Snap the Sentinel (v2.4) ~ EPISODE 1

[lizardcommando]

I can't believe I just discovered this project but I am really liking it. The overall gameplay feels super fast paced and the weapons are fun to use. I love the art style for the environment and the character designs and the animations are really nice and smooth. I cannot wait to see what else is in store for the story.

[TehRealSalt]

The Episode 1 update (v2.0) has been released!! The length of the game has been doubled, and lots of polish to every other aspect of the game.
Changelog: https://tehrealsalt.itch.io/snap-the-se ... 20-release

[Captain Ventris]

Super excited for this, and so glad it’s getting expanded.

[ShockwaveS08]

Got a bug to report, regarding Level 2: After progressing through the Red Key Door, there is a pretty severe performance drop, dragging down the framerate so much that the game becomes literally unplayable.

Sourceport Used: GZDoom v4.7.1 (through Delta Touch v4.5.2, on Android)
Rendering Backend: GLES v3.2

[Captain J]

Played the updated version right now and holy smokes this is some GOOD retro shooter TC. I mean it was already good when it came out but it just got good-er with extra levels that are so merciful with the navigation. They're straight forward as they should be and i like every single part.

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- Man, it feels quite awkward if i get mid-range weapon like Boomerang Slicer or Flamethrower when i have to shoot the enemy at long range. It sounds ridiculous, but i wish i could discard the current weapon so i can snipe things without having to waste extra time spending all ammo of it.

- I do really love the feature that you can rock on the certain enemy but Homing shot ignores it, sadly. Not a big deal, though.


- The flame baddie in E1M7 got stuck on the edge of a container.

Thanks to every single attack being a Projectile, No Damage clear is possible... I guess. I managed to beat E1M1 without getting hit but it gets harder afterwards. Kudos for your cool work guys

[doomduck]

Just came here to say: this game is AWESOME!

I played the original gamejam version a while ago and while I liked the style of the game, the gameplay just didn't feel very fun to me.

But this? This is SOO good. The little gameplay tweaks makes the game feel a lot better to play, the new levels are great and I love the cheesy dialogue.

I only things I'd like to see added are:

1- Some way to switch powerups. Sometimes I'll end up getting a powerup which isn't really useful for the current situation, like getting a medium-range weapon when there's a lot of enemies shooting me from a distance. Maybe add a feature like in Castlevania SOTN, where you'd drop you current subweapon when getting a new one, so that we have a chance of getting our previous powerup back. Or maybe just add a secondary powerup slot, like in Contra.

2- Getting more use out of the energy bar. The Septacrash is a lot of fun to use, but you only rarely get to use it. Maybe let the player do a less powerful special attack at the cost of a star or two.

3- Probably not the direction you guys wanna go with this game, but the ability to jump would be nice too. Not only platforming would give a lil bit more variety to the game, but jumping would also give us another option for dodging enemy projectiles (which can be very hard sometimes with the current moveset)

But yeah, that's about it. I think this game is nearly perfect and it honestly took Adventures of Square's spot as the best standalone GZDoom game for me.
I'm really excited for the future episodes and I wish the team the best of luck with this project!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I can't believe I just discovered this project but I am really liking it. The overall gameplay feels super fast paced and the weapons are fun to use. I love the art style for the environment and the character designs and the animations are really nice and smooth. I cannot wait to see what else is in store for the story.

Same here. This is amazing!

I was already a fan of your alternative take on invisibility, but I did not know you were this much of an accomplished game developer yourself.

[Captain J]

So i beat the game again with Very Rude difficulty and holy hot damn this is no joke. Hard to believe that it changes the behavior of every single enemy! It makes whole a lot of difference, especially in boss battle.

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- If the enemy gets damaged by the explosion from other enemy destroying the Explosive Cactus(and potentially Oil Drum), they get aggravated and fight each other.

E1M3:

- The flame baddie sure do get stuck a lot. Here's the another spot where it gets stuck.

E1M4:

- After activating the Diamond key fob switch, you can use the green lift. But if you stand at the edge like, a fence and hit the ceiling, the fence glitches up.

E1M6:

- So uhh what are these pink dogs? I rescued them in Hard ~ Very Rude difficulties. Are they a reference to the little animals from Sonic series? They're comically in large numbers and uses GZDoom's default dog sprites for some reason, unless it's just a placeholder. Got no problem with them except they interrupt me from using the lift.

E1M9:

- The green key fob arena glitches up if you hit the switch again. You can softlock the game if you're not careful.


- The lobby section of blue key fob arena, there's one couch that makes you stuck, easily because you can't jump in this game.

EDIT: Fan art time woo woo

[TehRealSalt]

v2.1 has been released. Main reason for the patch is to fix a pretty nasty thinker leak that was happening on a few levels, please try it out if you were having performance issues before. Other highlights include alternate E1M7 generators, and Homing Beam buffs, as well as lots of minor polish in lots of little areas of the game.

Read the changelog here: https://tehrealsalt.itch.io/snap-the-se ... 21-release

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(Not quoting directly but thank you Captain J for the extensive feedback, I've fixed a few things in the patch )

1- Some way to switch powerups. Sometimes I'll end up getting a powerup which isn't really useful for the current situation, like getting a medium-range weapon when there's a lot of enemies shooting me from a distance. Maybe add a feature like in Castlevania SOTN, where you'd drop you current subweapon when getting a new one, so that we have a chance of getting our previous powerup back. Or maybe just add a secondary powerup slot, like in Contra.

I definitely agree with the problem and want to solve it, but both of those games' solutions wouldn't work unfortunately. I did code CV-style drop your item behind you, but it was problematic for different reasons (lots of accidentally running over dropped weapons in fire fights). With both solutions, a big part of how some Snap levels are designed are that you can trade in your existing weapon for ammo ... if kept as is, the "optimal" way to max out ammo is to intentionally get a new weapon you don't want, then backpedal into your old one, which is just a dumb chore I don't wanna encourage. If the ammo is stored in the weapon powerup itself, then it'd mean doing another big pass over all the levels again to make sure nothing's too stingy, which is just me being sick of polishing Ep. 1 levels for months now and I wanna just get to making new stuff already

I already started on a different solution, dunno if it'll be a patch or just saved for Episode 2. I take the opposite approach of requiring more player input to pick up weapons at all so it's simply harder to do accidentally, by making you have to break open item cans by kicking them. Has its own set of challenges (making sure the player knows how to do it, and making sure its not too disruptive), but they feel easier to solve to me.

2- Getting more use out of the energy bar. The Septacrash is a lot of fun to use, but you only rarely get to use it. Maybe let the player do a less powerful special attack at the cost of a star or two.

I wouldn't rule it out, never know if I get a really cool idea for it ... but if I did one I would want something that can compete with the usefulness of Septacrash, which I'm not sure if I can lol.

3- Probably not the direction you guys wanna go with this game, but the ability to jump would be nice too. Not only platforming would give a lil bit more variety to the game, but jumping would also give us another option for dodging enemy projectiles (which can be very hard sometimes with the current moveset)

Yeah, jumping's just not something we're interested in. I made that decision day 1 just 'cuz I don't like designing levels & enemy patterns around it ... just lots of little annoying easy to miss exploits. Someone finding last minute dumb exploits with just being able to crouch is already enough hassle for me! Lots of other Doom mods do jumping & platforming enough anyway, and probably way better than I could, so I just wanted to stick with more classical design. Plus I've actually received compliments for sticking to shooting, since shoe-horning in platforming is a really easy idea for a game with this art style, so I'mma stickin' to my chops on this one

[lizardcommando]

Just got finished playing through the update. That was really fun and the new weapons were a ton of fun to play with, especially that charge shot weapon. Such devastating destruction! Also, I don't think this gets mentioned enough, but the music is really good. Are there plans on releasing the soundtrack some time in the future?

[Captain J]

Think they already released it digitally on Bandicamp.

[doomduck]

Hey, I'm like to report what I think is a bug:

In E1M9 on Hard mode, there's a huuge performance drop and it makes it impossible for me to finish the level. I'm 90% sure it's a bug, considering the rest of the game ran pretty smoothly up until that point

[SeventhSentinel]

Did you update to the v2.1 patch? E1M9 was one of the problem maps before the patch.

[doomduck]

Yeah, I did. The patch actually did fix performance issues on some of the maps, like E1M2, but for some reason E1M9 still has them.

[TehRealSalt]

v2.2 has been released. This was meant to be just a really simple 5-line changelog patch to address lag & a few bugs, but it ballooned really fast! Most notable change is a new weapon can system -- weapons need to be kicked open to be picked up, to prevent accidental weapon pickups.

GIF of weapon cans in action: https://imgur.com/vayVWJO

Download + changelog: https://tehrealsalt.itch.io/snap-the-se ... 22-release