This is very impressive for an unofficial game. Reminiscent of the golden age of Star Wars games; Battlefront with a hint of Rogue Squadron. I've found the aiming a bit uncomfortable, and there are some minor things about the UI that I think could be improved. The graphics are gorgeous and I love the degrees of freedom the player is given with the ship.
I am using mouse/keyboard. I guess my main issue with the aiming is that unless I am flying straight, the direction of my lasers will only ever approximate the direction of the crosshair. Also, I sense a slight delay between moving the mouse and the response of the crosshair moving, and then the crosshair is constantly being forced back towards the centre of the screen. I am not a fan of this moving crosshair anyway, but I understand it's a design decision, and that some SW games have used it in the past. But even in games like Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo, or Shadows of the Empire, that use this type of crosshair, there is usually another crosshair in between the farthest crosshair and the centre of the screen. Maybe that's what you need.
About the UI - You use Battlefront (2004)'s style, but you don't really commit to it. I would like to highlight some of the things the UI designers of Battlefront have done, that you don't seem to consider:
1. World space The panels in the menu system are in world space, not screen space. For some reason, you replicate it perfectly from the main menu screen up until the map select screen, but then ditch it after the loading screen and just use screen space-style, straight, non-tilted buttons. Why? Especially during the battle, the UI is supposed to look like overlays on a helmet.
2. Colour scheme For menu elements, Battlefront uses dark blue for buttons with white for text, orange for headers with black for text, and a lighter blue or orange overlay with pulsating opacity for highlights. Notice the contrast between blue and orange, blue and white, orange and black. You swap orange for green to go with your theme of green squadrons, and lose from the contrast. The most unpleasant sight is your green text highlight on your blue button. The red subpixels on my monitor screen are just completely taking a break. I would maybe give a purple tint to the blue buttons, and use some other effect for highlight than green on blue. Also, in places where there is no backdrop for texts, like at the loading screen, figure out a way to make the green text distinct from the background. You do seem to use strokes in most places, so I am not sure why you choose not to in others. And while we are at this, the light blue crosshair is really invisible against the white backdrop of Hoth, for example.
And finally, my biggest issue with the UI: Seeing the red markers on all the enemy ships makes me feel like I am looking at a minimap. It takes me out of the immersion. I'm not shooting at TIE fighters in the distance, I am shooting at red dots. Are you sure the player needs to see the position of all the ships even though they are too far away to do anything with them? Maybe if the player wanted to see them, they could hold down a button to do so. Or maybe it could be an optional setting.
First off, I would like to say that I really appreciate the time you put in to make a detailed critique of my game. The honest feedback is really important. However, I would like to point out, in case you weren't aware, I am a one man team and 99.9% of the game was coded/designed by me, without using any outside packages, aside from a couple default Unity ones, mainly for the camera transitions. (Some of the 3D models are reused from older games)
That being said, please cut me some slack as I will try to address most, if not all of your suggestions.
First off, as far as the menu goes, while I understand that contrast is important, I have already tried using different color schemes mixed with green, and the current one is what I believe looks best - being the blue and green for buttons. For text without backgrounds, I will try to make the outline more visible.
For the crosshair, I will try to add a system that will improve the visibility on brighter maps, like Hoth.
For the non-world space UI - the reason it is like that was for simplicity on my part and due to how the UI operates on a scripting level - meaning this would require more work to fix. While I do want to change this eventually, I feel there are more important things to work on first.
As far as the target indicators (red and green markers), I will be working on a complete overhaul for those, since I completely agree that it looks bad. I am not sure what the final solution will be yet, but I will update you on what I decide.
And finally, as far as the aiming goes, I will try my best to improve this, since you are not the first to bring up this issue. I will be doing some research on the best way to go about fixing the crosshair movement and provide either a fix in the next update, or respond with my findings.
Again, thank you for your feedback and for playing my game.
I understand. Like I said, what you've done so far is very impressive. For me, these were the only tell-tale signs that this was a fan game. I hope I didn't make you feel discouraged.
On a technical level, the things I mentioned seemed easily fixable to me, but then again, I haven't seen the source code. By the way, you might wanna look up IL2CPP. For your sake, I won't get into details in a public comment section.
Anyway, I will watch this project progress until the cease and desist comes. Keep up the good work.
I have released the V8.3 update with several improvements to the UI. I did experiment with changing the aiming but I discovered that in order to make the crosshair perform like you suggested, I would have to change it from world space to screen space. The way it works now is the crosshair is always positioned directly in front of your starfighter, so the input delay you are feeling is actually the smoothing being applied to the starfighter's turning. I'm not yet sure if I will change this, since I would essentially need to take input for the crosshair separately.
this is a pretty great game so far. The starfighters handle and sound good and the atmosphere is classic, hardscrabble Star Wars.
Some things I might suggest are the ability to roll and invert the ship manually in addition to the currently-available barrel-roll commands. As it is, performing loops isn't possible as the ship simply ascends or descends and angles bizarrely at high angles-of-attack, which makes pursuing targets or evading fire problematic. A few onboard/wing-mounted/cockpit camera angles would also be great for immersion and cinematic appeal.
Likewise, some additional options for Instant Action, such as setting reinforcement numbers, the number of AI on the battlefield at once, and editing or disabling Hero ship point limits would be nice QoL and customization options.
Overall, love the game already and look forward to seeing how it develops.
Thanks for your feedback. I am currently working on a new camera system that will improve the overall feel of controlling your starfighter and fix the issues when ascending or descending during combat. It will be similar to the feel of Battlefront (2015) but retain the current controls. Additional camera angles that you can switch between is something I definitely want to do as well.
Adding the ability to roll is not something I am currently considering, since the flight controls are supposed to feel like Battlefront (2004), which did not have rolling.
As far as the Instant Action improvements, the only thing I am currently planning is possibly adding a queue system so you can play several levels in the order you choose, similar to the old Battlefront games. However, I may consider adding the ability to set the reinforcement count/score target.
I would have to change render pipelines, so certain graphics features would no longer be possible. This is something I will consider, but if it does happen it would require a lot of work.
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This is very impressive for an unofficial game. Reminiscent of the golden age of Star Wars games; Battlefront with a hint of Rogue Squadron.
I've found the aiming a bit uncomfortable, and there are some minor things about the UI that I think could be improved.
The graphics are gorgeous and I love the degrees of freedom the player is given with the ship.
Thank you for your feedback. Are you using a mouse/keyboard or a controller? And what parts of the UI do you think need to be fixed?
I am using mouse/keyboard. I guess my main issue with the aiming is that unless I am flying straight, the direction of my lasers will only ever approximate the direction of the crosshair.
Also, I sense a slight delay between moving the mouse and the response of the crosshair moving, and then the crosshair is constantly being forced back towards the centre of the screen.
I am not a fan of this moving crosshair anyway, but I understand it's a design decision, and that some SW games have used it in the past. But even in games like Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo, or Shadows of the Empire, that use this type of crosshair, there is usually another crosshair in between the farthest crosshair and the centre of the screen. Maybe that's what you need.
About the UI - You use Battlefront (2004)'s style, but you don't really commit to it. I would like to highlight some of the things the UI designers of Battlefront have done, that you don't seem to consider:
1. World space
The panels in the menu system are in world space, not screen space. For some reason, you replicate it perfectly from the main menu screen up until the map select screen, but then ditch it after the loading screen and just use screen space-style, straight, non-tilted buttons. Why? Especially during the battle, the UI is supposed to look like overlays on a helmet.
2. Colour scheme
For menu elements, Battlefront uses dark blue for buttons with white for text, orange for headers with black for text, and a lighter blue or orange overlay with pulsating opacity for highlights. Notice the contrast between blue and orange, blue and white, orange and black. You swap orange for green to go with your theme of green squadrons, and lose from the contrast. The most unpleasant sight is your green text highlight on your blue button. The red subpixels on my monitor screen are just completely taking a break.
I would maybe give a purple tint to the blue buttons, and use some other effect for highlight than green on blue.
Also, in places where there is no backdrop for texts, like at the loading screen, figure out a way to make the green text distinct from the background. You do seem to use strokes in most places, so I am not sure why you choose not to in others. And while we are at this, the light blue crosshair is really invisible against the white backdrop of Hoth, for example.
And finally, my biggest issue with the UI: Seeing the red markers on all the enemy ships makes me feel like I am looking at a minimap. It takes me out of the immersion. I'm not shooting at TIE fighters in the distance, I am shooting at red dots. Are you sure the player needs to see the position of all the ships even though they are too far away to do anything with them? Maybe if the player wanted to see them, they could hold down a button to do so. Or maybe it could be an optional setting.
First off, I would like to say that I really appreciate the time you put in to make a detailed critique of my game. The honest feedback is really important. However, I would like to point out, in case you weren't aware, I am a one man team and 99.9% of the game was coded/designed by me, without using any outside packages, aside from a couple default Unity ones, mainly for the camera transitions. (Some of the 3D models are reused from older games)
That being said, please cut me some slack as I will try to address most, if not all of your suggestions.
First off, as far as the menu goes, while I understand that contrast is important, I have already tried using different color schemes mixed with green, and the current one is what I believe looks best - being the blue and green for buttons. For text without backgrounds, I will try to make the outline more visible.
For the crosshair, I will try to add a system that will improve the visibility on brighter maps, like Hoth.
For the non-world space UI - the reason it is like that was for simplicity on my part and due to how the UI operates on a scripting level - meaning this would require more work to fix. While I do want to change this eventually, I feel there are more important things to work on first.
As far as the target indicators (red and green markers), I will be working on a complete overhaul for those, since I completely agree that it looks bad. I am not sure what the final solution will be yet, but I will update you on what I decide.
And finally, as far as the aiming goes, I will try my best to improve this, since you are not the first to bring up this issue. I will be doing some research on the best way to go about fixing the crosshair movement and provide either a fix in the next update, or respond with my findings.
Again, thank you for your feedback and for playing my game.
I understand. Like I said, what you've done so far is very impressive. For me, these were the only tell-tale signs that this was a fan game. I hope I didn't make you feel discouraged.
On a technical level, the things I mentioned seemed easily fixable to me, but then again, I haven't seen the source code. By the way, you might wanna look up IL2CPP. For your sake, I won't get into details in a public comment section.
Anyway, I will watch this project progress until the cease and desist comes. Keep up the good work.
I have released the V8.3 update with several improvements to the UI. I did experiment with changing the aiming but I discovered that in order to make the crosshair perform like you suggested, I would have to change it from world space to screen space. The way it works now is the crosshair is always positioned directly in front of your starfighter, so the input delay you are feeling is actually the smoothing being applied to the starfighter's turning. I'm not yet sure if I will change this, since I would essentially need to take input for the crosshair separately.
this is a pretty great game so far. The starfighters handle and sound good and the atmosphere is classic, hardscrabble Star Wars.
Some things I might suggest are the ability to roll and invert the ship manually in addition to the currently-available barrel-roll commands. As it is, performing loops isn't possible as the ship simply ascends or descends and angles bizarrely at high angles-of-attack, which makes pursuing targets or evading fire problematic. A few onboard/wing-mounted/cockpit camera angles would also be great for immersion and cinematic appeal.
Likewise, some additional options for Instant Action, such as setting reinforcement numbers, the number of AI on the battlefield at once, and editing or disabling Hero ship point limits would be nice QoL and customization options.
Overall, love the game already and look forward to seeing how it develops.
Thanks for your feedback. I am currently working on a new camera system that will improve the overall feel of controlling your starfighter and fix the issues when ascending or descending during combat. It will be similar to the feel of Battlefront (2015) but retain the current controls. Additional camera angles that you can switch between is something I definitely want to do as well.
Adding the ability to roll is not something I am currently considering, since the flight controls are supposed to feel like Battlefront (2004), which did not have rolling.
As far as the Instant Action improvements, the only thing I am currently planning is possibly adding a queue system so you can play several levels in the order you choose, similar to the old Battlefront games. However, I may consider adding the ability to set the reinforcement count/score target.
The V7 update has released with a few of your suggestions. Hope you enjoy.
I have added the ability to roll with the V8.1 update!
Been following the game's updates and the starfighter combat is incredibly well done. Your team is knocking this game out of the park.
I appreciate that, especially since I am a one man team and have been this entire time.
Wing Cam added in V8.2!
GG
it crashes immediately, unfortunately it plays an engine whirring noise until an input, after which UnityCrashHandler comes in. :(
did you extract the zip first? What graphics card do you have?
yep, extracted.
Sorry, you need a graphics card with at least 8 GB of VRAM. An AMD Radeon RX 6600 or equivalent.
Can you make a low-to-no VRAM version?
I would have to change render pipelines, so certain graphics features would no longer be possible. This is something I will consider, but if it does happen it would require a lot of work.