shmups.system11.org

After a month of silence I'm back here and bring you Nordenfelt 0.3:

Download Nordenfelt 0.3

The focus of version 0.3 was on adding some small features like the shield or new enemy behaviour as well as introducing new engine features like sounds, a new particle effect system and a data-/message-driven animation system. The second level has just dummy graphics but a crisp endboss.

Please drop me a line what you think.
Many thanks in advance!

I'm getting a little worried here after seeing the framerate get choppy in this version, though I must admit my computer has been having some performance issues with some programs as well so I'll investigate further. The debug function has been helpful in this - by the debug frame it's going variable from 63.9 to 57 when smoke effects such as the Stage 1 boss are in use.
Are the black dots where turrets were supposed to be craters or something? I guess this is another one of those graphical things left for later.
Are the weapons supposed to reset to Level 1 when you die? If so, that isnt working as I get full power before my shield gets hit and I die, and then upon restart of the level I still have max power.
I also notice there's a few new bullet types, which is good, though the level of spreading blue bullets almost became too much for me. That level will need some balancing once you decide on the entire enemy and bullet list.
The use of the shield and ship hitbox makes the game a lot better when it comes to dodging, and the way you've made the second stage boss this is demonstrated well. I'm starting to see a lot more of the Garegga influence this time around, though I felt the first phase of the boss needed a bit more happening and the entire thing should be bigger (an aesthetic nitpick there, Im sure you'll consider all this anyway by v0.4).
One last thing: This isnt apparent in this release but for future releases will you have a scoring system where extra weapon upgrades past max power give you points? In this release I just see them doing nothing, and I understand that.

Overall, its definitely a step forward in development. Could you maybe add a fullscreen mode in the next release? I'm appreciating the debug mode here but fullscreen to test framerate stability would be nice too (my other 'problem' programs run smoothly in fullscreen but not in windowed mode for some reason).

I recognized the choppy frame too late, speak after release. But I wouldn't have fixed it anyway for 0.3. The new particle system engine really may be a performance hog. I've to investigate a little bit with my profiling tools.

The black dots are crater imposters. Just to remind myself to make graphics for them.

Weapon and shield are kept/reset to their maximum for play tests. I wanted players to easily play through both levels. This config renders later upgrades pointless but will survive until I'm focusing on game play and fun. Up to now the game engine demanded to much time to spare some on the game dynamics. I wrote about that here.

I'm glad that the new stuff works. You know, I'm just combining random patterns and throw them at you to see how you react. True game play has a chance now that the engine is done.

The third phase of the tank boss did not make it into the game only because of time. It would have made the whole boss fight a little bit more attractive, speak shortened the first two phases. I decided the tank to be smaller in its first phase for further metamorposis. Finally there has to go some more work into this boss.

The scoring system is absolutely missing. The more I know about shmup design the more I experience scoring as essential part. Most other genres stripped it out when they left the arcades. Shmupers love and want it!

You are lucky, next step is adding support for multiple resolutions. This is going to be tough but IMO its necessary.


Thanks for your thoughts. You're always helpful pushing Nordenfelt forward.

Good stuff, I'm glad to see you've thought this all out and rolling forward. I'm always happy to playtest such programs as long as the developer is willing to listen.
Raizing games in general have a deep scoring system with their popular titles, so having 'inspired' features such as the medal chaining system would probably be a good start for scoring. Remember that the placing of enemies is usually directly linked to a way that a certain stage is meant to be played to get maximum score - it is NOT all about placing random junk in an area and seeing how it goes.

To be honest: I did not know what Raizing meant until yesterday. I knew that Garegga is something I want to mimic but I could not find any comparable games. Bullet hell and downscaled versions of this genre seemed to be the only option these days. But then I stumbled over this article about Raizing/8ing. That's exactly what I was searching for!

Now the fog of war (speak genre uncertainty) is fading and I have a dedicated goal: Raizing style.

Don't worry about the randomness of the current levels. As mentioned before I did not invest much energy in level design yet. Lack of mechanics like scoring, available weapon/bomb/shield/gadget range, collectibles or money would have made such effort pointless at this state.

You could look here as well:

http://www.world-of-arcades.net/R8zing/r8zing.htm

Hell, those artworks are great! That's what I'm after.
Thanks!

All this is fine and dandy hermitC, but beware when treading on Raizing-style gameplay - games such as Garegga and Batrider are renowned not only for the fancy graphical style but also the dynamic (pain in the ass) rank system and the deep level of scoring involved. I strongly advise you play said games and take a good look at the ST threads for them, and maybe speak with those that know more about the games than I do (since Im just getting the hang of Batrider recently myself) before you seriously try emulating their style of game design.

Currently I'm working on drop shadows. The initial draft has simple semi-transparent circles:



Further versions may have different sizes, blurred edges, etc. I don't know how much effort will go into this. At the moment I'm happy with this basic shadow system. Polish is always possible

Picture wont load on the forum page because it's so damn huge, but it is progress.

I think you'll find in most games there's pretty precise shadowing involved, so don't be lazy.

I don't understand the problem. The picture should be small enough with 300x225.



My obsessive perfectionism forbids me to keep these circular impostors.

Well when I clicked on the link that the picture had it took me to an image that was more like 1024x768, and direct Img embeds will retain resolutions. I dunno, I guess embedding methods matter on this forum.

That's good, though I can imagine your perfectionism will be challenged further when you get into the gameplay aspect. You're probably going to get annoyed by me reminding you, but when you say you want to make a game in the style of Raizing's popular releases you're trying to fill big shoes, especially in regards to Yagawa (the programmer for Battle Garegga et al)'s dynamic rank system. Then there's the choice of accessibility - you'll find a lot of people that complain about how ruthless the rank is for Garegga. Even on the subject of rank systems alone I know of at least two other projects in this same forum trying to work out exactly what they want out of a rank system and how it will be implemented. It requires a lot of planning and understanding of how it works.

The longer I'm developing Nordenfelt the more I become aware of different mechanics and design elements in shmups. I've played many of them but playing is not designing. IMO following the masters of design is good, comparing to them is suicide for newbies like me. Therefore I'm analyzing the Raizing genre and use the parts which can make a good game. It will be much work but I'm still motivated to do it. Learning the trade is done best by getting your hands dirty. There is no guarantee for me to make a good game, only good experience. If Raizing is too hard to do after all I'll have to follow another path. Investigating (speak excessive MAMEing ) Garegga, Bakraid, Batrider and others will tell.

Sounds like you know what you're doing. That's good news.
The other Raizing titles are an interesting look too, Brave Blade and the original Mahou Daisakusen (Raizing's first and last shmup) are quite different, so maybe a broad approach can work too.

Shadows improved:

Looks great, would be even better if exhaust fumes cast no shadow though.

I'd point out that shadows for afterburners is optional though, it's not done in shmups but in reality smoke clouds do exactly that, though not as heavily.

The exhaust fume are part of the kamikaze sprite itself:



Therefore there are fume shadows. It's a minor inconsistency which may be fixed later.

IMO particle effects should not cast shadows. Otherwise shots have to do it to. That would result in too much graphical distraction.

Ergo: flying enemy sprites will cast shadows, everything else not.

This is generally how it's done and the reasons why. For the player ship's jet rockets they're separate objects in Xeno Fighters R. Good decision, I couldn't bear seeing bullet visibility troubles at this stage of development with the existing speed issues.

The last three weeks were used for frame rate jitter bug hunts and GUI drawing/coding. Finally Nordenfelt 0.4 will be out within the next few days. The most obvious changes are the new options screen, revised GUI and hopefully less or no frame rate jitter.

Currently I'm into drawing buttons, gauges and other GUI parts. This is a partial screenshot of the options screen:



A step toward steampunk graphics.

I hope some of you can check out the game's new version and tell me if the frame rate issue still persists. It's still present on my machine due to curious reasons, e.g. Win-API's PeekMessage() stalls - very strange.

See you in a few days...

Menu graphics are looking nice and steampunky indeed!

I suppose they're all toggled by mouse? If so, a keyboard highlight option with Enter to toggle may be a good alternate for those using controllers and joystick-to-keyboard emulators like Xpadder.

I'll certainly check the game's next release once it's out when I have time. University course + senior school can be quite a taxing start to a year! :O

By the way, not meaning to sound like a promo spammer but if you've got time you may want to have a look at my new project GMOSSE. It's in Game Maker, uses various scripts by members of this forum including myself and may give you an idea of the sort of 'minimum' standards a shmup should have. Of course bombs being unlimited is a debug feature though.

Keyboard controls are already available: cursor keys for navigation, Enter for toggle (as expected).

After having my "morning coffee" - it's already midday over here - I'll have a look on GMOSSE. I'm always interested in other people's games, especially when they have something to teach like min standards.

Haven't been in this thread in awhile, but I have to say I'm not too impressed.

In paticular, that interface art looks like something from one of those cheezy 1990s-era multimedia CD-ROMs.

The game itself still hardly feels playable.

You really need to step up your game, dude. :P

Nearly forgot to tell you:

Nordenfelt 0.4 Released!

I'm looking forward to your opinion about the GUI and if there are any frame rate issues left.

Hmm. The GUI is clunky. Lots of wasted space on the screen, clicking the dials is slow, and it's a tad hard to read because of the Script-style font used. However kudos to you for including a lot of good options in there at this point. I suggest streamlining the options menu and putting everything in table format, like this:


In fact, since your game is steampunk, I suggest looking at the game where that menu came from for references. The first post in the link has a bunch of videos you can download, and there are more on YouTube.

As for the game itself, I didn't experience any slowdowns on my machine. However, the whole thing just feels off. I know this is just an alpha or a prototype, but everything is too static, slow and monotonous, and the designs are boring.

One reason would be the proportion of the sprites--at this point they're a bit too small, with the large grey planes seeming like popcorns compared to your ship, and the ground turrets being a LOT smaller. Another reason is the flight patterns. Right now the missiles are interesting to look at compared to the grey planes because they curve toward your ship and move fast, but the grey planes need a lot of work. Try making them come in from the sides, follow curved paths, fly at you in a formation and then break away to the sides as soon as they come near, fly down in a sine-wave path, etc. to liven up the action.

Also, as for that boss...try not to make him edge down to the bottom of the screen so much. Maybe fly down there for a bit, then quickly go back up again (as opposed to lingering around for a long while, forcing me to pointblank him to score the kill).

Cool, didn't know about that Garegga guide. Makes desiging my game much easier.

I have to admit that I did not attach much value to gameplay yet. This is the very next step. Changes for Nordenfelt 0.5 will heavily focus on gameplay. Anyway, thanks for your advices. I have noted them on my gameplay design roadmap.

Okay, Ive tried this and I can definitely say it's improved for sure!

S20-TBL has already put some good points across which I was going to mention. You have a resolution of 1024x768 so make the most of it.
The menu does feel slow in response but I believe that is because the rooms which the menu and options menu is in is only running at 30 FPS. Response times will be improved contrary to how it might first seem if you bump it up more.
Speaking of which, the game does still feel rather problematic with the framerate, but I believe the only cause of that is regarding whatever the framerate is set to. In the debug option its displaying it in game as like 63-64 FPS instead of a solid 60, which gives jumpy effects on the screen even if "Synchr. V. Blank" is on or off. I dont even know what that word is, I'm assuming its Vertical Sync or some such function in which case it should be named to conform to the more commonly known names. The game is running at this framerate solidly around these numbers on my main machine anyhow whereas the previous version did reduce it down to within the 50s range due to the smoke effects.

The grey ships really do need some colouring to be honest, but that's just a minor nitpick. S20's already covered the lack of behaviour in this matter.

The new Tesla weapon with placeholder graphics:



The algorithm for spreading the thunderbolts over nearby enemies took quite a while. I've totally underestimated it.

I was just reading up on Mr. Tesla the other day actually, looking good so far.
A few queries though:
- I dont suppose its possible to add a few lines of colour in the beam by any chance?
- What's the gauge meter on the left for? Is this beam meant to be a charge beam ala Batrider?

On the subject of lightning-related weapons there are a few popular games that use some form of lightning weapon, the most popular IMO being the Raiden MK-II's Plasma Lock-On Beam, which can be seen in Raiden II, DX, IV and the Raiden Fighters series (some via MAME, the former ones you'll need a PSX emulator because they dont work in MAME to this day).

Hmm... another lightning example would be the R-13's charge shot. Not as flashy as the twisting toothpaste laser, but closer to actual lightning.