SHMUP Creator: build and blast (trailer and steam store)

A place for people with an interest in developing new shmups.
User avatar
Sai'ke
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:20 am

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by Sai'ke »

Ah cool, a fellow c++er :).

It looks quite cool what you made so far. I'm sure there will be many people happy with it.

But just fyi, luabridge makes it relatively pain free to bind in Lua if you'd ever want to include such a feature in the future. It's a header only library which provides a pretty convenient c++ wrapper over lua. Together they are much easier to tie in than say JS or python.
User avatar
qmish
Posts: 1571
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:40 am

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by qmish »

Sorry if that was asked before, but i want to know...

How is it flexible for changing mechanics of game? Gameplay itself? So you woudn't do just clones of established formulas..
Guess thats main reason why people ask about coding/scripting extension.
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

How is it flexible for changing mechanics of game? Gameplay itself? So you woudn't do just clones of established formulas..
Guess thats main reason why people ask about coding/scripting extension.
I understand :)
There are a lot of settings to modify the gameplay/score system, and everything is very customizable.
That being said, you are right that there is no way to create something nobody ever done before without a kind of code/script.
As I wrote before, this tool is not going to be the ultimate shmup game creation tool (not with its first installment, anyway!). If I wanted to do something like this, to be honest I'll made some Unity shmup creation package, and sell it for 80$ on the unity store, and people would have to wrote their own rules in C# and complete their game themselves.

My aim it to give people without much coding skill or time to code a way to have fun creating games. You can pretty much do a Gradius or a Danmaku with it in a few days, and I think you'll be surprised by what you can do with it.

I'd love to allow people to do more and create custom rules in the future, like:
.if a player is grazing for more than X seconds, do this to the multiplier, only if he has this weapon

I'll do it one day, but to stay true to the spirit of the project, it will be a graphical UI, like Unreal blueprint.
S.
User avatar
WMD
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu May 24, 2018 9:53 am

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by WMD »

Is there any updated release time frame or beta road map?
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi everyone!
Some news:

Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2018/05/23/may-update/

MAY UPDATE

Something happened: I had an offer from a company I couldn’t refuse, and I have been working full-time since January. The result is that I don’t have a lot of free time to work on the SHMUP Creator anymore, and it makes my heart bleed.
But since last month I have begun to work again, at a slow but steady pace.

2D SHMUP:
I’m working on a 2D sample level using sprites.
It’s an horizontal shmup, like Gradius or R-type, and it will be part of the package.
It also a good way to polish and debug the engine: I’m doing a lot of small adjustments and corrections.
For now, there is the player space ship, one enemy, one weapon and one explosion, but I’m working on it :)

SPRITE ANIMATION:
Working on this level made me rewrite the sprites animation code.
Until now it was using Ogre3D animation technique, where users have to save one picture file per animation frame. It’s cumbersome and not good for performance, so I wrote a proper atlas animation shader.
Now user can put all the animation frames on one sprite sheet and give the tool the number of rows and columns, the animation speed and the shader will do the rest!

Image

Image


BUG FIXING:
A lot.
This is my primary concern: I want to do an Early Access as soon as possible, but I don’t want to give people an unstable build.
Another concern is that I want to be sure to stabilize the level’s file format before allowing people to start making games to avoid breaking their creations.

NEXT:
Working again on the SHMUP Creator feels good! I know a lot of people are frustrated because this project is taking so long to complete: I’m the first one to be looking forward to its completion, trust me !:)
I promise to write a follow-up next month, even if it’s a small one.
See you!

S.
azmenthe
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2018 2:28 am

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by azmenthe »

I know, I'd love to add this kind of support. Unfortunately, I'm alone working part-time on my tool, and at Unity they are more than 2500 engineers (last time I checked). It's not fair :)
Man, this is exactly why you open source it! When I first saw your thread I immediately wanted to download the code and poke around. (Also it hurts me emotionally that there's no demo build I could tinker with either :( ).

But really, this project is such a good candidate for being hosted on github (or similar.. wait, nevermind, use github :P). It's definitely something I would be interested in contributing too. The post I quoted was from a discussion about implementing scripting, but if it was open sauce, maybe Trung0246 would even take a crack at implementing that idea.

I guess my big question is:
Is there a reason you have for not open sourcing it?
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi,
As I wrote earlier, I'm trying to keep the "one post per month" rythm.
So, here it is...
(Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2018/07/01/june-update/)


JUNE UPDATE


AUTOMATIC 2D COLLISIONS:
You can press “auto” in the collision panel and the 2D collision points will move automatically around the sprite. It’s quick and it works :)

Image


2D PLAYER ORIENTATION and BANK ANIMATION:
. I corrected a lot of issues with the player orientation options: the player can stay in the same direction regardless of it moves, it can flip left-right or top-bottom, it can be oriented in the move direction or with the mouse or pad right stick .
. A new feature is that the player sprite can play an animation when the player press a new direction which allows to animate the bank of the player. It’s something you couldn’t do before with the old animation system, and that it’s quite easy to do now.
I still have to draw the new sprites for the player ship banking animation, though, and it’s not easy :)

SNAKE:
On of the enemy type is the snake: it’s an enemy made of one or several parts which moves like a snake or a worm… You can use a different object or picture for the head, the body and the tail. Even if its made of several parts its one enemy, at the difference of the pseudo-snake you can create if you spawn a lot of enemies on a path.

Image


2D SAMPLE LEVEL:
I created the snake and some animated power-ups. Now, I’m working on a turret.

GUI:
I’m doing some design and UI correction with Mathilde. There are a lot of menus to review, the design of Professor Bulo for the in-game tutorials etc.

BUGS:
Did I mention that I corrected some bugs, like I do in every update?

As always, slow but steady progress. I plan to keep a monthly update rhythm, so stay tuned!
S.
User avatar
emphatic
Posts: 7918
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 3:47 pm
Location: Alingsås, Sweden
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by emphatic »

Awesome.
Image | My games - http://www.emphatic.se | (Click) I have YEN stickers for sale
RegalSin wrote:Street Fighters. We need to aviod them when we activate time accellerator.
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

JULY UPDATE

Still trying to keep up the rythm!
(original post: http://bulostudio.com/2018/08/03/july-update/)

Last time I wrote that I planned to work on the 2D sample game: I lied.
The new goal is to complete and polish the editor as much as we can until it feels great and “shippable”. We are making great progress and I’m quite happy to see new bits of UI getting nicer and cleaner everyday.

WHAT WE DID:

As always, I corrected bugs (in the snakes, in the animated textures…). I still have a few minor one to fix, and 2 or 3 big one which causes me headaches…

The in-game tutorials are completely revamped, and they look great :)
We can introduce you to “Professor Bulo” who will teach you the basics of shmup creation! The tutorials are using the editor and the game engine and so are interactive and fun to watch.
We still have to script some more chapters.

Image

At the moment, the focus is really on UI. The most important goal is usability… Making sure that things are easy to use, to pick, to see… Added new and missing icons, moved things pixel by pixel, adding colors to some elements to tell the user “this is a menu about the level” or “this is a menu about the game”. It’s not about look but really about helping users find and understand things better and use the SHMUP Creator in a more intuitive way. It’s about design and usability, and it’s very interesting and very very hard to do :)

We have a lot of work to do on the weapons and bullets editors: the current UI is not reflecting the way the weapons system works to the users. I’m sure we can do better and, with some changes only (renaming things, moving some parts of the UI elsewhere), make things easier to understand.

I’d really like to complete the whole editor polish at the end of August. It would be an important milestone: the tool will be “complete”, and we’ll be able to focus on the last part of the adventure: completing the 2D sample game, completing the documentation and so on.

See you next time!

S.
Goompaolo9500
Posts: 319
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 11:10 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by Goompaolo9500 »

Keep it up! I am so excited to see the final output.
At this rate, I won’t be interested into shmups anymore. I am no longer going to be active in this forum from now on. I am more interested into Kemono Friends, rhythm games, D4DJ, Puzzle Games, Hololive, and Pretty Cure.

Farewell.
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

The monthly devblog is still monthly: I'm happy!
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2018/09/10/august-update/

august update

Hi everyone,

August was a short month because of holidays. We managed to do some work though:

COLOUR CODING:
We added some colors in the editor panels and windows. The UI was very white and is now more colourful. But the real reason was to add an information about the scope of each editors: does it modify some features of a level, or does it modify some features of a whole game? The distinction is important: the lighting or the fog is a level feature. Modifying the lighting of the level 1 will not change the lighting of the level 2. But modifying the player properties will modify the whole game because the player is shared in every level. This is why in the SHMUP Creator the game properties are blue and the level properties are yellow.

Image

Image
(OK, in this picture, player is yellow. It should be blue, my bad)


WEAPON EDITOR:
The weapon system in the SHMUP Creator is simple and powerful. It works like this: you can create weapons for an enemy, and each weapon uses a weapon definition. It means that you can have two weapons at each side of the player using the same definition, which is quite handy because you only have to modify the definition to modify the 2 weapons.
Another thing is that you can have several weapons sets. A set is a collection of weapons for a player or an enemy. You could create set called basicWeapons, a set called mediumWeapons and a “superBonusWeapons” set, and use one or another depending of the item the player takes. Or you could use a power-up to go from the basicWeapons set to the superBonusWeapons set. Or you can use a set for an enemy, and use another one when the enemy goes to a particular waypoint.
We modified the layout of the Weapons editor to reflect this mechanic: a Sets column, then the list of the weapons of the selected set, then the weapon properties, and then the realtime preview. The new editor is sequential, and we hope, is more easy to grasp.

Image
<2014

Image
2014

Image
2018


EXPLOSION EDITOR:
A lot of time when I add a new features I prototype quickly an editor. The explosion editor was still in its prototype form until now and was, quite frankly, a complete mess. Mathilde redesigned everything and I had to re-code some part of it. But at least, it’s really better now, and follow the Weapon editor philosophy.

GUI POLISH:
And as always, we are polishing each part of the SHMUP Creator editors one by one. We added new icons, modified old one, moved things…. Still quite a lot of small adjustments to do, but the end is now close.

WHAT NEXT?
We still have to complete our work on the weapon and explosion editors. We need to review the control settings editor, the about panel, correct the last bits and pieces. All this should be complete at the end of September.

I hope to be able to resume my work on the 2D sample game next.

See you!
DrBlowhole20
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2012 5:55 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by DrBlowhole20 »

Good to see that this is actually gaining faster development. I might have forgotten to state if this engine can use low-res resolutions for pixel art. Unfortunately, my credit card seems to have blocked so i don't think i'll consider buying SHMUP Creator. If the new STGBuilder (the one with refined gui and actual english translation) might come out soon (which possibly might be free despite the fact it has been approved for exporting to EXA-Arcadia), i'll grab that instead of SHMUP Creator, but you're still going great.
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Image

December Update

Last post of 2018, a little bit sad, but who knows, it's almost Christmas!!!
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2018/12/18/december-update/

I tried to post something every month, and as you can see, I failed.

PART-TIME PROJECT:
This is a good opportunity to write about the difficulty of working on something on the side: it’s really hard!
I have a day job, which is taking a lot of my energy right now, a long commuting time and all the things you have to do in real life and outside of work.
At the end, there’s not a lot of time left to focus on a complex project. It’s also a balancing act, between the frustration of not making progress during the week-ends and the fact that you want to spend time with your girlfriend, your friends, have some rest, watch a movie…. The last 2 or 3 months, my job and commuting took too much place in my life.

I managed to do some work though, but it was also frustrating: all the HUD/start menu/menu editors, which I thought were completed, had really deep and unexpected issues. I found that the previews were not correct most of the time. It was also crashing sometimes, depending of what assets or what settings were used….
I corrected all the issues but it took a really long time and I had to rewrite a lot of the code. Furthermore, working on a complex issue in 30mn chunks was not effective at all. At the end I managed to make everything work as expected, and to be honest, I’m really relieved :)
This kind of issue is happening a lot with this kind of work, in an editor where everything is interrelated, changing something will cause unexpected issues somewhere else. And even worst, most of the time I’m aware of the issues only weeks or even months later when I test something else.
Sometimes it’s quite discouraging: when a lot of things breaks at the same time, you can be in a state of mind where you feels that the more you work, the more you have to work. Without making any progress…

Ok, it’s the “Depressing End of Year Post”, but all this is behind me now.
I mean, it’s almost Christmas!!!

So, moving on.

WHAT WE ALSO DID:
Apart from the usual debug and polish, I finished the modifications on the weapon workflow and editor.
I also completed the explosion editor reboot and corrected the controls editor, where you can modify the keyboard and joypad keys and buttons.

WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW:
-We are testing the last editor panels and correcting some issues with the UI
-I’m making sure that there are consistent minimum and maximum values for everything
-I’m correcting the tutorials

WHAT WE WILL DO UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR:
-I’m going to add the 2 last in-game tutorials: weapons and triggers
-I still have some editor corrections in my to-do list
-I’m going to make the list of every features of the SHMUP Creator in order to make progress on the documentation
-I’m going to work on the SHMUP Creator during the holidays

MY NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:
– To at last go back to the 2D sample games and the 2D sprites assets creation
– To answer the question: “can we target a real beta release for April???”

Stay tuned :)

S.
User avatar
dpful
Posts: 1205
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2005 5:19 pm
Location: SLC, UT, US
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by dpful »

keep the updates coming! Looking forward to it!
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi everybody, first update of 2019! And a more positive one as well.
Original post:
http://bulostudio.com/2019/02/04/january-update/

Image

JANUARY UPDATE

Hi everybody,

After the depressing Christmas post, a positive new year post!
I’m doing my best to work on the SHMUP Creator. It’s a little bit too interstitial for my taste, but I’m making progress:

2D SHMUP LEVEL:
I’m doing pixel art and making progress on the 2D level assets. This month I completed:
. Some animated items (power-up, force field…)
. Some particle systems
. 2 new enemies
. A turret
. Some temporary background blocks
At this point, I’ll soon be able to start designing the level and play with the editor. I already started to test some ideas, and as expected, it’s a good way to find bugs or things with unwanted behavior. It’s the best way to complete the SHMUP Creator: to really use it. I know it sounds obvious, but even in the pro industry we often don’t have time to do so.

Image

DEBUG:
. I fixed some crashes, some annoying bugs (why the turret is moving magically from its base when I go back to the editor?) etc. I’m started a “no priority bugs” list, which is a shame, but is the only way to finish the editor: I know it could be better, and it will be, but I don’t want to diverge too much from my short term goal.

POLISH:
. I did some minor modifications to the UI to streamline the workflow. Sometimes, a really small adjustment makes a great improvement to the look and feel of the UI. The devil is from the details!

NEXT MONTH:
Due to some personal things, February will be a very short month. So I will not be able to achieve much. Nevertheless, I plan to make progress on the background sprites and start designing the level. I also plan to fix some of my “not so priority bugs” but “things that looks not so good in the game” bugs.

See you!

S.

Image
User avatar
invent
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:08 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by invent »

What a super tool, this will be very handy to show some concepts to potential coders in the future (Amiga Plaform)

I have a project that has stalled at the moment called ProXima3 for the Amiga
http://amigaonex.blogspot.com/search/la ... arf%20Star

Another game is Underthreat, another shooter. http://amigaonex.blogspot.com/search/label/Underthreat


Not a big issue at the moment as the focus is on the IRIDIUM game, but am very interested in the software.
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Thanks invent!
I tried your demo and it's super fun. As an ex amiga demomaker, I can't but love your style and demo fonts :)
I also had a look on your amiga projects and I'd love to see those games running in the futur.
Suny.
User avatar
invent
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:08 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by invent »

Thanks suny :)
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi everybody!
A small update for a small month. Next month will be better, I promise!
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2019/03/11/february-update-2/



Image

FEBRUARY UPDATE

February is always a short month, but especially this year for me as I took 2 weeks of vacation. It was nice!

Before that, some work was done:
Some important bugs were fixed, as well as some minor ones. I also added some small features I forgot to implement before, like being able to choose the color of the small light being spawn where an explosion occurs.

I’m still making progress on the 2D level Art, and it’s going well. I hope I’ll be able to share some pictures very soon.

I also did some modifications to the editor and to some tools and workflow: it’s a big reason of why I’m doing a 2D level. I knew that I’ll find that some tools which are working well in 3D will not be as consistent with the 2D workflow. For instance, I added an orthographic view to help align things, and did a lot of correction to the snapping and grid code.

It was a short month, and so it’s a short post.
I plan to continue the 2D level next month and I have a lot of gameplay ideas to try :)

See you!
S.
User avatar
invent
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:08 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by invent »

Thanks for the update suny, look forward to the next update.

This will be very useful for building concept demos, to help entice coders/developers.
My first will be for the Amiga (Vampire) cards, at least that's the first plan. Not for sometime though as Iridium is the focus till end of year :)
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi!
A new post, which show the harsh reality of game development (which I know everyone here is well aware of...)

Original post:
http://bulostudio.com/2019/04/07/march-update/

Image

MARCH UPDATE

Hi everyone!

March was a “bugs fix” month.
I’d like to say that my code is so clean I never see any bugs, but it would be a big, big lie. After a while, the code get bigger and bigger, more (too) complex, and each time I do some work somewhere I can break something elsewhere. It’s sometimes quite stressful
This month I fixed some old and very annoying crashes and bugs, and it felt good.
To illustrate the kind of non-sexy work I do those days, this is my March list:

(OK) – f9 don’t hide the background collisions preview boxes
(OK) – backgrounds collision boxes preview is broken
(OK) – if we are editing a collision box, “Focus on selected” doesn’t work as expected
(OK) – the speed decrease at the end of a spline for enemies doesn’t work for every case: refactoring needed
(OK) – prevent user to move the first waypoint of an enemy
(OK) – the selected collision box doesn’t blink anymore
(OK) – the sprite preview in the collision panel is not big enough, depending of the picture ratio
(OK) – if there is no collision, update the collision panel anyway (to avoid old pictures in the panel)
(OK) – hard to select some sprites on screen: bug in the rendering order part of the selection
(OK) – when we stop shooting, the laser sound should also stop
(OK) – add a sound and a default particle effect when we create an SFX
(OK) – double click on text to rename doesn’t work well
(OK) – when we reload a scene, the sprite rendering order is not the same. It should.
(OK) – the transition to a waypoint Aim should use aimSpeed
(OK) – after a checkpoint and a level restart, the music should not stop
(OK) – there were an old default explosion for the player (playing at the same time as the real one): remove it
(OK) – if the player dies and one stray bullet kills the last enemy: we should not win the game
(OK) – if we select several weapons, display the red outline around all of them, not only the last one
(OK) – there were an old default material on some objects adding error message in the log: re-export the weapon objects
(OK) – if we use another window for a while and come back to the SHMUP Creator, the frame rate is too fast for a few seconds
(OK) – if we minimise the SHMUP Creator and maximise it again, the camera scroll bar is moved to the center of the screen
(OK) – waypoints flip flop : the icons are inverted
(OK) – the thumbnails of the background assets are not displayed anymore in the game box
(OK) – transform panel: a lot of issues :/
(OK) – undo position: some waypoints manipulators are showing up even if we are in weapon mode
(OK) – if we select the first waypoint and another one, we can moves the 2 waypoints. We should never move the 1st one.
(OK) – a lof of issues with objects duplication in the editor, because of bad vectors code
(OK) – crash only in release with undo and weapons
(OK) – crash with vector when selecting an enemy after deleting others + crash changing tab in the editor panel
(OK) – crash with undo after translating a weapon: seems to be because of the waypoint manipulator bug

It can give you an idea of what is feel to work on a tool, and why it takes time.
What a great hobby, coding tools and engine! The last 3 crashes where a pain to fix, but at the end, it felt good to be able to find the issues and correct them.

Also:
I made progress on the beginning of the 2D level and on the end of level boss and added a new Kill trigger. I also modified the default grid snapping behaviour with multi-selection.

See you!
S.

Image
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Today, it's GRADIUS DAY!

Image

S.
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by EmperorIng »

Been following this dev blog for a while now. Keep up the good work! I like that showing off of background scaling, too :mrgreen:
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

I like that showing off of background scaling, too
Actually it's not really scaling, it's the path of the camera which is 3D: you can insert points to create a path, and go up, down, wait a little, go higher and accelerate with a curve etc. Lots of controls!


New post at last!
Times flies.
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2019/06/06/april-may-update/

april – may update

Hi everyone,
It is still hard to find time to work on the the SHMUP Creator, but I’m finally doing things I’m postponing since months. (Or years? :/)

I’m doing 3 things at the same time, which are all important to complete the tool:

DOCUMENTATION:
I wrote half of the documentation. It’s a first draft but the structure is there and I’m describing all the features and tools. And there are a lot of features. I will also write a few basic tutorials to help people at the beginning, but it’s for later.

DEBUG:
As always, I corrected a lot of bugs, crashes, small annoying things, as well as correcting small UI features to streamline the use of the tool. I’m the first user, and I want the SHMUP Creator to be nice and friendly to use. This is why there is a lot of invisible things. For instance, this month I added a variable speed zoom: the more we zoom out, the faster it gets, the more we zoom close to the level, the slower it gets. It’s invisible, but it works and make the level navigation more precise and fun.

2D LEVEL:
I completed the level design on paper, then I created the whole level with basic shapes. It allowed me to adjust the scrolling speed, the position of the different gameplay sections and the length of the level.
Then I started to prototype the gameplay, and it was great: I had some gameplay ideas (often inspired from R-type Leo or Gradius,I confess) I was able to set-up and try in a few minutes with the SHMUP Creator: moving platforms, a boss escaping the player and destroying walls in the way etc. Sometimes, trying things is a way to find new bugs or forced me to correct some behaviour because I didn’t thought about it. But when it works right the first time it’s a real joy!

Image
Image


SOUNDS:
I’m beginning at last to think at the release as a near event, coming slowly but surely. One blocker for me is that I’m using some temp assets from commercial games to test the tool. Most of them are sounds and musics. I cleaned everything this week and made a list of sounds I need in order to release the game, and I will ask a talented musician and sound designer to create them for me.
It’s really something I’m looking forward to, because without those sounds I can’t make videos, teaser, trailers on youtube. And I’d love to show more soon, like some level creation timelapse.

See you!
mtn360
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 1:51 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by mtn360 »

Hey mate, that's some badass work right there! I'm currently working on a new shmup for the Neo Geo and are looking for something where I can design my levels in terms of where enemies spawn, define splines/path, etc. .. Will this thing be strictly tight to the all-in-one solution, or could it potentially also export some .h/.c files I could include and then wire things up to my own game on any platform?
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Will this thing be strictly tight to the all-in-one solution, or could it potentially also export some .h/.c files I could include and then wire things up to my own game on any platform?
It's designed to be a all-in-one solution, this is not a framework. Think "mario maker" but for shmups. It exports human readable XML scripts though, which can be parsed to retrieve objects position and orientation easily.


Original post here.


Image

JUNE UPDATE

BETA IS COMMING!

Ok, a small update this month. I made quite a lot of progress, but there are not a lot of interesting things to say.
Most of the coding work was polish and debug. That’s crazy the number of small issues I can still find…

But I spent more time on the documentation. It is now complete, a v0.5, full of spelling mistakes. The next step is to format it, choose the colors and fonts and add a lot of screenshots. It’s incredibly time consuming!

Image

I also sent my sounds and musics list to a sound designer.

The documentation, the sounds, the debug: the goal to all this is to produce a beta version after the summer. I will then start a closed beta for some happy fews which will allow me to further polish and debug the tool and the engine.

NEXT MONTH:
As I said I will continue my work on the documentation.
I will also hopefully resume my work on the “Gradius like” 2D level.

MAILING LIST:
Oh… And did you notice we started a mailing list?
Don’t hesitate to sign up: it’s on the top of the bulostudiopage. No spam, we will only send emails to announce the release of the SHMUP Creator.

See you!
S.
User avatar
invent
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:08 pm

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by invent »

Great work and Beta coming soon.. nice :)
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Image

Tiny small october update
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2019/10/15/october-update-2/

Ok, last update was a long time ago.
A lot of things happened, in real life as well as technically. Let’s say I had some issues to sort out.
Everything is fine now, and I’m back to work.

So, please bear with me, and expect a longer update in a few weeks!
S.

(Ok, it was really a tiny update! But I'm working on the SC right now, and I'm looking forward to writing the next update soon)
User avatar
suny
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:20 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

RANDOM BULLET PATTERN #1

Playing with the bullet editor.

Image
Post Reply