maybe my graphics card is not powerful enough!

ERROR in
action number 1
of End Step Event
for object Blurfx_obj:

Trying to use non-existing surface.

Hmm. It shouldn't do that. Guess I better go and catch that so it doesn't happen!

You should, in theory, be able to get rid of that by fiddling with the options and turning stuff off or down a tad. I can't remember if I left the config to start with motion blur on, if I did - turn it off in the menu and it shouldn't do that anymore.

I hope! :D

Glorious!

Yeah... I had blur at 0 then I took it to 1 and got the same problem. I will let you know my comp is total poo.

No worries, I'll fix it up.

I've probably let an effect slip through the net somewhere I shouldn't have. Blimmin' lack of sleep, that.

Hey man awesome game :).

And yes i am one of those few that read those read me things.... Its cool to see you putting so much thought into the design, so i thought id throw a few throughts into the bag.

First, could you integrate the options into a gui? i dont mind but alot of people dont like going through text documents to change settings.

Second, could we get a mouse and keyboard control scheme? Trying to control the ship with the arrow keys is very very inaccurate, and for those without a gamepad like me we dont have any other options. i feel like i dont have the control over the ship that i need when using the arrow keys :).

And lastly, could you make the ship stand out more and make it evident when you die? I find myself constantly getting lost and i dont know if im dead or not. (this might have to do a bit with im a bit colourblind but im not sure)

Keep up the good work man, ill be following this one :).

I'm really liking this game, I think because it's a shmup that doesn't totally kick my ass all the time. Also I dig the freak out visuals.

@muzz
I think a mouse and keyboard scheme, or any kind of "2 stick" scheme would make the game too easy. At the moment you have a very powerful weapon which is balanced by the fact that you can only shoot in the direction you're moving.
I also end up loosing my character when there are lots of enemies and effects on screen, for example when the 4 lines of fast moving enemies spawn in world 2. And yeah I often think I must have died when I haven't, but I guess this confusion is almost part of the experience; you have to try and strategically avoid situations which are visually confusing.

Nicely done! Great game. Yes Daisy is right, the ballance is great now, giving the player aiming would screw the game completely! The visuals are wunderous, and the sounds and tunes all roc too! Plus I really do enjoy short and sweet games with replay value,.

Yeah i guess you guys are pretty right on that. Though i think it can work if you use a little bit of thought into how you could balance it.

For example you can put a delay on the spinning meaning that you still spin as fast as you would with the keyboard, it just means you have just as much control as a thumbstick on a gamepad.

Either that or i just suck at this game haha.

Any sort of precision control over the shot direction breaks it totally. I messed around with quite a few different dual stick/equivalent control schemes and couldn't find one that worked comfortably without having to gut everything.

I'll have another tinker though and see if I can come up with a nice elegant mouse control solution. That's part of the "making it work for headtracking" plan, it's also part of "things wot are giving me a massive headache trying to think round".

I'm not keen on splitting up the controls across two elements, so it'll likely be pure mouse control rather than keyboard/mouse. Perhaps having autofire switched on by default for mouse control? Dunno! I'm thinking and open to suggestions.

Losing the player is something I'm aware of and yes, it does effect those with some sort of colourblindness more. I got some good advice from the chaps at Tunasnax a while back on how to deal with that and lo, it will be done for the final version. (Thanks Alex and Co!) I wanted it in for this version but stupidly rewriting World 4 in its entirety at the last minute put a dampener on a lot of the things that made it in this build.

I could still do with an elegant way of showing the players location without switching colour blindness mode on, I'm sure I'll come up with something.

@jph, strangely enough compliments from folks whose work I admire always give me chufties. Thanks, man. Means a lot.

Is the scanlines effect not working yet? Setting it to 1 doesn't seem to do anything.

Other then that, great game. I love the psychedelic Jeff Minter-ish visuals and chiptune soundtrack.

Sorry Stij, missed this the other day.

No, scanlines aren't working yet. It's about a 5 minute job but after 15 hours straight I didn't have the will to do anymore at that point no matter how small.

They will be though, promise.

The first game rocked!
I like the fact that this one has a practice mode for those of us that need a little more time to settle into a particular game.

World 4 playthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEOFqC9PD2U