Spark & Sparkle

A place for people with an interest in developing new shmups.
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Essencey
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2020 7:07 am

Spark & Sparkle

Post by Essencey »

Hello there, Shmups Forum!
We are a small developer called Essencey. We're working on a 2-player competitive shmup-and-jigsaw-puzzle game called Spark & Sparkle. We don't have much exposure yet, and we're really interested to hear what people think of how it looks so far.

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Gameplay:
Two players try to be first to finish a 20-piece jigsaw puzzle. Defeating enemies creates gems, and collecting gems fills a meter in the center of the screen. Filling the meter completely launches a capsule into play; Capsules can bounce around like a pinball, defeating more enemies, before opening to grant a piece for your puzzle.
There are 8 playable characters with distinct attack types and special attacks. Performing a character's special attack expends a section of a gauge which is charged by defeating enemies, or building the puzzle. Performing your special attack also makes your character invulnerable for a short time.
There are 3 basic types of enemies. Green, red, and blue enemies, which in that order have increasing size and health amounts, but decreasing movement speed.
Some capsules, in addition to holding a puzzle piece, contain temporary powerup items like super speed, increased gem pickup range, and invincibility.
Some capsules contain bosses which have special behavior and a large amount of health. Bosses become active once their capsule opens, and drop a puzzle piece once they are defeated.
Each puzzle piece, when placed correctly, creates fireball-like attacks which are sent into your opponent's area, as well as a small shockwave attack which can damage enemies. If a newly obtained piece is placed correctly without first placing it incorrectly, it sends more fireballs, makes a larger shockwave, and creates extra gems which can be collected right away. Correct placements always grant the player a few frames of invulnerability.

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Modes:
There is a single-player arcade mode in which you can unlock new characters, and a 2-player mode in which you can choose your own settings. Select settings like enemy difficulty, which puzzle you'll use, and which stage you'll play on, (decides background, as well as enemy appearance and music). You can also choose to play against a computer-controlled opponent in this mode.
3 of the 8 characters are available at first, 5 of them are unlocked through Arcade Mode. Each character has 2 special costumes that can be unlocked by meeting special conditions.

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Puzzles:
Puzzles you have unlocked can be viewed and practiced in Gallery Mode, or selected and used in matches through Match Mode.
There will be over 100 puzzles in the game. 19 are available initially. Around 40 are unlocked in Arcade Mode. Each of Arcade Mode's five "tours" (a set of 3 matches) have 8 puzzles associated with them. Those will be the puzzles used in that tour. 1-3 can be unlocked at a time each time you complete the tour, based on your score (which is represented as a medal awarded when you finish a tour). A few other special puzzles may be unlocked through Arcade Mode as well... but those are secret.
The rest of the puzzles are unlocked differently: Every match you finish, in any game mode, you get a single piece for one of 3 locked puzzles. In addition to this, finishing a "tour" in Arcade Mode will award up to 3 pieces for these puzzles (which is, again, based on the medal earned for that run).
An options screen lets you choose from a list of screen resolutions, as well as fullscreen. Shaders for a gaussian blur effect and scan lines can be adjusted or turned off. Music and sound effect levels can be adjusted, and you can also choose to switch off an effect which slightly pans sound effects left or right respective to the player it is relevant to.
Controllers are supported, and controller and keyboard mappings can be customized. Separate control configurations are saved for players 1 and 2. 2-player mode with one keyboard is also possible, providing your keyboard supports the necessary number of simultaneous inputs.
There's also a sound room, where you can listen to the game's sound effects and music.

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We hope to release Spark & Sparkle on Steam soon!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1129 ... __Sparkle/

Trailer on YouTube (same as on the Steam store page)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si96Gyzfmhk

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If anyone is interested or has any thoughts, we'd love to hear from you! Thanks very much!
Essencey
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2020 7:07 am

Re: Spark & Sparkle

Post by Essencey »

Spark & Sparkle will be releasing on Steam on April 16th!
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