an excellent question! This trackball appears to have the ability to activate left, middle, or right click when pressed down. This spinner can be pushed or pulled, however it's a fair chunk of change. The other option would be to include 2 classic arcade buttons on the control panel, and when you want to teleport or activate the special ability, just quickly slip off the Joystick and hit the button.

[Ramses]

We'll, it's been a long time since I made any posts regarding this project. Other things came up and I had to take a break from the game for almost a year. That said, I've been working diligently these past few months and I'm pleased to say that the trailer is done. It will be released when the Greenlight campaign begins - very soon.

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by Ramses

[Ramses]

Trailer is done and it's up on Steam Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=742007760

 

 

 

 

So how's it look? Does anyone have any suggestions or feature requests? I'll be releasing a playable demo soon.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Ramses

[Jess Ragan]

That actually looks pretty friggin' sweet! I just wish your ship wasn't so close to the, uh, hive of activity in the center of the screen.

[Ramses]

That actually looks pretty friggin' sweet! I just wish your ship wasn't so close to the, uh, hive of activity in the center of the screen.

 

Well the teleport ability helps with that a bit. It's also a good strategy to carve out a section of the hive at the start so you have a larger shooting range to take out enemies.