The Rotary Club (June 2017 MAGS Entry) (BUGS FIXED)

Started by Mandle, Sun 02/07/2017 18:13:23

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Mandle

THE ROTARY CLUB



CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

The Rotary Club are high-altitude helicopter rescue pilots.

Join their ranks and learn how to pilot a helicopter and rescue stranded climbers, and maybe someday buy out the whole business.

The game is roguelike, one slip on the stick and you're mountain-fodder, so I doubt anyone can win it.

But maybe...just maybe...?

IMPORTANT:
If you click on "NEW" in the main menu this will start a new game and all of the progress on your saved game will be deleted!
Be sure to click on "LOAD" to continue your previous adventures!
The game only autosaves every time to reenter the Shop! Exiting the game while out flying WILL NOT save your progress!
This also means that if you make a hopeless buying mistake in the shop, as long as you push ESC and quit the game BEFORE the next time you enter the shop you can reload the game and make better choices.(Sorry that there's no better system for this at the moment, but, MAGS. Probably in a future version!)


HAPPY SKIES!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Mandle

I'm going to work on the shop exit bug tonight and I WILL defeat it!

I think it has something to do with if your chopper weighs too much to take off properly, so it's probably a simple fix that I was just way too close to yesterday to see...

Mandle

#2
I'm very happy to report that all the game bugs should now be FIXED!!!

If you downloaded the previous version then please redownload from the same link above and play again.

It's a much better experience now I feel!

HAPPY SKIES!

Mandle

#3
UPDATE: Sorry, I found one last fatal bug and fixed it... Should be the last...

Link above updated so please download again if you're playing an older version.

EDIT: Wow, I managed to grab two people on a single winching! I didn't even know that was possible! :=

SilverSpook

(Cross posting this very brief review / reaction from the Competition thread, for posterity! :D )

I am not a roguelime fan by any stretch of the imagination (I can't even spell it right), in fact this might have been the first real roguelyke that I have played, Mandle.  But I could not stop playing "The Rotary Club" for at least an hour after I started. I felt like 5 again with my Nintendo, feigning the flu so I could stay home and beat that goddamn Quickman level in Megaman 2.  Super awesome job, and a true feat of programming to make that out of the AGS engine, I'm amazed you did it in a month!

Graphics were also perfect for this sort of game.  Controls themselves were super smooth, feels like piloting an actual helicopter!  Not that I have any experience in that field, but it was very intuitive!  The sound effects all added great and appropriate atmosphere as well.  The shop was really fun to play around with too, an incredible amount of depth in this game that was made apparently in like 9 or 10 days (!#!(@?!!!!???) it seems like you could clock in hundreds of hours with this on Steam and share oodles of achievements to feel cool with your online friends like, "Insomniac - played for 48 hours straight".  I'll probably win that award soon.

Mandle

I just played through the game and beat it!!!

It took me about an hour and 15 or so minutes and I was on the edge of my seat a few times: My heli passed within a pixel or two of the mountains which could have meant perma-death, but I guess I have learnt to fly my chopper at least somewhat decent during my own testing of the game so far...

So, yeah, it IS possible to beat the game, but it is HARD...

If anyone else beats it please post in here a screen-shot of the ending screen or if you couldn't then describe what happened... (Please post these with hide tags even though the ending isn't all that impressive yet in this version)


Cassiebsg

Is there a keyboard alternative to the controls?
The mouse confuses me. :-\
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Mandle

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Tue 04/07/2017 18:54:41
Is there a keyboard alternative to the controls?
The mouse confuses me. :-\

There is a keyboard alternative only for the winch activation/deactivation, which is RETURN or SPACE keys...

Sorry, but the game was designed to be played with mouse only, and I hope players can get the hang of it as learning to fly the heli was supposed to be part of the fun of the game and the mouse is your "stick" that you, as a pilot, are supposed to learn to use. It was supposed to be intuitive, and I have some feedback so far saying that it was, but if it's not then I can only say sorry...

But, basically you scroll the scroll-wheel to increase or decrease thrust, and hold down the left/right mouse buttons to put some of the thrust into horizontal movement, at the cost of vertical thrust (this is how a helicopter works)...

I didn't want to just give a point-and-click control or it would not feel to the player that they had learned to fly and were flying a helicopter, and I see no way that keyboard controls could work for thrust, because it must be dynamic with the scroll wheel...

I hope that explains the controls a bit... :=

Cassiebsg

Sure, it's just that controlling 4 things with the same hand is confusing for me. But maybe getting the hinge on the kayboard I'll be able to collect more than one guy before I crash. (laugh)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Stupot

This game is cool. There's so many things that you learn after every few goes that you can use to improve your next turn.
For example:
Spoiler
* the fact that each person you rescue makes your helicopter weigh a bit more, so sometimes it's best to just pick one or two people up.
*it's best not to fill up your whole gas tank otherwise you will only ever break even and never be able to afford upgrades
* the relationship between upgrades is important (i.e. a bigger chassis will hold more people but that's useless if you don't have a big enough engine to thrust against the weight of the extra people.

I think one strategy could be to just grind out loads of rescues with the basic chopper until you can afford to buy all the next-level upgrades, and then do it again (but that's possibly against the spirit of the game).
[close]

Anyway. I love it. And with a bit of tinkering, I think you ought to put this on itch.io or Gamejolt and maybe even suggest an optional donation.
I also think it could benefit from at least another dificulty level.

Mandle

#10
Quote from: Stupot+ on Wed 05/07/2017 03:34:15
There's so many things that you learn after every few goes that you can use to improve your next turn.
For example:
Spoiler
* the fact that each person you rescue makes your helicopter weigh a bit more, so sometimes it's best to just pick one or two people up.
*it's best not to fill up your whole gas tank otherwise you will only ever break even and never be able to afford upgrades
* the relationship between upgrades is important (i.e. a bigger chassis will hold more people but that's useless if you don't have a big enough engine to thrust against the weight of the extra people.

I think one strategy could be to just grind out loads of rescues with the basic chopper until you can afford to buy all the next-level upgrades, and then do it again (but that's possibly against the spirit of the game).
[close]

Cheers for the good words there, Stu!

To reply to Stu's strategies (contains pro-tips so don't read if you want to figure out yourself!) :
Spoiler
@breaking even: Maybe try picking up more people from further to the right. The reward money increases exponentially and, especially the rescues on the far side of the big mountain, are worth tons of money.

@upgrades relationship: The first thing I always do is use the starting cash to buy the next-level engine. This gives enough power to make it over the big mountain on the far right and start making some serious cash!

@grinding on basic heli: It's a valid strategy but would take a lot longer. Best to get the medium engine straight away like I said above, and then upgrade to the next bigger chassis or fuel tank, depending on how you want to play. The game does require grinding of course, especially to get the half-mil to win, but don't forget that you can sell off all your upgrades at the end to reach the 500k in cash and win the game. Just be careful your math is good though ;)
[close]

DBoyWheeler

Well, I've had trouble with the mouse controls (rolling the wheel on the mouse makes it speed up a bit, but I could never get it to go up, for some reason).

Also, to be blunt, I'm not a huge fan of Rogue-style games.  The randomness tends to have a risk of putting a player in an unwinnable situation (for example--using the classic Rogue as said example--you might get plopped into a room crammed with monsters and get the s**t beat out of you at the get-go).  But, there are those who actually like Rogue-style games, as those players are probably better at thinking on the fly.

So, all in all, best of luck with this game.

Mandle

Quote from: DBoyWheeler on Fri 07/07/2017 02:01:10
Well, I've had trouble with the mouse controls (rolling the wheel on the mouse makes it speed up a bit, but I could never get it to go up, for some reason).

Also, to be blunt, I'm not a huge fan of Rogue-style games.  The randomness tends to have a risk of putting a player in an unwinnable situation (for example--using the classic Rogue as said example--you might get plopped into a room crammed with monsters and get the s**t beat out of you at the get-go).  But, there are those who actually like Rogue-style games, as those players are probably better at thinking on the fly.

So, all in all, best of luck with this game.

I find your comment a bit confusing to be honest.

Scrolling the mouse wheel up increases the engine's thrust and once it is at full for the basic starting helicopter (50/50) this is enough to make your helicopter fly up to its maximum possible altitude. Because the air at high altitudes is very thin, there is a limit to how high you can fly, but this increases when you upgrade to more powerful engines.

Also, when I said the game is "roguelike" maybe I used the term in a confusing way? I only meant that if you die, that's it, the game is over and you must start again from the beginning. I didn't mean the entire game is randomly configured in such a way that you could face an unwinnable situation. The stranded hikers do appear at random times and locations, but appear frequently enough so that this factor should never put the player in any kind of dead-end state.

DBoyWheeler

Yeah the YOLO mindset (aka permadeath) in Rogue-like games is also kind of a big turnoff to me.  While it does give a sense of reality, it can also make the game harder than necessary--puts too much pressure on the player.

Mandle

Quote from: DBoyWheeler on Fri 07/07/2017 14:24:10
Yeah the YOLO mindset (aka permadeath) in Rogue-like games is also kind of a big turnoff to me.  While it does give a sense of reality, it can also make the game harder than necessary--puts too much pressure on the player.

Understandable, and it's not for everyone, but for me I actually love it if the game is good enough to be worth it (which I want to make this one...I have a few insteresting ideas about quests perhaps involving point-and-click adventure quests/platforming quests/roleplaying quests/gambling quests/etc. and an overacrching storyline including a boss villain, something like the movie Cliffhanger...)

I love the feeling of perma-death in certain types of games as it really makes the pulse race when you are taking a risk for a big reward, whereas if you have a reusable save from a few seconds ago you just don't care so much...

Tycho Magnetic Anomaly

#15
Well this was an unexpected experience for me indeed!, So very far away from what I would expect AGS to do, yet people that push tools beyond their defaults often produce something innovative, which I think is what you have managed to do here.

I love the idea, and this reminds of some classic games with a similar premise.

As a proof of concept the idea is well executed, and after all game jams are all about executing concepts, however I thought as pure game experience I felt the control of the helicopter could have been better in some areas.

Improvements such as when the heli turns around when flying, could be as simple as a few frame animation of it yawing 180 degrees, then heli sprite slightly tips back and forth as it pitches. Those 2 things alone could make the feel of flying it better, maybe even make the mouse wheel action more sensitive to throttling so there is more obvious feedback to the player they are throttling up or down.

Even with the slightly stiff feel of the heli I found myself playing this for a good while, and did enjoy it to bits. I love your upgrade system too, and I really also think with a little more time and work this could in fact be an interesting casual game. I could see myself getting lost with this on my mobile/tablet.

All in all, great work, and super well done on getting it all complete for the contest.
Keep up the good/innovative work dude!

EDIT: How the heck dose one rate a game (the orange mugs) on the download pages?

Mandle

Thanks for all the comments and, yeah, the graphical feedback to the player needs some work.

Glad you liked the upgrade system. I still really need to look into that to balance the gameplay properly. It's almost there, but not quite...

Quote from: Tycho Magnetic Anomaly on Sat 08/07/2017 16:50:05
EDIT: How the heck dose one rate a game (the orange mugs) on the download pages?

There's a link in the framed box titled "Public Opion" at the bottom of it that says "your votes?" Yeah, it's not very intuitive...

Tycho Magnetic Anomaly

#17
A ah.. got it, cool, cheers :D

Hobo

It's always nice to see non-adventure games made with AGS and there was certainly some interesting stuff going on in here. Had to dig out my mouse for this one, since I'm mostly a keyboard/touchpad guy :) Played about ten or so minutes and I think I got the basics of it, but I have to admit it's not really my type of game. The controls felt a bit unintuitive and fiddly at first, but that's probably because I don't play these sorts of games very often. The current gameplay loop and rewards also weren't engaging enough for me, I usually need some kind of narrative hook.

But I can appreciate the craftsmanship and effort, it's a neat idea and I'm sure that lots of players will have tons of fun with it. Keep up the good work!

Pilchard

Mandle, well done on somehow making a roguelike helicopter sim in AGS, remarkable work just on that count.

Like SilverSpook, this game took me back to days of 'just one more go' on the NES. The control scheme is challenging at first and the gameplay totally uncompromising, but that makes it all the more satisfying when you do accomplish things! I sort of got the hang of flying using a trackpad, but I'll have another go using a proper mouse soon.

I agree with others about the areas for possible improvement, but it's a good proof of concept and something you could build on if you're inspired to.

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