http://www.playfirst.com/r/PFNWSL0121/game/icecreamcrazeThis is new and shows a different angle than you were planning, but you were probably on the right track with your idea. In fact I think there have been other ice cream games too.
Hows beetles going btw? I know you've added widescreen stuff but what about the actual game? I love a good shooter!
What happened was the original artist quit when the art was only about 25% complete. I've found a new artist, but I am waiting till Space Beetles is complete before I invest a lot of money in a new project.
As for Space Beetles, download that widescreen test. That's not just a widescreen test, that's the actual game, or what's been done with it up to this point anyway.
If you download that you'll see the aliens now have hitpoints so some have to be shot more than once, and they flash when shot if that is the case. And it displays the number of lives remaining on the status bar. And of course there is the code to handle different aspect ratios.
The asteroids have a different flight pattern from the aliens as well, but I haven't decided if I will just have them fly like that, or if I will have rounds where you have to dodge lots of them flying diagonally on the screen. I also have not decided if they should be indestructible or not.
OK thanks. I'll try out the demo soon. Good luck with it btw.
I tried that ice cream game.
Boring!
It's a bit like Diner Dash, but more like Cake Mania.
The music isn't exciting at all.
The person walks around too slowly, and the game doesn't display numbers or any indication when you click things to let you know that you can queue events, and so queuing several things in a row becomes confusing, and you still have to wait around for the woman to walk from place to place.
I toyed with the idea of being able to purchase upgrades rather than just having them occur automatically, but it doesn't seem fun to have 20 different upgrades available at once, and be able to see what the changes will look like before you buy the item. I think that would work better if you had a choice of three items to pick from, like in the Paper Mario games when you get enough XP and go up a level, and didn't show the player what the item would look like ahead of time, but instead just showed a black outline to keep the mystery up.
Speaking of which, in my space beetles game I plan to have a "map" of the solar system showing your progress from level to level, like StarFox did, but the planets will be blacked out until you get to them to keep the mystery there.
By the same logic, I will not have all the enemies in the first level. Only one or two will be introduced at a time as the game progresses. And each one will have different behaviors. Because that's fun. Showing the player everyhting at once is NOT fun! :-)
Anyway, if/when I make Ice Cream Showdown, I'm not too concerned about competition from this game. Not only do I think my game will be better, but games only stick around the top 10 for less than three months, so this game will be long forgotten by the time mine comes out.
The chaining thing sounds bad. What we did with the shop in fariway was start with 2 items and gradually unlock the other 10 as you completed levels. That way they are spaced out as you progress AND you get to "buy" them, people love that feeling, it seems like they are making a choice instead of the upgrade being automatic. You map idea sounds good - basically hide the extra info so people don't know what's coming. May work well if selling the game and they complete quite a lot in the demo time, they won't know how much is left - mind you it could work against the game in such a case if the player thought, "hmm maybe I've completed most of it" because they can't see the map...
Games don't stick around the top 10 for very long at all, many just a week or so on BFG, only the best stay in there for longer, of course MANY never even make it in...