Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

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Lord Satori
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Lord Satori »

the originals are better. maybe if you added some shading on the other three portraits I'd like them, but I really don't understand the problem
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Grindie
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Grindie »

Another vote for the pixel portraits. They fit the game more. Although, I'd prefer to just black out the sides of the screen n' have an option to stick the HUD at the top or bottom.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BPzeBanshee »

I think the 'new' ones are WIPs, they're obviously not the final product. I just don't see a need for change myself - it was only a couple of pages ago in this thread that there were requests for them to disappear entirely so it's gotten a lot of attention.
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pieterator
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by pieterator »

Ok, I'm going to bare my soul here.

This was a tough decision to make, but it was mainly driven by some of the responses I got with regards to the sensual nature in which the females were portraid. Normally I would chalk this up as the response from a varied audience. But when I was applying for work as a game artist, one studio quite firmly stated that I should never contact them again, based purely on the content of my art.

This made me pause and think. If I was going to use Aero Flux as part of my portfolio, I had to give it broader appeal, which meant toning back the sensuality of the female characters, so I could be evaluated based on the merits of my artistic skills and not the content of the art itself.

Also, as BPzeBanshee mentioned, there where a lot of request to have the portraits removed completely (Mostly from the hardcore shmupers who only want to focus on the action and don't want additional distracting visuals), so changing the portraits would not affect these players at all.

Lastly it was to have the portraits more in harmony with the pixel art style of the rest of the game. The only other items that are not completely pixel art is the selection screen, and the game over text. Technically the menu buttons and explosions as well, but I'd rather leave them the way they are, because it's a lot of work to change them, and I'm lazy.

But I will never forget the people who have supported me throughout the years, so there WILL be a special shmups.system11 edition with all the old portraits.

And if some of the fans want bikini outfits for the girls, I'll put those in too :D Not because I'm pandering, but because I'm admiring a quality only woman have, the ability to be both sexy and cute.

(The view expressed in this post are the opinions of the author, and in no way express those held by the creators of Aero Flux.)
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emphatic
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by emphatic »

pieterator wrote:one studio quite firmly stated that I should never contact them again, based purely on the content of my art.
There are Amish gaming studios? :lol:
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pieterator
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by pieterator »

emphatic wrote:There are Amish gaming studios? :lol:
Apparently :wink:
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Giest118
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Giest118 »

The game studio is clearly filled to the brim with fat people. Their loss.

But now I can better see where you're coming from, at least. I believe the shading at least was better in the originals, though.
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n0rtygames
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by n0rtygames »

pieterator wrote:one studio quite firmly stated that I should never contact them again, based purely on the content of my art.
I can't get my head around that. Isn't it one of the goals for any artist drawing a female form to try and capture that sense of allure? It seems like complete lunacy for a studio to tell you not to contact them. Sensual female artwork gets nerds like us to pick up game boxes and check out the screenshots.

I wouldn't let the weird decisions of one gaming studio affect what you put on your portfolio as an artist dude. I _love_ your artwork as you know! :)
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Lord Satori
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Lord Satori »

okay I've been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to come up with a response, and have come up with a variety of things.

in any case, I hope you don't let them get to you. there are many freaks in the world that get offended by the dumbest stuff.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Lord Satori wrote:okay I've been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to come up with a response, and have come up with a variety of things.

in any case, I hope you don't let them get to you. there are many freaks in the world that get offended by the dumbest stuff.
Amen.

Funny for a studio to act like a bunch of 4chan kiddies when they fail to look past the content. Not professional at all.
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pieterator
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by pieterator »

Thank you everyone, I'm really overwhelmed by all the positive feedback.

It is often easy to forget that you will never be able to please everyone, and that you only need to really listen to the people who matter - the fans :D

I think I will keep the new drawings for when I release a kid friendly version of Aero Flux, but that will only happen after the official version is released to the fans.

Oh, and the pixel art girls above are currently only colour flats and line art, but the shading will definitely follow. And if anyone ever thought it is easier to to do characters as pixel art rather than on a high resolution canvas, let me assure you, it is not :wink:

Thanks again everyone, you are truly the best! :mrgreen:
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Rozyrg
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Rozyrg »

Wow..nothing has made me want to make a straight up porn game more than that flat dismissal, if only to automatically weed out that kind of thin-skinned, milquetoast response in the future. :roll:
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Herr Schatten
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Herr Schatten »

Rozyrg wrote:Wow..nothing has made me want to make a straight up porn game more than that flat dismissal, if only to automatically weed out that kind of thin-skinned, milquetoast response in the future. :roll:
Go for it. :wink:
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nZero
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by nZero »

Rozyrg wrote:Wow..nothing has made me want to make a straight up porn game more than that flat dismissal, if only to automatically weed out that kind of thin-skinned, milquetoast response in the future. :roll:
No kidding, wonder what they'd think of the really F'd up stuff like Nanocrisis
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Lord Satori
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by Lord Satori »

huh, never heard of that one before.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

My only complaint so far is the whole tap/hold shooting thing. Slowdown button or rapid shoot button plz (I suspect you kept the controls simple to get around modern keyboards not accepting many inputs at once for 2P mode? I think you can get around that with a gamepad and joy2key though). 2P is a nice touch that's not seen much in pc shmups, the kunai shot that sticks in large enemies and does additional damage over time is cool too.

The ship, boss and character art are awesome considering you did it all yourself. I don't personally care for anime boobies myself but even I can tell the art's gorgeous. I can see if a video game company didn't want your art style for a specific project, but if they just flat out told you 'ur art suks lol', then they're fucking retards. Fuck the lot of them.

The new character art you drew is meh - stick with the slick anime style you got going, it's really good and don't believe anyone who says otherwise.

also, the V1.5 beta lists it ingame as V1.00 for some reason
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pieterator
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by pieterator »

@Rozyrg - We should talk ;)

@BareknuckleRoo - You are absolutely right, it has to do with keyboard limitations. But after a few discussions with n0rtygames, I quickly saw the error in my ways, so I will be including a rapid fire button in the next update. It just means that 2 Player then will need to be done with controllers. Thank you for the objective feedback on my artwork, and thanks for your honesty, it makes me respect your opinion that much more. Missed the V1.5 typo, will fix.

Please also note that I'm in the process of doing art assets for n0rtygames' up and coming vertical shmup CronoBlast, so while I'm busy with that, expect progress on Aero Flux to be a bit slow (Not that it's ever had a blistering pace to begin with).

Cheers everyone, you rock the core maximum! :mrgreen:
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I sincerely hope you're doing a lot of the boss/enemy designs in Chronoblast because your ship designs are sexy as fuck (and having a released xbox game would be great for your résumé I bet).

Is it me or are the ground tanks early on really durable compared to Cave-style popcorn tanks? I suspect this is intentional, but I mention it as I find it tricky to kill them in a timely fashion even with weak-enemy 'specialist' Miku Hatsune (especially on Bullet Hell difficulty). Then again gaining bombs consistently throughout stages via grazing to help blow away especially dense sections seems to be crucial.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BPzeBanshee »

The ground tanks are noticeably strong for popcorn.

In regards to the controller setup for players I recommend that the players have an option of using either the joystick/gamepad or the keyboard, and then having a section for the keyboard inputs.

Man I really haven't touched Radical Proposal in ages now. I think that's going to be on hold for at least as long as Aero Flux itself is. :S

Slightly off-topic: is it Miku Hatsune, or Hatsune Miku?
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I think her name when used in Japanese is generally Hatsune Miku (so presumably her first name is Miku and her family name is Hatsune?).
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pieterator
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by pieterator »

I'll tweak the popcorn tanks to have slightly less Hp, and introduce a new popcorn tank for the later levels that's a bit tougher. Maybe I should just release the version I have now so people can at least play with controllers, and adjust their keys.

With regards to Miku, BareknuckleRoo hit the nail on the head. Strictly speaking I should flip her name and surname so it reads "Hatsune Miku" in the name tab at the top.

On a similar off-topic tangent, her name is a combination of Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (ミク, future) thus meaning "the first sound from the future." But most fans will just refer to her as Miku.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BPzeBanshee »

I already did it in Radical Proposal but I wasn't sure. Actually I think I switched ALL of their names around - it's been a while since I touched it and I'm not sure I want to touch it again for a while considering there's a lot of alterations that need to be pretty much redone anyway.

I'm keen to see a new release even if it's just so we can test where the seams break with it so to speak. Trying to get GMOSSE to a releaseable state myself because it's been so damn long but it's got a while to go.
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shmuppyLove
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by shmuppyLove »

Tried this out the morning, it's really good!
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n0rtygames
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by n0rtygames »

I'm bumping this - Pieterator is currently busy helping me with things and I think he went slightly mad doing the sprites for Chronoblast.

Just so you guys know, he's responsible for the bosses that you basically hate to fight, but love the look of.
Chronoblast ST3 Mid Boss, ST4 main boss (Big blue guy), ST5 mid/end boss - TLB.

But he really should finish this damned game one day so we can do some sort of crossover game together

Anyway, all of you play this game. It's fun.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: Aero Flux - Bullet Hell Shooter

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Thanks for reminding me that I hit a total halt with Radical Proposal too, n0rty. :evil: :P

If anyone cares I can do a release of that but it's not very playable for balance, music-copyright-friendly or polished. It would however give you an idea of what I had planned for this thing, and show the various core changes I'd done to it (that I think Pieterator was going to put in in the next release).
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