Helibrawl

Improved aiming, gameplay, In-game UI, match modes, etc.

Hi, welcome again to an Helibrawl update tuesday!
Thanks to some feedback I’ve been making a lot of gameplay improvements! Special thanks to Bennett for providing valuable input.

Remade the in-game UI

Making the score always visible (although a bit translucent) but events like dying, fragging or pickups still tween in and out fully opaque. And the one that leads has a yellow border.
Beefed up the power-up graphics. Changed syringes for medkits because they looked like a “heart in jar” apparently, hehe. And some tiny aesthetic fixes here and there.

Game modes

Worked back in the last-man-standing mode, but without a level reset each time which was awful. You get points if the rest are dead and then they re-spawn.  It goes until the level ends, a time limit or a score limit (eventually).
For 2P would be almost the same as deathmatch, but in deathmatch you get a point per kill, instantly. In LMS you get one if you survive until the rest respawn. There’s also a Quick-LMS that ends the match after just one round.

Worked a lot of improvements in aiming

You can fine-aim with analog sticks, aim from inside the helicopter, it has an arrow graphic overlay for better feedback on the direction, better controls, etc. It still needs testing and tweaking but it’s getting there.

Miscellaneous

Now characters collide with manned helicopters, get body damage besides beheading, and it’s harder to hijack as it’s only possible if actually touching heli from below (it was very easy, even from the top which made no sense!). Also they’re slower than helicopters, to see how that spans out. Before, with a static locked camera and invisible constraints, it wasn’t an issue but now a player could fly to the top to force others inside helicopters to drop off-screen making choppers virtually useless.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

BIG FUCKING UPDATE!

And I mean big

Sorry guys for the lack of updates on tuesdays, I was eager to show some stuff but the builds were always broken and I got a bit sad because I tested the game at it was awkward and hard to maneuver, so I had to do a lot of changes. Prepare for a lot of gifs! Including:

New weapons: Uzi and grenades

You can now actually see visible bullets, it’s better feedback on the general direction you’re shooting.
Greandes explode with a blast radius affecting helicopters and players.
A sword is coming soon too (infinite thrusts, or you can throw it), between several other weapons.

Shooting from inside the helicopter

Seemed stupid not to allow it.

“Elastic” camera

No more hard-coded limits for the choppers, you can move around to some extent. But beware! If you fall off the bottom you’ll die.

New color scheme

Both characters and helicopters coloring has been updated to match them better and avoid confusion.
Now, everytime you enter a helicopter you change it’s color to yours.

And a SEO static image

Because gifs are never friendly with social network previews

Some other miscellaneous improvements:

• Changed to deathmatch by default (respawning until level ends). Every level reset was a ball buster on last man standing mode.
• Used an ANE (Air extension) for joystick handling because I spent like a month dealing with Adobe’s GameInput API bullshit and it’s (lack of) tech support, a funny story for another time. I can’t understand how something so easy could become this shitstorm from the depths of hell. They only needed to see how SDL2 does it!
• Aiming has been locked to 45° angles and keeps the angle while attacking, even if you change directions. I’ve have to experiment some more until I get make it super comfortable.
• Had to disable the big guys mano-a-mano for now because it was utterly confusing. I think I’ll leave it for sudden death scenarios. Somehow it’s getting in the game.

As always, thanks for reading!