Biotech Game Productions, New Insurgent Screenshots Posted! Options

[Iruini Nuva]

Havoc is a good old fashioned “beat the living daylights out of everything that moves” kind of game. Your goal is simple: Destroy every building on the screen in order to progress. Of course, the inhabitants will not take kindly to your godzilla-like tendencies and attempt to stop you at every turn. Shots will fly and bombs will be planted to blow the buildings out from beneath your claws – but nothing a good stomp can't take care of. Your job is to wreak havoc and have a blast while doing it.

Features:

• 10 challenging levels brimming with enemies. Survival is not guaranteed. Think that's too easy? Beat every level to unlock a Sudden Death mode and fight to the bitter end.
• Use a vast array of attacks to decimate the city of Metru Nui. Smash walls with your fists, pound the rooftops with your feet, and drain the energies of any matoran daring (or foolish) enough to stand in your path!
• See the smoke plume and feel the earth shake with vivid detail thanks to our newly developed Proximity engine.
• Carve out a legend for yourself on our new online high scores database.

Download:
Primary (15.5MB)

Screenshots

[Volcan]

I loved the graphics. They were excellent. So was the music.

BUT

I didn't get what the gameplay was about at all. There were just matoran running on the ground and i kept holding C to kill them all. I could also make holes in the houses. Nothing else.

[Iruini Nuva]

It's fairly simple really. Like I mentioned in the post, the goal is to destroy every building on screen. Climb up the building, mash it to pieces (punch it, jump on it, slide down the edges, etc.), then move on to the next one. Once every building is down, you'll advance to the next level where more enemies will await you.

I've updated the exe to reflect this.

This post has been edited by Iruini Nuva: Jul 12 2009, 10:02 AM

[Zato_]

Just Tryed the game and it was definatly Fantastic. The Graphics were beautiful, I Loved how the background moved. and the music fit perfectly. The Gameplay was much like an arcade game and was Great Once I got used to it. outstanding job guys, I'll be playing this for awhile.

Zato_

Edit - Now i'm second place!

This post has been edited by Zato_: Jul 12 2009, 01:54 PM

[Volcan]

Oh, i see. Nice, i like the building smashing

Though i wondered, Keetongu is evil?

[HeatWave runs fr...]

Oh, i see. Nice, i like the building smashing

Though i wondered, Keetongu is evil?

Well, he is still a rahi, and rahi/animals, when provoked, do get rather violent. anyways, just played some of this game, and it was amazing.
It ran smoothly, it had simple instructions, it was crazily fun, and the graphics couldn't have gotten any better. i'm really hoping this will win.
good job!

[Iruini Nuva]

Though i wondered, Keetongu is evil?

Yeah this time he is, because it's awesome.

This post has been edited by Iruini Nuva: Jul 12 2009, 10:24 AM

[Jedi Knight Kraz...]

I had a lot of fun with this, although I'm a little dissappointed.
I'm gonna review the game by section here.

Graphics... the graphics were great! Not quite up to Insurgent standard, but still good nonetheless. It didn't feel like there were enough explosions, though. Another complaint, when I died, it looked like I just slid off the building and glitched under the ground, and I wasn't sure what happened until I got the game over screen.

Sound, was pretty good. The game was fast-paced, so I wasn't paying too much attention to the sound. It gets very loud if you do too many things at once, but my game does that too, so I won't dock points. The only sound I didn't like was the Matoran-squishing sound... too repetitve.

Gameplay: The gameplay was fun. I definitely feel a little evil after all that! The controls took some getting used to, but once I did it was like second nature. In the first level, it was too easy to get caught up in the Matoran. I think the first level should be buildings only, just so you can get it in your player's head that building-crushing is important. It sometimes felt like there weren't enough attacks. Maybe a crouch-attack would be cool, or some combo moves.

Difficulty: This was my major complaint of this game. Matoran simply healed too much, and there was no reason to actually try to work quickly except to get that Rage attack... which isn't that good anyways. Mostly I just grabbed Matoran in-between buildings and when the infantry got too pesky. Sudden Death solved most of the easyness problem, but it felt like a cheap way to get rid of the players that were too good, rather than an actual fair way to lose. I think the game could benefit alot from a time limit.

Replayability: I like the online scoreboard, I have to say. I scored 10th place on my first try, and I definitely plan to try again later... especially since first place is only 3,000 points away.

Oh, and I'm a bit confused as to why Keetongu is the bad guy. But it doesn't matter that much.

This post has been edited by Jedi Knight Krazy: Jul 12 2009, 03:52 PM

[Ary]

I expected some form of running, for example, running in one direction for a while makes you accelerate very fast, and then you can use that to smash right through buildings.

[hatok]

I must be the only disappointed person here.
It's a fancy package alright, but the gameplay was simply... lacking. You one attack, and he ability to heal (In later levels I could pretty much hold C wherever and wait to get full health) furthermore moving was a chore because moving left and right was nearly impossible. You really should have used a button for wall climbing, I just waned to get rid of some infantry, but I had to go all the way AROUND the building to get there. Other than that there's also very little variety, you see two enemy types most of the time, the bombs mix things up occaisionally. the music was okay and the graphics were fantastic.
I expected more from you guys.
No offense or anything
Gameplay- 6-10
Graphics- 9-10
Music- 8-10
Replay- 8 1/2- 10

Overall - 7-/10
(I mark Gameplay more than other features)

[Jedi Knight Kraz...]

I must be the only disappointed person here.

No, you're not. It was impossible for any game to live up to the hype Biotech created for the game. Hype-machines work great in the professional gam industry, where sales matter more than rating, but here, it's a bad idea.

[*DWAN*]

You one attack, and he ability to heal (In later levels I could pretty much hold C wherever and wait to get full health) furthermore moving was a chore because moving left and right was nearly impossible. You really should have used a button for wall climbing, I just waned to get rid of some infantry, but I had to go all the way AROUND the building to get there.

There is the rage attack *but i doubt you used it* We wanted the game to be accessible to novice players so we give people the ability to heal through the game until you enter sudden death mode. As for mobility issues you seem to have, try pressing left or right while hanging from a building and press the jump button.

"No, you're not. It was impossible for any game to live up to the hype Biotech created for the game. Hype-machines work great in the professional gam industry, where sales matter more than rating, but here, it's a bad idea."

I don't feel like we built up any real hype. It was Ary and a few other members who repeatedly said we were going to win.

This post has been edited by *DWAN*: Jul 12 2009, 05:38 PM

[Iruini Nuva]

Difficulty: This was my major complaint of this game. Matoran simply healed too much, and there was no reason to actually try to work quickly except to get that Rage attack... which isn't that good anyways. Mostly I just grabbed Matoran in-between buildings and when the infantry got too pesky. Sudden Death solved most of the easyness problem, but it felt like a cheap way to get rid of the players that were too good, rather than an actual fair way to lose. I think the game could benefit alot from a time limit.

Yeah that was the most difficult part for us to balance. The matoran keep it very accessible your first time around, and the idea behind sudden death was that it would separate the really skilled players from the button mashers (button mashing + rapid healing works great until you pass level 10, then you're dead if keep doing it ). You mentioned that the rage attack didn't feel very good, what exactly would make it more worthwhile?

I expected some form of running, for example, running in one direction for a while makes you accelerate very fast, and then you can use that to smash right through buildings.

Well it wasn't in the original game and we tried not too add too many new features (rage being the primary extra attack). The catch with smashing straight through buildings is that it would effectively eliminate the need for careful level design. Right now the levels are very conducive to certain types of attacks in certain parts. Higher buildings are strategically placed to allow you cause higher damage to certain rooftops, harder levels overlap much more in strategic places so as to make any one building much harder to bring down, etc. Perhaps you could smash *into* a wall and do lots of damage, but straight through may be *too* strong. Insta-killing a building is what the rage attack is for.

I must be the only disappointed person here.
It's a fancy package alright, but the gameplay was simply... lacking. You one attack, and he ability to heal (In later levels I could pretty much hold C wherever and wait to get full health) furthermore moving was a chore because moving left and right was nearly impossible. You really should have used a button for wall climbing, I just waned to get rid of some infantry, but I had to go all the way AROUND the building to get there. Other than that there's also very little variety, you see two enemy types most of the time, the bombs mix things up occaisionally. the music was okay and the graphics were fantastic.
I expected more from you guys.
No offense or anything
Gameplay- 6-10
Graphics- 9-10
Music- 8-10
Replay- 8 1/2- 10

Overall - 7-/10
(I mark Gameplay more than other features)

Methinks you missed a few of the attacks. Here's the full list:

• Punch
• Wall sliding
• Jumping from roof (short height)
• Jumping from roof (long height)
• Rage attack
• Picking up a bomb matoran (though you risk hurting yourself as well)

Also you can already climb walls. While standing next to building, press up. You'll climb up and start doing all sorts of damage.

This post has been edited by Iruini Nuva: Jul 12 2009, 05:45 PM

[hatok]

You one attack, and he ability to heal (In later levels I could pretty much hold C wherever and wait to get full health) furthermore moving was a chore because moving left and right was nearly impossible. You really should have used a button for wall climbing, I just waned to get rid of some infantry, but I had to go all the way AROUND the building to get there.

There is the rage attack *but i doubt you used it* We wanted the game to be accessible to novice players so we give people the ability to heal through the game until you enter sudden death mode. As for mobility issues you seem to have, try pressing left or right while hanging from a building and press the jump button.

I used i alright, bu for the charge i reuires it seems underwhelming destroying one building is good power-wise, but i doesn't really feel like you're doing anything... as for the mobility don'v you think that's a little convoluted just to move?

Methinks you missed a few of the attacks. Here's the full list:
Punch
Wall sliding
Jumping from roof (short height)
Jumping from roof (long height)
Rage attack
Picking up a bomb matoran (though you risk hurting yourself as well)
Also you can already climb walls. While standing next to building, press up. You'll climb up and start doing all sorts of damage.

the punch is the only real useful attack, climbing does very little damage, I personally was to focused on the buildings to pick up the bomb matoran. I already covered the rage attack above.
I was complaining about how you start wall climbing whenever you press left and right, there's no real indication whether you will climb a wall or not when you run into it

What I meant to interpret was you'll see the same two moves for most of the game.

[Nickbomb]

IMO it'd be amusing to see some of ya play the original Rampage(the pixelated one from the arcade) then complain to us about the controls and mobility issues along with the game making sense.

[Iruini Nuva]

I think I'm missing something here...how are you climbing while pressing left and right?

...you press up to climb...

Any building edge is a climbable wall, nothing more, nothing less.

The entire purpose of this game is simplicity. It's made for the average person to pick up and understand instantly (e.g. someone just walking past at BF), not an expert in old games. Anything more undermines that sole purpose.

But yes, you will use those same basic moves throughout the game. It's an arcade theme, the original game had two buttons. What did you expect?

My impression is that's the key point of confusion here: this is not meant to be The Insurgent. Doing so would get us disqualified (remember all those posts Leppy had wondering if his was really arcade?). Plus this was developed over a period of 7 weeks, 5 really. The Insurgent took 2.5 years. Large difference in development time no?

This post has been edited by Iruini Nuva: Jul 12 2009, 07:10 PM

[Jedi Knight Kraz...]

Yeah that was the most difficult part for us to balance. The matoran keep it very accessible your first time around, and the idea behind sudden death was that it would separate the really skilled players from the button mashers (button mashing + rapid healing works great until you pass level 10, then you're dead if keep doing it ). You mentioned that the rage attack didn't feel very good, what exactly would make it more worthwhile?

There are other ways to balance a game and make it accessible than completely removing a core element of the game on the 10th level. You could have difficulty modes like Medium and Hard where you get less health from Matoran. You could add a timer (something I mentioned in my review) to get players to hurry up.

The rage attack isn't useful because it's not so hard to destroy a building that doing it instantly isn't worth all the fuss. In addition, usually I get it when I'm just about to destroy a building anyways, and it doesn't last long enough that I can save it for the next building.

Also, the damage from falling buildings needs to be tweaked. I get trapped between buildings and the edge of the screen, I get trapped in the middle of some of the wider buildings, simply unable to get out of the way in time. The game also punishes awesome moves where you're on one building, destroy it, then jump to another one and start punching the heck outta that one. You should only take damage when you're directly under the building collapsing.

[hatok]

Whe7n I 8moved 0left a7nd right I wou0ld 2c0li8m4b wa0l0ls o2c2caisio7na0l0ly, 8my 2co8mpuer has 4bee7n pretty g0lit2ched re2ce7nt0ly, I'8m sorry.
this is what my post looks like before I put it through the washer and fix it up.
After:
When I moved left and right I would climb walls occaisionally, my computer has been pretty glitched recent0y, I'm sorry.

[Creator of the K...]

My only reservation with the game is the pacing - in that it's very slow. I'm not of the opinion that an homage to the original is at all a bad thing, but I think it would have been a reasonable concession to the 'oh man, Keetongu is such a powerful fifty-foot big stompy' vibe that seemed to be one of the design goals if you were to have sped it up a bit. Or/and have added a sprint feature, like Ary said.

The graphics were good, the tilesets got a tad repetitive, given that the variety was limited. Some other characters would have been nice; while I was playing, I realized it could have been a quirky parallel with the original game with the Ralph/Kong/Lizzie character set if Roodaka and Sidorak had been added. I was also curious as to why some of the background buildings are semi-transparent. But those are really just nitpicky.

The music was fine; it never got overly repetitive. That was refreshing.

The effects were neat. Explosions good.

Overall, not bad at all. Just suffers from a pretty severe error in game pacing - to the point where I kinda quit.

-COTK-

[Iruini Nuva]

Yeah that was the most difficult part for us to balance. The matoran keep it very accessible your first time around, and the idea behind sudden death was that it would separate the really skilled players from the button mashers (button mashing + rapid healing works great until you pass level 10, then you're dead if keep doing it ). You mentioned that the rage attack didn't feel very good, what exactly would make it more worthwhile?

There are other ways to balance a game and make it accessible than completely removing a core element of the game on the 10th level. You could have difficulty modes like Medium and Hard where you get less health from Matoran. You could add a timer (something I mentioned in my review) to get players to hurry up.

The rage attack isn't useful because it's not so hard to destroy a building that doing it instantly isn't worth all the fuss. In addition, usually I get it when I'm just about to destroy a building anyways, and it doesn't last long enough that I can save it for the next building.

Also, the damage from falling buildings needs to be tweaked. I get trapped between buildings and the edge of the screen, I get trapped in the middle of some of the wider buildings, simply unable to get out of the way in time. The game also punishes awesome moves where you're on one building, destroy it, then jump to another one and start punching the heck outta that one. You should only take damage when you're directly under the building collapsing.

Having a timer was something we definitely considered including, but ended up pulling because it didn't actually help the gameplay. We'll work with it again, but I especially like the idea of the different difficulties.

The rage attack is saved as long as you keep doing damage occassionally, plus if it starts fading it's quite easy to regenerate it, especially in the later levels where lots of matoran get crushed by the collapsing buildings and such (crushing them boosts rage as well, assuming the building wasn't bombed). Admittedly yes, you'll get it a lot when a building is near destruction, but it's timed such that you should be able to use it anywhere on the map while saving it up.

Getting trapped between buildings and the edge of a screen probably isn't something that will be changing. The solution is pretty simple: plan your attack so that you aren't sitting under a building. That was one of the key dynamics of the original game, and it's certainly part of what makes or breaks your ultra-high score. Those who plan ahead will be rewarded - those who do not will lose more health than they care to part with. I'm not sure how it punishes said awesome moves. Jumping to other buildings to avoid damage is exactly how people like Maleck got the ultra-high scores... Is it like a spacing issue or something (I know that some of the buildings are tighter - so you have to watch where you jump)?

Either way, for at least this cut of the game, my recommendation is: Realize that ignoring the strategic layout of the buildings will be disappointing. The levels were very carefully developed and have had many, many different users test them to confirm that strategy works if you take the time to develop one.

Whe7n I 8moved 0left a7nd right I wou0ld 2c0li8m4b wa0l0ls o2c2caisio7na0l0ly, 8my 2co8mpuer has 4bee7n pretty g0lit2ched re2ce7nt0ly, I'8m sorry.
this is what my post looks like before I put it through the washer and fix it up.
After:
When I moved left and right I would climb walls occaisionally, my computer has been pretty glitched recent0y, I'm sorry.

I'd make sure that you aren't accidentally barely hitting the up arrow as well. The way the Proximity engine is built makes it physically impossible to climb without it (this is isn't a standard collision based engine - it's very different).

EDIT: So Creator, speed Keetongu up a bit? Walking in particular (admittedly he's slow) or everything (e.g. lower building hitpoints, etc.)? Glad you generally liked it though.

This post has been edited by Iruini Nuva: Jul 12 2009, 10:05 PM

[Ary]

A variable horizontal speed would be nice. Accelerating is much smoother and more comfortable than just plain walking. Horizontal movement just seems very limited to me.

Perhaps instead of smashing right through buildings, you go across them normally, unless you hold up and grab onto the wall, where you do the same damage as you would jumping on top of it.

[Creator of the K...]

So Creator, speed Keetongu up a bit? Walking in particular (admittedly he's slow) or everything (e.g. lower building hitpoints, etc.)? Glad you generally liked it though.

I think that if the speed of the player went up, you'd be able to get across the screen faster, smack down the buildings faster, etc. There'd obviously have to be a bit of tweaking, but I think that in and of itself could help to clear up the pacing immensely.

Oh, and, as an aside, I liked the fact that there were different levels of 'splash' damage from different heights.

-COTK-

This post has been edited by Creator of the Kanohi: Jul 12 2009, 10:27 PM

[Iruini Nuva]

Yeah, speed based splash damage was a fun touch to add - that's a big factor in the level layout. Easier, more open levels give far more opportunities to deal such damage than the tighter, harder ones (less roof space/height to work with).

I may have a solution to some of these problems. First of all like I said, most of you technically weren't our target audience. We were not trying to please the game makers of BZP, we were trying to please people walking by who are trying the game and need to get it in 5 minutes. That being the case, a lot of things are different than what we would do with a game targeted at the gamer (e.g. The Insurgent). Think of it as the difference between a good Wii game vs. a good PS3/360/PC game, without the nasty graphics and such that most Wii shovelware gets. Both are good, but they please different people.

BUT, like a Valve or other high profile PC game, this engine is extremely versatile and can be modified via a console. Actually there are a very small number of debug commands available in your current version, but what I'm already doing is expanding that. That way you could modify things like walking speed, healing, damage, etc. on the fly to what you think is best. Such tweaks would invalidate the online highscores unfortunately (after all if you do double damage that isn't fair), but what you can do is post your preferred tuning and we'll see if we can refine this a bit more. Sound good?

Also, again because of the way the engine is built, it's very open to user created levels and content. The buildings are all code based, so all you need to do is plug in the variables for the color, width, height, tiles, etc., and it will generate the building for you. Same with the levels and enemy spawning - tell it what you want, and it will do it for you. To that end, I'm willing to consider the option of building in user created levels, something similar to Halo CE. Anyone interested?

[*DWAN*]

And with more tiles and sprites to use that are in the works it'll be even that much greater customization available.

[hatok]

Whe7n I 8moved 0left a7nd right I wou0ld 2c0li8m4b wa0l0ls o2c2caisio7na0l0ly, 8my 2co8mpuer has 4bee7n pretty g0lit2ched re2ce7nt0ly, I'8m sorry.
this is what my post looks like before I put it through the washer and fix it up.
After:
When I moved left and right I would climb walls occaisionally, my computer has been pretty glitched recent0y, I'm sorry.

I'd make sure that you aren't accidentally barely hitting the up arrow as well. The way the Proximity engine is built makes it physically impossible to climb without it (this is isn't a standard collision based engine - it's very different).

that's definitely not the problem; the up key on my keyboard doesn't work, I have to use the num-pad

[Iruini Nuva]

Whe7n I 8moved 0left a7nd right I wou0ld 2c0li8m4b wa0l0ls o2c2caisio7na0l0ly, 8my 2co8mpuer has 4bee7n pretty g0lit2ched re2ce7nt0ly, I'8m sorry.
this is what my post looks like before I put it through the washer and fix it up.
After:
When I moved left and right I would climb walls occaisionally, my computer has been pretty glitched recent0y, I'm sorry.

I'd make sure that you aren't accidentally barely hitting the up arrow as well. The way the Proximity engine is built makes it physically impossible to climb without it (this is isn't a standard collision based engine - it's very different).

that's definitely not the problem; the up key on my keyboard doesn't work, I have to use the num-pad

Which kinda makes me think that definitely is the problem. xD Could you try another keyboard?

[hatok]

I'm not sure, we got a new computer, but my dad is convinced that I'm the source of the computer problem, so I'm not allowed to have files on it. Seems pretty silly/juvenile IMO.

[Ary]

Yeah, speed based splash damage was a fun touch to add - that's a big factor in the level layout. Easier, more open levels give far more opportunities to deal such damage than the tighter, harder ones (less roof space/height to work with).

I may have a solution to some of these problems. First of all like I said, most of you technically weren't our target audience. We were not trying to please the game makers of BZP, we were trying to please people walking by who are trying the game and need to get it in 5 minutes. That being the case, a lot of things are different than what we would do with a game targeted at the gamer (e.g. The Insurgent). Think of it as the difference between a good Wii game vs. a good PS3/360/PC game, without the nasty graphics and such that most Wii shovelware gets. Both are good, but they please different people.

BUT, like a Valve or other high profile PC game, this engine is extremely versatile and can be modified via a console. Actually there are a very small number of debug commands available in your current version, but what I'm already doing is expanding that. That way you could modify things like walking speed, healing, damage, etc. on the fly to what you think is best. Such tweaks would invalidate the online highscores unfortunately (after all if you do double damage that isn't fair), but what you can do is post your preferred tuning and we'll see if we can refine this a bit more. Sound good?

Also, again because of the way the engine is built, it's very open to user created levels and content. The buildings are all code based, so all you need to do is plug in the variables for the color, width, height, tiles, etc., and it will generate the building for you. Same with the levels and enemy spawning - tell it what you want, and it will do it for you. To that end, I'm willing to consider the option of building in user created levels, something similar to Halo CE. Anyone interested?

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

K: Kill player
F2: Restart
Insert key: Console
I have no idea what this "Console" means, I'm guessing it allows you to input code or something.

In unrelated news, here is my best guess as to who will win this contest.

Havoc
Hordika: Hero or Beast
Mask Rush (*cough*)
Enigma Pacman

This post has been edited by Ary: Jul 12 2009, 11:32 PM

[Jedi Knight Kraz...]

I'm not sure how it punishes said awesome moves. Jumping to other buildings to avoid damage is exactly how people like Maleck got the ultra-high scores... Is it like a spacing issue or something (I know that some of the buildings are tighter - so you have to watch where you jump)?

The buildings are pretty tight together in some spots. Basically, I don't think I should take damage if I'm hanging onto the building next to the one that's crumbling.

And, @Ary, there's one thing wrong with your list: Kraata Attack's not on it

This post has been edited by Jedi Knight Krazy: Jul 13 2009, 10:15 AM

[Ary]

I'm not sure how it punishes said awesome moves. Jumping to other buildings to avoid damage is exactly how people like Maleck got the ultra-high scores... Is it like a spacing issue or something (I know that some of the buildings are tighter - so you have to watch where you jump)?

The buildings are pretty tight together in some spots. Basically, I don't think I should take damage if I'm hanging onto the building next to the one that's crumbling.

And, @Ary, there's one thing wrong with your list: Kraata Attack's not on it

I think the best strategy there is to jump on top of the building, stomp on it until it crumbles, then jump to another building.

And I couldn't play Kraata Attack, so I couldn't rate it.

[Kahi Govaki]

Well, here' my two widgets:

Graphics: 9/10
Best I've seen. They are amazing. I'm always curious on what sprite is the best to use for games, so, what kit did you use?
Gameplay: 7/10
The gameplay was pretty good, but it was a little repetitive after a while. A bit more variety in buildings i.e. some that could be destroyed with fewer/more punches. Also, more methods of melee attack would be nice, such as a kick or combo attacks. The Rage attack should cover maybe two buildings instead of one, it takes so much work to get it, by the time you do get it, it is kind of useless. I have only got up to level seven, but maybe aerial attacks from Matoran would be good as well?
Sound: 6/10
The sound was good. The squishing sound got a little annoying, but it was also cool at the same time. The music was okay, but still good.
Replayability: I will probably play this again for the forth time, but the replayability might fade in a few days. A little more variety would help this, though. Maybe a different environment?

Also, for some reason I cannot download Insurgent. Could you provide a direct link or upload it to a hosting site?

[*DWAN*]

Well, here' my two widgets:

Graphics: 9/10
Best I've seen. They are amazing. I'm always curious on what sprite is the best to use for games, so, what kit did you use?

Also, for some reason I cannot download Insurgent. Could you provide a direct link or upload it to a hosting site?

All of our sprites are custom made by me and Blasteroider. You won't find us using someone else's sprites.

Hmm I don't know why you can't download it but we'll see what the problem is soon.

[Kahi Govaki]

Well, here' my two widgets:
Graphics: 9/10
Best I've seen. They are amazing. I'm always curious on what sprite is the best to use for games, so, what kit did you use?

All of our sprites are custom made by me and Blasteroider. You won't find us using someone else's sprites.

I suspect you won't be releasing them, right?

[Chricks]

I’ll admit that I was slightly cynical when I discovered that the game-play consisted entirely of breaking buildings and killing Matoran – but I find myself pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed breaking buildings and destroying Matoran, and it required a great deal more strategy than I expected.

I’ll give the graphics and audio a 4/5. Although the actual images themselves were fairly bland, you more than made up for it with fancy effects. The building explosions and the Matoran disintegration effects were my favourite, if you’d like to know. For some reason, I found it strange that Keetongu looked down all of the time – I know it makes sense, but it still looked a bit funny. As for the music – it was superb. The ambience of the menu music was perfect for the crazy destructive feel of the game and the use of guitars in the game-play music was a very clever idea indeed.

The game-play in my opinion is one of the weaker aspects of the game – so I’ll give it a 3/5. Although I said that it was better than I expected it to be, it still isn’t the best. It got very repetitive, very quickly – which weakens the replay value considerably. The only other aspect of the game I could review would be the programming – but as I’m not a programmer, I’ll slap on a 5/5 because I trust you did it well.

All in all, this is very good work. Biotech has come a long way from when I first knew it.

[Iruini Nuva]

Well, here' my two widgets:
Graphics: 9/10
Best I've seen. They are amazing. I'm always curious on what sprite is the best to use for games, so, what kit did you use?

All of our sprites are custom made by me and Blasteroider. You won't find us using someone else's sprites.

I suspect you won't be releasing them, right?

We haven't decided at this point. Perhaps later on down the road.

I’ll admit that I was slightly cynical when I discovered that the game-play consisted entirely of breaking buildings and killing Matoran – but I find myself pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed breaking buildings and destroying Matoran, and it required a great deal more strategy than I expected.

I’ll give the graphics and audio a 4/5. Although the actual images themselves were fairly bland, you more than made up for it with fancy effects. The building explosions and the Matoran disintegration effects were my favourite, if you’d like to know. For some reason, I found it strange that Keetongu looked down all of the time – I know it makes sense, but it still looked a bit funny. As for the music – it was superb. The ambience of the menu music was perfect for the crazy destructive feel of the game and the use of guitars in the game-play music was a very clever idea indeed.

The game-play in my opinion is one of the weaker aspects of the game – so I’ll give it a 3/5. Although I said that it was better than I expected it to be, it still isn’t the best. It got very repetitive, very quickly – which weakens the replay value considerably. The only other aspect of the game I could review would be the programming – but as I’m not a programmer, I’ll slap on a 5/5 because I trust you did it well.

All in all, this is very good work. Biotech has come a long way from when I first knew it.

Glad you enjoyed it. We've found that for the first time or two people aren't entirely sure about the game, but it grows on you - especially once you do figure out the strategy side of it.

Also glad that you liked the effects and the tunes I spent a good chunk of my 18th birthday working on that music. xD

How would you recommend mixing up the gameplay a bit more? One thing that we were planning (some of the code is in place, but not all) would be having vahki as enemies. Some would fly, and the others could be picked up and thrown (working nicely as a grenade against buildings). Think that would help?

[Chricks]

Vahki would make an excellent addition - perhaps even mini Matoran airships?

[HeatWave runs fr...]

Well, here' my two widgets:
Graphics: 9/10
Best I've seen. They are amazing. I'm always curious on what sprite is the best to use for games, so, what kit did you use?

All of our sprites are custom made by me and Blasteroider. You won't find us using someone else's sprites.

I suspect you won't be releasing them, right?

We haven't decided at this point. Perhaps later on down the road.

I’ll admit that I was slightly cynical when I discovered that the game-play consisted entirely of breaking buildings and killing Matoran – but I find myself pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed breaking buildings and destroying Matoran, and it required a great deal more strategy than I expected.

I’ll give the graphics and audio a 4/5. Although the actual images themselves were fairly bland, you more than made up for it with fancy effects. The building explosions and the Matoran disintegration effects were my favourite, if you’d like to know. For some reason, I found it strange that Keetongu looked down all of the time – I know it makes sense, but it still looked a bit funny. As for the music – it was superb. The ambience of the menu music was perfect for the crazy destructive feel of the game and the use of guitars in the game-play music was a very clever idea indeed.

The game-play in my opinion is one of the weaker aspects of the game – so I’ll give it a 3/5. Although I said that it was better than I expected it to be, it still isn’t the best. It got very repetitive, very quickly – which weakens the replay value considerably. The only other aspect of the game I could review would be the programming – but as I’m not a programmer, I’ll slap on a 5/5 because I trust you did it well.

All in all, this is very good work. Biotech has come a long way from when I first knew it.

Glad you enjoyed it. We've found that for the first time or two people aren't entirely sure about the game, but it grows on you - especially once you do figure out the strategy side of it.

Also glad that you liked the effects and the tunes I spent a good chunk of my 18th birthday working on that music. xD

How would you recommend mixing up the gameplay a bit more? One thing that we were planning (some of the code is in place, but not all) would be having vahki as enemies. Some would fly, and the others could be picked up and thrown (working nicely as a grenade against buildings). Think that would help?

I like the idea, but don't add to the difficulty too much, maybe my making it that if a vahki was energy-drained it would weward more energy, because
you don't want to have three-fourths of your life gone when you enter sudden death mode! oh, and one problem with the graphics.
when matoran are squised, they turn to smoke like when you energy-drain them, instead of...well....getting squised! maybe you could make them fall down
and then dissapear like the disks do. a "number of kills" counter would be nice, too.

This post has been edited by Decepticon HeatWave: Jul 13 2009, 06:28 PM

[bonesiii]

Okay, here's my review. My short answer is, what he said, except factoring what IN said:

I loved the graphics. They were excellent. So was the music.

BUT

I didn't get what the gameplay was about at all. There were just matoran running on the ground and i kept holding C to kill them all. I could also make holes in the houses. Nothing else.

It's fairly simple really. Like I mentioned in the post, the goal is to destroy every building on screen. Climb up the building, mash it to pieces (punch it, jump on it, slide down the edges, etc.), then move on to the next one. Once every building is down, you'll advance to the next level where more enemies will await you.

I've updated the exe to reflect this.

It took me a while to figure that out, but once I did, I had fun for at least ten minutes, so nice work. Discovering the different ways to attack the building was the most fun part. I would have taken a moment before gameplay started to display the controls (and memorizing the particular ones you chose was really hard -- I found myself needing to back away or pause again and again to get them straight; I would have went with more obvious buttons like spacebar/enter/shift... and I did in my game but hey), since the gameplay started instantly before there was a chance to understand the controls.

First I tried this on my slow comp, and this was the worst offender in terms of not being able to load, other than Kraata Attack which appears to have some kind of glitch that won't let it startup. But it ran fine on my other comp which is more normal, so probably not an issue. The quality of graphics and sound and the apparent complexity of the game physics were well worth having to boot up a more powerful computer. The argument could be made, though, that it's too advanced to be considered Arcade, but then Arcade is a very varied genre. I guess my problem is, it has such a big learning curve, and these are supposed to be simple games you can just sit down in front of, see short and simple controls, and have at it. But, since work obviously went into that, I wouldn't mind losig to it.

My biggest beef with this game is that even though it was really fun at first, once I knocked over a few buildings, the pace was just so slow I lost interest in continuing. Now like I said in Ary's topic, it's hard for me to compare with my own entry since I'm biased heh, but compared to his, the gameplay of his got more and more fun as it went, as the difficulty level went up and new challenges arose. Here, neither really happened. My own entry has been accused of not having enough of that soon enough though so I'll shrug. Maybe there was later, but I got too bored to go on.

My favorite sound was the one when you "eat" Matoran. Other than that, pretty standard but it worked well. In the graphics category, like I said, they are quality. Not sure how original they were, though. Are those just Rayg sprites? I think Ary's entry beats yours (and mine lol but I dunno; most of mine are original ) in that category with an original line-only take on it.

Also, one other thing I had an issue with. That rage attack thing just confused the heck out of me. I couldn't for the life of me get that bar to go up to even halfway. Is that just something that's pretty much impossible on the earlier levels or what?

But those things aside, really good job! It's a game that gives a good first impression, albeit a little confusing at first, and is really fun in at least those first ten minutes. Replayability seems to be the biggest weakness, but that is shared by most of the other games IMO. And if nothing else it got me to post a really long review which I rarely do in FCG XD. I'll try to try it again sometime; your saying that it grows on people is noted.

[Jedi Knight Kraz...]

First I tried this on my slow comp, and this was the worst offender in terms of not being able to load, other than Kraata Attack which appears to have some kind of glitch that won't let it startup.

It's not MY fault you haven't run Windows Update in three months...

[Ary]

It's not MY fault you haven't run Windows Update in three months...

It's your fault for having unreasonable system requirements.