Flowstorm

Hello!
My name is Joachim Holmér, and I've been working on a game called Flowstorm for a few months now, and I'm now happy to announce that it's available on Steam Greenlight, as well as having a single level playable right now at www.flowstormgame.com !

So what is Flowstorm?
Flowstorm is a skill-based 2.5D racing and aerial combat game for PC and Mac, where you control a fast but fragile rocket, speeding through levels as fast as possible in different ways.

The game also comes with a level editor (Which I've spent most of the time working on), where you can easily create your own levels for others to play!

Here's the announcement video:

If you like the game, and would like to see more of it, please show your support and help Flowstorm reach Steam, by voting for it on Steam Greenlight!: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92912207

Flowstorm can be found here as well:

If you want to have a chat, feel free to enter the IRC channel #flowstorm on irc.freenode.net

I'm going to keep this thread up to date as large development happens.

Thanks for reading!

 

Love love love the game. The level editor is utterly amazing and genius, it looks fantastic. There is no stretching and it looks super simple to make unique levels since it has bezier curve handles.

 

It is pretty straightforward
I'll make a more thorough video on the editor later!

 

The genius is the simplicity and aesthetic

 

:O awesome. nugh said

Edit: dude i thought u said ez to play hard to master. that game is hard as hell

 

Well done! +1

 

Awesome...
I'd suggest a safe ending however. I wouldn't like to have my ship destroyed even after I've done a successful run.

Mega-Fiers in there?! Mega-Shapes?

 

Dude, that looks Awesome! Instant vote and share.

 

Awesome work, hope it gets accepted.

Agreed.

 

This looks fantastic. Very polished, great job.

 

Great Job, the quailty is superb. Although I think you should include an standalone version of the game because it lags quite bad.

 

Very awesome indeed! I couldn't even make it past the first level, but I had a great time!

 

These types of games really help you focus better, have more control on emotions, and get your "hand eye coordination" smooth. Crist man you making us into machines if you think about it, well done!

When you have played say 40 hours, and no damage has been done to your PC, then you can safely say you have earned a beer.

 

Upvoted. This looks like a lot of fun.

 

Agreed. I was floating for a little while after I got the last checkpoint thinking, "Am I supposed to do something?"

 

I think the problem lies in the fact that the visual feedback when you enter the goal is almost nonexistant! Especially when you're not setting any personal best. It seems like players are rather torn on this. Some people find it relaxing to just do whatever and die after finishing! I think I'll simply make it more clear that they finished, at least for now

Nope, no custom packages

 

Your game is seriously fun, cant stop playing it. thumbed and favorited. good luck with steam.

 

Must.. Stop.. playing..
Must.. get back to programming!!

Addictive as hell with a charming aesthetic style!

 

Just made a heatmap!

 

Another heatmap up

 

How did you finish the track in 9 seconds? rofl

The sprite bricks from the track's borders are not being drawn in Mac's Safari, at least not on my machine.

 

This look just fantastic!

 

Awesome! Looks like fun and very well done! Will definitely vote for your game on greenlight!

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Also, Flowstorm is now in Alpha 2

Changelog - Alpha 2 - 2012 Sept 04:
• Added death location marker
• Added time difference stats when finishing
• Added low/high graphics toggle
• Added WAD+Space controls
• Ctrl+click ghost to hide all other ghosts
• Updated Logo
• Disabled vertical sync
• Added link to the Flowstorm steam group

Play it at http://www.flowstormgame.com/ !

 

This is amazing.

Wheres the gamemode that lets you only be airborn for 1 second ?
That is all.

 

The standalone alpha recievers will be picked from the top 10 scoreboards in exactly two hours from now

 

Perfect, the only thing that you should add are some sort of equipments or add-ons to space ship.

 

My team are too busy playing your game to finish ours. Simple and elegant. Just how we like em. Good stuff.

 

Really loving this! - simple concept, and excellent execution, it really scratches my Super Meat Boy-itch I wish you all the best with your project, and can't wait to see/play more.

 

Perfect, I don't know what to say, just "Perfect"

 

Hey could you please push me in the right direction to creating collision objects as curves like you did in Flowstorm?

 

I might be the only one but I find it extremely hard. I played for quite a bit and still haven't beat the level . I was curious if you had any analytic's that showed how many attempts or how long it is taking on average for someone to pick the game up, learn it, and beat the level? I was compelled to keep trying due to frustration but after a point I just got tired lol.

-Dane

 

Sure!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bézier_curve
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Mesh.html

Yes, I do have stats!
You are definitely not the only one, just 44% of all players have completed the level

From what I've seen, it heavily depends on the person. Some can beat it in just 10 minutes of playing, while others take hours. It also depends on how careful you are. Some people want to get the best time quickly, and respawn as soon as they get the slightest slowdown! It's usually best to take it slow at first, just to scout the whole level, and iterate from that!

 

Looks cool, quite an original control system with the `scraping` along the curved surfaces and sparks flying... sort of like skateboards grinding along an edge. It's similar to a skid-based car-racing game but you get to skid along the barriers rather than just inbetween them. Gives it a semi sonic-the-hedgehog kind of feel too.

 

Thank you very much

I took ages to beat the level xD I kept going way too fast

 

Looks awesome, good job!

 

Hi Joachim Holmér, first of all, congratulations, very addictive game. The best praise I can think for your game is that, for me, it is like Trials (the one with the motorbikes) meet Asteroids meet Sonic. Trials because of the frustration (and fun), Asteroids because of the controls, and Sonic because of the sense of speed.

But I really think a stand alone version would be better. I was playing for less than 5 minutes, and my graphics card had problems for 3 times (black screen for a second). I have played other Unity Web Players before and never had a problem. Also, I have a GeForce GTX 260M, so that is not the problem too. I'm using Google Chrome and Windows7.

Just to let you know, maybe you can make the web player not that heavy for the GPU. I usually play games like Batman, GTAIV, Total War etc, and never had a problem. Maybe it was the combination of Unity Web Player + Google Chrome (but again, I've played lots of other games via Unity Web Player), I don't know.

EDIT: I've tried again with the low quality since the beginning, and had the same problems. I don't know if my graphics card is about to die, but it only happens with this game.

 

Thanks for the kind words

As for the GPU blackout, you are not the only one experiencing this!
This is a known issue, and it is something we have to look in to. Have you tried updating your graphics drivers?

 

I'm going to stream level creation for the next web alpha, for about an hour, feel free to take a look
Alpha 3 should be ready by the end of this week!

http://www.livestream.com/acegikmo

 

We are happy to announce that Alpha 3, the shooting range update, is now released!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pffrXVoDoY


It's available right now at:
www.flowstormgame.com (Use the same account you used before!)


Changelog:

• 3 new levels with separate scoreboards
• Added shooting range level
• Level menu with an overview of your scores
• Combined scoreboard
• Scoreboard position now visible
• Gamepad support (360 controller)
• Updated some textures
• Return R are now the respawn keys
• Plenty of editor bugs fixed
• Code is a bit cleaner

And last but not least:
• New standalone contest!

Be in the top 10 in any category on any level and you'll get the standalone at a specific date! Since there are 6 timers and 4 levels, that makes it 240 positions for the standalone alpha access!
More on that as it nears!

Now go play and have fun

 

Hi @Acegikmo,

great work, I don't know if you did something about the game crashing, but the problem is gone.

I have a question about the account/login system: did you make it yourself or have you used a prebuilt system?

 

Hi everyone! Just wanted to send out an apology to anyone here who is on our mailing list and just received about 10 e-mails about the update! D: We're very sorry about that!

 

What a AMAZING game, this is easily going to be on the 2013 unite awards as this is a masterpiece.

 

Nice, regarding the crashing being fixed!

The "account system" is my own, but it's very basic and bare minimum right now, apart from the passwords which are handled with care (I don't save the actual text in your passwords in the database, for example)

Thanks a lot, glad you like it!

 

Well, after playing again for a while I've noticed the problem isn't totally gone. But it only crashes in the Frictionaut level (now I have an excuse for not being able to finish that one).

Just to give you feedback.

 

It's crashing very often on my system. It will crash the first time the ship is destroyed, wait a few seconds and the entire OS follows suit requiring a reboot unless I end Safari fast enough. This seems to happen most often on the new Shooting Range (after 5 tries, I've never been able to start with it) though it has happened before on the other levels. Never has it happened on the 2nd, 3rd, etc ship destruction, if I make it through the first ship destruction I am home free (can even switch to Shooting Range without crashing)

Retina MacBook Pro
Mac OS X 10.8.2
Safari 6.0.1
Unity Webplayer 3.5.6f4

If you need any help recreating the crash, I'm a PM away.


Other than that, it's a great game and I've been working hard to keep in the top 10!

 

Strange! Does it behave differently when running in low-quality?

 

Going to stream some modeling if you guys are interested!
Starting work on the destruction model for the rocket:

http://www.livestream.com/acegikmo

 

This game looks awesome!