Xeno Versus: Space Melee

#1 I really like your HUD. Great implementation of power and health.

#2 Nice work. I think your doing a great job so far, are you planing to make this into a online mutiplayer game?

#3 @Robert

Thanks. The other day I accidentally loaded 8 ships into the game and thought, "Gee, this would be perfect for network play." But unfortunately that is not in the works for this version.

I have toyed with, however, making a a turned-based 4X game (ala "Space Empires") as a sequel. I had done a web game where the basic management was all web-based, but when you fought another ship it loaded a flash combat game. This game I working on now is based on that flash game I wrote (same ship art at all). It's possible I might go that route after this is completed.

@All

I've gotten some great feedback on my blog about the HUD and thought I'd try to revise it based on the comments. Does anyone think these versions below looks better/worse?

Brighter:
www.xenoclone.com/images/xv_sidebar_rev1.jpg

Brighter still:
www.xenoclone.com/images/xv_sidebar_rev2.jpg

#4 I like the lower one more, but I am just a big fan of color. Any way keep up the good work this should be a fun title with or without online play.

#5 I like the lower one a lot more. I'd also tint/recolor the characters more so that they match the ship color thing. It's not super-easy to tell which color is which just by glancing.

Looks nice!

#6 I'm gonna disagree and say the top one looks better. Or rather, the bottom one's obviously prettier, but the ships are getting lost against the colourful background.

#7 I'd say take the ships out of the sidebar. It looks cluttered (and I'm not sure you actually need to know who is player 1, 2, 3 or 4 if you have some sort of color code signifying who is who... the face, the ship, the "player X" all seem redundant when put together). Give each square a color border to signify who is who. If you keep the face framed as you have it I'd animate the faces to match the action on the screen and to show personality.

Otherwise, you could zoom out a bit on how close you drew the characters to show a little bit of their surrounding cockpit and their flightsuits (properly colored to match their ship)- it's pretty classical to see them surrounded by electronics and how the internal architecture of each ship is different. Then instead of animating the faces you could just face-swap different expressions... and possibly have a text bubble pop out with some minor dialogue during gameplay.

I'd also toss in the idea of turning the scene black and white when you pause the game... and if you want to get super comic-bookie have some text pop up like they do in old fashioned comic books when there's a cliffhanger... "Will (playername) meet their maker? Who will be victorious?" etc.

#8 @Matt

I like the black and white pause with the old school cliffhanger text in there -- that's a great idea! I actually have also thought about animated expressions during the match as well, but I just don't know how feasible it is. Each character picture takes the artist quite a while to do (I think since all are in high res initially). Though as far as dialogue bubbles go, I've imagined them popping out of the ships themselves with various funny phrases in Japanese or English. You know, like when a ship gets hit, out pops, "Oh, my face! My beautiful face!"

@Teck/Rob/Tom

I'm having that same debate myself. That is, do I want to make it prettier, or do I want to make it more clear? Sounds like I need a little more experimentation before I get it right.

Thanks for the feedback all. I really appreciate it. The game has come along well. Hopefully when I post the next screenshot, we'll have another level ready. Right now we're working on a board where you fight inside the ring of a planet. I hope it turns out. :)

#9 Here are a few newer screens. Graphics/content haven't changed too much. I've mostly been adding in features, weapons, et al. But I wanted to share that progress is still being made.

#10 Some video footage of the alpha on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKRt3z8v-04.

It's a little hard to see the weapons, but you get the idea. ;)

#11 Chris, thats looks great! Can't wait to give it a wirl..I dig space games :)

#12 Thanks Steve. I've gotten pretty positive feedback from the Star Control community. I figure if I can please people who have loved the same game for 10+ years, I'll have done my job. :)

Right now I'm in the process of revising the GUI and implementing a better AI. But that all will go into the blog when appropriate. :D

#13 Chris, the video looks *amazing*! It makes me wonder if I should continue updating my space shooter at all. :) I just picked it up again a few nights ago and started adding some fun to the game, and I hope to do another upload soon. But wow -- your game is so many leaps and bounds ahead of mine, I'm truly humbled. Excellent work! Can't wait to try it out. :)

#14 Thanks Clint.

I just thought I'd toss out there that this project is still in fact very much alive. I've been going to grad school full time for the past 6 months, so I haven't had much time to work/post. But I'm happy to report a lot of internal code cleanup is going on, as well as some slick improvements in the GUI. I hope to get a blog entry up soon. :)

#15 Loved the video footage.

#16 Looking forward to an update! Looks gorgeous.

#17 Beautiful

#18 Thanks! I appreciate the nice comments. They boost my motivation.

I put a new blog here: www.garagegames.com/blogs/68928/13159

And a new youtube video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQJncaba7jc

#19 This looks excellent!

#20 Nice job! Looks really polished, can't be far from complete!?!

I really like the font you are using, have you created it yourself?
It would fit really nice into our ongoing RPG-game ;)