ETERNAL REVERIE - Team-based roguelike horizontal shmup

A place for people with an interest in developing new shmups.
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Seyriuu
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Location: Dublin/Rio de Janeiro

ETERNAL REVERIE - Team-based roguelike horizontal shmup

Post by Seyriuu »

Hello,

I'm a software engineer that loves pixel-art, I've created games as a hobby since I'm 12, and now I'm starting a game that I envision for more than 10 years. I'm posting on this forum to see if the idea is attractive to shump players even when the game is more inspired to the likes of dota than to shumps.

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Anyway, the core aspect of the game is a space shooter that encourages team play with different roles (dps, tank, support). That alone puts aside many principles of most shumps and create a lot of design issues. If this post creates enough interest I can delve deep into the reasons behind the decision I made, but these are the aspects of the game:

-1-4 Multiplayer with design focused on multi (but I will try my best to make single-player fun)
-All ships have 3 skills, one being the main weapon
-Chose one consumable at the beginning
-Multiple paths to choose
-Some Rogue-lite aspects:
-high-difficulty
-procedural enemy waves
-permadeath but gain money with each run
-money unlock ships, items

What contradicts with shumps genre:

-Usage of crowd control, both by players and enemies
-Friendly fire on some attacks
-Ships have HP and Shield
-Some damage will be unavoidable
-All (maybe some exceptions) ships have a weapon range
-Every enemy has a behavior and chooses which player to attack
-Talent system instead of upgrades

A lot of stuff is already in place, the main challenge at the moment is design enemies that are actually smart and forces you to play different from the basic "shoot non stop".

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Last edited by Seyriuu on Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fat Pug Studio
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Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by Fat Pug Studio »

Great pixel art, looking forward to seeing more.
Sluggy
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Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2018 10:47 am

Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by Sluggy »

As a person that loves to play single, and small-player-count dungeon crawlers I just want to say this sound like it could be a really really cool concept! I love tanking, and the thought of being the tank in a face-paced shooter sounds amazing to me!

You've certainly identified some serious issues (especially the near requirement for it to be multi-player) but it looks like you've got your thinking cap on about it. I'm really excited to see and hear more. Is there a website or blog where you'll be covering more of this in depth? Anyway, best of luck and please keep the posts coming!
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Seyriuu
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Location: Dublin/Rio de Janeiro

Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by Seyriuu »

Fat Pug Studio wrote:Great pixel art, looking forward to seeing more.
Thanks a lot! I'm putting a lot of effort into the graphics, probably more than I should
Sluggy wrote:As a person that loves to play single, and small-player-count dungeon crawlers I just want to say this sound like it could be a really really cool concept! I love tanking, and the thought of being the tank in a face-paced shooter sounds amazing to me!

You've certainly identified some serious issues (especially the near requirement for it to be multi-player) but it looks like you've got your thinking cap on about it. I'm really excited to see and hear more. Is there a website or blog where you'll be covering more of this in depth? Anyway, best of luck and please keep the posts coming!
Yeah, I love this kind of games as well! which ones do you like? The biggest issue I'm facing is that most games that have tanks are either target based (Like World of Warcraft) or PVP like mobas and overwatch (where you have the player predicting other player action)... if the damage can be prevented solely by dodging bullets, there is no reason for you to pick up a tank.
This is the first place that I posted about the game and will be for some time, doing everything on my own while still having a job considerably slows the development, right now I'm still coding and designing the first enemies.

I've recorded a gif (chippy because the gif is only 30 fps) for you to check the current ship tank I've already coded and changed multiple times. For this one I'm trying a zero shield high health crowd control tank, some talents are already done, but I didn't use them in this video.

Image
  • -This one revolves around static fields, which is a zone that keeps stunning everything (friendly and foe) around for 10 frames (the game is 60 fps). I'm still not sure about the rule for stunning, maybe only small and medium ships but not big and massive (maybe a talent to be able to stun those?). There is a talent that removes the stun and makes the field deal damage around instead.
    -the main shot is very slow but powerful and creates a small static field that persists for ~30 frames, there is already a talent to increase the area and another for the duration
    -the second skill makes the ship immune to crowd control and add 50% damage reduction for like 2 seconds, there is a talent that increases the duration and the damage reduction and another that leaves a trail of static field for the duration
    -the third skill creates a huge static field around the ship, note that if you don't use the second skill you will be stunned as well
Sluggy
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Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by Sluggy »

Seyriuu wrote: Yeah, I love this kind of games as well! which ones do you like? The biggest issue I'm facing is that most games that have tanks are either target based (Like World of Warcraft) or PVP like mobas and overwatch (where you have the player predicting other player action)... if the damage can be prevented solely by dodging bullets, there is no reason for you to pick up a tank.
Mostly I enjoy table tops. But I really love tanking in ESO as well. There might be some useful ideas from it that would translate to your game. Specifically, as a tank you have two objectives: 1) Keep the party safe and 2) Boost your party's damage potential. The neat thing about the game is that it offers far more protection than is strictly needed so as you improve and run with better players, you can strip away some of the extra protection in order to provide more part boosts overall - the biggest one being damage output boosts. What makes it interesting is that with the right group, you can actually be *safer* by doing this because the damage dealers can kill things faster which means you have less pressure on you for a long period of time. I also like the lack of aoe taunts which means you have to prioritize what are the biggest threats and focus getting their attention and holding it. Sometimes you have to be willing to spend your teammates health as a resource, letting them get hit by weaker things, in order to maintain aggro on the real threats.

I think some of these ideas might work really well in this context. Being able to draw limited amount of aggro, providing buffs to party armor/max health, and debuffs to enemy armor, and as you mentioned, the all important crowd control. As a side thought, crowd control doesn't just have to be stuns. Simply slowing the enemy down, holding them in place, or attracting them towards your position even when attacking others would be useful as it would allow your other teammates to maximize their aoe attack potential. As well, being able to force enemies around with pushing and pulling would be a neat way to allow lining up enemies in such a way that large devastating shaped-attacks might be more effective. Overall, the takeaway from this is that tanks don't just need to be the guys standing in the middle holding block all day. And playing an active tank role is much more fun and rewarding!

Anyway, mostly just spit-balling there based on what I personally find to be fund about being a tank in some games. Hopefully it'll give you some inspiration to try out some wild ideas. Keep at it!
simm033
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Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by simm033 »

Funny, I had the very same idea a few years ago but dropped it because I didn't want to mess with online multiplayer. Also the balancing act would be extremely hard: Balancing a rogue-like is a hard task in itself. Add the 'moba' mechanics (every ship has unique abilities and have to synergize) AND 1-4 player support... it will be crazy.

My conclusion would be to make every ship autonomous. So no support class or pure tanks. They still would have very unique abilities and mechanics.
I'm thinking of the game "Risk of Rain" which does a great job in terms of unique characters and balance.

However your visuals are looking promising! So keep up the good work :D
Maybe you could make a video? (the 30fps gifs leaves a bad taste)
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Seyriuu
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Re: A new Blend of Multiplayer rogue-lite space shooter

Post by Seyriuu »

Hello guys

I'm coming back from the dead to announce that a 1 stage + extra 1 boss demo is available if anyone want to check out!
I'm fully aware that I deviated too much from the shmup formula but I'm making my best to make it interesting for bullet hell lovers in addition to people that like action roguelikes. I'm a very old lurker on this forum and your feedback is very important to me and any criticism is appreciated.

points that already in my roadmap:
  • I'm struggling with sound design so most ships don't have sound effects yet
  • The hard difficulty certainly is too easy for you guys, i will create an extreme mode
  • A lot of UI is placeholder
  • Need to improve a lot the visibility
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download here: https://sevenmoons.itch.io/eternal-reverie (password: leo)
trailer: https://youtu.be/kEpZnRD--HE
feedback form (can also be done here in the forum): https://fm.addxt.com/form/?vf=1FAIpQLSe ... dCF37HESKw

all other links: https://www.sevenmoonsgames.com/links
Last edited by Seyriuu on Fri Oct 20, 2023 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ark
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Re: ETERNAL REVERIE - Team-based roguelike horizontal shmup

Post by Ark »

The sprite work looks great.
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Eyvah_Ehyeh
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Re: ETERNAL REVERIE - Team-based roguelike horizontal shmup

Post by Eyvah_Ehyeh »

Super cool concept. Keep at it. :)
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