0.5.0 - Polish (Week 12)

Don't Let Them Land » Devlog
11 days ago by BLejeune
Share this post:

Don’t Let Them Land 0.5.0

It’s The Small Things

I didn’t have a lot of time to work on the game this week due to illness (boo) and a new job (yay) so with the time I had I started by focusing on the little things that I wanted to fix, improve or change.

  • Added more ambient sounds for the UFOs
  • Adjusted trail renderer so it looks a little better
  • Changed spawning code so it is weighted differently at different points in the game
  • Colour-coded the particle explosions
  • Made the menu background music persist between scenes besides the main game (this will be relevant in a moment)

These are just some of the little things that I did over the course of the week when I could fit in time. The biggest of these that wouldn’t be visible to players is more adjustment of the backend code for how enemies behave. With plans to add more UFO types this week, I wanted to ensure that I wasn’t reusing code constantly. I created an abstract base UFO class which all the UFO types now inherit from. It didn’t take too long to make this change and after it, I found adding new UFO types extremely simple due to the big enemy code work I did a few weeks back. The work I did then paid off at least a little bit which I’m happy about even if it was still ultimately unnecessary.

It's In The Name

So, last the past few weeks the aliens had an advantage. They didn’t even have to land to win. If our little pink guys just shot the planet they would win. This simply will not stand anymore. Now if they do shoot the planet nothing happens but if the shield is down they will try to land on the land if the player can’t take them down in time. See in Figure 1 my poor attempt at defending the planet (plus a slight spoiler).

They land now

Figure 1 - Don't Let Them Land

Stereotyping Aliens

What do we all think of when it comes to UFOs. Abductions, right? Or is that just me? Regardless the aliens have figured out why they keep losing. It’s that pesky robot. They’ve decided to try to get rid of you from behind that shield using good old-fashioned tractor beams. See in Figure 2 this devasting attempt at circumventing our defences. These aliens are the most deadly or effective but if they aren’t dealt with they will cause difficulties defending the planet from other threats.

Flying Saucer

Figure 2 - Traditions

You’ll have noticed something else too. It’s kind of worked. Our little robot defender can now explode, and I know… I know… I worry about him too but don’t worry. His mind is kept safe. Mostly. Besides we can make him a new body after a few seconds. Don’t ask why we can only have one robot defender at a time. It’s a budget thing. I’ve asked.

I wasn’t actually planning on adding player death in the end, but it made sense with the addition of the abduction UFO, and it turned out to be much easier to implement than I expected it to be. It’s not too detrimental to the defence if you die early but it’s devasting if you die later on which I don’t think is the balance I’m looking for long term, but it works for right now.

Remember Gravity?

Even with the “great” addition of the abductors to their fleet, the aliens were not satisfied. “More,” they cried (probably…) So more came. In this wave, the robot noticed a new UFO that had not come before and this one looked angry. As angry as a colourful piece of flying metal could look to a robot. This one stayed further back than the others and instead of firing deadly lasers, it fired deadly rockets!!!

Rocket Man

Figure 3 - Rocket Man

As you can see in Figure 3 its firing accuracy isn’t the greatest, but the planet's gravity drags the rocket towards the shield and ultimately opens a way for the aliens to land. The rocket is slow and can be shot down (actually so can lasers but you’ll find that much more difficult). As the game stands now, I find them a good variation to the laser UFOs but less effective. With some changes to balance this will likely change with the rockets doing more damage than the lasers if they get through your defence.

With the changes to the way enemies are made particularly UFOs adding the Rocket UFO was trivially easy. It’s functional not too different from the laser one but fires rockets instead. It needs slightly more information for the gravity effect on the rockets but otherwise functionally works the same. The Abduction UFOs needed a bit of adjustment for their orbital code since I didn’t want them to try and land, and I wanted them to follow the player in their orbits.

What Was Your Best Time?

It’s time to measure who is the best robot defender out there. While we could have done so before outside the game now the game itself will keep a record of the best time and the name of the person who completed it. The highest score can be found under High Scores in the main menu. Below in Figure 4 is my best time that I have recorded in this version but I know some people can do better.

Best Score

Figure 4 - My high score. Can you beat it?

Feedback

Unfortunately, due to my new job (yay), I missed the testing session this week (aww) and didn’t manage to get a lot of feedback this week outside of my own personal ideas. However, I did get a testing form out and got a few responses so thank you to those that participated in that for me.

A different gamemode maybe? Like a slightly harder version or easier version etc
Short, simple fun but might need better balance so I actually get to see the different UFOs.

This is good feedback and aligns with my own thoughts about things. The game runs well but it plays out very much the same each time and lacks the strategy I was looking for in the original concept. It does the run around the planet and gun down threats well but without turrets or upgrades, you are at the whim of the spawning algorithm.

Future

With less than a week left to submission, I simply lack the time to create too many additional features and test them in time. I think if I had an extra week or two I could implement the original image I had in mind in a close to complete format with feedback implemented but because of complications in other aspects of my life and simply a lack of understanding on how long it takes to make a game, I wasn’t quite able to match the scope I had in mind. So, I need to reel it in and focus on what I have. A survival-based run and gun defence game. The next few days will be focused on refining and balancing what is there. All feature additions have been scraped (although I might be able to add in a player-based rocket weapon fairly quickly, so we’ll see how things go).

I’m down to three known bugs/issues at the time of writing, two of which are extremely rare. Everything else will just be balancing the numbers that already exist in the game until it feels right with the goal to be having aliens on the screen and actually being able to see what they are doing to erode your defences. That is the game I’m building now.

References

Assets used:

Don't Let Them Land

Make sure nothing lands on YOUR planet

Add Game To Collection

More posts

See all posts

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.