G-Force New Build
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Well, it only took me about 6 months to get back round to it, but it’s here.
First up, a disclaimer. This is very much an experimental inbetweeny build kinda thing, with the entire main game in place I’m looking now at stuff that can potentially be added to it to flesh the game out. I fully intend to retain the original game as is with all the levels in place as you’ve played it before many times - but also looking into a GForce+ mode sort of type lark thing as well as making certain features of the game customisable. This, of course, may yet turn out to be neither practical or sensible, but you don’t get anywhere in this world if you don’t at least try. So, consider this current build as not necessarily part of the lineage of G-Force to date, more a sidestep onto an awfully similar looking path.
To this end, over the next few weeks, beta releases will be a tad more on the frequent side as I adjust, amend and tinker away at stuff. I’m essentially throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and what doesn’t. Of course, it’s times like this where keeping a good track of changes is essential and thankfully, having learnt a hard lesson before now on this sort of thing, that’s precisely what I’m doing. The baseline for G-Force remains the final beta build from June and everything else is just forked for the moment. Stuff that definitely works, I’ll add on top of the old June code till we come out of this with as close to perfect as we can get.
I’ve included a readme with this build, cunningly titled “15th December Important Notes” just to make sure everyone really ignores it. In case you’ve downloaded it already and not glanced at it - here it is reproduced in almost all its literate glory.
GAMEPLAY
========Slightly tweaked firing speed. Yes, it’s faster. For better or for worse?
Bonus scores and bonus multiplier: Shoot a tanker before it splits and it drops a bonus marker. Collect the bonus marker for bonus points. Each bonus marker you collect ups the bonus multiplier by 1. Die and the bonus multiplier resets. - Unsure as to whether to expand the multiplier to all scores or not. Open to suggestions anyway. Or alternately - do the bonus tokens actually add anything worthwhile to the game or just ditch them? Answers on a postcard, or the Retro Remakes feedback thread. Either/or.
EFFECTS
=======For testing purposes currently the effects default to the minimum setting. You can incrementally change the effect levels using the function keys.
F8 turns meteors off
F9 turns meteors on
F10 turns the text on and off (don’t ask why the meteor on/off is on seperate keys - silly Gamemaker doing it’s weird “I know this code is fine, but I’m not going to play ball” thing it does occasionally)
F11 turns uber-effects on.At the moment, the F11 setting is a tad on the messy side. It needs tidying up desperately before being deployed properly hence it’s here as an option. So yeah, it’s messy and a bit buggy right now. But, if you can turn it on at least once and let me know if it cripples the speed to a serious degree or not I’d be muchly appreciative. Stuff it adds is basically the wibbly effects. The text will now wibble as will the backgrounds. Also, does it look completely shit? Even allowing for the buggy nature of it (stuff doesn’t fade out properly - I’ll look into this next)
SOUND
=====Two new sound effects - bonus spawn and bonus collect.
OTHER MINOR STUFF
=================New icon and loading icon.
Ok, so that’s it for this build. Feedback depending stuff will either stay or go from it.
Ok, I think that’s about it for now - so I guess it just remains to give the download link and feel free to leave any comments on the beta here or in the RR thread dedicated to G-Force development. Enjoy.
Download G-Force Retro Remake Beta - December 15th 2007.
EDIT: 22:14
OK, so adding some stuff to the mix doesn’t always work. A wild and random suggestion from TCK in Retroremakes IRC earlier this afternoon on how to add a bit of variety was to add teleporters onto the web. The rough concept being that should an enemy strike the teleporter it’s transported to a different lane on the web. The same applies to your bullets.
I was a little wary, but thought “hey, what the fuck, might as well give it a try”. Obviously, with the game getting quite frantic later on, I tested it on level 15 (Ole Tarantula) to get an idea of just how it’d perform when the shit seriously hits the fan. As a test I knocked up 5 teleporters. Originally I had it so that lane 1 would teleport to lane 10, lane 2 to lane 9 and so on and so forth, but this created some issues when lane 5 transported to lane 6 if a flipper flipped upon spawn. The flipper got stuck, basically - and although it’d break out the loop eventually, the noise was fucking annoying. So, quickly switched it around so lane 1 goes to lane 6, 2 to 7 and so on.
At this point, due to how frantic the game got - it became a complete headwrecking bitch to play and I found it impossible to keep track of what was going on. Not good I don’t think.
Anyway, as usual - should you want to see for yourself just how broken it could have been, here’s a special test build with the teleporters in (on 15 only). There’s a level skip in this build that you can use to transport you upwards (hit F12 to skip a stage), don’t skip too far though or the game will crash.
Speak your brains
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Recent Comments
tim on 
nope, teleporters are a bad idea.
I concur!
Still, nothing ventured nothing gained.
Could work if used sparingly though…
Ah, yes, that’s better. I even managed level 19 for a change. Oh, and Bob i’ve been trying to mail you for a few days, but it seems there’s some problem with your mail….
Sorry Gnome, my ISP ker-fuxx0red my nets for the past 3 days
Back now!
bad, bad, naughty isp… tsk..
(mail sent)