I think that the enemy rate of fire is pretty good, but a tad too fast. I just gotta say, though, the first encounter was pretty intense, and in a good way, so you might want to keep it the same! As far as how frequently you encounter them, I'd say it's too infrequent right now, just because there's nothing to do in the meantime, and a bit too frequent once there is stuff to do. I'm not sure what things you can do in between encounters, though, so I can't say for sure.

I won't be able to finish what I wanted to by the 9th either, PiscesMike. We can just keep on programming after the competition ends, haha!

A and D and Left and Right to move back and forth, and W and S and Up and Down to select weapon modes and powers. Space to fire or use the selected power. It takes 25% Electricity to use the Heal power and 75% to use the Explode power. Just because I'm such a nice guy, I gave you all 25% Electricity at the start! The 'dashboard' is pretty easy to understand - green dots are health, blue are shield. If you get killed and the screen goes blank, press R to restart.

Any kind of feedback at all is appreciated! I'd really like to know what you think of the new screen size, and also the dashboard and powers, although everything is helpful. You're also welcome the let me know what you want me to do more - adding a new enemy, adding music, or adding menus.

Thanks!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5moEgyck5X5bEVtOHVTS3F4NkU/edit?usp=sharing

Things for the most part work. Once you enter free travel mode, you will travel a bit and then run into a random encounter, which brings up the fight screen. You can either kill all the baddies, or fall victim to their relentless onslaught. Either way, when the battle is over you will be returned to the free travel screen. You can wander around running into and fighting enemies as much as you like. ESC takes you out. For now, that's about it. Of course, the plan is to add leveling and resource mining to allow you different weapons and shields and such but I don't know how far I'm going to make it before this competition ends. However, this is the basic framework of how I envisioned the game, so I'm open to input and suggestions. I know there is one little bug if you fight, then travel, and fight again. Namely, one of the enemy ships may already be destroyed. I actually know whats causing that little bug, and I'll get to fixing it soon. For now, one less baddie to kill. Let me know your thoughts on the random encounters as far as if they are too many, too little, or just about right. Sometimes it seems like the first one takes a bit to pop. Thoughts on the fight screen are welcome too - if the enemies fire too much, too little, how hard it is. etc. You'll notice that as your shield takes hits, it changes colors. Green is strong, yellow is damaged, red is severely damaged, and of course, when they're depleted, they disappear. Better watch out at that point, because even though your ship has health of its own, it can only take a few direct hits! If you do happen to get killed, you'll just appear back in the free travel mode. I need to set it up to at least tell you when you die or when you win the level, but like I said, it's just a game framework for now. I'll hopefully get some of these nice details worked in over the next week!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5moEgyck5X5ZThpUnk2b3lKem8/edit?usp=sharing

So, what you're saying is that maybe I should make the screen both wider and taller … Hmm. Not a bad idea. I'll give it a try!

Thanks again!

The controls are pretty much common sense, but I probably should mention that you use the up and down arrow keys or W and S to change the type of weapon you have selected. There's not a limit on how much electricity you can have yet, so any thoughts on what's the limit would be appreciated. Other than that, there's nothing really in particular I'd like feedback on, but if you have something that you don't like, think needs to be fixed, or liked and wanted to let me know, please do! It's very helpful stuff, feedback.

Thanks!

Im still a long way from being finished.. Im planning Graphical User Interface code among other stuff for easier play..

Next thing on my list:
Graphics to let player know section your supposed to play in next.
Start menu.. Rules Screen

Due to the feedback from Swat and thinking so myself, I reduced the size of the ship a couple days ago, so that's already fixed. As for the collision rectangle 'problem,' I've been meaning to get around to fixing that, especially now that you can actually block the enemies' shots by shooting them, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I can try to prioritize it, though, because it should only take a few minutes.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Hmm … I'm not really surprised that you think the player ship is too wide. I'll see about trimming it down.

As for note #2, I did that on purpose. It didn't really seem fair that you could take potshots on your enemies before they've even finished 'spawning,' so you can't kill them during that time. However, they cannot fire during this time, so it's evened out. What I'm talking about is right in the middle of fighting with the last few enemies, and I'm shooting them and it's not registering.

Anyways, thanks so much for the feedback, Swat! It's appreciated!

Does the player ship seem to wide = yes.. I feel like the ship should be smaller and move slower.. (read below)
On top of that, if the player moved slower.. these changes may also be good, NPC's move toward you slower..

Your badguy return of fire rate is very good if you include the above. (its to much for the current size of the ship)

Sound effects are good…

Other Notes:
1. You can make your particle engine shoot particles in a circle using raidians and such.. its not that hard and I strongly suggest it.
2. BUG! you wanted to know why they are invincible for ten seconds.. Well I know that when they start coming onto the screen they are all invincible and that doesn't seem right as the bullets obviously hit the target..
3. thats pretty much it..
4. your doing really good at programming
6. you didnt realize I just skipped 5.
7. you just checked
8. you are smiling..
10. I have no idea where im going with this..
11. I just skipped 9..
12. You think this is getting annoying.

Anyways, there's obviously not a lot there right now, but it was very cool! I like the zoom in to each sector, and the random generation of the galaxies. One thing that I'll mention, though, is that the text could be pretty hard to read in the intro. Sometimes it was really thin, or even partially cut off. Otherwise, I have nothing to complain about.

Good job!

Now, there's not a lot to it at the moment, but I would appreciate some feedback. Here's some things I'm looking for:
- Does the player ship seem too wide (i.e. too hard to dodge enemy shots)?
- Do the enemies shoot too often, or not enough?
- Do the sound effects work well with each other and the artwork?

And, of course, any bugs that you may encounter. I've found one where ships will become invincible for ten seconds or so, but it's so random, I hardly have any idea where to start tracking it down.

Finally, here's the link: https://bitbucket.org/TheMazinTar/earthling-defenders/downloads

Thanks!

I call it version 0.0.0.0.1. It doesn't do a whole lot, but you can select a column that you want to attack and then tell it the path to follow. Eventually, you should direct the pathway off the edge of the screen, which will end the path and send the attack wave in. They eventually return to their starting point.

I definitely feel behind schedule right now, and my code is a horrid ugly mess. I'll want to spend some time cleaning it up soon.

But I think it is meaningful for me to start putting out periodic releases, even if there's not much to show in it yet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5moEgyck5X5c01kWGFyYWZPYjA/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts, comments?

P.S. 'Playable' is defined as something that renders. Maybe even with a nice cornflower blue. It's definitely not a contest, but more a snapshot of our collective history like a time capsule that we can look back on later.