My First Serious Game in QB64PE

[SMcNeill]

The only problem I have with the game is the sensitivity when it comes to "Now drop your load."   I squiggle my trackball a tenth of an inch, my ship rotates and flips three times and thrusts off into a random direction, before exploding into the ground. 

Have you considered looking into adding _DEVICES for this, so someone could play it with a joystick as well?  It shouldn't be very hard to convert over from mouse/keyboard to joystick control, I wouldn't think.

[a740g]

The only problem I have with the game is the sensitivity when it comes to "Now drop your load."   I squiggle my trackball a tenth of an inch, my ship rotates and flips three times and thrusts off into a random direction, before exploding into the ground. 

Have you considered looking into adding _DEVICES for this, so someone could play it with a joystick as well?  It shouldn't be very hard to convert over from mouse/keyboard to joystick control, I wouldn't think.

Hahaha. That's exactly where I crashed. This'll be fun when playing with a game controller.

Well done @NakedApe.

[NakedApe]

The only problem I have with the game is the sensitivity when it comes to "Now drop your load."   I squiggle my trackball a tenth of an inch, my ship rotates and flips three times and thrusts off into a random direction, before exploding into the ground. 

Have you considered looking into adding _DEVICES for this, so someone could play it with a joystick as well?  It shouldn't be very hard to convert over from mouse/keyboard to joystick control, I wouldn't think.

@SMcNeill, clearly you're doing it wrong!   No, did you hit escape and go to Settings and lower the mouse sensitivity? The default is 4 outa 10. One is really slowww. I didn't think about joystick control, but I like it. First, I need a joystick. Also it night be time to lower the FPS during landing a bit more.

@a740g, thanks mucho. I'll dial down the landing. I want everybody to get over that hurdle.

[SMcNeill]

That's the thing; I did lower the sensitivity.  All the way down as low as it would go.   For the first two stages, all was good, and I found if I skirt the edge of the screen with my ship half up top, and half at bottom, I could just coast by all those meteors and rocks with 0 collisions.   Rotation there was fine, and control was fine.  Once it got to the landing stage however, the mouse sensitivity went completely insane.  One twitch of the trackball and I'd rotate a half dozen times and end up pointing randomly.

You really might want to check if there's something in the 3rd stage which either doesn't take mouse sensitivity into consideration, or see perhaps if the values are getting corrupted in a SUB/FUNCTION, or reversed, or some such.  That 3rd stage handles so much differently on my laptop, that I'd think there almost has to be a glitch in there somewhere with it.

---

On an unrelated note, here's something else nice and oddish to try:

Step 1) Disable the line that reads _FULLSCREEN
Step 2) Add a line for $RESIZE:STRETCH
Step 3) Play the game

At this point, when you have a collision with something, **the game loses focus**.   I went from playing the game, to hitting a rock, to suddenly having the game minimize or hide itself, and then I was staring back at my desktop.   ALT-TAB back to the game... try again....  have fun and deliberately crash into another rock... and then I'm sitting and staring at my open web browser.

I don't know what's doing that...  Heck, I didn't even know we **COULD** do that -- but it's certainly an intersting little glitch to play around with!   

[NakedApe]

Thanks, Steve, for the report. I’ll look into those issues for sure.

[Cobalt]

That's the thing; I did lower the sensitivity.  All the way down as low as it would go.   For the first two stages, all was good, and I found if I skirt the edge of the screen with my ship half up top, and half at bottom, I could just coast by all those meteors and rocks with 0 collisions.   Rotation there was fine, and control was fine.  Once it got to the landing stage however, the mouse sensitivity went completely insane.  One twitch of the trackball and I'd rotate a half dozen times and end up pointing randomly.

You really might want to check if there's something in the 3rd stage which either doesn't take mouse sensitivity into consideration, or see perhaps if the values are getting corrupted in a SUB/FUNCTION, or reversed, or some such.  That 3rd stage handles so much differently on my laptop, that I'd think there almost has to be a glitch in there somewhere with it.

---

On an unrelated note, here's something else nice and oddish to try:

Step 1) Disable the line that reads _FULLSCREEN
Step 2) Add a line for $RESIZE:STRETCH
Step 3) Play the game

At this point, when you have a collision with something, **the game loses focus**.   I went from playing the game, to hitting a rock, to suddenly having the game minimize or hide itself, and then I was staring back at my desktop.   ALT-TAB back to the game... try again....  have fun and deliberately crash into another rock... and then I'm sitting and staring at my open web browser.

I don't know what's doing that...  Heck, I didn't even know we **COULD** do that -- but it's certainly an intersting little glitch to play around with!   

I could not repeat this. Only thing I noted was that the areas to click on for the "Play Game" or "YES" and "NO" and so forth were not aligned with the text anymore. making me have to hunt for the area to click.

Though I did start to have the problem with the sensitivity but only after I had the craft at full speed, then any tiny turn would send me spinning. but it was fine at low speed or not moving.

[Cobalt]

Played a bit father in, was trapped in the "box" weapon trying to figure out how to get out, eliminated the left side "bouncing balls"(somehow, I still don't know just how I managed it) was trying to reach the right side when all the sudden it made a beep noise, I gained back 1 shield, then I could no longer turn. I could still thrust with the mouse buttons and left and right arrow keys but the ship was locked pointing one direction. Is this part of the game or did something go wrong?

[Kernelpanic]

The start screen looks great, the instructions are well too, but . . .
I can only fly through space with the mouse and keys. I can't shoot, the A and D keys have the same effect as the right and left keys, the space bar has no function. I can't see anything except space, asteroids and the spaceship. Unfortunately I can't take a screenshot of it.

It might have something to do with the fact that I use a German keyboard. Maybe.

Other than that, great work!

[Cobalt]

The start screen looks great, the instructions are well too, but . . .
I can only fly through space with the mouse and keys. I can't shoot, the A and D keys have the same effect as the right and left keys, the space bar has no function. I can't see anything except space, asteroids and the spaceship. Unfortunately I can't take a screenshot of it.

It might have something to do with the fact that I use a German keyboard. Maybe.

Other than that, great work!

in this game you don't shoot, you need to fly over the purple asteroid to scan it, then press space to lock on, then the fun begins.
But yeah, no shooting.

[NakedApe]

Thanks, @Kernelpanic. There's no shooting till further in the game. The first job is to scan the purple asteroid and capture it as Cobalt said. Great job @Cobalt for hanging in there and getting past the landing and recharge screen! You were totally on the right track in the box if you got the balls to shut off. Why move on so quickly (hint, hint)? Also remember the computer tells you that it's switching to landing mode "for more power."

So, yes, it looks like I've got loss of control issues with the ship when it's in main thruster mode. I've had it lock up on me once or twice, but that was out of the zillion times I've played/tested it. I didn't think it was a real problem, but this is why I put it in the Works in Progress thread. I've also had the ship go super-fast-crazy on me - sort of what @SMcNeill described above - but again maybe twice. Of course once I posted it here, Murphy's Law had to kick in.  I'll muck around in the ship controls and try to fix the issue. Thanks everybody for the testing and feedback!!