
Robokill:  Superb new Flash game from News.YC members - rms
http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/games/robokill/
======
reitzensteinm
Wow, thanks guys! I'm kind of surprised to see it at the top, I actually
submitted this when I first released looking for some feedback, but it was
buried pretty quickly.

I've talked a bit about the technical aspects in another thread here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=203952>

I'd love to answer any questions anyone has, and I'm especially interested in
getting any feedback on the purchase proposition and payment process if anyone
does decide to buy it.

~~~
rms
For $9.95, I think you would do alright on Xbox Live Arcade/PS3 Network...
have you thought about developing for those platforms?

~~~
reitzensteinm
We have, but we'd need to scale up a bit to be able to get on there. There's a
lot of red tape involved!

~~~
rms
If I paypal you the $10 can I get beta access to your games for the next year?
It feels like a much better deal if you commit to making future episodic
content or if there are community tools to make new levels. Maybe puzzle rooms
that you have to reclear until you solve? I think building a level editor is
the next logical step and this is a great game mechanic to develop further.

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randy
Fun game, but it's missing the huge boss battles that made Smash TV so awesome
(Seriously, if you want to up your conversion rates on purchases, make that
last room in Episode 4 an onslaught to remember instead of four easily
disposable dorks).

~~~
reitzensteinm
That's a good point. We'll definitely put bosses in for the next version.

~~~
volida
you should have a very short domain name linking directly to the game. I tried
to recomend the game and the easier way was to tell them google for robokill

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symptic
I bought the game. Not just because it's a product of News.YC members, but
because it's really fun.

After beating it, I think it would be more fun if...

1\. later versions of each gun is more or less equal in power, but each have
different perks. That way if someone loves their shotguns, they can
effectively keep using shotguns throughout the whole game rather than being
forced to replace them for a gun that will actually give them a fighting
chance to win.

2\. Bosses.Be it a really fast unit that is annoyingly hard to aim at or the
big enormous monster that somehow never seems to die, the game needs some
things to curse at... I mean.. make it hard and to build anticipation. Bosses
are also great for continuing the story in a possible sequel. ;P

3\. An upgrade you can buy that lets you jump. That would be really cool and
make the game way more dynamic, especially if you make it so the grenade
launchers have a little arc to them where you can sit on a safe spot and shoot
ground units down with them.

4\. Perhaps skills? Regeneration or added weapon/upgrades slots? The
possibilities are really endless.

That's all I've got for now. I may play through again tomorrow and write
another reply in here. :)

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Ravenlock
Bravo. Love the Zelda-dungeon-esque level design, the warp points make getting
around easy, and the death penalty is extremely well handled. A joy to play,
just lost an hour to it and never noticed the time pass. Well done.

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hhm
This is quite impressive! An only usability detail: why do you need all users
to approve access to the file system, if that functionality is only required
for saving games? I'm sure most users will be scared by that banner.

~~~
reitzensteinm
That's a Flash problem - you can possibly use more space than the 100k default
if you have five profiles, and Flash will _fail silenty_ when trying to write
to it unless you ask for the block up front.

And the Flash prompt is pretty badly worded - it's just the Flash cookies that
it's talking about!

The whole thing has driven me crazy...

Edit: Oh, I see what you mean about waiting until the user saves. The game
saves transparently when you walk around so there's no other good time to pop
up with the allocation popup. Would have been much easier if we used a 'choose
slot to save' kind of system when you are back at base.

~~~
teamonkey
Why can't you store the save games on the server? You can easily store a
unique access key in the default 100k for casual users (and I assume that
registered users log in).

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reitzensteinm
Well, that ends up as a _lot_ of data on the server. One of the people behind
the casual collective just released his tracker stats that show 100 million
plays (loads), which would be 10 terabytes, assuming of course that each load
resulted in a store.

We don't have a full time server guy so I'd prefer to stay out of that kind of
thing, for now anyway! I think next time we'll just design the game around a
strict 100k limitation.

~~~
siculars
use amazon s3

~~~
teamonkey
...And an expiry time for unregistered users.

Also, think about reducing the size of the save game file! Many PS2 game saves
fitted into 32K.

Good game though :)

~~~
reitzensteinm
I think that's exactly what we'll have to do - design the save files to fit in
100k. This wasn't by design - this was 1 day from release, where we discovered
that amazingly enough there's no way to tell if a save was successful or not
in Flash, so we couldn't ask people to up their storage only when needed
(which should be rarely).

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Darmani
Very impressive! Unfortunately, I can't give any higher praise than "a well-
executed dungeon-crawler with style." I'm having a blast now, but I get the
impression I won't look back after beating it.

In many ways, this sci-fi, shooting, dungeon-crawling RPG reminds me of "Virus
Hunter," a walk-through example used in the Game Design program of
"Cybercamp," which I enrolled in when I was 10. Is there some common
inspiration I'm not familiar with? I highly doubt Virus Hunter had much
originality...

As a comic side-note, I initially thought the Light weapons meant they fired
light as their projectile.

P.S.: I must compliment the decision to jump straight from one mission to the
next. I initially told myself I'd stop after beating mission 1, but, with the
game offering no natural breaking point (e.g.: "Congratulations! Save and
continue?" or some other kind of pop-up exposition or prompt -- an analogous
phenomenon: it's easier to put down a book between chapters than one paragraph
into the next chapter) , I found myself telling myself "I'll stop after
beating this mission." As mission 3 rolled around, I found it hard to force
myself to quit. It's the game designer's job to get the players addicted, and
you certainly succeeded there!

~~~
LPTS
There is no higher praise for a video game then "a well-executed dungeon
crawler with style"

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hwork
OK I checked it out. And by checked it out I mean spent three hours and beat
the first four missions. What an awesome game. Smooth gameplay, intuitive UI,
etc. Thanks for that.

One idea I have -- cut the demo off after the first two missions. I'm kind of
burnt out on the game right now and needing a break; not in the mood to buy
the game and play it some more. After two missions I was deep into it and most
likely to convert into a sale.

~~~
Hexstream
As for myself, I thought there was barely enough free content... I would have
found it really cheap if you could only do the first 2 missions, especially
since they're so easy. I didn't die before the 4th, which is significantly
more challenging.

------
Create
Superb new Flash game for News.YC members: <http://www.egg-attack.com>

Backgrounder: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/ballmer_eggs/>

<http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=49451>

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swivelmaster
Another game design criticism: I feel like the rooms where you start on a
narrow path and get shot at from directly in front and have nearly no room to
dodge... are kind of cheap.

It may just be me, but I much prefer the big rooms with obstacles and lots of
baddies - they let me exercise a lot more strategy. The narrow corridor rooms
just make me think "oh crap oh crap oh crap I'm going to get hit and there's
nothing I can do about it!"

Perhaps in the sequel (if you do one) you can add moving platforms and rooms
that change structure. Conveyer belts. Maybe a garbage compactor like in Star
Wars. Muahaha.

edit: Also - perhaps more visual cue from the grenades? Maybe a little circle
with trails. Also, try getting a few more explosions and picking them randomly
instead of using the same one each time.

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wmeredith
This is killer. I played for about an hour right out of the gate. I'm loving
it.

Constructive criticism: 1) The ambush's seem lame without bait. Put a dollar
bill at the far end of the room, or something. 2) In at least one situation I
got a key that was just used in the next room I was going to in the logical
progression of things. This doesn't add much to the game since I don't have to
go find it and seems superfluous. 3) The Flash permission-ask is lame, but
that's already been talked through elsewhere in this thread. 4) Where are the
really hard fights in the objective rooms? Get bosses or REALLY pack them with
baddies.

Kudos, overall, though. "Superb" is an apt description for this flash game.

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swivelmaster
I love the game. My only problem with it is that when Flash gets busy (lots of
items on the screen), the controls get sticky. I've fallen off the side
several times because I let go of a button while Flash was bogged down and it
didn't register... so I kept going in that direction.

I'm on a dual 2ghz G5 with a gig of ram, running in Safari, in case you're
curious.

As a side note, I'm an AS3 coder and though I love my current job that has
nothing to do with games, it's stuff like this that makes me entertain
thoughts of game development. I'm gonna go read the technical notes from your
link now....

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ericb
I'll be coming back to play again... Neat! Can I ask how long it took to
build, how many of you there are, and if there is any engine over the flash?
I've never built a game before, so it's all foreign to me.

~~~
reitzensteinm
It took two of us about 3.5 months to build. There wasn't any engine over
flash except for what was built during development. A lot of development time
went into optimization, caching etc though (I talk about that in the other
thread I liked to here).

~~~
VinzO
Are you guys working full time on this?

------
ars
I don't know if you are still reading comments here but:

The robot the spawns bugs should have a cap on number of bugs. Otherwise you
can sit there killing bugs that drop shield recharges as long as you want. You
can fully recharge your shield, and also build up exp for free.

If you finish a room you get a recharge, if you kill a box with an ambush you
get a second recharge.

The store seems pointless - everything is far too expensive to actually buy.
i.e. when you finally have enough money to buy something, it's weaker than the
gun you picked up from the floor.

All the extra powerups, like riot shield and the others, are pointless - you
don't have enough spaces to actually use them. It's a no-brainer to have the
shield rechargers always equiped. Unless you want to constantly switch them on
and off, which is a big hassle and detracts from the game. (You get about 1
second after killing everything before it recharges, so you theoretically
could swap them every single time, but that really ruins gameplay.)

Have dedicated shield recharger spots, and then spots for everything else. The
reasoning is that recharges are used after a room is finished, but everything
else is used during a room.

I kinda of enjoyed playing it, but the balance was poor.

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sker
I find it hard to be played with the touchpad of my laptop.

~~~
DTrejo
What isn't hard with a touchpad?

(besides Emacs)

~~~
LPTS
My MacBook Pro's trackpad is totally awesome. No more mouse pains in my hand
from using my computer a lot. Most trackpads suck, but a good trackpad beats a
good mouse, I think.

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elai
AWESOME GAME! Wayy better than 95% of the flash games out there.

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DanHulton
I think I would have purchased, had there been boss fights. Also, it's pretty
easy to get yourself into a bad situation if you enjoy trying different weapon
loadouts - since weapons sell for so much less than you buy them for, the more
you experiment, the worse your gear. And there's a few rooms on the fourth
level that are "Gear check" rooms - if you can't put out enough damage, you
simply can't progress (narrow path, many blue enemy spawners).

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rsa
Can anyone give a more insight on how these games are build ?

~~~
Tichy
Where to begin? Do you know how to program?

I would guess download Flex and start coding.

~~~
rsa
Yes I do. I am not a game programmer though.

~~~
Tichy
I think all you need is a game loop (that is the difference to web
programming).

while(isGameRunning){

    
    
       processInputs();
    
       processMonsters();
    
       updateScreen();
    

}

It really is quite straightforward. Start with something simple like Tetris.

~~~
wlievens
Good advise. I'd recommend starting with something like Asteroids, because
it's even easier than Tetris (no tricky rotation/bounds logic) and more
rewarding.

~~~
rsa
Thanks for the advise. I'll try that.

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icky
Glorious game.

My only question is why do the robots carry cash?

~~~
astine
Real questions: why is there a shop in the middle of a warzone?

~~~
sdp
Presumably, there is high demand for supplies in the middle of a warzone.

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jcromartie
The graphics in this are above and beyond anything I've ever seen in a 2D
flash game. Breathtaking!

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rms
Congrats for making the good experience list:
<http://goodexperience.com/games/>

Their original submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=84191>

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whiletruepass
I really want to like this game, I really do. But the keyboard controls make
it unplayable. They have a habit of sticking in the game, so I walk straight
off the ledge or into a robot swarm. Does anyone else get this?

~~~
swivelmaster
Sometimes. I think it's a Flash thing and it depends on the speed of your
computer. Perhaps key up events aren't being fired correctly.

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FiReaNG3L
For some reason the CPU usage is very high and sometimes controls stop
responding on my system (Athlon 3200+), which is annoying in big fights / when
you fall off a cliff. Great game though!

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andreyf
Multiplayer mode would be beyond awesome. Flash-based MMORPG, maybe?

------
as
Ella Fitzgerald at low volume behind the gameplay music? Brilliant!

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Harkins
...if I pause to change audio settings, the first option throws away my
progress without warning. Happened twice to me, doesn't make me want to keep
playing.

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Prrometheus
How do I save my game? If I can't, then I'll have to leave my browser open.
Don't want to risk going to the main menu without knowing what will happen.

~~~
rms
If you go to the main menu you can start at whatever mission you are on, but
not mid mission

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helveticaman
I found it annoying that you couldn't pay the shop to regenerate your shield.
If it was low, you'd have to die before the game went on.

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rlm
Fun game, but it's weird that the Level 2 Weapon (the shotgun) has a lower DPS
than the level 1 weapon.

Why would anyone want to use the shotgun then? :P

~~~
symptic
it does spread damage of course. I found several situations where I'd equip
multiple shotguns and sit in a corner and let all the bugs come at me. :D

------
drawkbox
Well done, gameplay is just fucking muhwhuaaa!

~~~
agotterer
Thanks a lot. I just spent the last hour playing. Very cool though! Great job.

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Tichy
Can't play with my Flash Security settings. Why can't you at least let me play
a demo, before I adjust the security slider?

~~~
Tichy
Downvoted for reporting a bug?

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lpgauth
I tried the first level and it looks exactly like one of the castles in zelda
for snes.... At least the map layout.

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rory096
Very fun, though there needs to be a way to turn off the sound without
quitting out of the game.

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babul
A lot better than I thought it would be. Thank you for exceeding my
expectations.

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superchink
This game ruined my productivity for about 2 hours last night. Thanks a lot!

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louislouis
Great game, very addictive! Will definately play again when I'm bored!

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ericb
one issue I have is the mouse-for-aim requirement. If I could hold control to
turn, then release to move, that would be much better. I have trouble with
using the mouse for action...

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schtog
Very cool game, well done.

What language(s) did you use?

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goodgoblin
Cool game - reminds me of Smash TV

~~~
icky
> Cool game - reminds me of Smash TV

Which in turn should remind you of RoboTron.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotron:_2084>

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dkd
nice one... i love it... is it completely coded in flash?

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LPTS
I love this game. This is exactly the kind of game I want to play when I want
to kill time but not learn something complicated. It's easily the best flash
game I have played.

You should have some bosses, and some retro zelda dungeons or something
though.

