RailGunner
By KunoNoOni
The origin of this game came out of frantic desperation as my first 2 ideas ran into issues. This game was made is just under 18 hours. I will explain all in my post mortem.
So RailGunner is an arcade style single screen game. You are the ship at the bottom of the screen and you can only move Left or Right as you are linked to the rail at the bottom of the screen. Above you are 3 more rails where your enemies will attack you from.
There are six different enemies which will attack you. This can lead to lots of bullets on the screen, its not quite "bullet-hell" but it can get pretty close at some points.
Each wave lasts 25 seconds, and they are endless. How far can you get. There is a countdown at the top of the screen to let you know how much time you have remaining.
You have 5 lives before its Game Over. Use them well!
Controls
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Use the "A/D or Left/Right Arrow Keys" to move. To shoot you can use either the Left Mouse Button or the Space Bar. You are able to hold either down for continuous fire.
Notes
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You can shoot down the enemy bullets, and you get points for it too!
To save you, the player, the pain of constant sound I opted to not have sound for the enemies when they shoot. You will thank me later :)
The point system is as follows:
Enemy Bullets - 50 Points
Lower Rail - 100 Points
Middle Rail - 200 Points
Top Rail - 300 Points
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 68% |
| #247 | Fun | 3.45 |
| #468 | Audio | 2.87 |
| #523 | Overall | 3.23 |
| #528 | Humor | 2.52 |
| #533 | Graphics | 3.13 |
| #577 | Mood | 2.91 |
| #644 | Theme | 3.54 |
| #871 | Innovation | 2.66 |
Comments
I was so bad at this haha. It's really well done though. Shooting enemy bullets is definitely something that is underutilized in games like this so good job on that.
insanely dificult, but makes me remember to the Atari old school's games
Pretty impressive, especially considering you scrapped 2 ideas. Kinda fun too. My only suggestion would be - I would start out a little easier and gradually get harder.
For 18 hours this is really good. It gets really hard and I don't know if it keeps getting harder but I had fun playing it.
Score: 28050, probably not that good xD Fun little game, love the countdown heh
Loved the frentic energy of it all, I was thinking why the wings at the ends of the ship. I got caught a few times thinking I dodged a bullet, very space invadery feel. Loved the 5 second countdown, nice touch.
Thank you all for your kind words. It is suppose to be a little bullet hellish, so that explains the difficulty. I did add the ability to destroy the enemy bullets and you do get 50 points for doing it. So if nothing else you can stay alive by taking them out.
I did have music, but nothing I tried seems to fit and it made the game feel to noisy. So I cut the music.
@ramonparaiba & @rmc: Thank you both. Its not everyday you get compared to such a great console. I am in very good company. :)
@jocamar each wave after the first wave the game gets a little harder, but it caps out at wave 5.
@digibody Spaceships are suppose to have wings :), though I will admit I should have made the bounding box on the player a little smaller. Honestly I never thought about it. I was too worried about finishing the game before the deadline.
Very fun, fast-moving and dynamic little shooter. Well done. Very hard, couldn't get passed wave 3!
Nice SFX! Would have liked some extra retro overlay GFX and different colored enemy bullets
Well done for 18 hours! I like the contrast between the ships on different rails. Shooting down bullets might be a bit overpowered though, I accidentally found a spot a bit off the center where it was possible to just stay in one place holding the fire button. It would be nice if the bullets had a bit more sideways motion to them.
Very nice! Brought back memories :) I love 8-bit style games, haha. 5 stars for the graphics just for the 8-bit.
That said, didn't really fit the theme IMO. There wasn't scrolling, but you didn't really.. embrace the theme, I suppose. 4 stars overall, and the 5 star I've given out this Ludum Dare, so yeah, awesome.
Nice job, especially for less than 18 hours. Solid little shooter. Difficulty curve does a little steep. I think the first wave at least should be a little easier to allow the player a little bit of time to get used to the game/mechanics/controls.
Nice work, KunoNoOni! Would be really great if there were some kind of bomb or something to clear pathways if you get tunneled into a spot on the screen.
Nice particle effects and mechanics! the gameplay is really addcitive well done! ^^
A nice alternative for the great Invaders game. I like it. Well done ++
Good old skool shooting.
I would have added diagonal moving bullets for added challenge.
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Awesome particle effects! Put some music and its great!