Descender ALPHA

[Gravedust]

Descender is a game about going really fast in tight spaces in a rocketship. I made it as a learning exercise and am releasing it now as sort of an early alpha; It has quite a long way to go and will probably see many changes in the future, but I hope people can enjoy playing it in it's early state. It has a brief series of tutorial maps, and the rest showcase a single element or obstacle that I added into the game.

Since there are only a few levels, the difficulty increases rather sharply, and the final level in particular is very unforgiving.

 As a new player you will probably explode many many many times. This is normal, and if you are prone to rage than you might want to give this game a skip.

The game is 38Mb in size, and works as a standalone executable. It should run on Windows PCs running XP or higher

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE!
The Alpha is free, so you can share it with anyone you think might be interested. The game fits nicely on a USB stick if you would like to save some bandwidth.

PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK!
I would like to know what you think. If you can record, a video of you playing would be immensely valuable, as I have only been able to actually watch people play the game a few times. I would be especially interested to know:
• How long you played for.
• The highest level you got to.
• What your best times were for each level. (Viewable on the level select screen)
• Any particular area(s) you got stuck on. (And again let me apologize for the steep difficulty curve. It will smooth out in time.)
• Anything about the game or it's controls or mechanics that confused you.
• Anything that stuck out as being particularly annoying.
• Anything that stuck out as being particularly fun or interesting.
• Any suggestions about new things that could be fun or useful. (Bearing in mind that I do not intend to include things like weapons or health packs.)
• Anything you find that you suspect might be a bug that is not listed below.

• KNOWN ISSUES
Very occasionally when hitting the floor at high horizontal speed, the ship may get stuck and be unable to lift off again. This is due to a recent change to the ship's collision box; It should be fixed in a later iteration. If this happens you will need to restart the mission from the pause menu. (Or run yourself out of fuel)

Diagonal bounce pads (they're blue, you'll know them when you see them) may occasionally become deactivated after the first bounce and instead 'drop' the player ship. This is a newly-discovered bug, and I haven't had time to diagnose or fix it yet, but I'm sure it can be corrected. Usually restarting the level will fix this problem if it occurs.

The sound system is set up to allow adjustment of both the music and sound effect volumes independently, however the sound effect slider does not presently work. This is due to a function in gamemaker not working as it is perhaps intended to. Sound effect volume can still be controlled through the Master Volume setting.

[Balk]

I like it! I don't usually play games like this, but I tried a few levels and had fun.

To fill out the survey:

• How long you played for.
20 minutes or so.

• The highest level you got to.
Level 6, which I did not finish.

• What your best times were for each level. (Viewable on the level select screen)
1: 15.6
2: 22.83
3: 52.67
4: 69.1
5: 95.8
I just went through each level once - didn't go back to play for a better time. I never do that in games unless it unlocks something.

• Any particular area(s) you got stuck on. (And again let me apologize for the steep difficulty curve. It will smooth out in time.)
Level 6 and its many lasers. (Too much time playing Mega Man made me assume they were instant death lasers like the ones from Quick Man's stage. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned they were not.)
Anyway, after several tries, I made it past the part where you have to fly above one laser and below another, then wind up in another big room with more lasers going off and on at different time to open/close paths. I got shot down in a desperate attempt to get the fuel there. And by then I didn't really want to fly through the whole level again to get back to that point and try to keep going, so I stopped.

• Anything about the game or it's controls or mechanics that confused you.
There were some graphical elements that confused me whether they were foreground or background at first. I tried to avoid the vertical rope things first seen in the lava level until I saw a fuel can hanging from one. And I wasn't sure what the bouncy shields were at first. Thought they might have been decorations as well until I ran into one.
So nothing too serious. The controls were pretty intuitive.

• Anything that stuck out as being particularly annoying.
It felt like the later levels (5 sort of, 6 a little more) went on a bit too long and needed better timing then I could manage. (But I'm not all that great at games like this, so don't just take my word on the difficulty.)
Checkpoints might help in the longer levels.

• Anything that stuck out as being particularly fun or interesting.
I liked that the flaming wreckage of my last ship was still in the level when I started my next life. Nice touch.

• Any suggestions about new things that could be fun or useful. (Bearing in mind that I do not intend to include things like weapons or health packs.)
A speedometer, or something to indicate how much trouble I'll be in when I hit a wall or the floor would be nice. A way to tell how well I'm doing at managing my fuel would also be helpful. Can I make it to the end at my present rate of use? Or am I going to run out of gas unless I ease up on the throttle? A very simple minimap or some way to tell what percent of the level I've completed might work for that. Just some ideas.

• Anything you find that you suspect might be a bug that is not listed below.
I ran into the "clip through bouncy pad" bug once and got killed by slamming into the ground, but that was it. Restarting the level did fix it.

[Gravedust]

Thanks for the feedback, every little bit helps!