Me very proud to get such a good review (again) from jay :)

I have created non-text help inside the game, but some things are more difficult to explain (if you even understand anything from help).

If you get hit, you lose some health and weapon power according to the color of enemy which hit you weakest to stronger(red>> green>> blue>> purple).

You also get extra bonus points for picking up all bonuses in a row. More you get without missing any of those, more points you gather up.

I had really annoying bug of items appearing in the top left corner and getting stuck there. You could not kill them there and had to restart. I do hope it has been fixed, but please let me know if you see such bug.

Thanks :)

Pong meets asteroid. Fun. :D

That's cool...very asteroid inspired but none of that floating aimlessly through space. It get's pretty hard if I get hit even once after level 15 or so. It gets pretty hairy and you don't see too many powerups at that point. Anyway...plays smooth.

This is a great game, another nice release from tonypa. GOT ME addicted and took me off the godtower game :)

Nice one!
I lost a lot of the surprise since I believe it's heavily inspired from the freeware called DUO.
(http://www.binaryzoo.com/games/duo/)

But still, it had to be done in flash!

Yes, its inspired from DUO :)

Very good for a shooter game. My only complaint is that the dark red circles can be hard to see against the black background.

I'm getting the bug, with trapped, unshootable circles.
But it really is a great game.
Good work!

Yay came in third, what an addictive game, good review Jay

Pong + Asteroids makes sense. Obviously the double barrel action is reminiscent of Galaga, the back and forth on the bottom is like Breakout, and the big yellow circles (explosions) remind me of Missil Command.

Erm, the help can be understood if you have played the game. In other words the help was not represented as good as it could be. For example, you can make the help animated since it's already in flash; and make littel arrows instead of just lines...

Great game and not just that I just got 15152 points :-)

There are a couple of problems (that may be intentional) :

1) Your score is very dependent on the number and type of bonuses that you get. I have had games where I got to level 10 with NO yellow (shot) upgrades, on the other hand I have also had games where I got 8 by level 10. This makes this much less of a game of skill, and also explains my place in the top 10 :-)

2) When you get hit you loose life, loose shooting power AND stop shooting for a bit. The combination here means that after about level 14 if you get hit you die 90% of the time. If you did not stop shooting then maybe you would have a chance.

3) The shield power-ups are very situational, in the example above they are a life saver, but early on they are chaff. After about level 17 without an early (in the level) shield you loose. There should be a way of saving shields. Maybe if you already have shield on and then get annother red power-up you store the shield for later use.

4) Balls do still get stuck on the top and the left side. You can however shoot them :-)

I basically love this simple shooter but the sucess of your game is very dependent on the number, type and timing of the power-ups. If there was a little more consistancy here then this would be a real challange.

The scoreing mechanisum of the more power-ups you get with out miising the more points you get is also a little screwy. It seems that the best way to get points is to catch powerups regardless of the cost (in lives / shoot skill). It also seems that the weaker your gun the more power-ups drop (this could be my imagination).

Still a great casual game, just in need of a little more consistancy (IMHO)

Jarak.

I wish the green, blue, and purple (which I haven't encountered yet) didn't take away extra energy, it seems a bit harsh.
Fun game though.

I have to say- thank goodness for this game because without it I'd be playing Oshiro for the rest of my life. My only complaint is that the mouse doesn't dissappear within the playing field- It's a terrible distraction.

Very nice analysis, Jarak. I agree that the game could use a little balancing, and yet even in its present state it is highly addictive and great fun. =)

Viewfromhere - I don't think you would like the alternative. The problem with hiding the cursor is that it becomes difficult to sense where the cursor is, and it is therefore more likely to leave the Flash window as a result. When the cursor leaves the Flash window, Flash no longer receives mouse location events from the OS, and the player character on-screen stops moving.

Totally agree Jay still very addictive and fun. One more thing that I thought would be nice would be an indicator showing either the number of points for the next bonus caught or the number in your current chain / combo.

I still have not fully worked out how the catch as many bonuses in sequence scoring works exactly.

Jarak.

Hi Jarak:

The powerups appear completely randomly except there is limit of 5 powerups on screen. In high level you may be killing the circles so fast that you dont notice every powerup dropping.

Bonus scoring (sorry for not explaining it well):
*you got first bonus +10 p
*you got second bonus +20 p
*you got third bonus +30 p
*you missed 4th bonus no points
*you got 5th bonus +10 p
*you got 6th bonus +20 p

I dont know about saving shields, you do save up the lives so you should be able to survive 1 or 2 hits. I had a powerup in test version which stopped all enemies, but I had to remove it from game because it made it too easy.

Something that would be nice is if while your shields were on, you destroyed the bubbles you came in contact with.

Yay! another game from tonypa :)

jay- you're definitly right. I've had the cursor problem before. Maybe i just wish it would be smaller when playing or something. it's not like my minor gripe has stopped me from playing this game constantly! :) thanks for the great games!
Lindsay

You're welcome, Lindsay. =)
I can't stop playing this game either. =D

JS - I like your idea about having the shield destroy the circles, as it might save you when things get really hectic. And yet it also might make the game a bit too easy that way.

<< mumbles something about people not understanding how hard it is to program the games and then goes to change the 1 line in the code>>

Done, while you have the shield, you will destroy any enemy you touch. Enemies you kill this way do not drop bonuses.

I was hoping to get back into top10 with this change, but no :(

LOL @ Tonypa. =)

Tonypa - that was an excellent gameplay improvement! =)

It's not *that* often in later levels that a player will get a red shield upgrade, and the temporary invincibility that destroys enemies adds new depth to the gameplay.

Thank you for creating such a great Flash game.

Great game, and it's very close to getting that kind of perfect zen game play experience where you are always right at the edge of being over-whelmed with visual input, so you end up kind of functioning by blind instinct.

A couple of game play suggestions.

1. The 'damage' in the game is just broken in terms of gameplay.

If you get hit once on a later stage, the game is over. There's no point in really continuing the game at that point, and no way to really come back.

My suggestion to fix it is to either reset the stage when you die, or implement some kind of super-zapper power-up that clears everything within a certain radius, so when you get 'trapped', you can use it to clear a space to escape. You could keep the geometry theme by say having an expanding pentagon that moves about an inch out from your ship killing everything. Make it so you can only have one super-zapper saved at a time, and it's a 'rare' drop, maybe once every 5 stages.

Second:

Power-ups really DO stop after a certain stage. I've literally gone 4 or 5 stages of huge numbers of enemies without a single power-up being dropped.

Third: Suggestions for visual cues

Make it more obvious when a power-up is being dropped by having a circle move inward instead of outward for that enemy when he dies.

Give a warning when your 'shield' is going to die by making it blink.

Make the ship a triangle, and make it turn into a square when you get the shield. Keeps the theme more consistent, I think.

I know it's a lot of things, but I think it's a great game.

I think I have found something of a bug. Daniel Talsky mentioned that there seems to be less power ups in the higher levels and I tend to agree. I found that after starting a new game, fresh from the load screen, i had no problem collecting power ups. However, if I restart after dying at some point I won't see a power up until level 8 or so. I notice a severe drop in the number of bonuses released after a couple in a row are missed.

Perhaps it is just my perception, but it could also be a true bug.

Thank you, Zengief :)

At first I didnt think there was anything wrong with bonuses, but after your description I looked again over the code that moved bonuses on stage and you were right, I had misplaced the counter. It was not reduced when you missed the bonus and it went out.

Very sorry about that :(

I have now updated the game so there should be more bonuses on higher levels (because even when you miss some, still more will appear). I am afraid this might cause players to get into very high level with too many circles/bullets/bonuses moving on screen which would slow the game down too much. The idea was to test how much Flash can take (plus I have now used new Flash8 to publish the game which is a bit faster too), but in the end there might be situation where screen is filled and things wont move too well. My main protection against this was actually the idea that you should be dead before it happens, but you players are soooo good at this.

To empath:

Thanks for all the suggestions, I do like to get feedback, even when I ignore suggestions I dont like :)

1. I have to think about that (see my last reply about how you should die before game gets too slow)
2. I have fixed the powerups hopefully
3a. Circle moving inwards for bonus, I like that :)
3b. I have been too lazy to make ship blink before shield goes out, but I try to add it.
3c. I dont know if I can use triangle. My collision detection script in the game can only detect circle vs rectangle. I had a powerup in beta stage which transformed the ship into rectangles (making it wider and lower or thinner and higher), but it didnt feel too good when I tested it so I didnt include it in final version.

finished level 23 with 26393 points, but the game just ended - i didn't die, and no more waves of enemies came. has that happened to anyone else?

Great that you fixed the power-ups.

As far as too much stuff on the screen.

I LOVE that. I like playing a game where it's complex enough that I can't quite process everything going on consciously. I think tempest 2000 was the perfect game of that type, and this game kind of feels a bit close to that to me.

Whatever you did to the power-ups, now there are too many of them :)

I got to level 23 and it was just pure insanity, i was just ignoring the circles and running for the red drops as quickly as i could get them..

but it seems that was as far as i can go, though...

I'm on level 22 with 19526 points, but there aren't any more circles... What's up?
(And the game actually gets easier on higher levels now, since there are enough red dots to keep you invincible forever).

Level 23 with 24421 points, and no more circles. I've finally finished a game to the end! YES!!! I'm happy. =)

lol, thats what I get for fixing the bugs :)

Because purple is last enemy type once you finish with it the game doesnt have anything to throw at you so it silently stops.

Told you you are too good at playing it :)

I might need to reduce the number of powerups now. Or add some new tougher enemies. I thought I could add enemies that take 2, 3 or more hits before they die, that should keep you busy for some time.

haha i just got 2nd on the rankings

Update:
*you need Flash8 player to play, please upgrade
*new eye-candy (trails and explosions) from Flash8
*explosion moving in the powerup creation spot
*reduced number of powerups on stage to 4
*powerups fall faster at higher levels
*improved hurt sound
*added blinking before shield wears off
*after lvl 15 each enemy takes 3 shots to kill
*after lvl 30 each enemy takes 5 hits

Because of the update highscore has been reset. Now is your chance to get that number 1 spot :)

Please let me know if something doesnt work properly.

i got 4th now this one is more challenging

Nice additions Tonypa. The game seems much more professional and has a much cleaner appearance to it. Good job.

Btw: glad I could help out.

One more bug that I have seen once or twice.

A couple of time I have shot the main circle as it was coming down. After I hit it, it dissappears and the next size down shows up coming out of the top left corner (going directly south east). After i shoot this next one three or so time (some of the bullets seem to go through it) then it dissappears and the next stage starts. It has happened a couple of times on I think the third level circle up when there is just one of those on the screen.

The new version plays well, but it seems that I have lost the gaming sound to it... I don't know why, hope there is a fix for this

PS I do have FLASH 8 installed...

I already did get flash 8 (two times !) and still can't enter the game. Very frustrating :-(

Never mind it works now ...

Ah, I knew I forgot something - the music! Thanks remister :)

It wasnt your player, it was me forgetting to put music back into game after testing. Should be playing now.

Ariadne, I am sorry to hear its so much trouble to upgrade Flash player. It did work quite well for myself, but then again, I had tested it for some time when it was still in beta.

Hi Tonypa

Great game, but I've noticed it gets a bit *fast* when you have "fast" guns; as if the game clock speeds up like crazy. This is especially pronouced with the triple gun on lvl 15+. =P Does anyone else experience this "warp-speed" effect?

I wondered why Jay was raving about this game then I got triple-speed-double-shhoter with diagonals. Wow!
Tonypa, this is a fun game, clean and simple. I noticed the recent comments about needing Flash 8. The upgrade, in particular the "new eye-candy (trails and explosions") makes me wonder how any programmer decides between clean cut design and more visuals.
For me, the eye-candy was too sweet! I prefered the simplicity of the previous version....
....then I again I remember Betamax.
Thanks again, Tonypa.

Hi quimper:
Usually, Flash games use frame-based movement which means the game tries to move everything for example 30 times per second. However, if more and more stuff appears and needs to be drawn and movements calculated, the game most likely does not reach 30 fps anymore, it only does like 10. This means everything starts to move 3 times slower.

The game uses time-based movement meaning it will measure actual time which has gone since last update and then moves all the stuff based on their speed*time. When lots of stuff is on screen, it can still drop to 10 fps, but everything still moves at same speed, only it draws them on screen 3 times less in every second. This causes the movement to appear faster, probably has something to do with the way human eye sees movement.

(I dont know if this makes sense, I feel I am not explaining it well enough)

to Earl Grey:
I never actually PLANNED anything in this game. It was made to experiment with the speed of Flash player. I usually use Flash5 to make games and it is over 5 years old now. Flash8 is much faster so it was easy for me to switch to better format. The new eye-candy also falls into "lets see what we can do with it" as similar effects would have slowed down the game too much with previous versions. I do believe Flash8 allows much more useful additions beside simple trails like fast scrolling, shape based hittest and more. I have posted some experiments into FK too:
http://www.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=650099

Tony,

This started out as a really fun game...

Unfortunately, the added trails and explosions have slowed the frame rate down on my Athlon 800Mhz w/32mb vid card to the point where I'll never get back on the high score board...

Remember, more isn't necessarily better!

Tonypa said "I never actually PLANNED anything in this game...." Good on you Tony, its always nice to know someone is out there pushing the boundaries.

ATB EG

Dave, use SHIFT key to toggle quality. In low quality mode no trails and no explosions are drawn.

Thanks Tony!

Guess I missed it in the instructions?

Thanks Tony. I love the game. Played the first version, missed a few of the intermediates, but now i'm playing the current one.

Man... level 15 is like a brick wall now. I made it to 16 once but that was a lot of luck with powerups and lucky mouse movements :) I don't know how people are getting those high scores. Theres certainly a lot of luck in getting the right power ups. you need nearly full 'laser' power by 15 and after that sheilds. The 'lifes' seem to be almost useless, because once you get hit, it's pretty much over anyways.

Tony, while I appreciate the new version of the game (it is still pretty good), it's moved into the "too hard" catagory for me. Mostly because I'm getting to level 15 without a single yellow powerup (only reds with a couple whites), which means that I'm drastically underpowered when I need to hit things three or four times.
Well, that and when you suddenly shift from one gun fast to two guns slow, it's actually harder for a bit until you can get the speed up again.

I still love this game, definatly one of my favourites, but the too much luck involved factor still bugs me.

If you don't get enough (or the right) bonuses your stuffed
If you miss one bonus your (score is) stuffed

And the variation of bonuses in both colour and quantity mean that the game is very inconsistant.

Futher the fact that bonuses can appear in impossible to catch places can cause an abrupt end to your points chain effectivly ending your game. This is very frustrating.

Finally over level 15 the game is now impossible without shields and fast weapons (the 2 shot on full speed is ok, but the 4 shot on "slow" makes it impossible)

I would suggest :

1) make the colour of the bonus cycle R,W,Y. once full gun power is reached Y is skipped and no bonus is dropped once full health is reached the same is done for white

2) Make bonuses more likely to drop from higher balls. This encourages skill (shooting them when they are higher up for more bonuses) and prevents (or at least reduces) the "I cant catch that" issue.

3) When a bonus is missed in stead of returning the next bonus points to 10 reduce the current level by a half. This way you could still score well having missed only one bonus.

4) Reduce the difficulty of level 15 or at least make the curve smoother. ATM. level 15 is a brick wall. with out bonuses it is impossible. Either reduce the number of balls or make it 2 hits rather than 3 to kill the balls. The progression is good to this point with each level a bit harder. But 15 is a mile harder.

I still love the game and Finally got back on the top 10 this afternoon (so I kinda know what I am talking about :-) )

jarak.

Yay

Up to 3rd on the leader board (even thoug I died on level 15)

Jarak

This game was great, but I can't play this at work anymore. Curse you Flash8, CURSE YOU!!

I've been playing this game for two weeks and I still cant get past level 15. There are just too many balls in the level to dodge, I'm begining to think it's impossible.

The only way to get past level 15 is to :

1) Have either the top level of the 4 way or the top level of the 3 way gun
2) Catch an early Shield power up
3) Keep catching shield power ups
4) Get lucky
5) If you started with the 3-way gun then only catch gun upgrades when you can get multiple in one go
6) get lucky

I have managed to get to level 18 or 19 like this, however the brick wall that is level 15 is the main problem with this great game.
See my posts above about what I would change.

Jarak

I have made some changes in ver 11-2005 for Shoot game. Some of them are exactly from Jarak proposals:

* When a bonus is missed the current bonus points are reduced to a half.
* Made bonuses more likely to drop from higher balls.
* red and blue enemy take away mostly health, green and purple reduce mostly weapons
* new bonus - slow down enemies for little time
* changed health of enemies, red enemy has 1 health, green 2, blue 3 and purple 4
(so level 15 doesnt have such importance anymore)
* added "hurt" enemy graphics
* killing enemy with more health gives more points now

Also had to clear the highscores for this :(

Hope you like it.

Yay !

Time to go play, get back on the score board and start moaning about the next things that I want :-)

Jarak

aww, you have so high score already :(
Its too easy now, isnt it?

Yay for the blue powerups!

I would not say that this is eaisier now, it's a different game. It is easier to score more points, but over all the game is still hard, and to get the top score you need to have a definate strategy and (still) some luck.

I think that there are a number of destinct improvements here :

* When a bonus is missed the current bonus points are reduced to a half.
* Made bonuses more likely to drop from higher balls.
* changed health of enemies, red enemy has 1 health, green 2, blue 3 and purple 4
(so level 15 doesnt have such importance anymore)
* added "hurt" enemy graphics
* killing enemy with more health gives more points now

But there are also some issues here. Firstly :

* new bonus - slow down enemies for little time

At the moment this turns the later levels into a cake walk if you get one early. The combination of pausing the balls as they appear and the fact that LOADS of power ups drop from balls at the top of the screen means that you can effectivly lock the balls down and shoot them all (or at least enough to survive) before they even get a chance to move. This is particularly easy on levels with large Red balls.

This also points at annother problem. There are just too many bonuses dropped on higher levels. A possible fix would be to prevent bonuses dropping when the balls were slowed. This would make it a toss up between shooing balls to live longer or waiting for possible bonuses later.

However the main problem is still that one slip on a level over (about) 17 and you are (99% of the time) dead. The fact that this death can take ages as the balls slowly wear you down only makes it worse. I think that the main cause of this is that you stop shooting when you get hit. I think that the fix would be some or all of the below :

1) allow shooting to continue while flashing after a hit
2) Make balls that hit you while flashing explode as with shield
3) Lengthen the shielded period after a hit

Trying to catch all the bonuses is still a problem, mainly due to the sheer number of bonuses on higher levels. I suspect that the raw number needs decreasing as if you hit all balls in the top 1/4 of the screen you can get abonus from about 80% of them. This is way too many.

Still a great game and a great challange, and I'm looking forward to the next version :-)

Jarak

I found the bug which created too many bonuses. Had to clear the highscores again because of this.

Tony

That simple change / fix makes all the difference. This is definatly the best (and best ballanced) version yet.

Oh and I R # 1 :-)

Jarak

When in some day in the future there will be World Championships in playing ShoOot, I will place my bet on you, Jarak :D

To change it up try changing some colors with special aspects. Like purple takes 1 less hit to destroy but can hit you through the blacksquare form or blue doesn't slow down when you grab a blue dropitem. Or quite the opposite...throw in a new color easily destroyed but any drops you grab affect them as well. If you grab a red they can't be destroyed for a short bit, if you grab a blue they speed up...if you grab a yellow they separate and if you grab a white, every one of that new color becomes 1 form larger of itself (drastic multiplication)

How about if the gun powered up in a different order. That way when you got hit, you don't suddenly have this terrible weapon.

It could go in the order of power:
Single shot, double shot, triple shot, quad shot.

And then step in speed:
Single shot faster, double shot faster, triple shot faster, quad shot faster.

And then the next step of speed, and then next, etc.

How about an easy mode for people who aren't good at games but still like to win.

Tonypa, what do purple balls do?

Red - bounce off boundaries.
Green - bounces off left and right wall, returns to the top when down.
Blue -Bounce off up and down walls, returns to the left when right and vice versa.
Purple-???

I'm curious, as well, AJ. What is the rule for the movement of purple circles? Sometimes one will sweep all the way across the bottom of the screen, impossible to avoid.

Lol, look: there were two posts from 2006! ¦D
How strange!

The Purple balls are suppose to move in slightly unpredictable pattern making them harder to avoid while bouncing off on every wall. Think of them as drunk red balls.

I like this game. I am a casual gamer and generally have terrible aim in these "shoot everything before it hits you" games, but I can do well enough for my liking at this one (I have touched level 17 or maybe 18). I have come to this discussion late because I discovered Shooot after playing Shooot2. Hopefully somebody is still reading these? The one thing I don't like (and I have seen it mentioned in other comments here) is that you have no fire power or shield protection during that period when you have gotten killed and are starting a new life. I have gotten what I think is the maximum lives and fire power, but if I fail to get a shield power-up at some point during those later rounds, all of those extra lives are useless and they just make the death-watch longer (not by much, since there are sooo many circles running around at this point). Of course, since I can't shoot, I can't get the shield power-ups, and so I lose another life, which means I can't shoot . . . So if there could at least be enough new-life shield to overlap a little bit with the reinstated ability to shoot, I think that would improve this game a lot. I know Tonypa, you're probably not really doing anything with this game anymore, but I figure it's worth 5 minutes to ask anyway. Oh and thank you jayisgames for having this comment board here, because I did not realize before reading the comments that circles shot near the top of the screen were much likelier to produce power-ups than those near the bottom. Being a bad shot and all, I was going for the lower ones, and getting annoyed at the lack of power-ups. Then after reading this board, I tried harder for the higher ones and used those slow-down periods to hammer the high ones, and boosted my high-level by a few. I don't bother tracking my score, I am also terrible at "catch everything that falls" games.

I must say, this is better than ShoOot 2 and 3. Random uncontrolled movement in the third one was stupid as well as the random rotation in ShoOot 2. This is the only one of the series that I actually like.