Orbytor; Indie Puzzle Casual

[Extrude]

highscores

Current Version -
1 - BlockLeg, with 1300 points
2 - Extrude, with 314 points

Pre-Combo -
1 - Extrude, with 83 points


logo

info

Orbytor is best described as round pong. It's a game where you protect an inner sphere from incoming pongs that imply destruction. It's a pretty simple concept, and I want it to be published on Steam eventually, but the reality is it's incredibly simple. It needs more content to be at the point where Steam would accept it.
The categories I'm looking at are Indie, and Casual.

The reason I posted it here, was because I legitimately need alpha/beta testing. Unlike the average blockhead's idea of it, where you join a server and drive some neat cars, I need you guys to find problems, with graphics or gameplay, and more importantly, give me ideas for other gameplay enhancers.


controls

space - progress menus
escape - quit

a - rotate counter-clockwise
d - rotate clockwise


screenshots

download

Update 2
Orbytor_Alpha.zip - 2.83MB


bugs

1 - Near 0 degree, SEVERE ISSUE
This bug is caused when you try and stop a pong near 0 degrees. It's cause is completely known, and fixable.

2 - Pong artifacting after stopping it, MINOR ISSUE
Pong creates artifacts after stopping/missing it. This was not recreatable since many updates, although still exists I'd assume.

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[SpreadsPlague]

WORDS .. ON LOGO .. NOT CENTERED ..

OCD .. KICKING IN .. MUST RESIST .. BREAKING MONITOR ..

also what language is it programmed in?

nvm read the info file. convenient.




right away a complaint: the resolution is too tall for my screen. my desktop is 1360 x 768. I suggest resizing the game based on the persons resolution.

[RedGajin]

It's good, but it needs more. I think if you made it more a music based game, where you could choose songs and the little pongs would come down in tune with the song or something similar. Then you would also have a freeplay mode or something of the like. And maybe the color of the whole thing would change occasionally so it doesn't get so boring.

But I think you main problem is that this game has been remade in a lot of ways before so you're going to need something very different to actually get good results.

Overall I like it though.

[SpreadsPlague]

all of the following are individual points, not one paragraph awkwardly spread out.




it's very repetitive. I suggest somewhat randomizing the speed of the pong thingies that are coming at you. it seems like you can always hit them way too easily.

maybe 2 or 3 coming at you at once? increase rotation speed slightly to accomodate? I've only played for maybe 5 minutes so far so I'm not sure if multiple projectiles are introduced.

I suggest the background should do something. not sure what. change colors maybe.

perhaps add a combo system to give more points for hitting numerous pongs in a row? 1 point per pong is great and everything but maybe change it to base of 100 per pong so it feels like I'm accomplishing something, then giving me multipliers for every 5th or 10th pong I hit in a row after that. just an idea.

make the lives more visible. it took me a while to realize where my lives were. maybe labeling them with 'lives' would do the trick.

needs a mute button. I like the music but I'm sure some people won't.

needs arrow key controls. A and D seem too spaced apart for whatever reason. must be a psychological thing. maybe make left arrow and down arrow rotate one direction, up arrow and right arrow the other?

for such a small game it takes a while to load (10 seconds?) .. why is this? maybe add a loading bar with some flavor text?

if you play a game and lose, you're taken to something that looks identical to the title screen however the title of the game isn't actually there. is this intentional?

[Extrude]

I like all of that. Especially the combo system.
I can add support for arrow keys as well.
The loading screen is 5.9 seconds long, and it's simply to let the particlesystem cycle. I could lower it to about 1 second pretty easily.

Thanks for the suggestions, those will certianly help make the game better. Also, the resolution is adjustable very easily in the code.

[Extrude]

Combo system added. The maximum combo is x10, in which you get 10 points for every pong instead of just one. You get a combo point/multiplier by collecting pongs without missing them.

 I'm also thinking about the idea of only getting a multiplier every other pong collected, but I think that would be too tedious considering if you miss a pong, you lose all of your combos.

[pecon98]

Running windows Vista with 800MB of ram and a integrated GPU that has no name.

[masterockets]

Will you be adding power ups/downs?

[Extrude]

Running windows Vista with 800MB of ram and a integrated GPU that has no name.

I estimated the game would at least run on 512MB of ram and Windows XP, I guess I overestimated. I'll look in to that some more, Vista is pretty recent.

Will you be adding power ups/downs?

Most likely.

[Firecycle]

I don't see how this is a puzzle.

[Extrude]

It isn't really.
 


Also it should work on Vista. Just make sure that you have the latest updates.

[Extrude]

OOPS


Updated the file. Added the basic combo system, all bugs are still there thought. The next priority will be to fix them, and then add some more of the suggested features.

[RedGajin]

If you don't want to do the whole pong music beats idea you could add more choices for songs, that would be nice.

also needs more colors

[Extrude]

I think music-synced games are disgusting.
 

[RedGajin]

I think music-synced games are disgusting.
 

add more music then you lesbo