D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

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TrevorMcFurr
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D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by TrevorMcFurr »

So back in 1998 I picked up The Games Factory and started messing around with creating a vertical arena style arcade shooter called D-Resolution, which took influences from classic games like Tempest 2000, Defender and Uridium.

After many years I came back to D-Resolution, upgraded to Multimedia Fusion and basically restarted the game from scratch.

I thought I'd share some of what I've done so far and hopefully I'll update with gameplay videos etc. when I get a chance.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eeYXLgYPYrQ
Last edited by TrevorMcFurr on Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
gamertag/PSN ID: TrevorMcFurr

d_resolution dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/kw5fjnvr
Vulcano dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/43ztk2un

"If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."
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TrevorMcFurr
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Location: Gloucester, UK

Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by TrevorMcFurr »

After having spent a bit of time developing Vulcano viewtopic.php?f=9&t=67905 for a year or so, I've decided to update/fix some of the issues I was having developing my arena shmup D_Resulution. Here is a video showing the first 3 levels:
https://youtu.be/060cdKWZBD0
Have a look and share your thoughts!

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gamertag/PSN ID: TrevorMcFurr

d_resolution dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/kw5fjnvr
Vulcano dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/43ztk2un

"If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."
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TrevorMcFurr
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Location: Gloucester, UK

Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by TrevorMcFurr »

One thing I've felt was needed for while now was some kind of gameplay element to encourage/force the player into action, aside from the danger of an enemy attacking them. I found that - especially on early levels - that as the player I could fly around dodging enemies for a long time before needing to kill them.

I thought about a Defender style mechanic where enemies would attack a core in the level, but this discouraged the player from using the whole map.

The other option was a timer which would continuously count down, but increases when enemies are destroyed. I implemented it by using a large spinning timer that circles and shrinks around the player as the time decreases. This really adds tension especially when it gets close to zero and turns red.

Here is a video showing the timer in action. There is also a count down (from 5 to 1) for the number of enemies left to be destroyed. I've also added a few more effects and updated the level clear screen which includes the time remaining as a bonus.

https://youtu.be/WXAuw7S1nmM

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Last edited by TrevorMcFurr on Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
gamertag/PSN ID: TrevorMcFurr

d_resolution dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/kw5fjnvr
Vulcano dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/43ztk2un

"If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."
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Verticen
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Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by Verticen »

Hey, I took a look at the videos you had of D_Resolution. At first glance I passed this off as a generic euroshooter, but I actually really like the aesthetic of your game after I warmed up to it. You pull off the 80’s cyber vibe quite well without sacrificing much visual clarity. The variety of shaped explosions that enemies have are quite appealing. I dig how the ship’s parts fly in and build the ship when it goes to a new level. It’s a clever way to have a “Ready?!” countdown period. Your sound design is quite solid too.

I watched the timer video. I honestly think that the timer looks like it gets in the way of readability of the stage and enemies when it gets about medium size. Most effects like explosions took up about 2X2 ‘stage blocks’ of space, but the timer added visual noise to a ~6 X 6 stage blocks area of the screen. I was having trouble trying to watch moving enemies on the stage constantly being moved up or down, though the spinning motion of the timer. I imagine the timer should start smaller, about 1.5 X the size of the shield circle around the ship, and get marginally larger as it gets close to running out. Also, I think the color hue of the timer ought to shift more to go with the whole rainbow bullets and effects you’ve got going. Perhaps it would start blue and shift to green, yellow, then flashing red.

The old, original version of the game had a cool red parallax background that looked good that I think should return for at least one of the stages.

Additionally, I can’t seem to tell how the left-hand side radar works; some enemies show up as blips, some don’t, even when the player is closer to them. May be WIP right now, but it doesn’t seem to act consistent, or maybe I’m just too smol brain to figure out the mechanics.

Keep up the good work.
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TrevorMcFurr
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Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by TrevorMcFurr »

Hi Verticen, thanks very much for taking the time to have a look and comment.

Yes I understand that a vertical style arena shoot-em up isn't what most people frequenting shmups.system11.org will be looking for, but its a shmup none the less :) Also I've never been a fan of bullet hell shmups!

I'm still perfecting the way the timer works visually, and will now make it a bit more transparent so it doesn't interfere with the other stuff going on too much. I've used the colours green > yellow > orange > red as I feel they are the most intuitive when alerting the player to impending doom. I could switch them to blue > purple > red (blue will be less obstructive than green) so we'll have to see.

The red parallax background stages are still in the game (stages 41-50) but have been changed from the one you see in the original video. That one was actually made up of a font which needed licencing, so I decided instead to draw my own :)

The radar is buggy and I intend to re-do it. Currently it's an old extension I bought for Clickteam Fusion, but for some reason it doesn't always render spawned enemies. I've got a tutorial on how to create one manually but it'll take a bit of time.

Thanks again for you input!

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gamertag/PSN ID: TrevorMcFurr

d_resolution dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/kw5fjnvr
Vulcano dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/43ztk2un

"If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."
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TrevorMcFurr
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Location: Gloucester, UK

Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by TrevorMcFurr »

A quick update just to show a couple of the new features I've added to d_resolution, primarily the CRT effect which can be see in the clip below.

https://youtu.be/YWQkhh5YRIc

Updated title screen
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New backgrounds
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Image

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CRT effect comparison and chromatic aberration effect.
Image

Image

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk
gamertag/PSN ID: TrevorMcFurr

d_resolution dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/kw5fjnvr
Vulcano dev thread: https://tinyurl.com/43ztk2un

"If she makes it, she should be a perfectly normal and healthy cat. Other than having two faces."
Ark
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Re: D-Resolution WIP Vertical arena style shooter

Post by Ark »

I'm loving these sound effects.
I like the intro. Would be interesting if you had the letters fly in quick, like a Tron streak effect, or have a trail of letters come in with the added CRT overlay.
This is coming along.
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