Blue Revolver

[Squire Grooktook]

An extremely kind forum member gifted me this since I'm out of cash at the moment (many thanks!), I'm enjoying it a lot.

Although it's still fundamentally a micro-dodge game, I feel like there's a much more enjoyable balance of micro/macro in here than most danmaku titles. I love the patterns that force you to speed around a lot with those arrow shaped bullet formations and clusters, and stages are fairly hyper in terms of enemy placement.

The flourish system felt a little bit kooky at first, but playing it Garegga style and sacrificing bombs/lives to keep your ship ammo stocked and every moment filled with electric violence, is pretty damn great and the kind of system I can really get into.

Speaking of the weapons, that brings me to the complaints about audio and such. I personally don't notice anything too bad. There's a few places where some explosions feel a bit muted, but for the most part the visuals carry it. I suppose the aesthetic and visceral elements could be maybe 10% better with some screen shake, flashes, more careful sound fx, etc. but as is its still a full package and perfectly professional in that department.

Anyway this will probably be my danmaku of choice for a long time to come.

[Despatche]

Yeah I got this last night. It is really good.

The only criticism I would personally make is that the wide shot seems a little weak and takes a long time to kill stuff. I realise it is meant to take longer than the direct shot but it still feels a bit unsatisfying.

Could just be me though.

Seems only the small chain-building enemies are really popcorn, bigger enemies usually have a good bit of health in this game. You'll have a bit of trouble with Power as well.

[konmai]

- Echoing the sound effect and feedback concerns, enemy explosions are almost inaudible. I can do without louder player shot sounds since it's usually in the way of the music, so the current level is fine. One thing that actively bothers me is the player death animation, however. It just looks and sounds way too limp.
- I have a habit of cancelling out of the main config menu, so having a SECOND Confirm button there really throws me off.
- The shot type option in Stage Select (narrow/wide/variable) doesn't seem to match what's said in Play (power/wide/follow) unless this is intentional.

Other than that, great game. Pleasantly surprised to see two nice indie dot dodging games this year.

[Eleriaqueen]

I've been enjoying Blue Revolver a lot, (bought the Game+OST package on itch.io). I have a question though : How do you get out of kiosk mode ? ^_ ^"

[Van_Artic]

I've been enjoying Blue Revolver a lot, (bought the Game+OST package on itch.io). I have a question though : How do you get out of kiosk mode ? ^_ ^"

hold bomb and special buttons at the title screen until the text "disabling kiosk mode" goes away

[G3n3raL86]

I'm liking the game a lot, too. The scoring mechanic is very clever:)

This and DoDonPachi will be my premier STG's for the time being.

[Danny]

Picked this up on Steam at the same time as DoDonPachi R' and from what little chance I have had of playing it, it seems fantastic and I love the mini chaining mechanic.

[z0mbie90]

I noticed that when I move up, down, left or right in menus using my arcadestick it's jumping all over the menu. Almost like it uses a turbofunction.
Also in game its a bit weird but only when tap-dodging, it moved more then intended. I tried with the keyboard and thats easier and better.
Anyone else having this trouble. Im using a Real Arcade Pro VX SA 360 stick.

[NickPalmerDegica]

Is anyone else noticing any problems trying to run it at 1920x1080. That is the native resolution of my screen, and when I use it, for some reason it runs off the screen on both the right and bottom.

[Aldnox]

Bought this today. It's very very good. Hard to believe that this is an indie game, it's very well designed. Most indie shmups mess up in the scoring system, but this one did it really good! And the soundtrack! And the graphics! I'll be playing this for a long time.

[The Coop]

As I stated in the DDP:R thread, this game looks pretty cool. An interesting visual style and some fun-looking bullet hell madness. The music in the trailer was nice as well. I'd love to pick it up, but I'm gonna have to hold off on getting it. I'd never even heard of this game until after DDP:R was already released and bought, and I just don't have another $13 to spare.

[Van_Artic]

I noticed that when I move up, down, left or right in menus using my arcadestick it's jumping all over the menu. Almost like it uses a turbofunction.
Also in game its a bit weird but only when tap-dodging, it moved more then intended. I tried with the keyboard and thats easier and better.
Anyone else having this trouble. Im using a Real Arcade Pro VX SA 360 stick.

it happens to me too when V-Sync is turned off
so i just leave it on

[BulletMagnet]

Got a mention on Siliconera.

[Sadd]

I'm getting these flickering black lines in the background in some stages. They're not too bad in stage 2 but in stage 3 they're near constant and quite distracting. They're present in all scaling and rotation modes as well as with vsync on/off. My GPU is a Radeon HD 6970 and I'm running Windows 7 if that helps. Otherwise very enjoyable game so far.

Spoiler

[Danbo]

thanks to everyone for your kind words! noted a ton of feedback here, though right now i'm mostly concerned with bugs obviously. expect a bugfix patch next week! it should also add a small extra feature for people looking to optimise their scoring etc, a "score breakdown" mode which shows enemy values, pattern bonuses, break bonuses etc

- I have a habit of cancelling out of the main config menu, so having a SECOND Confirm button there really throws me off.
- The shot type option in Stage Select (narrow/wide/variable) doesn't seem to match what's said in Play (power/wide/follow) unless this is intentional.

Other than that, great game. Pleasantly surprised to see two nice indie dot dodging games this year.

yeah the options menu is a little screwy, the shot type not matching up is a small mistake and should be fixed

I noticed that when I move up, down, left or right in menus using my arcadestick it's jumping all over the menu. Almost like it uses a turbofunction.
Also in game its a bit weird but only when tap-dodging, it moved more then intended. I tried with the keyboard and thats easier and better.
Anyone else having this trouble. Im using a Real Arcade Pro VX SA 360 stick.

regarding menus this is a known issue with some controllers... do you use anything like xpadder etc?

Is anyone else noticing any problems trying to run it at 1920x1080. That is the native resolution of my screen, and when I use it, for some reason it runs off the screen on both the right and bottom.

someone else brought this up today, what hardware are you running? does the problem occur at all fullscreen resolutions?

I'm getting these flickering black lines in the background in some stages. They're not too bad in stage 2 but in stage 3 they're near constant and quite distracting. They're present in all scaling and rotation modes as well as with vsync on/off. My GPU is a Radeon HD 6970 and I'm running Windows 7 if that helps. Otherwise very enjoyable game so far.

Spoiler

mm this is definitely not so good, i think it might be a rounding error somewhere, will definitely get it fixed

[z0mbie90]

regarding menus this is a known issue with some controllers... do you use anything like xpadder etc?

Nope. Just plug it in and play.

[cul]

regarding menus this is a known issue with some controllers... do you use anything like xpadder etc?

Nope. Just plug it in and play.

Same thing here. But doesn't seem to be affecting the ship during the game.

[Glick]

This game has grown a ton on me as I've played it. Controlling rank is pretty fun and the flourish system is surprisingly addicting.


I do have one other minor nitpick:

It's surprisingly hard to tell what option you've highlighted on the main menus. I think it's because the panel above and below the one you've selected also highlights.

[NickPalmerDegica]

Is anyone else noticing any problems trying to run it at 1920x1080. That is the native resolution of my screen, and when I use it, for some reason it runs off the screen on both the right and bottom.

someone else brought this up today, what hardware are you running? does the problem occur at all fullscreen resolutions?

I have a ASUS ROG GL552VW-DH71 laptop.

W10
Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
16 GB ram

Any other specs you can just pull from ASUS's page, as I haven't made any hardware changes.

Only happens at full screen 1920x1080. I've been playing at 1280x720 full screen.

[Jinki]

Is anyone else noticing any problems trying to run it at 1920x1080. That is the native resolution of my screen, and when I use it, for some reason it runs off the screen on both the right and bottom.

Just want to chime in that I am also playing in 1920x1080 Fullscreen, as it too is my native resolution, but I am not having any issues with it. I have a laptop of a similar build so maybe it will help narrow down the issue.

ASUS GE72 Apache Pro
Windows 10
Intel i7 - 5700HQ @ 2.7GHz
16GB RAM
GTX 970M 3GB GDDR5


@Danbo:

Great game, man. Thank you for taking the time and having the care to release a quality product. I tell myself, "one more run" anywhere from 3-5 times before I can get myself to turn it off. I ended up getting very little sleep this week, but it has been very worth it.

[Aldnox]

Is anyone else noticing any problems trying to run it at 1920x1080. That is the native resolution of my screen, and when I use it, for some reason it runs off the screen on both the right and bottom.

I run it at that resolution and I have no problems. Maybe it's something with your graphics card?

[Danbo]

according to someone on the steam community, checking "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" in compatibility options for the game (right click the exe, properties) may fix it. could you give that a try?

[Aldnox]

So yeah, this game is amazing. It's super fun, has great graphics and soundtrack, the scoring is fun. If there is something I didn't like about it, it's the fact that the TLB has no requirements. In my opinion, the TLB is the last reward and the last challenge, only available to very dedicated and skilled players who have managed to master the game. As long as you play in Parallel Mode, you could be a newbie who has never played a shmup before and still get to the TLB. You just need to credit-feed.

I don't know, I've always felt like the TLB is a reward for my hard work, and also the last challenge I must face. But I can get to it by credit-feeding. Didn't like that thing. But yeah, that's just me it seems.

Other than that, this is one of the best shmups I've played.

[Danbo]

thanks for the feedback! - the TLB being accessible for credit feeders is an oversight, and will be revised very shortly.

[zakk]

The best thing about this game is that it's a multi-platform release that isn't plagued by stupid gamepad/controller recognition problems on MacOS.

Oh and the game is pretty good too.

[Shadolf]

Just played a round for breakfast at my cab at resolution 640x480 and also got the black lines in the background.
My graphics card is a Readon HD 6870.
I love this game! Many thanks for releasing this DRM-Free. itch.io is a great plattform.

[marus]

I bought this game on the recommendation of a friend, and I've pretty much lost my entire weekend to it. I've been loving it so far! It tickles a lot of my favorite features in shmups (resource-management, full use of the screen, and a not-stage-long chaining system).

I have noticed a few bugs while playing:
* On the stage 2 boss, I've had Mae's Hyper Laser sprite go over the boss' bullets during the very first pattern. I only had it happen once so I'm not sure how to reproduce it unfortunately.
* When playing Stage Select, if you beat a stage and then pause the game right before the results screen, then the game will unpause itself and go to the results screen anyways. I haven't tried this in the main game so I'm not sure if it's specific to Stage Select or not.
* Stage 2 has that black ship enemy that shows up after the midboss. One of its attacks is it'll spawn two rings of bullets and then lob the rings at you; however, if you kill the enemy after the rings have spawned but before they start moving towards you, then the rings will just stay in place and not launch towards you. The rings will just continue to expand slowly for a few seconds, and then just disappear. (Imo you should actually leave this in because it's pretty funny, but I wanted to bring it up anyways).

Overall I'm really liking the game! The game has really nice progression in difficulty, and the scoring system is really addictive. The game looks great too and meshes really well with the soundtrack. I can't wait for leaderboards and replay support. The only main thing I don't like so far is that some of the boss patterns last a really long time - it's especially noticeable in stage 5 where all of the midbosses have a ton of health and only one or two patterns (I realize you're probably supposed to speed-kill them to spawn extra enemies in the stage, but if you don't have the resources to do that or if you're just trying to play for survival then sitting through the same pattern for so long gets pretty monotonous. The last boss has the same problem too since she's so small and hard to hit.) Other than that it's been a great game, and I'll definitely be telling my friends about it. Thank you so much for sharing this game with everyone!

[Van_Artic]

* Stage 2 has that black ship enemy that shows up after the midboss. One of its attacks is it'll spawn two rings of bullets and then lob the rings at you; however, if you kill the enemy after the rings have spawned but before they start moving towards you, then the rings will just stay in place and not launch towards you. The rings will just continue to expand slowly for a few seconds, and then just disappear. (Imo you should actually leave this in because it's pretty funny, but I wanted to bring it up anyways).

that happens quite a few times in the game (stage 3 ship if you time it out) and could cause problems since the bullets can still kill you

also is it just me or is the high score keyboard typing gone from the previous demos? that was a neat lil' touch that i loved

[Danbo]

more bugs noted!

Overall I'm really liking the game! The game has really nice progression in difficulty, and the scoring system is really addictive. The game looks great too and meshes really well with the soundtrack. I can't wait for leaderboards and replay support. The only main thing I don't like so far is that some of the boss patterns last a really long time - it's especially noticeable in stage 5 where all of the midbosses have a ton of health and only one or two patterns (I realize you're probably supposed to speed-kill them to spawn extra enemies in the stage, but if you don't have the resources to do that or if you're just trying to play for survival then sitting through the same pattern for so long gets pretty monotonous. The last boss has the same problem too since she's so small and hard to hit.) Other than that it's been a great game, and I'll definitely be telling my friends about it. Thank you so much for sharing this game with everyone!

haha i didn't really intend for people to speedkill them, but when it turned out to be the right thing to do in terms of scoring i thought it was interesting enough (like a weird version of an end-game resource bonus that still gives you the pleasure of using them) so i left it as-is. i agree that it does spend a bit longer on certain patterns than you'd usually see.

also is it just me or is the high score keyboard typing gone from the previous demos? that was a neat lil' touch that i loved

guess that got wiped when we made the screen work for gamepads and i never thought to put it back in...

[dinosaurjerk]

don't patch out being able to credit feed to the tlb otherwise i'll never see it