XYDONIA / ザイドニア Hori On Kickstarter

[Strider77]

Can you or are you going to port it to a console?

[Sean_A]

Pretty rad game not gonna lie. I do have a few issues with the demo though.

Firstly the game needs more comprehensive control options. As someone with a custom built stick with a weird control layout I had to use Joy2key in order to play comfortably.

Secondly, the bosses seem way too long for what they offer, especially if you die during them and get sent back down to min power. I died almost instantly to boss 2 because I didn't know how the attack worked. I quickly figured how to do the attack but since my power was so low I spent several minutes doing the same inputs over and over again in order to kill the boss. After a while it stopped being fun and just started being repetitive. The added bullets towards the both didn't change the boss enough to make it interesting again and came way too late in the fight leaving a large gap in the middle which was simply dull. I'm assuming bosses will become more complex and interesting as the game progresses however something needs to be done to improve how bosses are early on.

Other than that the game is great, really looking forward to how it progresses.

[Shepardus]

Can you or are you going to port it to a console?

Those are stretch goals on the Kickstarter.

[seraph]

Fun demo. The graphics and sound are absolutely fantastic. Having toyed around with the different weapons and finished both stages (alpha demo 2), I think it captures the early '90s shooter feel and it seems well balanced. I do notice that at the very beginning the bullets are moving the exact same speed as the enemies and overlapping their sprites, making it difficult to know they're there or see them, so I might suggest doing something to change this. I also note that enemies are difficult or impossible to destroy right after a player death, but this could be intentional. The female character's waifu joke seemed a little out of place to me as well. Finally, I think there should be a pause/restart button if there isn't one already. Overall this project looks impressive.

[Shingo]

Can you or are you going to port it to a console?

Those are stretch goals on the Kickstarter.

Yep! They are.

Pretty rad game not gonna lie. I do have a few issues with the demo though.

Firstly the game needs more comprehensive control options. As someone with a custom built stick with a weird control layout I had to use Joy2key in order to play comfortably.

Secondly, the bosses seem way too long for what they offer, especially if you die during them and get sent back down to min power. I died almost instantly to boss 2 because I didn't know how the attack worked. I quickly figured how to do the attack but since my power was so low I spent several minutes doing the same inputs over and over again in order to kill the boss. After a while it stopped being fun and just started being repetitive. The added bullets towards the both didn't change the boss enough to make it interesting again and came way too late in the fight leaving a large gap in the middle which was simply dull. I'm assuming bosses will become more complex and interesting as the game progresses however something needs to be done to improve how bosses are early on.

Other than that the game is great, really looking forward to how it progresses.

More control options are something we will focus on later, but will definitely be implemented. We plan to add both support to more devices and rebindable keys.

Regarding the boss battles, they are both WIP, so yeah, there's still much to do, especially on the first one which is missing the intended patterns and attacks. I think that what you experienced also depends on some balance issues with weapons at level 1 (especially type A) and completely losing power-ups tied to the options after dying. Might do something to fix that, like degrading only by 1-2 levels instead of stripping you of your options completely.

Fun demo. The graphics and sound are absolutely fantastic. Having toyed around with the different weapons and finished both stages (alpha demo 2), I think it captures the early '90s shooter feel and it seems well balanced. I do notice that at the very beginning the bullets are moving the exact same speed as the enemies and overlapping their sprites, making it difficult to know they're there or see them, so I might suggest doing something to change this. I also note that enemies are difficult or impossible to destroy right after a player death, but this could be intentional. The female character's waifu joke seemed a little out of place to me as well. Finally, I think there should be a pause/restart button if there isn't one already. Overall this project looks impressive.

I'm gonna check that issue with enemy bullet speed, thanks for noticing!

As I said before, weapons need a bit more balancing, especially at level 1. We want to punish deaths but don't wanna make it impossible to recover with a useless level 1 weapon which might result in excessive frustration.

Yoko's joke is a bit cheesy like the rest of the game, but could be out of place if it were a real game from the '90s, I'll give you that.

Pause and restart buttons are there, there's no option to restart in the pause menu atm but you can simply press R at any time.

[CloudyMusic]

Can you or are you going to port it to a console?

Those are stretch goals on the Kickstarter.

Yep! They are.

I noticed that online multiplayer, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, and 3DS releases are all stretch goals. You guys confident that you'll be able to handle releasing on 5 platforms with online multiplayer on each(?) if you were to reach all of your stretch goals? We all remember what happened to Mighty No. 9

[trap15]

I would certainly be wary of online multiplayer unless you have some middleware for it already lined up and understood. Netplay is incredibly difficult.

[Shepardus]

Just had a chance to play the alpha. Excellent work so far! Some nitpicks:

The level 1 weapons are a little weak and not different enough from each other, but only losing power in one weapon on death helps a lot. Still frustrating if you die twice in a row though and lose power in two or even all three weapons, though. I'm not sure what the point of the screen after ship selection (the one where it lists types A, B, C) is for, since you can freely switch between those types in the game and they're the same between the characters except for the options. I feel like I'm missing something there but I don't know what. Also, the controls listing says Z for primary attack and X for burst attack, but in-game it ends up being the reverse, including having to press X to select letters on the name entry screen. Also, you can change the controls to gamepad and end up losing control of the game until restarting if you don't have a gamepad.

[rtw]

Netplay is incredibly difficult.

QFT !

[Shingo]

I noticed that online multiplayer, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, and 3DS releases are all stretch goals. You guys confident that you'll be able to handle releasing on 5 platforms with online multiplayer on each(?) if you were to reach all of your stretch goals? We all remember what happened to Mighty No. 9

Porting to the 3DS would be the only case which would force us to code the game from scratch, as Game Maker Studio helps big time with its export modules on the other ports we listed.

Unfortunately for us and anyone who decides to launch a crowdfunding campaign from now on, Mighty No. 9 has left a very deep mark that won't be easy to forget. But I assure you that our approach, engine, and goals are totally different.

Regarding netplay, if we reach that stretch goal, we'll most likely resort to middleware and release the feature with a free update post-launch.

Just had a chance to play the alpha. Excellent work so far! Some nitpicks:

The level 1 weapons are a little weak and not different enough from each other, but only losing power in one weapon on death helps a lot. Still frustrating if you die twice in a row though and lose power in two or even all three weapons, though. I'm not sure what the point of the screen after ship selection (the one where it lists types A, B, C) is for, since you can freely switch between those types in the game and they're the same between the characters except for the options. I feel like I'm missing something there but I don't know what. Also, the controls listing says Z for primary attack and X for burst attack, but in-game it ends up being the reverse, including having to press X to select letters on the name entry screen. Also, you can change the controls to gamepad and end up losing control of the game until restarting if you don't have a gamepad.

Level 1 weapon balance will be first priority on the next builds, we noticed that your firepower becomes pretty worthless once you die a couple of times, like you just said.
The weapon selection screen (or that's what it should be ) has currently no use because there aren't any unlockable weapons. What you'd do on that screen is changing the weapon type for each category, hence the little vertical arrows on your cursor. I don't know if it's too cryptic or not, I personally designed the menus and tried to make them as streamlined as possible, just like an arcade game would do. We'll see if it'll need some explanation or change in design after we'll get more feedback and eventually modify it accordingly.

The controls menu is a bit rough, yes. We wanted to add at least some options instead of forcing one layout before we released the alpha. However, this will be replaced by rebindable keys in the future.

[Strider77]

I should have been more specific, any chance of physical releases on consoles happening?

[drunkninja24]

I just wanna say, your CRT filter is on point, damn. I dunno why its so hard to make a scanline filter that actually scales properly at modern screen resolutions, but I'm glad the one in this game does.

[Shingo]

I should have been more specific, any chance of physical releases on consoles happening?

There are no plans atm. It's something that we'd like to do but we'd be way more comfortable with a publisher, which we don't have right now.

I just wanna say, your CRT filter is on point, damn. I dunno why its so hard to make a scanline filter that actually scales properly at modern screen resolutions, but I'm glad the one in this game does.

Thanks! IMHO, a proper CRT filter is what makes pixel art truly shine, so it HAD to be this way from our perspective, besides the nostalgia aspect of it all.

It also helps a ton in keeping a nice image quality when upscaling to 1080p or higher from the native res, so it's a win/win situation.

[drunkninja24]

Yeah, its kinda a minor point to some I spose, but its always been a pet peeve of mine when playing other games that do something silly with it like simply have a black line every other pixel or some weird method of calculating spacing that doesn't actually make the pixels line up properly and forces you to play at 640x480 or something in order to get the best scanline effect.

[Fudoh]

There are no plans atm. It's something that we'd like to do but we'd be way more comfortable with a publisher, which we don't have right now.

considering the crap LRG (limited run games) brings as physical editions to the PS4 and Vita this would be a GREAT addition to their library (if you ever end up creating a PS4 or Vita version in the first place). In other words: I don't think finding a publisher would be much of a problem.

Thanks! IMHO, a proper CRT filter is what makes pixel art truly shine, so it HAD to be this way from our perspective, besides the nostalgia aspect of it all.

it looks great indeed! Can you share a little more details on what filter you've used? (without giving away any secrets of course). Did you use existing shaders (eg ones that are available in Retroarch) or did you create it from scratch?

[Shingo]

Yeah, its kinda a minor point to some I spose, but its always been a pet peeve of mine when playing other games that do something silly with it like simply have a black line every other pixel or some weird method of calculating spacing that doesn't actually make the pixels line up properly and forces you to play at 640x480 or something in order to get the best scanline effect.

Same here, I started using third party injectors to have some kind of proper scanlines/CRT effects in most 2D low res games for that reason.

Thanks! IMHO, a proper CRT filter is what makes pixel art truly shine, so it HAD to be this way from our perspective, besides the nostalgia aspect of it all.

it looks great indeed! Can you share a little more details on what filter you've used? (without giving away any secrets of course). Did you use existing shaders (eg ones that are available in Retroarch) or did you create it from scratch?

Yes, it's based on one of the shaders available in RetroArch, converted and modified to work in Game Maker Studio. We'd like to better optimize it however, it pretty much destroys the framerate on older hardware right now. (but you can turn it off by pressing F11 at least)

[MarioNintendo]

Minor nitpick: When a continue is used, the last digit of the score does not keep count of that. Do you think that could be implemented? It never hurts to have that feature.

[Shingo]

Minor nitpick: When a continue is used, the last digit of the score does not keep count of that. Do you think that could be implemented? It never hurts to have that feature.

Yeah, someone already pointed that out, it's not yet implemented but it's coming.

[Samuray]

There are no plans atm. It's something that we'd like to do but we'd be way more comfortable with a publisher, which we don't have right now.

Really hope you'll be able to pull this off since this game looks GORGEOUS but I'm not touching PC games with a 10 ft pole. Neither any iOS or Android stuff, for that matter. So I'm really, really hoping you'll be doing a console release.

PS4 retail would be fantastic.
A retro system retail release would be a dream come true! Be it on Dreamcast, Neo Geo AES or whatever. DC would probably be easiest, I guess.

Anyway, I agree wholeheartedly with Fudoh above me....you shouldn't have trouble at all finding a publisher. For Dreamcast maybe you could talk to HuCast?

[neorocker]

porting a game maker game to dreamcast would likely mean another build-up from scratch like the 3DS version, which seems a bit counter-intuitive when every other modern platform can pretty much just be built for from game maker. c'mon, play it on PC, you'll like it

[Samuray]

I don't even have a PC....so nope.

[Kaiser]

Really hope you'll be able to pull this off since this game looks GORGEOUS but I'm not touching PC games with a 10 ft pole. Neither any iOS or Android stuff, for that matter. So I'm really, really hoping you'll be doing a console release.

I find this really close-minded, what's wrong with having a version that won't cost $1000 in 10 years that's easily accessible? And won't dissapear over time either (talking about the mobile ports and compatibility issues)

[Samuray]

Oh, no no, there's nothing wrong with that.....I'm all for it, go nuts.
But for myself I would like a retail version for a console system. If that's close-minded I apologize, but consoles are all I have.

[Shingo]

Really hope you'll be able to pull this off since this game looks GORGEOUS but I'm not touching PC games with a 10 ft pole. Neither any iOS or Android stuff, for that matter. So I'm really, really hoping you'll be doing a console release.

PS4 retail would be fantastic.
A retro system retail release would be a dream come true! Be it on Dreamcast, Neo Geo AES or whatever. DC would probably be easiest, I guess.

Anyway, I agree wholeheartedly with Fudoh above me....you shouldn't have trouble at all finding a publisher. For Dreamcast maybe you could talk to HuCast?

We're being very careful with ports, and while I can say we're looking into retro systems, we still need some more time before we can confirm anything.

[Samuray]

We're being very careful with ports, and while I can say we're looking into retro systems, we still need some more time before we can confirm anything.

Well, that does sound promising, so fingers crossed!

[AlexSkylark]

From a fellow dev to another, NICE WORK!

This gave me nerdgasms. Really. I have to find tissues

[Bar81]

So I'm about to buy the physical edition and shipping is $100. Can someone please explain this. I can ship a boxed Mega CD 1 unit along with another piece of hardware halfway around the world EMS for less than that.

[Fudoh]

I think shipping for me was something like $25 or $30 for the $100 tier. Already quite steep, but $100 seems totally off.

[Shingo]

From a fellow dev to another, NICE WORK!

This gave me nerdgasms. Really. I have to find tissues

Haha, Thanks!

So I'm about to buy the physical edition and shipping is $100. Can someone please explain this. I can ship a boxed Mega CD 1 unit along with another piece of hardware halfway around the world EMS for less than that.

What's your country? I can check the rates and modify them accordingly, that's the cost for countries we didn't assign a custom rate to, so they're considered as "rest of the world" (85€).

[Bar81]

From a fellow dev to another, NICE WORK!

This gave me nerdgasms. Really. I have to find tissues

Haha, Thanks!

So I'm about to buy the physical edition and shipping is $100. Can someone please explain this. I can ship a boxed Mega CD 1 unit along with another piece of hardware halfway around the world EMS for less than that.

What's your country? I can check the rates and modify them accordingly, that's the cost for countries we didn't assign a custom rate to, so they're considered as "rest of the world" (85€).

My country is United Arab Emirates.