AlarCity: Development Thread

[Tsak]

Awesome! thank you!

[Tsak]

Fresh news on the shop and the upgrade options (note that the recent 'UIs presentation post' #143 is updated to reflect the new changes made):

Over the course of the last weeks/month, following the completion and implementation of many new sub-systems, we had the opportunity to do some extensive testing and we've made a few last (but important) changes.

First off, the mana system has come and gone. What we noticed was that having something that posed limits to the amount of shooting you can do went counter to the overall blazing fast mentality of the game. Creating a handicap to the player, forcing him into a constant retreat while waiting for his mana to regenerate and lastly taking his attention from the playfield and into the HUD are a few of the side effects of the system. So, this is now -officially- out.

In it's place and regarding ways you can upgrade Zoid when leveling up, we've got 2 new cool features added:

-Armor: what this does is to mitigate the damage you recieve with each individual hit. In the absence of lives and together with the Health max upgrade, Armor is designed to keep you going against those powerful enemies that could kill or drain a substantial amount of your health with one hit, while working accumulative against less dangerous blows.

-Criticals: this is an actual feature that was already into the game for some time now but the player was not able to tweak or upgrade. As you continue shooting, some of your shots can turn into critical hits, doing extra damage in one blow. This was represented visually by a special explosion effect and screen shake. Now you can upgrade your criticals and make them happen more often and be more powerful than before!

[Gzegzolka]

I want play it

[DamienD]

Sounds cool Tsak

[vulture]

Can't wait for the game Tsak!

[LeCaravage]

Very nice.

[Tsak]

Storm God power: unleash a torrent of fire from the skies!

Well, ladies & gentlemen, we've got quite a treat for you today! Here's the very first, REAL capture from demo V1.0, showcasing the new devastating God power "Storm", playing at glorious 50fps! (and in case you're still wondering, yes! what you see above is exactly how fast the actual game runs in a vanilla machine!)

It's worth mentioning here that for the creation of the Storm effect Erik utilised for the first time Amiga's handy feature: sprites multiplexing, allowing us to double the amount of sprites rendered on screen. Nice huh?

[alpine9000]

Looks great.

Screen bounce is spot on.

[Gzegzolka]

I want more! More sprite multiplexing! It looks gloriously awesome

[Amigajay]

Looks awesome guys! Proper old school school Golden Axe style special!

[Tsak]

I'm just wondering.. where are all those people now claiming our hombrew scene ain't as impressive or that new Amiga games ain't above PD quality?

[Tsak]

In other news, Erik will be attending the annual New Zeland's GDC this week where Alarcity will have it's own booth. The game in it's latest version will be playable on a cd32.

[Gzegzolka]

I wish You good luck at that event I also hope that cd32 is in a good shape and Your game will be popular there

[Tsak]

Thanx! We might post some pics from the event here later next week

[earok]

Some photos of the past couple of days at the NZ Game Developer's Conference. The top photo is from today's live exhibition, the following are from the equipment test on the previous day.

[Predseda]

Cool!!

[NeoHippie2016]

[Gzegzolka]

So what was crowd reaction for Your game? Was it popular or people avoid it? Did You try to count how many people play it?

[earok]

A couple more somewhat-blurry photos that had been taken during the event.




@Gzegzolka

I was happy with how the game was received. It did get a good amount of plays despite being the only retro game at the show (and having to share the room with some high-quality Steam releases).

The feedback was actually really good, I was happy with it. People liked the art (and how fluid it was), the music (and how well it fitted the world), the fun factor and the overall polish. The negative bits of feedback were minor and mostly related to things that was already on our to-do list to fix.

While some of the comments were along the lines of "You made a game for Amiga!? That's awesome!", people expressed that the game held up on it's own merits.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Tsak

I'm just wondering.. where are all those people now claiming our hombrew scene ain't as impressive or that new Amiga games ain't above PD quality?

I'm here. As impressive as Alarcity is, it is but one game, and it hasn't been released.