Infinity Guardian a.k.a Laser Defender rename after bottle of shiraz

So here is my version of laser defender redux.
Yes it went a lot further than I anticipated. I had to tell my self, to stop messing around and let other people see it and they can have a go. Publish or be damned in that spiral of ,well I wonder if I can do this…

Have fun and let me know.

Infinity Guardian

Your thoughts much appreciated.

Hey Jon,

One should never underestimate the power of wine! (soft drinks for those of a younger age who are reading!) :slight_smile:

You have added so much to the core game Job, well done, really - probably one of the most extended version of Laser Defender I’ve seen.

  • great music
  • awesome menu, very much like the colour and size change on the hover of buttons
  • fantastic range of power-ups (and power-downs)
  • detailed hud
  • nice effects to show damaged enemies
  • nice effects for the player engines and side thrusters
  • a game with a name!

Here’s a few things I spotted/thought of whilst playing, provided only as constructive criticism/food for thought.

  • Power-ups
    • the frequency of them appearing seems quite high
    • they do not disappear when collected, perhaps a little effect when collected + audio effect
  • Enemies
    • more animations would be good
    • more formation patterns would be good
    • it is apparent that the enemies get harder to kill as the game progresses through the waves, this could be visual apparent through the use of different enemy types, either different sprites, or, simply use the same sprites and change their colours and / or sizes
    • movement seems quite slow, it could be increased, or randomised, or perhaps changes when there are not many enemies left (like the original Space Invaders game)
    • if you take out enemies from the edges, the remaining enemies do not move all the way to the edges (because of the formation “empty” GameObject - could consider resizing this based enemies remaining
    • it is possible to shoot the enemies when they are “arriving” which causes more to arrive
      • you could consider disabling player shooting during this phase
      • speeding up the particle effects for the stars to give the impression of flying to a new area
  • Projectiles
    • fire rate of enemies seems quite high considering their slow moving speed
    • the 45 degree player projectiles look a little odd when the player is moving sideways, I think its because it doesn’t quite seem natural from where the laser would be firing from
  • hud
    • consistency
      • different size font for score
      • health bar seems a bit oversized
      • location of important piece of information
  • effects consistency
    • the effect used for the explosion is really nice, but in contrast to the style of sprites / starfield feels a little out of place. I think you could either do with turning up the quality of sprites/particles/backgrounds, or, perhaps dialling down those for the explosions (preference would be the former)
  • Menu
    • Acknowledgements and Instructions
      • writing is quite hard to read due to the font
      • back button is very small

I hope the above is of some use, you’ve created a really good game here with many different game mechanics all of which seem to “fit”. A lot of the above are just minor “tweaks” / balancing.

Again, well done on creating your version of Laser Defender - and extra kudos for giving it a name!

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Wow!!! To be honest I did not anticipate a shout out from your goodself. You have made a pommie down here in Oz very chuffed.

I take your comments on board, a couple of the things I had noticed but was stuck in that cycle of constantly tweaking and not releasing.

Many Thanks for your feedback, am off now to have breakfast and a cup of tea, not Shiraz.

Well that’s very kind but I’m just another member of the community :slight_smile:

Sometimes it can be beneficial to release a little earlier, perhaps on just one or two specific features. You could still develop others in the background, but it would give you an opportunity to “test the water” so to speak and collate feedback from users who play test, that way you may not get to set in a specific direction and then have a load of things to change.

Also, if you have the opportunity and time to do it, providing a couple of differing versions can be useful. Take the hud comments above, you could quite easily copy your project, and rebuild with the items in one or two different layouts, take a screen shot of each, and then in your post show them and link to a version of the game with each variety - again, collate the feedback.

The more people you can canvas the better as you will get more reliable feedback, the above is obviously just “my” feedback, if you ask 100 people, 99 of them may disagree on everyone of my points! But if you got 75, perhaps 80% for example all saying the same thing on one specific item then perhaps there’s good ground to make a change.

You’re more than welcome and enjoy the breakfast! :slight_smile:

So, I have made some changes based upon feedback from a couple of sources. There have been a few technical hitches and some particularly profound dumb moments by me, but I do hope you see a difference.
There are eight looped levels and there is a kind of a message in them…

Infinity Defender link

I welcome any feedback or comments and hope you like it.
I am off now to see Mr Shiraz or Mr Merlot.

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hehe, Jon, this has come along really nicely - well done.

I think the blazing sun would be even better if it was a 3D sphere and was rotating forwards, as if you were flying over/around it, at the moment, because it’s quite bright I often lose sight of some of the projectiles/ship.

I noticed that if you shoot a gap in the enemy formation, you get to a point where, as they progress down the screen, they go off the bottom of the screen, at this point I can’t shoot anything. I waited to see what happens and eventually the next wave loaded, but this was “odd time”, the enemies should perhaps either trigger the next wave a little sooner, or, maybe they reverse and come back up until all destroyed?

Again, really nice set of features you have in this game, I’m going back for some more! :slight_smile:

Well done again! :slight_smile:

Cheers Rob, Thankyou for the feedback, I will have a look at what causes the bugout. Got a rough idea.

Yep, I did skimp a bit with the 2d image. Am such a cheapskate!

Will have a look at this project again once I learn more about animation, which is my next task and then going to start looking at the next project for a wee while. This project is a rabbithole I keep diving into, or perhaps wormhole should be more appropriate.

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hehe, well I will look forward to seeing what you work on next, and obviously, any further updates to Infinity Guardian :slight_smile:

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