After this, I will try to be more regular with my posts on this subject. Without further ado, The Dragon SHMUP competition:
This contest was marred by a general lack of entries. More than half of the originally planned entries were either disqualified or unfinished. Fleur de Luce, one of the more promising ones, was expected to win - until the developer's hard drive died. Similar events plagued the other entries. In the end, only seven were left.
These are the top three out of those seven. Sadly, only the winner actually works on my computer. Here's my review of Sovereign's Slave:
I really wanted to like this game. It was the winner, right? Well, it was only the winner because none of the other entries scored higher than 8.5 points. If it had been an entry in the last competition, it would have placed fourth.
The gameplay is rather original - the fire stream is aimed with the mouse, while the actual character, a red dragon, is controlled with the keyboard. It would have worked nicely - but the dragon's movement is controlled with the arrow keys, with no option to change them. It requires the player to have two right hands. I also couldn't play it on my laptop, as the touchpad was hard to use for that purpose. I ended up placing the cursor at the bottom left corner of the screen, giving me a steady, unidirectional(albeit diagonal) stream of fire.
If the player kills more than 75% of the human forces, they are treated with a 3D bonus level. It consists of little more than collecting yellow balls and avoiding mines, though, and isn't particularly entertaining.
The graphics really don't work well. The dragon is a traditional sprite, but the enemies all use lines and pillow shading. The yellow, alpha-blended fireballs also clash with the rest of the game, as do the detailed(yet repetitive) backgrounds. There's also a stunning lack of animation - the only real animation is that of the dragon, and it has only three frames(wings up, wings level, and wings down). All in all, it's quite unattractive.
The sounds are average. The music is a generic fantasy-ish tune, and the sound effects leave a bit to be desired. It isn't anything fancy in this regard.
The theme is nice, though. It's set in an alternate version of the 14th century, in the middle of a war between humans and dragons for control of Europe. The dialogue is well-written and funny, and the actual enemy designs work well together(the first boss is a Leonardo da Vinci-style conical tank, and is assisted by airships). The health powerup is also amusing - shoot a sheep, and you get a cauldron of stew. It's two fantasy cliches merged together.
The presentation is also quite good. The menu screen has dragon skin and two swords on the right side, and the fonts used are also appropriately medieval-esque. It uses the generic Game Maker icon(a red sphere), though - I changed it.
It works well, and I had no problems running it. It's technically solid. However, the options are strange. There aren't any volume controls, but the player can set the CPU usage priority and the screen refresh rate. Why?
Overall, I give Sovereign's Slave a score of six and two thirds out of ten(seven for gameplay, four for graphics, six for sound, nine for theme, seven for presentation, and seven for finish). Had there been more entries, I might be reviewing a better game. There weren't, though, and I'm not.
As only Sovereign's Slave out of the top three entries ran on my computer, I will post Matt McFarland's reviews below.
Matt McFarland's review of Smark's Lair(I really, really wish that I could play it):
Smark's Lair is a game where you play the role as a dragon whose goal is to eliminate those pesky humans. The humans have mages, archers, and even a Dragon Slayer (who is very very hard to kill) - I enjoyed playing this game. Let me rewrite that... I ENJOY playing this game!! The title screen is mehh, the high score screen is mehh, the loading screen is mehh. The game is AHHHH but a good AHHH!!
The graphics are ace, the sound is ace, the gameplay is ace, this game is ace! Everything involved with this game is amazing to find out of a short, 2 month competition.
In this game, you can pick up the humans and toss them at each other, you can eat them for health, spit fire balls at them or breathe napalm all over the place! I would love to see this game continue in production! I think this is near shareware material as the polish is... well.. its polished very well!
Music and Sound: 10.0
Graphics: 9.0
Originality: 9.0
Personal Score: 9.0
And here's Matt McFarland's review of Hiryu:
Hiryu is an interesting title which, according to the author, means "flying dragon" in japanese. Basically you take control of a baby green dragon, and his quest to shoot fireballs at all kinds of interesting looking baddies and collect fruit and icecream along the way.
You collect different powerups that change the way you breathe fire. By default, you're just shooting fireballs at a rapid place. You can collect other powerups that cause you to breathe a stream of fire, and also a spread shot that covers more area.
The game isn't very forgiving, as if you're hit, thats it, you lose your powerup. That doesnt bother me though, as it seems to go in good with exactly how you are meant to play this game.
The design itself is pretty solid, and I couldn't find any bugs except my monitor doesnt like the full screen mode. This game challenges you to memorize the level, and to be CAREFUL. I realy enjoy the suspense it gives, because you want to pay attention to whats going on around you, and I truely believe that is because of excellent game design.
I have never played a game where I'm a baby dragon who collects ice cream and fruit, along with scrolling along a screen shooting everything in its path. I really like this game, but it's too hard at first and that requires a higher learning curve.
I would like to see this came continued, but I'd like to see level 1 be a bit easier, and maybe some more eye candy in the background. The graphics are great and the game design is solid. My biggest gripe is the sound effects. The music is Ace, but the sound effects hurt my ears. The dragon sounds like a baby bird when it gets hit, and when it dies it sounds like tiny daggers are rapidly stabbing my ear drums. With a sound effect overhaul, the whole sound scheme would be most excellent.
Matt's Score Breakdown
Music and Sound: 4.0
Graphics: 7.0
Originality 8.0
Personal Score: 6.0
Here are the download links:
Sovereign's Slave: http://shmup-dev.com/dcontest/documents/sovereigns_slave.zip
Smark's Lair: http://shmup-dev.com/dcontest/documents/SmarksLair_final_11.zip
Hiryu: http://shmup-dev.com/dcontest/documents/hiryu.zip
The contest page itself(something that I should have included in my other two posts): http://shmup-dev.com/dcontest/
Note to Vista users:
To get Sovereign's Slave(and other games made in Game Maker 6) to run on your computers, you need to patch them with this utility:
http://www.gamemaker.nl/GM_Convert_Game.zip
Stay tuned for the results of the next contest(which are loads better!).