Mercurian - Foppygames

Mercurian is a horizontal SHMUP taking place in a cave. Each level (marked by blue walls of energy) brings more enemies. Your ship has an autofire 4-way gun (button O) as well as three special weapons: rapid fire (U), bomb (Y), and lasers (A). These have a shared reload period. Reloading of the special weapons is indicated by the flashing cockpit. The game also has a monthly online high score table. During gameplay your current high score rank is displayed next to your score.

Game page on ouya.tv

Mercurian

Controls

D-Pad = movement (recommended)
Left stick = movement (alternative)

O = shoot
U = rapid fire
Y = bomb
A = lasers

Home button = pause

Credits

Music: Roald Strauss - IndieGameMusic.com

Other credits are listed in the scroller on the title screen.

Screenshot

http://www.foppygames.nl/screens/mercurian.jpg

Complaint
Highscore Entry : I selected my first letter (J) then subconsciously hit O to move to the next letter, but it didn't move to the next letter... it saved my name as "JAA", and submitted it.
D'oh!

None-Complaint
Cracking game, enjoyed it, didn't get very far and are shit at it, but it works nicely, and plays well.
Good stuff :D

So why autofire?

I experimented with non-autofire at first. To let players press the fire button as fast as possible did not work well, I thought. It would mean one person can fire more bullets than another, maybe depending on what joypad they are using. So I implemented a maximum. But then people would hit that maximum and wonder why they are not firing more bullets. So I made it autofire at that maximum. It's also a game that gets very hectic so autofire is helpful. I can still see how normal fire can be more attractive (and then add autofire as a temporal power-up), but in the case of this game I ended up with autofire.

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Highscore Entry : I selected my first letter (J) then subconsciously hit O to move to the next letter, but it didn't move to the next letter... it saved my name as "JAA", and submitted it.

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Yes, that can be tricky. But I think how it is now will lead to the smallest number of AAA 'oops what did I do' entries. At least you got to JAA. :D

http://s26.postimg.org/846p72bq1/batthumbsup.png
Good answer sir.

My autofire of choice, in recent years, has been to have a secondary delay variable.
If NoFire then Delay=0;Trigger=0
If Fire
Trigger=Trigger-weaponSpeed
If Trigger<=0
Shoot bullet
Delay=Delay+1
Trigger=Delay
Endif
Endif

Basically, the longer the player holds the fire button, the slower the weapon gets, so you get a nice middleground between button mashing and holding. Worked well the first time I implemented it, so have used it LOADS of times, since :D

Wow. Great game. Now im Nr.1 with 541 points at Level 5.
How many levels in the game?

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Basically, the longer the player holds the fire button, the slower the weapon gets

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Good idea. This could be implemented in the form of a gun overheat/cooldown system, with smoke effects. Maybe for a future update!

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Wow. Great game. Now im Nr.1 with 541 points at Level 5.
How many levels in the game?

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Thanks! The game is actually (spoiler alert!) without end. So the level number will keep increasing. But in practice, reaching much further than level 8, 9, or 10 would be very difficult.

Looks cool. Downloading to my OUYA!

Great game Foppy! I am loving it.