Dueling multiplayer shoot em up! - Stargazer program

[Beargears]

Hello

I am developing a multiplayer dueling shoot em up.


I want stargazer program to be a gateway drug for people like me who are having trouble getting into the shmup genre. However I am having some doubts... maybe I got the wrong idea about what really makes a great shmup. I want you to tell me if that is really the case because I have this anxiety that what I have made is really not what it should be and I have horribly miss-interpreted what shmup players expect or want.

Let me give you a good idea of what the game is about and tell me if you like what you see.



You play against a foe, be it a friend online, localy or an AI. You beat your foe by wit pushing them to make more and more mistakes.
By denying ground and blasting through fleshy targets the foe may use as cover, you can crush their expectations and teach them a lesson they will remember.

As you duel your focus becomes more and more important as the distance between you and your foes bullets slowly dwindles away.




The game features 3 different drones you can duel with.
A fast blue drone for those who want action and are willing to trade their safety for it.
A slower yellow drone with a shield giving you extra protection, good for those who are new or don't want to take the risk.
Then an experimental drone with special area of effect attacks to quickly clear large crowds of fleshy targets that stand in your way but beware targeted attacks as they are your ultimate weakness.

Here are some screenshots to illustrate what I mean:







Does this sound like something you would like to play?

Its going to release on 23rd of may on steam ( I am using steam matchmaking for multiplayer ) here is the steam page you can check out here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/8282 ... r_program/
I plan to support the game after it launches with cool stuff like mod support but I really need to know if its worth it.

I am more than happy to hear any feedback and if you want to get in-touch with me personally you can join my Discord, in fact I am giving away free keys for anyone who joins up.


Currently I have about 12 different levels with their own tricks and strategy that you can play and master.
The game supports controllers so its really good for couch dueling, you can connect two controllers and play against each other and if you cant do that you can play online.

Thank you for reading and I hope you will have fun with the game. you can play the demo on itch:
https://beargears.itch.io/stargazerprogram

[Ixmucane2]

If shots are as sparse as those in the animated screenshots, I'm afraid many players could dodge them almost indefinitely until boredom wins.

The kind of tactics that could be used also escapes me. For instance, what could be prepared gradually and/or executed at a momentary opportunity, like an attempt to smash in tennis or volleyball?
Even the obvious medium-distance duel pattern of aiming at a gap in the shields and waiting for the enemy to move into the firing line seems unlikely, given the perpetual dodging.

[Beargears]

Thanks for sharing your concerns I really appreciate it.

If shots are as sparse as those in the animated screenshots, I'm afraid many players could dodge them almost indefinitely until boredom wins.

Yeah you are right about that. In the early stages of development this was indeed one of the key problems.
To solve this I have introduced late game mobs that appear on random and eventually swarm the players, how they choose to engage with them will then determine the winner. Currently there are two types: exploding and attaching. Exploding mobs have an area of effect where you can chain explosions over long distances meanwhile attachers block areas further reducing your spare ground and if you get hit they attach and sit on your shuttle for a short but random amount of time until they deal damage.

The kind of tactics that could be used also escapes me

Thats my fault for not explaining that properly thanks for pointing that out.
The tactics come in to play when you are denied ground, its not about hitting your opponent with your bullets but putting them in positions they don't want to be in. The clearest example of this is in the first animated screenshot, there are two safe spaces primarily on both left and right side of the screen where you have the highest chance to dodge, to win you must in one way or another prevent the use of these spaces.
In other maps this isn't as clear for example in the first non-animated screenshot. You may choose to co-operate with your foe for enough time so that you both have a reasonable chance of victory because otherwise if you deny the safe spaces to the sides you will get caught by the boss once space starts running out. So its unlikely that either of you will defeat the boss and this will result in a fail. If you are confident enough you can instead play aggressive and take out your foe early on and take on the boss yourself although this is much more difficult as the damage dealt to the boss is halved.

One key factor in later maps are shuttle upgrades, each type of shuttle has a upgrade which it gains upon attaining a certain amount of score, this puts one player at a advantage as they can deny more area using missiles/torpedoes and other weapons such as beams.

Another idea I have considered are special weapon drops but I have been reluctant to implement these as the feedback I got from my beta testers seem to indicate that it would mess too much with the existing gameplay and so implementing them might not be worth it.
If you have any suggestions I am open to it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Have you ever tried Change Air Blade? The way it handles powerups and special attacks in a VS shmup might provide some useful inspiration.