Zenodyne - Released!

[Suslik]

The feature that most caught my attention is forcing the player to know ahead whats coming for some parts. I liked the general feel of the game, it is fun to play and the difficulty is acceptable.

Bug report:
screen scaling became x1 from x2 in stage3 while playing in windowed mode

especially since I keep confusing the middle part of the stage background with the laser. Maybe it's just me but it certainly feels like its playing tricks on my eyes

Same here.

[BPzeBanshee]

Clearly some colour tweaks are needed. I changed most of the bullets to red to try and solve this visibility issue, but thought the yellow bullets were fine. Clearly this is not the case.

I'll see about the screen scaling bug and the brightness for the center part of stage 2 within the next week.

Frankly I haven't been happy with the scaling mechanism I came up with for some time now (notice the artefacts in text when using it? yeah....), but it's the only method I currently know of that works under real and virtual environments. The other simpler method of scaling up the window size WINE/VB doesn't like too well, but I'll see about making a implementation where it tries this method first and uses the other one in WINE/VirtualBox when using VBox Mode.

[railslave]

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ??!!!

posting stuff like this,

then disapearing


loving that hi-contrast !

[Kaiser]

Pop up to say what, I am making some progress but cannot promise it'll get done? Yes there is progress, there's changes that are going on both in gameplay and visually to provide better experience. I'm busy with many other things like personal life or education. I'll pop up again when I HAVE SOMETHING really worthy to show. No screens this time, it has to be a surprise reveal.

[Kaiser]

Still alive aren't we? [/Tarkleigh, Path of Exile]

Working on it again after a lengthy hiatus, only for me to take an another long break from it in january because of the exams, after the exams, well, i'll be trying to get things done properly.

[Kaiser]

I'm still working on it, I rebalanced the pre-existing bosses, replaced first boss with something new (and harder), some graphics were overhauled, SOME are still yet to be overhauled like stage 2 backgrounds. While there's still 1,5 stages left to complete.

[railslave]

Looking very hardcore

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Lookin' neat, only concern are all the indicators at the bottom of the screen. Do they fade/move offscreen when you go over them, or are you planning on having them in a bar along the bottom that's not part of the gameplay (like the bomb meter in DDP/Mushi, etc)?

[Kaiser]

Lookin' neat, only concern are all the indicators at the bottom of the screen. Do they fade/move offscreen when you go over them, or are you planning on having them in a bar along the bottom that's not part of the gameplay (like the bomb meter in DDP/Mushi, etc)?

They go mostly transparent when you are close to them (and above them), anyway, I'm slowly beginning to work on finishing stage 4 and i'm adding new content not necessarily related to stages.

[n0rtygames]

I approve of this boss pattern! ^^

Is there an attack like this in the Raiden games? I can't remember where I originally got the idea for the pattern. Think it's definitely inspired by a proper arcade title, I just can't for the life of me remember which one.

[Kaiser]

I approve of this boss pattern! ^^

Is there an attack like this in the Raiden games? I can't remember where I originally got the idea for the pattern. Think it's definitely inspired by a proper arcade title, I just can't for the life of me remember which one.

I believe the attack originally came from Crimzon Clover's stage 5 rocket-launching thingies before first gate on Unlimited (which shoot a 2-way trap like our pattern and destructible missiles), but nonetheless, feel free to take the credit

[Kaiser]

Yes I do realise you keep getting tired of seeing this revamped stage 1 boss over and over again, but I just wanted to show off something new, what is new? Pay attention.

Alright fun time's over, over the past few days I added two new playable ships (still polishing the ship select screen and planning to have a takeoff intro thingy) and rebalanced the entire game as per feedback coming from my testers, kudos primarly to n0rtygames for suggesting how to make the game better in gameplay/balance department after he played it properly .

Anyway, current plans involve revamping stage 2's backgrounds and finishing stage 4.

[railslave]

That patterns also in DDP, first boss, one of his stages, very brief, as hes on the way out.

[n0rtygames]

I think mine came about after playing some Batrider and falling in love with Black Heart's vulcan attacks that push you to the side of the screen... so started on something like that then toned it back a bit (First midboss, yo.. let's not go crazy)

[BPzeBanshee]

Solid State Survivor has some similar moves, no doubt they're loosely based off Dodonpachi and Mars Matrix.

[Kaiser]

Yup it's still somehow progressing despite all these uni exams i'm having.

[Kaiser]

Basically to sum up the changes i've made lately:

- There's two difficulty modes now, Arcade is the primary focus, Turbo which is just faster Arcade to the point it becomes as fast as Toaplan games like Truxton at least.
- There's only two ships, the third one was scrapped. The first with it's weapon cycling was made similiar to second one which brings me to...
- I got rid of the shot/bomb/cycle weapon system as it proved to be ineffective in more hectic situations on Turbo. I switched it out for shot/another shot/bomb. As you can see on the screen, first ship's HUD was much more simplified as a result.
- I've added a scoring/survival mechanic, a medal magnet powerup, which you get once per stage. It lets you collect medals from 1/4 across the screen but if you get hit, you lose it.

The primary reason i'm doing this is to generally improve my game, make it more simple but KEEP it challenging. There's still a whole lot to be done before I can say to myself "I can go on making the final stage now". It's all polishing the core basics so I don't have to do it later!

[n0rtygames]

The primary reason i'm doing this is because n0rty is an asshole

In fairness most of the changes you've made over the past few weeks have been for the better without really affecting the game too much. Just simplifying things and removing unfair frustration. I assume that the new shot means I cant exploit type B anymore?

You guys should check this out if you hadn't, it's actually pretty fun to 1cc it

[BPzeBanshee]

In case anymore missed it, there actually is a new demo out. See first post for details.

Feel free to report any bugs to myself or Kaiser.

[n0rtygames]

A clear over lunchbreak. There are issues, figured I'd just record a video. You can see them for yourself. Dunno why - but OBS didn't capture the music - which is actually funky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv-QfR8bGd8

[BPzeBanshee]

Kaiser's also had this issue with Open Broadcaster Software, it seems to be some kind of thing between it, your OS setings and OpenAL streams (the music runs via Caster rather than GM's internal sound engine, which uses OpenAL). I can capture it with music just fine.

Be sure to get the latest version too, 0.60 came out just this month.

[Kaiser]

Right so I found the culprit, it was the creative audio console on my side. What happened is that I had a toggle turned on that allowed to speakers to be disabled in favor of headphones. I turned it off and boom, OBS caught the music. So if you have that problem n0rtygames, go check your sound card's audio console for a headphone exclusivity sound option.

[Kaiser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt7Oq-7fK68

Here's a video of me humilitating myself by playing turbo mode which I clearly didn't test. Enjoy my pain.

[Kaiser]

Prelude to madness.

[Kaiser]

http://i.imgur.com/g5jnuxx.png

Madness begins now (spoilers in the image).
On other note, Rozyrg added some visuals to my game as a contribution, I won't spoil what those are, but they make the game notch or two better.
Final stage is complete, final boss is 33% done.

[Kaiser]

While I can't spoil you what's the final boss truly like when you piss him off. But I can show this:



Basically to sum up changes:
- Enemies now emit little flares upon firing.
- Backgrounds were made darker and bullets were made brighter.
- Final boss got completed and the basic ending sequence was implemented.

So with that, basically the game is content complete, but is it complete? Far from it.
Here's a more or less list of what yet needs to be done:
- I'm brainstorming over a bit more content like putting in a proper hard mode, maybe including unlockable things.
- Short attract intro (got a plan for it layed out)
- General polishing and balancing.

Chances are, I might put out a public beta containing everything, possibly in a month or two from now on. So stay tuned.
PS. See my new signature on what Cagar thinks on it

[Kaiser]

Dev bump, I'm looking for more testers on board to get this thing tested out before public beta on March 23, i'm looking for seasoned players who won't mind something not bullet hell. The game's content complete minus something potential at the end and few other stuff. I'm certainly wondering if it's hard enough and whether it's balanced.

[BPzeBanshee]

Good news for those paying attention to GMOSSE development and/or those who don't like having to restart the game to see how the game looks upscaled/TATEd.

EDIT: Expect TATE, the way it was meant to be, whenever you fucking like, next release.

[DJ Incompetent]

I'll have a look-see at your beta. Get at me.

[Kaiser]

I'll have a look-see at your beta. Get at me.

Will do, we just gotta finish rebalancing one part of a game a bit. Might take a day or two depending on how fast me and BP do it.