Jamestown Lives!

[westquote]

Hi Everyone,

We're wanted write a post to let you know we've released the game into the world! We'd like to thank everybody on the forum who gave us feedback and did playtests throughout the years - we really appreciate it.

You can pick it up from our site here: http://www.jamestowngame.com/

We know that there are certain to be bugs and issues with the game, and we want to fix those as quickly as possible. If you have any problems installing or running the game, you can reply to this thread or email us at support@finalformgames.com.

Also, if you have issues playing with your favorite gamepad/stick/etc..., we want to fix those issues ASAP! If you have problems with a given controller, USB hub, etc... please reply to the thread with the make/model and we'll do our best to fix it. Also, once you have played a few rounds with the device, there's a controller log that we can use to add enhanced support for the controller to the game. You can find it at 'My Documents/Saved Games/Jamestown/ControllerLog.txt'.

Finally, once you have a chance to play it through, we'd love to know what you think of the game itself! If there's something you like or dislike, let us know and we'll incorporate your feedback into our hive mind.

Thanks for everything, and we hope you guys enjoy the game.
-Tim, Mike, and Hal (Final Form Games)

P.S. Here's a link to the game/systems manual: http://bit.ly/inKPt4

[Observer]

Ok, I've been playing it a bit and I think my only complaint is that I don't see more configuration options like Vsync and such. The framerate seems a bit dodgy too at times but, considering the amount of action on screen, I understand it.

The graphics are AWESOME. Seriously, they are just plain fucking awesome. Like a mix of Metal Slug with DoDonPachi with some mechanics that look from Takumi games (Mars Matrix/Gigawing) and a glorious onslaught of shit all over the screen.

I'll keep on reviewing but, so far, it's glorious. And, boy, I'm so trying this with other fellas.

[MadScientist]

Framerate only seemed to be a problem for me in fullscreen. Seemed perfectly smooth in windowed mode.
EDIT - actually, it seems that it was the v-sync in the global AMD settings that was causing the framerate problems. It's also fine in fullscreen now as well with v-sync turned off.

Only other minor annoyance is having to manually upload your scores at the end of your go. I've forgotten to do it a few times, though I guess once I get into the habit it shouldn't be a problem.

Otherwise it seems pretty damn good so far.

[BeruBeru]

I have already contacted you by email before the thread (and the support address posted) with my diagonals not working properly because of the xy axis and pov hat.
anyway here's the log chunk for it
---
Controller: 06/08/11, 20:24:35.
---
{ deviceName = , vendorId = 5336, productId = 1033, productSubType = 0, bindings = {
cancel = 3,
accept = 0,
special = 5,
fire = 0,
pause = 9,
altFire = 3,
},
},


It's a Cthulhu+ PC/PS3 Controller

[bsidwell]

in the shop it says to beat one level on legendary to unlock hardcore mode, but i've beaten two so far and it still seems to be locked. is that a typo in the item description?

[westquote]

Yes, it is intended to say "To unlock this optional mode, beat all levels on Legendary difficulty." Sorry for the confusion!

[wrathi]

Hello! Game is looking very promising so far.

Could you request a specific game forum for the game on Steam? I have a thread going on the general Steam forums about the game:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=1921989

It would be nice to have its own forum and that would also probably get more interested people in it.

Cheers

[Moniker]

Hey there! Kudos on the game. I've played quite a bit so far and it's uniformly excellent.

Having a few technical issues:

1.I'm also experiencing slowdown/framerate drops. Particularly on the second stage with the rain. Doesn't seem to matter whether or not I'm in full screen. My system clears the minimum requirements, but not by a ton, so... yeah. Optimization options are always appreciated.

2. The music cuts out fairly frequently (every couple minutes or so) for anywhere from 2-10 seconds. SFX have no issues.

3. Program won't launch for me when steam is in online mode. It's fine in offline mode. I've had this problem with one or two demos before, so it may well be an issue on my end. But if someone else mentions it, there it is.

Thanks for the great game.

[mjclark]

http://kewlbox.com/games/GameDetail.aspx?gameId=228

[AntiFritz]

Any word on a demo? I know its only 9 dollars but would rather play a demo before buying it, just to be sure.

[Observer]

I think there is an important question that needs to be asked if you consider to buy the game:

Do you have at least one friend/brother/girlfriend/wife/alien to play with? The game is great but it's definitely designed with at least 2 players in mind. Playing alone is ok, but it really feels like something is missing...

These would've been a success at a real arcade with a cab for 4 players and all the shouting involved.

Echoing again the optimization issues. The resolution is so big that all the sprites and stuff tend to slow things down considerably.

This should really get a boxed release with the OST included.

[westquote]

We're looking into the performance issues some people are having, and we're hopeful we can optimize some of them away over the coming weeks. If anyone is getting sub-optimal performance, drop me a line at support@finalformgames.com and we can try to figure out the bottleneck.

Also, someone mentioned an OST! If anyone else is interested in that, let us know and we might try to put one together.

[Observer]

We're looking into the performance issues some people are having, and we're hopeful we can optimize some of them away over the coming weeks. If anyone is getting sub-optimal performance, drop me a line at support@finalformgames.com and we can try to figure out the bottleneck.

Also, someone mentioned an OST! If anyone else is interested in that, let us know and we might try to put one together.

That was me.

If you do anything like what the Söldner X guys (Rafael Dyll, I have both the Söldner X CDs and I'm planning on getting the digital, smaller release) or the Shatter team did (a digital and a small print run via CDBaby, you guys could look into it, they seem to have several different publishing deals), you've got my bucks.

Old school dinosaur here, I love my epic orchestral awesome tunes and serious business overtones. Plus I can taunt the Conquistador in spanish myself. Jamestown: The SuperMega Banda de Sonido. Make it happen.

edit: or if you want to release the tunes for free, that's also welcomed, heh.

edit2:

This is not a demo but it might help people. I recorded a run through stage 1 in Divine difficulty mode. It's not Judgment but, well, at least it's something. The music is more synchronised than what you see there. Youtube+Fraps+DivX take away part of that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwhkDA70s4

[Gerk]

After a few hours of play, I got some kind of Lua exception, in an incomprehensible error box full of @, -, and ('s. I tried to get a screenshot of it but it didn't take, unfortunately.

Also, when you die and hold down keys before respawning (e.g. trying to head in a certain direction ASAP to catch falling Dougals) the inputs don't register. It's not that hard to do it first-thing, I know, but it's a bit disorienting. This may not happen on any of the other input modes, as far as I know.

[Mobzy]

This game looks stunning and i've been enjoying it for the meantime but the only problem I'm getting as well is the framerate spikes and it kind of sucks but it aint no biggie

[Zapf]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this to you yet, but you should get in contact with totalbiscuit / the cynical brit. He does a lot of previews / LPs on indy games, and it would def help get the word out on Jamestown.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut

[MadScientist]

For some reason, the first credit in Gauntlet mode now only gives me one life (on any difficulty). Not sure why that happened. Edit - corrected itself after a restart.

[burgerkingdiamond]

As a somewhat compulsive shmup collector, I'm telling you that after playing this today I would without a doubt pick this up if it were released as a retail disc with an OST (even on top of owning the version from Steam).

Just sayin'

[burgerkingdiamond]

I was gonna post this in the other thread, but it looks like they're getting merged...

This game fucking rules! I have to admit while I thought the pixel art looked pretty good, I had zero expectations for this when I saw it pop up however many months ago. But now that I've played it, I have to say that it is awesome. Seriously, I never would have thought that co-op play in a bullet hell game could be enjoyable at all, let alone such a blast. The "vertizontal" playfield leaves plenty of room for 2+ players without getting confusing. Like it was previously mentioned though, I don't see this being nearly as fun solo, so make sure you have at least one friend who's into shmups to play it with.

The graphics are beautiful. I played it at a friend's house and he connected his laptop to his huge 52" Flatscreen and I was blown away. Someone else described it as a mix between DDP and Metal Slug and I think that's dead on (and what more could you ask for than a mix of two of the finest example of pixel art?!)

The way that they did the multiplayer is really forgiving on the easier difficulty levels, and with all the unlockables and challenge stages I actually think this could be a hit as mainstream shmup (it sounds crazy I know) on XBLA or PSN. This game is second only to Crimzon Clover as far as new releases go this year for me (including all the CAVE stuff.)

Anyway, I could probably go on, but I've already written a book. Plus my girlfriend is calling me a geek right now.

One last thing. I played this at a friends so I haven't downloaded it myself yet. I've never used Steam either. If I download it on my laptop can I then install it onto another computer that I don't have internet access for?

[Zapf]

Steam has to get online at least once before it can go into offline mode

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... -AGCB-2555

[StarCreator]

One last thing. I played this at a friends so I haven't downloaded it myself yet. I've never used Steam either. If I download it on my laptop can I then install it onto another computer that I don't have internet access for?

You can download and play anything in your Steam library on as many PCs as you activate Steam on. I think the process is a little more complicated now to help prevent account hacking, but it's still relatively simple. If you're logged in (you can only be logged in at one computer at a time), you can play.

[MauJustice]

After clearing the 5th stage I figured I would come leave some feedback. First off, I love this game!

As far as technical issues, my report is pretty positive. I put in about 4+ hours with the game. I played on a gaming laptop and I am not experiencing the slowdown other people seem to be getting. I did have one crash on the 1st form of the boss on Level 5. Considering I fought him probably 10+ times, I'm going to chalk that up to an anomaly. It was a runtime error of some sort but I wasn't able to see the full message in time.

I did also notice the bug that Gerk mentioned. The input cuts out for a second after a death if you are holding a direction. Nothing game breaking though.

I just wanted to say that the 4th level is amazing. The level design, enemies and the boss are all absolutely top notch. One of my favorite levels of any Shmup in recent memory. On a less positive note, I was not a big fan of the platforming in Level 5. That place is really going to test my patience on a 1cc run. I think it will look more manageable once I put in some more practice.

Again, amazing game. Thanks so much for your hard work.

[Special World]

You really should consider releasing this on XBLA and PSN if you haven't already. I'm hovering over Buy Now, but I've never used Steam before and I hate playing games on my PC >_>

[MauJustice]

I did have one question as far as scoring goes, shouldn't the enemies be worth more points on higher difficulties? Your chain doesn't last as long and is harder to fill up, so to compensate there should be more points elsewhere or more enemies, right?

I had a pretty solid run on Divine with no deaths and people playing on Difficult had comparable scores. Seems like you should be rewarded for the harder difficulties. I don't see much longevity for me, as far as leaderboards, if easier difficulties earn you the most points.

It looks like the difficulty multiplier only affects the amount of money you earn from a stage. Hopefully I'm missing something.

[Observer]

I did have one question as far as scoring goes, shouldn't the enemies be worth more points on higher difficulties? Your chain doesn't last as long and is harder to fill up, so to compensate there should be more points elsewhere or more enemies, right?

I had a pretty solid run on Divine with no deaths and people playing on Difficult had comparable scores. Seems like you should be rewarded for the harder difficulties. I don't see much longevity for me, as far as leaderboards, if easier difficulties earn you the most points.

It looks like the difficulty multiplier only affects the amount of money you earn from a stage. Hopefully I'm missing something.

Some enemies have a "special" status that provides far more point items if you shoot them at the right time. With all the stuff going on it's hard to tell but it can be done.

Although I would prefer enemies producing more point items but have them fall faster so they are harder to catch up.

Or later they could make an Arrange Mode that has said features or plays with the mechanics in a different way.

So far, I'm really loving this thing. Stage 5 is kind of a letdown though. I was expecting something else I guess. It's not bad but really gives away there should be an over the top, brutal Extra Stage. In fact, would be cool if later they also include an Extra Stage (a hard-for-the-sake-of-being-hard stage, a super show off of pyrotechnics and ordnances all the time, kind of like Samidare's Extra Stage).

edit: I got a random Runtime crash while accessing one of the Challenge levels. No further crashes so far.

[MauJustice]

I think they should just make the difficulty multiplier calculate your score as well and not just your money earned.

Normal .5x
Difficult 1x
Legendary 1.5x
Divine 2x
Judgement 2.5x
Hardcore 3x

Something like that?

Would also be nice if things like deaths/continues would also factor into your score. Or some kind of timed multiplier for staying alive? I dunno, just throwing out some ideas.

[MadScientist]

Top notch game and well worth the money. Plays really well and I like the scoring system and 'vault' mechanics (cancelling the combo to earn a brief shield is a nice touch). Great presentation, art-style, superb sound-track etc...

As others have said, the 5th level has some problems though. There's a specific area where you have to dodge past three rapidly moving blocks and if you die in a bad spot, you can respawn and die right away (because your brief invulnerability on respawn doesn't protect you from the moving blocks). I lost 3 lives in about 5 secs once there... Ouch.

I'm not particularly concerned with the Steam achievements, but how do the achievements for the challenge levels work? I've beaten 5 of them now (though only on one player), but I haven't received 'complete a challenge level' or 'complete 5 challenge levels'. Do you have to beat them in 1, 2, 3 and 4 player mode?

[Gerk]

Would also be nice if things like deaths/continues would also factor into your score. Or some kind of timed multiplier for staying alive? I dunno, just throwing out some ideas.

I believe you get bonus points for every credit you still have at the end of the level.
As for death penalties, you lose all your potential Vaunt bonus upon death.

Same as your ideas? Not quite...but it's better than nothing.
I was kinda expecting an end of level no-death bonus, a la original DDP.

[cfx]

.

[slichern]

Frame rate issues here too, there is no reason is can't be a solid 60fps on my system.

Fraps is showing it hovering between 50 and 60fps, needs triplebuffer and vsync options.

Overall I really like it, some of the backgrounds seem a little static - more incidental animation would have been nice and animated British flags!

Good Job on the game, wishing you great success

EDIT: Is it possible to have 2 players on 1 keyboard? I would like to play like this on my cab, using an IPAC keyboard encoder