Today I have been testing, a lot. The 0.3 version was ready for final testing. Unless some major bugs showed up, this was the last version before going gold (of course, I'm not going to burn many cd:s).
The test was this: play the game four times, one for each combination of choices of storyline and equipment and skills. I let you discover what choices can be made in the storyline, it's not that big deal.
The skills and equipment are intimately connected. Everything revolves around the Theory skill. To handle advanced guns, you need to buy one or two ranks in this skill. You get not bonus to aim, but the guns are better. If you do not buy Theory, it's very economical to buy the skill practice. Practice gives large bonuses with simple weapons. In this game you do not combine theory with practice.
So two of the times, I bought theory. The first time I descided to specialise in plasma weapons. They are very effective against small number of enemies and you never have to reload.
The second time I only bought one rank, allowing for the powerful dart submachinegun. It uses a lot of ammo (I think I used about 6000 darts throughout the game) and this can be a problem, but there is a lot of darts in the air. I also found an Van bistro no-9, a very powerful but short range plasma shotgun. In close range it's probably the most effective weapon in the game (not counting the alien blaster that I have never found).
The third game I focused on practice. At the last map of the game I had two Masterwork flayers (high quality submachinegun) and about 1000 armourpiercing bullets and 2000 ordinary bullets. I started using the ap ammo since my enemies were heavily armoured. Far to early I ran out of ap ammo. Right before I finished the game I had almost ran out of all ammo (there was a lot of shooting).
The last time I used a very nice combo, one Masterwork flayer and a cult orbit
(grenadelauncher). With the orbit I fired mostly incendiary grenades but also plasma. During the end game it was very practical to build walls of fire that the enemies had to walk through to get at me.
The end result: All combinations ended with me defeating the game in the end. Sure there are some minor issues but nothing fatal. It took me about 11 hours of testing to get through everything. I'm a bit tired now.
And then I compiled to exe with excelsior jet. And there were some more issues. I just compiled to exe for the third time, the last I hope.
The file is now ready for download, go to:
http://gunslinger-game.mine.nu.
