

Pistol Slut, a 2D shoot-em-up platformer in Javascript - maryrosecook
http://pistolslut.com

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patio11
YMMV but I'm not wild about the name.

The game could use a Game Over screen and way to restart (without reloading
the page) on death. Otherwise, it appears that the core mechanics are well
executed, and a bit more length and variation could only help.

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maryrosecook
I agree the name is risky. It was actually a funny phrase that occurred to me
when I started work on the game. Later, when I started talking about it to my
friends, I said it was only the working title, but lots of people said I
should keep it, so I did.

Yes, I agree it needs a game over screen and a way to restart without
reloading. These are both high up the list. The reason they are not there yet
is that I think of the game as a sandbox at the moment.

~~~
mcantelon
Don't listen to these lily livers. It's an unusual, funny name and suitable,
given that the player uses a variety of weaponry.

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maryrosecook
Use Google Chrome to play the game. I've been working on this in my spare time
for the last few months. This is an alpha version. The development has been
iterative: adding something, trying it out, then often removing it. The
gameplay is evolving into something that is centred around a series of
tactical, pitched battles.

I'm simply posting this to show off what I've been working on. I would greatly
appreciate suggestions for improvement. I know the graphics are horrible.

~~~
citricsquid
This was fun, but doesn't this prove how poorly built Javascript is for games?
Months to develop something that could be done in Flash in a few days.

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maryrosecook
I think you're right that it would have been quicker in Flash. The engine I
used is mostly a drawing engine, with some basic game stuff included
(particles, the beginnings of collision detection). However, this project was
all about learning Javascript, and working in a newish field. Plus, a lot of
the time I spent was on graphics (I suck at drawing) and iterating and
exploring to find the gameplay and style.

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Agustus
Graphics: The character's movement animations are smooth and cohesive; the
characters do not appear to jump from animation to animation.

Gameplay: Guns: The three available guns are nice, but I want that mortar
launcher.

Gameplay: Shooting: The ability to shoot multiple bullets and create
alternative directions because of kickback is a neat feature.

Gameplay: Opponents Shooting: The infinite amount of bullets that the opponent
has does not jive with my predicament. The shotgunner lays down a full spread
of bullets while the mortar shoot covers from a distance. My theory was to
wait for the opponent shotgun guy to run out of bullets.

Gameplay: MortarDude/Cover: The first mortardude fires directly onto a canopy,
sometimes the mortar hits the canopy and explodes, other times when the
trajectory puts the mortar on path to hit the canopy, the mortar falls
through.

Gameplay: Damage: No clear sign that I was hurt by that last bullet that was
shot at me while I was diving behind the tires. If you want to leave off a
damage bar, take off body parts from the character accordingly.

~~~
maryrosecook
Thanks very much for your detailed feedback.

The player will get the mortar launcher - still figuring out how to make the
controls work.

I hadn't thought of giving the enemies limited ammo. I will try it and see how
it feels. I haven't done any work on what weapons the player gets and when.
This will come once I start making more levels.

Yes, a damage bar seems like a good intermediary step while I explore other
options for showing bullet hits.

~~~
JeffL
Just make the enemies spend 2-3 seconds reloading after they've fired a
certain number of shots.

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maryrosecook
They do already, but I could lengthen the reload time.

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rb2k_
Using "Z" as a key makes it really hard for Germans to play the game since for
us, y and z are switched on the keyboard. Using x,c,v or 1,2,3 would be better
in this case :)

Other than this: fun game

~~~
brl
As a Dvorak user, all of these JS games with their hardcoded keys are
impossible to play without changing my layout back to Qwerty.

1,2,3 + arrow keys would be a better choice for sure.

~~~
cryptoz
It's tough to use the arrow keys for JavaScript games. If you bind events to
those keys, the web browser won't care and still use those keys to scroll.
It's bad design since then you'll be scrolling _and_ manipulating the game at
the same time.

The reason that this isn't a problem for Flash is because Flash grabs and
steals _all_ keyboard and mouse focus away from the browser; not something
anyone should re-implement in JavaScript.

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araneae
Yup! I do most of my browsing with keys, and I can't tell you how many times I
have hit CTRL+W repeatedly before realizing flash had the focus. Eww.

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frou_dh
It's a testament to the reach of JavaScriipt that this even runs on the Kindle
I'm browsing on (slowly).

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revjx
Always good to see a Javascript game like this (i.e. not sudoku / tic-tac-
toe). It's good. I did notice some weird stuff with grenades disappearing
through the floor though.

I like the stick figures also!

~~~
maryrosecook
Thanks a lot. Yes: collision detection is flaky after some recent changes.
Going to work on it.

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dc2k08
Just played a similar game today also in javascript/html5:
<http://www.phoboslab.org/biolab/>

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athom
It looks like it takes awhile -- like at least several seconds -- for the game
to pick up my 'z' to start keypress. Then, the playfield goes blank, and stays
that way for at least a minute or three (I'm still waiting for something to
show up). That may just be Firefox, but I'm not going to install a new browser
just to play one game.

That said, I noticed your loading bar reports xx of yy as it progresses, with
BOTH values increasing. The 'of' value (yy) is traditionally fixed at the
final value xx should reach, in order to give the user some sense of actual
progress. I would recommend following that practice, if at all possible.

~~~
maryrosecook
The game loading and then going blank is something I've seen and fixed in
Safari, but not Firefox. What version of Firefox are you using?

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pepsi_can
What about making this multiplayer? A player starts this up and is placed
immediately into a battle with another random player? Maybe a few NPCs in
there for fun.

~~~
maryrosecook
Nice idea. However, I am aiming to make a game about beating a system, rather
than out-thinking someone else. The idea is to present the player with set-
pieces - mostly pitched battles - that involve a few NPCs that behave in a
predictable manner. Thus, the player must figure out how to solve tactical
problems.

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user24
Nice. Would like to see a health counter. I can't see a way to restart other
than by refreshing the browser.

~~~
karlokeeffe
I actually liked the riskiness and uncertainty of not having a health counter
and not being sure if the next bullet would be the one that takes you down.

Maybe with a stronger indication of when you get hit it could work quite well
without one.

~~~
maryrosecook
Yes, maybe bullet hits could send the player/enemies into a stagger as well as
causing the existing blood spurt?

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chriseidhof
My keyboard is set to Dvorak, the controls are quite difficult for me.

~~~
maryrosecook
That is very useful - thanks a lot. I will try and find a set of keys that
work well with both Qwerty and Dvorak.

~~~
ido
It's quite a can of worms - there are many different keyboard layouts in
common use (QEWRTZ, AZERTY, etc).

If you can find a way to make it work using only layout-independent keys
(arrow keys, ctrl, alt, enter, space, esc, etc) you will save yourself a lot
of headaches.

~~~
maryrosecook
That's a good idea. Thanks.

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tocomment
It's very slow for me. And when I hit the keyboard buttons my browser brings
up the search page prompt.

(I'm on Firefox, Ubuntu)

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sown
The controls are really sluggish. Is that from the game or the underlying
tech?

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maryrosecook
Sluggish in what way?

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cme
nice! I love the stick figures and the simplicity of the game.

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maryrosecook
Thanks a lot. I've tried to keep everything minimal.

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darkhorse
stop reinventing the square wheel, please.

i don't want to play a game that looks like it's from 20 years ago, the only
difference being it runs EVEN WORSE than it did on a 486.

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alexyoung
There's a lot of JavaScript games out there. The fact this is a game - written
in JavaScript - is no-longer newsworthy.

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BrandonM
There's a lot of dismissive comments out there. The fact this a comment -
written to dismiss - is no-longer newsworthy.

~~~
alexyoung
I liked this troll of my troll

~~~
BrandonM
I liked this like of my troll of your troll

