Zenodyne R - 2017 Dev news

[Kaiser]

Added troubleshooting tips to the main post purely because there's been reports of some bizarre enemy issues, the reports have windows 8 and 10 in common to say at least. Cannot be replicated on 7.

[Ebbo]

My experience with the invisible enemies has been pretty much identical to kane's observations (another Windows 7 user here).

Recently I ran into strange audio control issue. It seems that setting music volume to zero doesn't actually mute the music, it can be still heard in the background. Furthermore whenever a new track starts to play, the music jumps up to max volume but only if I've set the music off completely beforehand.

[AxelMill]

I can't download the demo on Steam for some unknown reason. It stops downloading when it reaches 22.6MB out of 25. This doesn't happen with any other game: tried to download another demo, Always Sometimes Monsters, done, Steam switched to Zenodyne R, 0 bytes/s. No prob, I can get it on itch.io, but being one of the few people who actually likes Steam, I'm quite reluctant to buy it.

Huh, I thought invisible enemies were supposed to be part of the game, for some reason. Windows 8.1 user here.
The game crashed when I opened the Define Music Pack window and closed it. "Arcade Bullet-Hell Seizure Inducer stopped working", lol

It IS a fun game, though. Love the fact that enemies make a sound whenever they shoot.

[Kaiser]

I can't download the demo on Steam for some unknown reason. It stops downloading when it reaches 22.6MB out of 25. This doesn't happen with any other game: tried to download another demo, Always Sometimes Monsters, done, Steam switched to Zenodyne R, 0 bytes/s. No prob, I can get it on itch.io, but being one of the few people who actually likes Steam, I'm quite reluctant to buy it.

Huh, I thought invisible enemies were supposed to be part of the game, for some reason. Windows 8.1 user here.
The game crashed when I opened the Define Music Pack window and closed it. "Arcade Bullet-Hell Seizure Inducer stopped working", lol

It IS a fun game, though. Love the fact that enemies make a sound whenever they shoot.

OK with the downloads I found out that some servers do not have the game completely cached and thus mess up the download, Germany - Berlin for example is such a server, you need to pick an another one in the options in Steam. Anyway I just uploaded an update on Steam for the demo and the full thing to see if the invisible bug still happens after reverting a recent compatilibity fix.

EDIT: Fix reverted as it caused other issues.

EDIT2: Soundtrack DLC is out

[BPzeBanshee]

Can confirm the music volume issue on my end, will look into it. Probably a rounding issue sneak-in.

The invisible enemies thing is odd, I suspect a possible GM bug or driver issue as we don't alter the sprite index of enemies via code and I can't trigger it consistently on my end even following kane's instructions. The best thing I can recommend for now is looking in config.ini in the game's directory and messing with the vertex_buffer_method option (it accepts 0-2).

[AxelMill]

The invisible enemies thing is odd, I suspect a possible GM bug or driver issue as we don't alter the sprite index of enemies via code and I can't trigger it consistently on my end even following kane's instructions. The best thing I can recommend for now is looking in config.ini in the game's directory and messing with the vertex_buffer_method option (it accepts 0-2).

Setting it to 0 works, thank you!

[cave hermit]

Just played through the demo with about 13.5 million; thing was a good number of the enemies were invisible and couldn't be destroyed :/


I'm not entirely sure how to feel about visual presentation, but the sound presentation is top notch! I especially like the announcer, really sounds like a late 90's style arcade announcer.

also I tried setting vertex buffer to 0, but enemies still went invisible after the first credit.

[Kaiser]

Just played through the demo with about 13.5 million; thing was a good number of the enemies were invisible and couldn't be destroyed :/

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about visual presentation, but the sound presentation is top notch! I especially like the announcer, really sounds like a late 90's style arcade announcer.

Did you set the vertexbuffer in config.ini to be 0? You see I think the problem is, we introduced this vertexbuffer option to make sure the game fully runs on Intel HD GPUs but it seems it causes even more issues, so if there's enough feedback to confirm that setting it to (instead of 1/2 as they are default, aka MORE compatible but less accurate) zero fixes things, we will force that as a default.

[cave hermit]

I tried setting the vertex buffer to 0, but issues started up again after the initial credit.

[cave hermit]

Well, I did a few more credits, and now the enemies don't seem to be going invisible. Not sure why the glitch didn't go away immediately.

[cave hermit]

Well, did another credit, and now that the invisible enemy bug is gone, even though I choked on the final boss this time I got a much higher score! A bit over 18 million to be exact!

http://imgur.com/A3p8eHi


Yay I'm gonna be famous

Now to improve my score and score some free games...

edit: invisible enemy issue has reappeared, this time starting at stage 2.

[Kaiser]

This is one bizarre, inconsistent (as in HOW and why it appears) bug, I've spent the whole day with BP trying to figure it out and probably the rest of the week will go towards as it well. BP has managed to replicate it ONLY once and that was by random. Either way we'll keep looking into it. Overall my suggestion is, if you have changed anything in settings, restart the game before doing the run before this is fixed.

[cave hermit]

I should probably mention my system specs:

-I'm running windows 10 (although it was windows 7 a week ago, and I was tricked into upgrading, but I digress...)

-I'm using a laptop that has Nvidia optimus (which means by default it uses an intel HD card, but switches to using a Nvidia Geforce card if the computer decides it is needed). Predictably, it isn't always correct, and will sometimes run a game with the Intel HD card when it should be using the Geforce card (although you can set manual overrides for these games in config). Don't know if that has anything to do with the bug, and I haven't yet checked which video card the game is using but I thought it is worth mentioning.

[Kaiser]

Dear devs, here is some essential new info for you.

You only trigger the bug once you hit the enter initials + hi score screen. The glitching waves also change every time you high score again. Otherwise same waves go invisible every subsequent game until you exit.

So, if you are not getting a high score, you won't see the bug. Could that be why you are not able to reproduce it?

EDIT:

Yeah, so I edited "score.zdr" to raise all high score entries to crazy numbers, played a gazillion runs, never could high score, and never ran into the bug. So check out what happens on the high score code branch!

BTW. In this way I also won the score competition it seems. There is no protecting client side high score tables of course, so you should probably have requested a gameplay video and not a screenshot.

And how were you able to edit score.zdr? I reset the file via the menu and it's still encrypted here. As in it's all random character garbage when opened with notepad++. Unfortunately the competition rules had to be changed in this case.

[vvv_stg]

And how were you able to edit score.zdr? I reset the file via the menu and it's still encrypted here. As in it's all random character garbage when opened with notepad++. Unfortunately the competition rules had to be changed in this case.

In this case, I just changed my current score during gameplay in memory directly to get one ridiculous high score entry. Then I simply replicated that in the file for all entries since there is no integrity check on the file contents, and all entries appear to be encrypted without using a nonce.

Regardless, the encryption key has to be somewhere inside the binary, no? So whatever crypto you use, it'll be cracked in 5 minutes all the same, securing this on the client-side is simply not possible.

As long as the code which submits score is on the client side, there is always a room for tampering with it. So you can have two choices -- either engage in an arms race with anti-cheat systems like big competitive e-sports do, or just operate on an honor system. I feel like Western shmups community is much better off sticking to the latter option (which it has been using for years).

[Kaiser]

After testing with Ebbo, we may have found a way to try to fix the invisible enemy issue, I already pushed the update to Steam (itch.io will get it's first update after the competition's over with the hall of fame stuff) for both the demo and the full game.

About the score issue, i'll say this much, I WILL not ruin people's scores with DRM and other fancy things that could prevent the hacking. So simply modifying the compo rules (while not invalidating the scores from earlier in order to not anger people) should do for time being.

[Kaiser]

Well both the demo and the full game are properly patched now when it comes to the invisible enemies bug. If your game is working fine, move on, but if it's not working fine, please delete config.ini in your game directory. Itch.io version will be updated on June 5 when the winner of the competition is made out and all the high scorers will be put in the credits section of the game in the hall of fame part.

[Kaiser]

The game and the demo were updated on itch.io, also the soundtrack was also uploaded to itch.io in order to not leave out those who bought the game but want the OST on itch.io. Because yes I did receive a complaint that the game's soundtrack is not on itch.io DESPITE being already DRM free on bandcamp, go figure.

Link: https://jackdarx.itch.io/zenodyne-r-soundtrack

Also we have two bundles live on Steam now because Valve out of nowhere gave us devs the power to do so:

http://store.steampowered.com/bundle/406/ Zenohell + Zenodyne R for ~$12
https://partner.steamgames.com/bundles/view/408 Zenodyne R + OST for ~$10

Those who got the game on steam already but want the OST for cheaper, do not worry, something special is gonna be happening on Steam soon........

[Kaiser]

New demo on itch.io: The music and sound volume is all messed up in the config, it is set to "1" by default. As a result the in game settings display all wrong, MAX is no sound, 101% is max, you can go down to -9%...

Here is a score that should be enough to make it to the credits. This time I didn't suck, speed killed everything, it was a no miss, and I collected everything in sight. No video since I'm not winning anything. I have no idea how people score above 35M, there must be some trick I'm missing.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8BWq ... E9fLXJFMXM

You are in, on the hall of fame . Also I forgot to post this here but I did on steam forums, that due recent changes in how volume works internally with few other things, if something doesn't work right, config.ini is recommended to be removed :V.

[CStarFlare]

There's something weird with TPs. On stage 1, certain bonuses don't show up if you take the Hard route, so the TP potential seems much lower.

My bonuses for Normal:

Boat Sunk +1
Midboss 1 Dead +1
Midboss 2 Dead +1
No-Miss +2
No-Bomb +3
No-Continue +2
Boss 1 Dead +1

Hard:

Boat Sunk +1
Hard Route +1
Boss 1 Dead +1
Perfect Omake +2

The Hard route misses the Midboss bonuses and No Continue bonus. I also think it's very odd that you need to No Bomb to get the No Miss bonus, which is then less than the NB bonus... but that's more of a side comment.

[Kaiser]

There's something weird with TPs. On stage 1, certain bonuses don't show up if you take the Hard route, so the TP potential seems much lower.

My bonuses for Normal:

Boat Sunk +1
Midboss 1 Dead +1
Midboss 2 Dead +1
No-Miss +2
No-Bomb +3
No-Continue +2
Boss 1 Dead +1

Hard:

Boat Sunk +1
Hard Route +1
Boss 1 Dead +1
Perfect Omake +2

The Hard route misses the Midboss bonuses and No Continue bonus. I also think it's very odd that you need to No Bomb to get the No Miss bonus, which is then less than the NB bonus... but that's more of a side comment.

Thanks it was an oversight on my part with these hard midbosses, forgot to flag them to give the TP. Also both itch.io/ZR received the bugfix along........ with some TP rebalancing. There's been a commonly reported issue where people found the game to be a bit too grindy in early hours due early stages not giving you crap, I changed that, there should be less time involved but unlocking everything should still take quite a bit.

A good source for the change: http://www.defunctgames.com/courant/1028/zenodyne-r this review

[ATTRACTS]

As someone who adores Toaplan, I gotta say, this game is terrific. This is like a faster sequel to Tatsujun/Tatsujin Oh. Love the music and the sound effects. You should be very proud, nice work. At 8.99, this is delicious.
Good luck with the game!!!

[Kaiser]

And the winner is Koopa_TGR who's gonna receive a key for Zenodyne R and Zenohell ASAP , thanks for the scores guys! The hall of fame patch will come tomorrow because I need to look into few other things first.

Other than that, i'm finally beginning to relax because let me tell you, past 2 months have been very stressful for me in more than just gamedev, however now things are looking fine and clear for me, so I can regenerate until I start making an another game again.

[KoopaTGR]

Since I already own Zenohell I'm posting my key for it here.

5ZCW0-FKPQI-9BY07

[The Armchair General]

I would copy the key but I think I'm going to spend some money on this to support the developer . Unfortunately, I'm a scrub and play on a mac. I hope Wine works.

[zakk]

I would copy the key but I think I'm going to spend some money on this to support the developer . Unfortunately, I'm a scrub and play on a mac. I hope Wine works.

It does

[Kaiser]

As promised, the credits section was expanded with the hall of famers who got the 15+ mil scores in the demo compo. Both Steam/itch.io were updated however beware, you may have issues downloading the steam patch because Steam has retarded caching problems at times with new builds.

[drunkninja24]

Been loving this game....one thing I would suggest is to adjust the lives display to be empty when you have no lives remaining. Even after the time I've spent, I still routinely find myself going "wait why did I get game over I have one life left", seems like an odd design choice.

[Kaiser]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p1193627

Hey there folks, i've added the Fire Arrow ship in a special greenlight-themed update, because we have a new greenlight going on, you can check the post above or get straight to the greenlight here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =706865141

This also marks our first time as a "publishing" group because while Rozyrg's part of our team, we have a publishing deal with him to publish and sell this bundle.

[Kaiser]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/466820/

Zenodyne R is 20% off on Steam AND itch.io, the OST is 40% off on Steam, however you may be interesed in the Zenohell/ZR Bundle called Zeno Archives, or the ZR + OST Bundle.