Care to alpha-test my game?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m writing a computer game of spaceship tag that runs in your internet browser. I’ve put together the basic setup, and I’d like suggestions and comments for future features and improvements. I don’t know when I’ll work on it more, but I’d like ideas, at any rate.

If you try it out, be warned of a couple of things:
[ul][li]It may have unpredictable results. It may even crash your browser. It hasn’t done anything like that to me, so I’m hoping it’s all good, but be warned. It’s completely Javascript, so it won’t have any effects outside your browser, but don’t run it if you have important webpages open.[/li][li]For me, it works in Netscape/Mozilla, IE, and to a limited extent, Opera, but I haven’t tested it in anything else. If you have an old browser like Communicator, it’s just not going to work.[/li][li]This thing takes up huge amounts of resources - 10% of the CPU on my computer. It also is kind of a big download, 300kb. The 2-player version is only 150kb, and the low-resolution version is only 75kb.[/li][li]Along those same lines, to save my bandwidth, try not to reload everything a jillion times. If you want to restart the game, press R. If for some reason you want to try it out on 6 browsers, I can email you the files, and you can run it locally.[/li][/ul]Each ship has turn left, thrust, and turn right. The controls for each ship are:[ul][li]Player 1 (blue) - arrow keys (doesn’t work in Opera)[/li][li]Player 2 (red) - 1, 2, 3[/li][li]Player 3 (green) - M, comma, period[/li][li]Player 4 (pink) - 4, 5, 6 on the numeric keypad. If you have a three-button mouse, You can also control Player 4 with that. (doesn’t work in Opera)[/li][li]Reset - R[/li][/ul]That’s it. If you want to give it a shot, here you go:
Ship Chase full 4-Player Version
Ship Chase 2-Player Version
Ship Chase low-resolution 4-Player Version

If you have comments that are specific to your system, like “It doesn’t load”, or “the text is garbled”, please tell me what browser and OS (Windows 98, for instance) you’re using. Thank you!

(Moderators: I posted something very similar to this a couple of months ago, so I assume this is okay, but if not, please disable the links.)

2

hmm,XP pro/Mozilla 1.5- shipchase 2 player version.

The lil ships bounce off the middle of the screen in 1280 x 1024 res. they are stuck in the top half.

3

make that in all versions. the play field is only the upper half ot the screen.

4

Ah thank you, I forgot to mention that. That’s a known bug. If the program does not accurately detect the height of the window, it defaults to 400 pixels. For me it only happens in IE. I do intend to fix this as soon as I figure out how.

5

I’m using Opera 7.23 Build 3227, Microsoft XP Professional, and I didn’t notice this problem at all. I was able to roam all over the screen. I’m using a 1280x1024 resolution, if that’s relevant.

6

Top half of screen only for me, IE 6.0, Win2KPro. Turning seemed to be clunky – very slow response, and not very linear, seemed to be 8 compass points only.

I’ve got some recommendations:

  1. Put a circle around whoever is ‘it’.
  2. Flames out the back when thrusting.
  3. Some obstacles – maybe a moon or asteroid that floats around?
7

Sorry, not top half, top quarter actually. I’m running at 1600x1200 resolution. At 800 x 600 it was top half only, and the turning was faster, but still clunky. Perhaps the spaceships could be smaller, too.

8

There are 24 compass points. If only 8 are showing up, that sounds pretty bad.

Try the low-resolution version. See if that’s any smoother.

9

I made a change to the program file. Now it detects the screen height correctly for me on IE as well as Mozilla and Opera. Let me know if it still doesn’t work for you.

10

OK, maybe it’s more than 8, but it’s still pretty clunky. If I tap the key, I can get as many as 15 turns in a complete circle. BTW, I’ve got a 2.4 GHz P4 and 1Gb of Ram, and a 32Mb dual monitor video card (Matrox Millenium 450). I’m using both monitors, the keyboard actions the same on either one, and on both together (3200x1200 resoultion). The horizontal movement topped out at under 1600 when using more than one monitor.

The low-rez version seemed the same.

11

yeah… in line 78, “status.3” is null or not an object (that’s what IE says.)

12

You doing the 2-player version?

13

Opera 7.21
Build 3218
Windows 95
Resolution 1024x768

Looked fine on the whole screen.

Keys: contrary to what you said, I could use the cursor keys just fine.

One problem: when I switched windows at one time, then got back to the game, I couldn’t control ship 1: the 1 and 2 keys suddenly led to switching windows. I used the normal 1 and 2 keys, not the ones on the numeric keypads. When I reset the game, this didn’t happen again. Maybe you could use different keys than 1-3?

Gameplay:

  • I found response to keys appearing a bit slow, but that’s apparently what you want (Asteroid style).
  • I would like some instructions about the point of the game. :slight_smile:
  • I’d like there to be something I can destroy. Or so. Now it seems too much like a game of tag in space.
14

Okay, thank you, chaoticdonkey. I think I fixed it. And I figured out a way to have IE do the “screen-shaking” effect that I couldn’t get it to do before.

Tusculan, the thing about Opera is that it uses the keyboard and mouse for a lot more stuff than the other browsers do, so it was hard to figure out what keys would be good. As an Opera user, what do you suggest?

I wish I could see how it looks on your screen, so I can see what you mean by slow response to keys. On my system, it seems to react to input immediately, although there’s a second or so of lag if I leave the window and come back.

As for the point, um, it is tag in space… :o

15

I’m playing the two-player game.

Maybe you could polish the font for the text and score? It is a bit blocky, which makes it look too amateuristic.

You might add a few obstacles on screen to make it more difficult. As was suggested, a moon or so would do nicely (you can decide whether you crash on it or only bump in it, and whether it has some kind of gravity or not). Powerups would be fun too (a speed powerup or so).

I feel the game might be a bit more challenging if the spaceships would be smaller, but maybe that would make it too difficult.

16

You’re right about the point of the game, I forgot :o. Still a few extra elements would make it more fun to come back to.

With response I mean that while the turning quickly shows a response, the thrust takes a while to have a visible effect. I know that’s what these Asteroid style games do, but maybe the parameters could be changed to generate a quicker thrust effect. Or maybe a visual feedback like (as Danalan suggested) exhaust flames would help.

I’ve been thinking about the keys, but don’t immediately know a better alternative. I just had it happen again: it looks as if the browser loses the correct focus on the game, and instead starts to interpret the keys as browser instructions. I can’t use the arrow keys now, either, only the R key seems to work.

17

Okay, the font just used your browser’s default monospace, but I changed it to Courier New now.

I will definitely add powerups, and probably obstacles too. Those will come later, though.

I also intend to have several different “classes” of ships. Or at least two. In addition to the Space Hippo, I’ve also drawn up the first frame for the Fledermaus-class vessel, the Space Hippo’s smaller, sprier cousin. It’ll take a while to get implemented, but the idea is there.

18

Mozilla Firebird 0.6 user here.

Interesting in the two player game when you ram both of the ships together at the same time nose to nose player one has invariably gotten the first hit.

19

Browser crashed when I clicked my mouse on a ship.

XP Pro, IE 6. Error was in the imgutil.dll.

20

I take that back. I am getting it to alternate every other hit when i intentionally hit them both at the same time.