I've also just created a more "3D" model for the balloon. You can see it on the banner on the game's main page. I guess it looks kinda like a pixelized sphere and that's about as much I can do with Blender.
Hi again. I have some thoughts I like to share with you.
There’s no window mode. Fullscreen is nice, but not always the best. I like playing in smaller window.
After enabling CRT shader the blur strenght can be set but it works only on the title screen. Even when I set blur to minimum, it is visible in the game and makes my eyes hurt
The plane should tilt to left and right when turning, not turn like a car. I’ve seen some early video of the game and you had it there. I don’t know why you changed that but it was better.
The animation of tank is too slow according to it’s speed when moving on the bridge
Flat objects made of big pixels looks cool. But I would like to see them more 3D. It could be still made of pixels but in all 3 dimensions. For example, the baloon now is flat “pie” but it could be a pixelated sphere. Especially when I see the heicopters with rotating propeller, it’s in third dimension. Oh, just like you made zeppelins!
Balloon moves to fast. Check the original River Raid. Balloons are the slowest obstacles.
Also, the ships are a bit too fast. Maybe it could be faster on the further levels but at the beginning it should be slower.
Fuel is running out too fast. When I slow down, it’s impossible to fly one level from bridge to bridge without refueling. It was possible on Atari game.
Your bullet should move left/right along with the plane. It was the Atari mechanics and it should be here.
Keyboard should be available to redefine. I don’t like shooting with space, rather would like to use ctrl key.
Whole menu should be controlled by keyboard, not only mouse. I can pause game with escape key, but cannot unpause it with keyboard. When I play with keyboard, I don’t need to use mouse in the same time.
Changing the camera view is very important, but you should add some more views. The most important is allowing to view the game from the top, giving you the feel and look closer to the original game. Or even an isometric view like in Blue Max game whould be nice.
Like ‘puzzud’ wrote in an other comment, you should take care of some optimization because the game sometimes has hiccups
Waves on the river could be more distinct. Water looks like clear blue but it would be a nice effect
This is not complaining. I hope you don’t take it like that. These are some thoughts from me after a short time of playing. I really like your game and would like to see it still developing.
Extended objects are outstanding idea! I love the mines, shooting ships etc. Still more could be added but it’s great now.
Also the bosses are great!
The whole game is made very well and it’s the best RR remake I ever seen. Really good job!
Thanks for the feedback! I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise I'll manage to implement everything as some things are more complicated than others. Changing speeds is easy, but top-down camera will require more work to look acceptable.
I actually tried making the bullet a child of the player, so it moves with the plane, but as it stays on the screen for much longer than in the original (and the viewing distance is much farther), it looks weird, wiggling from left to right. Maybe I'll make it an option.
As for the shader - I made a typo in the section I set the shader parameters in the actual game...
Right now I'll probably take a short break and try to finish and publish another project, which I had almost done but abandoned in favor of this one.
Of course, it’s your game. You don’t have to promise anything :). I gave you only a bunch of my tips, nothing more. I will follow your game so if you make next version, I’ll certainly try it.
Thank you. I'm thinking of possible enhancements that wouldn't require rewriting the game from scratch.
I think the hiccup is caused by compilation of particle materials from the explosions, not the models. I'm showing them to the camera and activating them when the game starts, but I must be doing something wrong. Still looking for a solution.
I also made a few remakes of old classics from the 8-bit, so this one is very close to my heart. River Raid was one of the first computer games I ever played when I was very young and still play it quite often. I will download it and play it with big pleasure! Congratulations
Thank you! River Raid is the first game I have a memory of playing, and it's THE game of my early childhood. I'd appreciate any feedback which I can use in future updates.
I did see a couple of instances of enemies appearing out of place i.e. ships inside central islands and tanks floating in the air.
I think missions should be on by default but also think there should be more fanfare for completing them.
The level generation needs tweaking to ensure that the fuel pads are more evenly distributed both in terms of regularity and position: there's a stretch from bridge 2 where if you go right around the central island there's nothing but fuel pads, but going left there's none. Later on, I hit stretches where it seemed that no fuel was available at all.
And thanks for lowering the fuel pads into the water a little so they have the wave shader :-)
I'm not good enough to have made it to a boss yet :-( Maybe add a boss rush mode?
Thank you for the feedback! I will check the placement of the enemies, although I don't recall oddly placed ones in the first 50-ish levels. Most likely some edge cases, where the raycast misses by a very small margin, so the game thinks there's no island there. Haven't seen a floating tank though. I hope it's not the engine behaving differently on different systems.There's already a minimum and maximum interval between fuel pads. I'll see what I can do about the levels with big island, as they're trickier. Tweaking and balancing the placement algorithm is on the todo list. On the other hand, there are stages with no fuel in the original as well, where you're doomed to die without prior knowledge 😀
I don't have a linux machine, so I can't verify it and I honestly have no clue why it happens. It's built from the same project as the windows version, which starts up normally. Do you think that exporting with debug would leave some error message?
Good news, it works ok om my other Linux computer! When I get back to my other computer in a day or so I will run it from the command line to see if there are error messages displayed.
Unfortunately I don't have a Mac machine to verify it. The Windows build seems to be working fine. Does it happen each and every time, or are there some particular circumstances?
I was able to solve both problems I was having (Windows version) of crashing and some enemies not moving by disabling "SLO-MO". Hope that narrows down the problem for you. Great work you've done here!
Good to hear that! Maybe the slo-mo tween is messing with the game logic somehow. Lately I've been playing with it turned off, as I found it not as appealing as I hoped it to be. I'll at least make sure it's off by default in the next update.
If you have time and will, I'd like you to check if the CRT shader causes jerky movement with the dynamic camera mode (press C to switch between the overhead default one, and the dynamic one, following right behind the player). It may as well be an issue with my old hardware.
You were right! The slo-mo was the problem. Or rather that the game tried to increment some non-existent variable I forgot to wipe out. Somehow it didn't crash instantly, only after player's death. It also prevented activating the baddies on the level.
I'm glad you like it! Stay tuned for future updates if I get enough feedback on what to fix and/or come up with ideas for new features. BTW, there are boss enemies every 20 levels, be sure to check them out! They may not be the most sophisticated and difficult ones, but I think it's a nice break from the usual baddies :)
Looks great! Needs some optimization. A bit jerky when you first start flying down the river, but eventually it smooths out. Also, there is slowdown when you take out a bridge. Not sure if that is intentional. The game crashes to the desktop if I run into a wall in the very narrow part of the river map where you see the first hot air balloon. Hope to see more updates! One of the best 3D implementations of River Raid I've seen.
Thanks for the comment! The jerkiness is most probably shader compilation. I'm showing them to the camera before the start of the game, so theoretically they should be precompiled. I'll look for another way. The slo-mo is optional and can be switched off in gameplay options. I'll check what's the problem with crashing, it hasn't happened for a long time while testing...
Sounds good. The crashing happens every time you die when in that narrow area. Tested on Windows 10. Also, I noticed in certain areas of the river the baddies stay still and do not move. Is this intentional? Just curious. Cheers!
I've just crashed a few times in that area and nothing happened. Will do some more testing tomorrow. Maybe there is some other factor. I'm also on Win 10. The baddies have a move chance and check against it every couple of frames. So sometimes they may just be unlucky. Also they don't move in some very narrow areas, as they would just spin in place, making it look strange. Or some of them may just be buggy :) But not everything moved in the original as well, so I guess it's acceptable.
If you are bothered by that narrow piece, try another random seed and you will get a different layout of river and enemies. I wonder if it will crash in every instance of narrow piece of river?
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I see that you updated your game and most of my tips are included! Thanks a lot. That made the game better, I’m sure about it.
Thank you. It's still a test version, I'll be working on it a little more. Mainly wanted people to test the steering with adjustable inertia.
I've also just created a more "3D" model for the balloon. You can see it on the banner on the game's main page. I guess it looks kinda like a pixelized sphere and that's about as much I can do with Blender.
Yes! That’s what I meant about more 3D objects. Still looks like original balloon, but it’s not flat.
Hi again. I have some thoughts I like to share with you.
This is not complaining. I hope you don’t take it like that. These are some thoughts from me after a short time of playing. I really like your game and would like to see it still developing.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise I'll manage to implement everything as some things are more complicated than others. Changing speeds is easy, but top-down camera will require more work to look acceptable.
I actually tried making the bullet a child of the player, so it moves with the plane, but as it stays on the screen for much longer than in the original (and the viewing distance is much farther), it looks weird, wiggling from left to right. Maybe I'll make it an option.
As for the shader - I made a typo in the section I set the shader parameters in the actual game...
Right now I'll probably take a short break and try to finish and publish another project, which I had almost done but abandoned in favor of this one.
Of course, it’s your game. You don’t have to promise anything :). I gave you only a bunch of my tips, nothing more. I will follow your game so if you make next version, I’ll certainly try it.
I know. I just don't want to be one of those devs who ask for feedback just to reject every suggestion thinking they know better 😉
Understood :). Look at my profile or website, how many unfinished projects I have… haha!
Really nice job. The only thing I don't like is inertia - it's too high.
Like I said on the Atari forum - it can be done in future version, if there is one :)
Great job. Consider enhancing it further. Lots of cool directions you can go while keeping it feeling like River Raid.
Also, preload / cache your 3D models so the client doesn't hiccup when they are loaded for the first time.
Thank you. I'm thinking of possible enhancements that wouldn't require rewriting the game from scratch.
I think the hiccup is caused by compilation of particle materials from the explosions, not the models. I'm showing them to the camera and activating them when the game starts, but I must be doing something wrong. Still looking for a solution.
I also made a few remakes of old classics from the 8-bit, so this one is very close to my heart. River Raid was one of the first computer games I ever played when I was very young and still play it quite often. I will download it and play it with big pleasure! Congratulations
Thank you! River Raid is the first game I have a memory of playing, and it's THE game of my early childhood. I'd appreciate any feedback which I can use in future updates.
The slo-mo crash bug is definitely fixed.
I did see a couple of instances of enemies appearing out of place i.e. ships inside central islands and tanks floating in the air.
I think missions should be on by default but also think there should be more fanfare for completing them.
The level generation needs tweaking to ensure that the fuel pads are more evenly distributed both in terms of regularity and position: there's a stretch from bridge 2 where if you go right around the central island there's nothing but fuel pads, but going left there's none. Later on, I hit stretches where it seemed that no fuel was available at all.
And thanks for lowering the fuel pads into the water a little so they have the wave shader :-)
I'm not good enough to have made it to a boss yet :-( Maybe add a boss rush mode?
Oh and I forgot to say: this is really, really good! Great work!
Thank you for the feedback! I will check the placement of the enemies, although I don't recall oddly placed ones in the first 50-ish levels. Most likely some edge cases, where the raycast misses by a very small margin, so the game thinks there's no island there. Haven't seen a floating tank though. I hope it's not the engine behaving differently on different systems.There's already a minimum and maximum interval between fuel pads. I'll see what I can do about the levels with big island, as they're trickier. Tweaking and balancing the placement algorithm is on the todo list. On the other hand, there are stages with no fuel in the original as well, where you're doomed to die without prior knowledge 😀
It doesn't work on my Linux PC unfortunately. I need to alt-tab to see the game screen and then it crashes after I click on the Start button.
I don't have a linux machine, so I can't verify it and I honestly have no clue why it happens. It's built from the same project as the windows version, which starts up normally. Do you think that exporting with debug would leave some error message?
Good news, it works ok om my other Linux computer! When I get back to my other computer in a day or so I will run it from the command line to see if there are error messages displayed.
Really nice, but keeps crashing on death (app just exits). I'm on Mac.
Unfortunately I don't have a Mac machine to verify it. The Windows build seems to be working fine. Does it happen each and every time, or are there some particular circumstances?
I was able to solve both problems I was having (Windows version) of crashing and some enemies not moving by disabling "SLO-MO". Hope that narrows down the problem for you. Great work you've done here!
Good to hear that! Maybe the slo-mo tween is messing with the game logic somehow. Lately I've been playing with it turned off, as I found it not as appealing as I hoped it to be. I'll at least make sure it's off by default in the next update.
If you have time and will, I'd like you to check if the CRT shader causes jerky movement with the dynamic camera mode (press C to switch between the overhead default one, and the dynamic one, following right behind the player). It may as well be an issue with my old hardware.
Holy crap man!!! The dynamic view is amazeballs! Love it. It runs smooth as a baby's bottom for me, but I'm running on a 3090 GPU.
Edit: Ok, it did stutter in one area briefly with the CRT filter and the dynamic camera. It was minimal though.
You were right! The slo-mo was the problem. Or rather that the game tried to increment some non-existent variable I forgot to wipe out. Somehow it didn't crash instantly, only after player's death. It also prevented activating the baddies on the level.
Awesome! Love the game. There have been numerous River Raid clones etc in the past, but yours is quality. Thanks for making it!
I'm glad you like it! Stay tuned for future updates if I get enough feedback on what to fix and/or come up with ideas for new features. BTW, there are boss enemies every 20 levels, be sure to check them out! They may not be the most sophisticated and difficult ones, but I think it's a nice break from the usual baddies :)
Looks great! Needs some optimization. A bit jerky when you first start flying down the river, but eventually it smooths out. Also, there is slowdown when you take out a bridge. Not sure if that is intentional. The game crashes to the desktop if I run into a wall in the very narrow part of the river map where you see the first hot air balloon. Hope to see more updates! One of the best 3D implementations of River Raid I've seen.
Thanks for the comment! The jerkiness is most probably shader compilation. I'm showing them to the camera before the start of the game, so theoretically they should be precompiled. I'll look for another way. The slo-mo is optional and can be switched off in gameplay options. I'll check what's the problem with crashing, it hasn't happened for a long time while testing...
Sounds good. The crashing happens every time you die when in that narrow area. Tested on Windows 10. Also, I noticed in certain areas of the river the baddies stay still and do not move. Is this intentional? Just curious. Cheers!
I've just crashed a few times in that area and nothing happened. Will do some more testing tomorrow. Maybe there is some other factor. I'm also on Win 10. The baddies have a move chance and check against it every couple of frames. So sometimes they may just be unlucky. Also they don't move in some very narrow areas, as they would just spin in place, making it look strange. Or some of them may just be buggy :) But not everything moved in the original as well, so I guess it's acceptable.
If you are bothered by that narrow piece, try another random seed and you will get a different layout of river and enemies. I wonder if it will crash in every instance of narrow piece of river?