Here We Go: Nordenfelt 0.3 Arrived!
Posted by hermitCNov 30
It’s time again to show what’s happening. Quite some new stuff found its way into Nordenfelt:
- new second level,
- new enemy types,
- new background music and sounds,
- new shield which recovers over time,
- new particle effects,
- health bar replaced with lives,
- increased player ship speed and
- many more improvements under the hood
Simply download the game, unzip it (e.g. with 7-zip) and start Nordenfelt.exe. As usual there is nothing to install and the game can be deleted any time without hassle.
Drop me a line what you think. I’m looking forward to your feedback.
Cheers,
Thomas
PS: This blog was abandoned for the last few weeks. Don’t worry, continue button already pressed. π
I dismissed blogging because I vowed myself to not write anything before version 0.3 is out. That was in the last week of October. Time flies when you’re having fun! See you next post, very soon.
8 comments
Comment by Paul on November 30, 2010 at 1:37 am
Yay!, I was starting to get worried π
Download link doesn’t seem to work though.
(Version 404 is available, but I’ve played that already)
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Comment by Paul on November 30, 2010 at 1:58 am
Hah, me l33t h4xx0r skillz led me to the download. The second boss is a bitch, but once I figured out a dodge-pattern it was doable. And of course the level 2 graphics rock π
Comment by hermitC on November 30, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Thanks for the “alert”. I hate it when the most important part of the process fails: Providing a simple download link.
Link fixed!
Cool when there are people who start searching for the download even when it’s link is broken. π
Comment by Christopher 'Jack' Nilssen on November 30, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Excellent work!
I like that you’ve got decent audio in your alpha, it really helps with engagement and I can always overlook placeholder art when there’s some bumping soundtrack.
Particles are looking good, too.
I know that this is an alpha, so I have a few suggestions:
Increase the power of the basic shot slightly, I felt like the first few waves didn’t die as easily as they should. If you look to other classic SHMUPs for inspiration, you’ll find that the first waves are typically one-shot monkeys that warm the player up for the harder ones to come.
I’m guessing there’ll be more weapon types, and while I was relieved that my power-ups were still enabled when I died, it made collecting more pointless.
And, of course, even a rudimentary scoring system would be nice.
All in all, great 0.3 release and I’m looking forward to what’s to come!
–
J
Comment by hermitC on November 30, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Thanks for your suggestions!
Scoring system (online) and more weapons are on the way. The fast upgrading was intended to make it easier for players to experience every part of the game. This “testing feature” will not survive. Maybe there should be something like a Konami code instead?
Both levels were really fast hacks due to focusing on testing new engine features like sound, particles or extended animation system (e.g. metamorphosis of second boss).
Now that most necessary engine features are done I can go over to add fun. Up to now it’s more like an engine test. Nevertheless I’ve caught myself playing the second level over and over again for a perfect run. I think that’s a good sign π
Comment by tehlexx on December 3, 2010 at 4:06 pm
one thing I noticed: the second boss, first phase is rather easy. It seems like the boss is turning its turret until it is perfectly aligned with the position of my spaceship – and then he starts firing. so wildly strafing around the boss dramatically decreases the amount of bullets fired (because he’s got you in his sights for a smaller amount of time).
Should you want to increase the difficulty, I’d have the boss shooting all the time, which would make it considerable harder to defeat that phase π
Comment by hermitC on December 3, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Both bosses will be adapted in further versions. Their current behaviours are still drafts. When there is more focus on gameplay many things will change, so will boss AI.
I’m glad you made it to the second boss. I’ll take your idea into consideration.