Feedback request: Starchon iteration 22!

2006.7.09 - Starchon i22 Released!
Iteration 22 of Starchon is available for download

Summary:

Starchon is now a cross between a shooter and a real-time stategy. You can't directly decide where to place your units or which sectors to attack. However, you have a lot of indirect influence over the outcome of the game. The game is real-time, so if you take to long in a sector, you will probably be overrun by the Bio Race in the adjacent sectors. Please give the game a try, and offer your input, because the game play is still being shaped!

Note: [The SPACEBAR toggles between the sector and the galaxy map].

Known Issues:

- Some memory issues still exist.
- The weapons upgrade screen is not fully functional.
- High Score functionality is offline at this time.
- The first two maps are functional. However, there is no victory condition at this time.

Screenshots:










Download:

www.FreelanceGames.com/bin/Starchon_i22_Setup.exe

Please select input device from the Option Menu (default Mouse).

Mouse Controls:

-Fire "selected" Energy Weapons - Left Mouse Button
-Fire "selected" Missile - Middle Mouse Button or Left Control Key.
-Thrust - Right Mouse Button or "W" key
-Direction - Mouse to Payers Avatar Vector
-Select Ice Blaster - "1" key
-Select Particle Blaster - "2" key
-Select Laser Blaster - "3" key (auto locks and only fires at Starship when in range; not the Sentinel)
-Select Particle Rail Gun - "4" key
-Select Sonic Blaster - "5" key
-Select Trident Missile - "6" key
-Select Carrier Killer Missile "7"
-Select Cluster Missile - "8" key
-Select Heat-Seeker Missile - "9" key
-Select Tactical Nuke - "0" key
-Toggle between Sector and Galaxy Map - Spacebar
-Enter Slipstream - Click a valid destination from the Galaxy Map

Keyboard Controls:

-Fire - Right Control Key
-Rotate Counter Clockwise - A or Left Arrow Key
-Rotate Clockwise - D or Right Arrow Key
-Thrust - W or Up Arrow Key

I would love some feedback on how to make the game better!:)

Thanks Everyone

GooD!!!

this is a good style type remember the old game :(

bye

Great Job Sean. Very polished presentation and graphics so far. I like the retro styling. The game play is excellent.
I was getting some crazy slow down when battling more than 2 big alien ships though. Seemed odd as some earlier sectors had many more elements and particles moving about. Wonder if the size of the big ships are hitting my laptop's vidcard too hard.
Noticed that you had a transparent cloud layer on those levels. Would be cool to incorporate other objects on this layer. An example could be some alien web construction when approaching the final stages or you could have a junkyard of debris and destroyed ships.

Regards
Gnu
Compaq Presario AMD64 3500+, 1Gig DDR 400, ATI R200 chipset,
XP Home

Just a bit of editing:
In the last screenshot, where it says "but dangerous to the player if their inside the blast radius," the text needs to be changed to be grammatically correct. "Their" means belonging to lots of people; "they're" (the contraction for "they are") is the proper spelling. Some modern grammarians will accept the number difference ("player" is singular, "they" is plural) to be politically correct, but it really should be "dangerous to the player if he is inside" or, at least (if you want to be PC), "dangerous to the player if he or she is inside"...

You'd be surprised how much difference a little polish makes in a game (or, conversely, how much minor mistakes catch the eye and detract from a game). Didn't know whether you already knew and were going to polish later (though I've always found that to be harder... I forget to come back to everything), or had missed it.

Gnu,

What kind of frame rate are you getting? Anyone have anything that you think the games needs added?

Thanks

Sean
Disregard what I said earlier. It seems I did not notice the weapons limiter... Silly me. Works fine.

Gnu