Overdrive - Over the top bullet hell shoot 'em up

[pieterator]

It is with great excitement that I present to you OVERDRIVE!



OVERDRIVE is an indie shoot 'em up that focuses on over the top bullet hell action while keeping it accessible to newcomers of the genre. There is no difficulty setting in the game, and instead contains a risk reward system that allows the player to decide how much risk they want to take in exchange for a higher score.

Quickstart Guide to playing Overdrive:
-Keyboard
* Arrows move ship/navigate menus.
* 'Z','X', Spacebar and Numpad0 - Activates Overdrive/Select.
* Escape - Pauses game
* 'S' - Takes a Screenshot and puts it in your [Drive]:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Local\Overdrive\Screenshots directory
-Gamepad
* D-pad move ship/navigate menus
* 'X' Button - Activates Overdrive/Select.
* Start Button - Pauses Game.



1. Main Overdrive Gauge
2. Charge Canister (Fully Charged)
3. Scoring Efficiency Gauge
4. Current Stage's Highscore
5. Your current score
6. Time left till either Bonus Rush starts or the stage ends (Depending on whether you die during the stage).
7. Current Overdrive Rate
8. Time left at current Overdrive Rate

Game Mechanics:
-Damage is directly converted into Score.
-The closer you are to enemies, the more damage you do.
-Activating Overdrive (Available once at least one Charge Canister is full) increases your damage. While in Overdrive you can activate successive Overdrives by filling up additional Charge Canisters, further increasing your damage output.
-Once Overdrive is activated you are invincible for 4.5 seconds.
-The more Damage you do, the quicker your Charge Canisters fill up.
-Your Primary Weapon starts firing automatically when the stage starts.

And with that you have everything you need to start enjoying OVERDRIVE. Follow the link below to download the Alpha of OVERDRIVE and start playing. Post all your Highscores in the comments below. I'm really eager to see what the pro players are able to achieve.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/v0mbg ... .1.0.1.zip
(OVERDRIVE is created as part of the Pieter Visser Studios range of games.)

Features for the enthusiast:
-Scanlines can be turned on in Options.
-Screen rotation and scaling available in options.
-On the Score Screen you can press up or down to cycle through various graphs showing your performance during the stage.
-Local leader boards.

Things to note:
-There is currently no menu music or sound effect. However the stages do have music and sound effects.
-The options that control music and sound effects volume has not been implemented yet.
-Pro Grid in the options has not been implemented yet.

Video playthrough of Stage 1





For those interested in probing a little deeper into the mechanics and some of the other design decisions, grab a comfy chair and mug of your favourite beverage.

Game Mechanics (In Depth)
-The closer you are to enemies, the more damage you do. So you really want to be up in their faces. How efficiently you are scoring (in terms of your primary fire) is shown by the Scoring Efficiency Gauge (Tag 3 in pictured above). It represents how much of your DPS (Damage per Second) is being converted into Score. This makes ground based enemies great as you can get right on top of them without fear of colliding with them, however you still need to watch out for their shots.
-Your Overdrive Rate ranges from 0 (Not active) to 3. For Overdrive Rates 1, 2 and 3 your Damage doubles, triples and quadruples respectively, however so does the amount of popcorn enemies meaning there are a lot more ships to collide with and a lot more of them shooting at you. Heavy Enemies buff up their Hit Points as the Overdrive Rate increases.
-You can activate Instant Overdrive by pressing and holding the Overdrive Button after activating Overdrive Level 1. This will make you trigger successive Overdrives automatically as your Charge Canisters fill up. (Aka white knuckle action)
-Heavy Enemies (The big ones that don't just melt in front of your shots)
* Any damage done to Heavy Enemies counts double towards your score.
* These enemies all consist of a Core that is protected by one or more Parts.
* Parts can only be destroyed by doing lots of damage to them quickly, exposing the Core.
* If damage is not done quickly enough, the Heavy Enemy will just be destroyed normally.
* Once the Core is exposed it will desperately try and kill you with a swarm of shots. Finishing it off in this way is what's know as obliterating the enemy, and at that moment all shots on the screen are turned into Point Tokens. The value of the Point Tokens depend on your Overdrive Rate when the enemy is Obliterated.
* The stages have been setup so that EVERY single Heavy Enemy can be obliterated, some situations are just a lot harder than others to achieve this, and require planning and practice.
-If you make it to the end of the stage without dying once, you are rewarded with a Bonus Rush.
* Bonus Rush is an additional section of the stage that lasts for 30 seconds.
* During Bonus Rush your Charge Canisters fill up very rapidly, and your Overdrive time stops decreasing.
* This makes it potentially one of the highest scoring sections of the stage.

Here are a few things you'll notice while playing OVERDRIVE:
-Infinite lives: This means you will always finish a stage and be rewarded with a Score Screen at the end. I felt that lives would hamper the enjoyment for the more casual players. The penalty for dying is the loss of time for scoring as well as any activated overdrive time (You keep any filled but unused Charge Canisters).
-No Bombs: In other words, no weapon that clears the screen of enemies and shots. This would disrupt the flow of the games as it's all about the balance of you pushing against the enemy waves.
-No End Stage Bosses: Blasphemy I know, instead the game has two difficulty peaks (In terms of enemy types spawned) in the middle and end of the stage. An extended peak is provided at the end of the stage (Bonus Rush) for those players who manage to finish the stage without dying once. Bosses were not included for the same reason as bombs as I felt they go against the flow of the game.

I've already shown the game to a very small focus group and have received incredibly helpfull feedback. Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback you have about the game below, I welcome them all. (Also don't forget to post your scores )

[pieterator]

Uploaded a playthrough of me attempting a highscore

Playthrough of Stage 1

[Pteriforever]

*sigh*

I don't play "casual" games.

There's one thing I say to everybody who tries to make a game like this, and that is, your target audience doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a "casual" shmup fan. Anyone looking into the genre will start with something like Blue Wish Resurrection, and then either quit if they decide it isn't for them or quickly transition to traditional hardcore games. They're not going to want to play this, especially given how overcrowded that already-virtually-nonexistent niche is becoming with other "casual" games. This stuff isn't going to attract people from outside the genre if that's what you're hoping.

I also see you attempted to desperately rationalise your poor design choices with "flow of the game", which is really just a wishy-washy term. Shmup stages are the way they are for a reason -- the player's level of engagement needs to fluctuate in such a way that the less intense sections accentuate the more intense ones. That's what your precious "flow" really is. Bosses are actually very good for that, as they not only break up play, ensuring you're not doing exactly the same thing all the time, but can serve as the peaks of the "engagement curve". What you have here are relatively homogenous stages, which will get boring very quickly.

Also, why isn't there a focus button? The ship moves way too fast for there to not be a focus button.

I like the art though. It's really pretty. Sorry for being ultra harsh.

[Xyga]

I like the art though.

Me too. Really.

[BPzeBanshee]

The art assets is pretty nice but I'm impressed with the screen settings!

I assume you're using some kind of surface rendering combined with locking to fullscreen to avoid any extra glitches/hassle? I never quite got the hang of GM:Studio's new surface functions and it's been hampering my attempts to port GMOSSE over to Studio for some time now.

I gotta agree with the above posts regarding the actual gameplay itself. I think you had a better gameplay system with Aero Flux, but there's still a lot of potential yet with this one especially if you truly did things from scratch as it looks like on the outside. Needs more time in the tumbler to get the shiniest gem.

[Stilghar]

your target audience doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a "casual" shmup fan.

This kind of thinking is what in my opinion is "killing" the genre and shoving it more and more into a corner of ultra hardcore niche gaming. I think the audience exists but they don't want the same rehash of bullet hell game with a difficulty setting tweaked so they can play. Geometry Wars, Luftrausers, Velocity 2x and others have shown that it is possible to make a shmup for a wide audience, but it needs out of the box thinking.

Having said that I have to agree in this case with Pteriforever, I think it will be difficult to convince non-shmup fans to play your game. You have basically an "easy" bullet hell (already difficult to sell to a wide audience by being a bullet hell) that allows advance players to make it more difficult on demand without exiting the stage. I doubt the issue preventing non-shmup fans to play shmups is the difficulty. On the other hand take all this feedback with a pinch of salt, the best recommendation I can give you is to test it in events with non-shmup fans to see what they experience.

[Lord Satori]

Bosses are one of the most important parts of a shmup. They represent this huge wall that you need to clear in order to beat the stage.

No boss = no play.

[S20-TBL]

Pros:

• Very, very pretty graphics.
• Responsive controls.

Cons:

• I agree with Lord Satori: there aren't any bosses. I understand you want to balance game flow as much as you can, but bosses can be an integral part of the overall flow by creating the high-intensity sections you describe, unless your aim was to simply make a Space Invaders clone (and those don't exactly require bosses).
• When I started the level, I was about to press what I thought was the default fire key when suddenly autofire. Are you guys making this for mobile? Because one of the biggest gripes with mobile gaming in general is the lack of a tactile experience. When I play an arcade game, I want to press buttons and make the game do things. It just doesn't feel the same merely steering the ship and tapping a charge button every few seconds, which is what most mobile games tend to do since touchscreens are finicky.
• Enemy waves felt very repetitive (see point 1). I was waiting for bosses or minibosses to break up the action but nada. Just huge, repetitive waterfalls of zako swarms and the occasional big enemy. I literally got bored about a minute and a half into the game.

On the other hand take all this feedback with a pinch of salt, the best recommendation I can give you is to test it in events with non-shmup fans to see what they experience.

Seconded.

Also, I recommend you not make this for the "casual" fan because the "let's make a casual game!" mentality is deceptive. Focus on the entertainment value and the purpose of the product. Is it to challenge the gamer's skills? Is it to take them on a grand adventure? Is it a brain teaser? Is it meant to pit two or more players against each other? Focus on the purpose instead of pandering to the mythical "casual fan"; a player is either a fan or he isn't.

To be clear, I don't think any of us who brought this up is telling you not to make your game accessible. Shaving away unnecessary features that could make a product inaccessible for many users is fine (and you should!), but dumbing down a game isn't--and to be very, very blunt, despite the claim of being an "over the top shooting game", the demo really felt like the complete opposite.

I'll close with this image. When I go off the rails in my own game design, I use it to remind myself that I shouldn't be doing so:

[Xyga]

'Shmuppers' are certainly not a large audience, and they're a demanding bunch (I would never say 'elitist' unless I wanted to alienate them), I bet everyone knows what they like, just a sample here http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49262

It doesn't tell everything about shmuppers and their tastes of course, but I think developers shouldn't feel offended by the radical and sometimes very harsh comments they read on those forums, because they're not just bad words from rude people, they're also reflecting a strong reality.
If long-time shmups lovers ('hardcore' or not) immediately express their distaste for things like ammo, health bars, or inertia, they are not wrong, and not hermetic to innovation either, rather they send a very meaningful warning you should take as a "okay so there's a potentially huge risk with that aspect/feature".
And if casual gamers see our beloved bullet-hell madness as 'unplayable' hardcore bullshit games, maybe they'll be more pleased with easier shmups to begin (this is important), not necessarily shmups attempting to rewrite the alphas and omegas of the genre.

Now of course developers are free to pick the audience they want; old farts who want their shmups fix, young'uns who don't really care about the genre to begin, or seek the extremely hard-to-find middle-ground to please both.

There's just one thing that doesn't change: if you want a shmup to be acknowledged as such, whatever original/innovative vision you have, you cannot make it a non-shmup (a game lacking or neglecting the genre's basics), so yeah I agree with the comments above saying for instance you should make bosses.

[-S.L-]

My comments only reflect from what I saw from this video, I have not played it (yet)

* The music sucks. For me, music is like 50% of a game. Even an average looking game can become extremely nice to play just because of the music. This is just poor standard psycho-breakbeat-trance-electro shit without soul or any gimmick that you could sing along.

* I agree on what had been said above, level design is very important, this just look to me a copy/paste series of enemies waves, without anything in the background that helps you to reminds you when this enemies or wave is coming. By that, i mean it's very repetitive level design, the timeline is just over and over the same with trees and rocks and roads... Why not trying adding some more different elements, for example, a lake or a bridge or whatever that breaks the monotony and makes it more like "oh ok, here comes the bridge so I can expect this enemies to come soon", "the lake section part is over, it means I'm halfway of the stage"

* This lead me to the lenght of this stage. If this is stage 1, why on earth is it this long ? 5 minutes ?? Stage 1 should be not any longer than 2 minutes of action, and the further you go in game, the longer the stages are. Last stage can then be 5 or even more but with level designs that I explained earlier

* Graphics looks pretty strong to me, colors are a little "sad" or "dull" thou. Some light effects could be added to have more visual impact, more eye candy. That is one of the strongest thing in Crimzon Clover, it's very appealing just by how the "wow effect" visual. Not too mention the genius level design and gameplay.

* If there isn't any focus attack (slow down your ship when button is held), then I won't even bother play this. Nowadays it has to be there, especially in this genre where you need precision to dodge pattern. Which are by the way here pretty good too.

* No boss. No play.

There is potential here, technique wise this looks very decent compare to some other indie shmups. But the lack of level design, gameplay experience from real gamers and poor music needs to be adjusted big time.

My two cents

[ptoing]

As far as level length is concerned, I recently did a small analysis of Dodonpachi

Code: Select all

1.   1m 10s
2.   1m 33s
3.   2m 40s
4.   2m 20s
5.   2m 50s
6.   2m 42s
-----------
S   13m 15s (Total stage time) 
----------- 
B+I  7m 25s (Bosses and intermissions)
=========
T   20m 40s

Of course the Boss time could be a lot longer or a bit shorter, depending on what the player does. Those stage times are pretty accurate, give or take a few seconds from start to warning message. Of course depending how many levels you have you can make later levels a bit longer, and this of course is not the be all end all of level lengths.

But in general 20-30 minutes per loop for a looping game or 25-35 minutes for a single loop game are good imo. You could go longer of course, CC is longer for example, just make sure to make it interesting and have some moments for breathers in there (CC level 4 going through clouds, just before the 6 circle laser enemies for example.)

[pieterator]

First of all I would like to thank everyone who took the time to play the demo and provide feedback for my game.

I knew my game wasn't perfect, but I also realised that it was never going to improve unless I released a demo for the public to test, because as I'm sure everyone who's developed anything will know, you are the worst judge of your own work.

I have received a lot of valuable feedback from this and many other forums that I will definitely incorporate into my designs as they are all valid and speak to some aspect that players would like to see in a good shoot 'em up.

Again, thank you to everyone who took the time to provide feedback.

[Blackbird]

I'll probably write more detailed feedback later, but this is my initial impression.

- I found myself frustrated with the underpowered base weapon. Popcorn enemies frequently flew through my shots to collide with me. This was exacerbated by the need to be nearly inside the enemies for scoring purposes.
- The hitbox felt really dodgy. I was trying to figure out why it was bothering me so much, when I realized that the hitbox in this game is in the front of the ship, rather than in the center of the ship like most other bullet hell games. I allowed the nose of my ship to graze bullets initially, expecting to be safe, only to blow up instead. Again, the need to pointblank exacerbated the frustration caused by the frontally mounted hitbox.
- There was no sense of tension or progression through the level. The background, while detailed and attractively rendered, was monotonous, with just roads and trees and no real landmarks. There was no satisfaction to completing the level because there wasn't any kind of special event or challenge completed, the popcorn enemies simply stopped attacking. It was more a feeling of "Oh, it's over?" rather than "Yes! I did really well that stage!" Not saying you have to have a boss enemy, but there should be some sort of conclusion or accomplishment for the player to take away from the level.

The popcorn sections were boring. There are long segments where no enemies shoot at you, so I had literally nothing to do except position in front of the popcorn streams and wait for them all to die. Even when the popcorn began shooting in the latter half of the stage, I wasn't any more engaged. The need to tap dodge was frustrating for the aforementioned reason that moving toward popcorn allowed them to collide more easily.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be that negative. It's mostly because I can see some potential in here for a really fun, aggressive style of game, but there are some design aspects that feel like they are frustrating the player from playing this game in the way that feels intended and enjoyable.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

Other posters have already covered my gripes with the demo (autofire, over-long first stage, lack of variety) but I just wanted to say that there seems to be a lot of potential here and with a few tweaks it could be great. Your presentation is very good and the groundwork seems solid. I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

[Hexxellor]

I just got done trying it out and I will say that it was pretty nice.

I love the graphics/colors and also how there are some massive clusters of enemies that keep coming at you.

The only things I'd like to see are:
1. Bosses (yeah, yeah, I know you're probably tired of that one)
2. Power-ups?
3. This one is harder for me to explain, but something more when it comes to the feedback from destroying enemies. Maybe more sounds in that area? I hope that makes sense.

Still, my overall impression was very positive when playing this. I'm pretty impressed and glad you took the time to put it up for feedback. I'm looking forward to future versions and the final product!

[WrongEnemy7]

I've got to say it's a pretty decent game.
I do realise this is an alpha and not beta or the final game, so i excuse any issues that i have with this game, because i know that they're a subject to change.

So the good stuff.
-I like the visuals while they're on definitely not amazing or mind blowing, but they are way better that what i've played in other indie shmups
-menu looks very nice.
-music is good, there is this bit in the middle of the song where it changes and it just hits the right notes with me.
-shooting small enemies down feels fun, the bigger ones not as much (they are either take few shots to many or something else i can't put my finger on)
-the 3 level overdrive feature is pretty cool.
-the gameplay concept is decent, it feels like i need to/can destroy every enemy ship in the level, but i won't be able to do that unless i replay the game few times. It's a great concept and i would definitely replay the game to get better but it lack polish and identy.

few complaints i have.
-No sound effects for shooting, (not sure if it's a bug or just hasn't been implemented yet). Without the shooting sound effects it just feels so weak to shoot down enemies.
-Where is the hitbox circle? i don't know where i can get hit, while i know this is not exactly a bullet hell shmup where i need to navigate through beautiful patterns, but i know that the ship is not the whole hitbox (if that makes sense) it would be nice to have a hitbox circle.
-Lack of boss battles is understandable only if the excuse was real, i don't want to sound mean, but the flow excuse is pretty weak, to me it looks like you don't have a decent idea for a boss and no bullet patterns to make it interesting.
-it feels way to easy, i get it you're trying to make shmups appeal to a more casual audience, which doesn't exist (in my opinon). Casual audience wants big 3d games they don't want a simple or complex 2d game that is fun.
-the only reason i died in the game was because i started to lose interest in playing, the 1st level drags on for 4 minutes without changing much, and there is no real reason to stay alive. No lives no challenge.
Solution? Difficulty selection. where in one you get infinite lives to appeal to the non existent casual audience, and normal or hard which has has lives and bigger challenge? which should appeals to the actual shmup audience.
-lacks things to looks forward to, no bullet patters no boss battles, no real challenge, nothing at the moment screams this is a game i'm going to waste my hours/minutes in to.

the lack of bombs in not a game breaker for me, i rarely use bombs in other shmups i rely on my skill aka dying painfully because i'm cheap and don't wanna waste my bombs.

If shmups were meant to be casual they would have been long time ago, there is so many of them available today and some are very cheap and mind blowingly amazing, 69p on xblig for games like chronoblast, aeternum, yet it's still niche. I know you might say if these games were easier they would be more popular, not really i've played few easy shmups (don't have specific examples) and i got bored of them. (it's an opinion which you may disagree with, that's what opinions are for)

I did enjoy it, and i don't want you to get a bad idea, its a decent game that needs to find it's identity. Many may disagree but that's my opinion.

[n0rtygames]

some are very cheap and mind blowingly amazing, 69p on xblig for games like chronoblast

This comment is fucking hilarious for an entire universe full of reasons, but thank you for the kind words.

I am not so sure I share your feelings however!



(Pete actually did some graphics for Chronoblast btw!)

[n0rtygames]

As far as level length is concerned, I recently did a small analysis of Dodonpachi

Code: Select all

1.   1m 10s
2.   1m 33s
3.   2m 40s
4.   2m 20s
5.   2m 50s
6.   2m 42s
-----------
S   13m 15s (Total stage time) 
----------- 
B+I  7m 25s (Bosses and intermissions)
=========
T   20m 40s

This is actually really quite interesting - I did the same side by side comparisons with the Mushihimesama games a while back for this reason. A lot of Caves games actually follow this pattern and it's a great formula to try and stick to for a solid and familiar design. Stage 1 being quite short, 1m30 as you've said - with a midboss encounter about 45 seconds in. It's good to nail this stuff down too since it helps construct your music around it, which all adds up

Knowing this stuff is useful!

[WrongEnemy7]

some are very cheap and mind blowingly amazing, 69p on xblig for games like chronoblast

This comment is fucking hilarious for an entire universe full of reasons, but thank you for the kind words.

I am not so sure I share your feelings however!

Can you please tell we what's hilarious about that? and why you do not share my feelings and about what? (i'm genuinely asking because i don't fully understand, sorry)

[n0rtygames]

Sure!

Well, Pete worked on Chronoblast a bit so he's very familiar with it and you said it was a "mind blowingly amazing" title that could be found on xblig. I wouldn't recommend anyone ever look to my own game as inspiration for their own. I wrote it, so I can say that! In fact it's terribly designed, unfair and broken

Hence, the comment is just kinda funny. Like I say I appreciate the kind words but I don't really think the game is one that people should look to for trying to inspiration or any measure of difficulty. Maybe normal mode, but that game suffers from a lot of faults.

* A shot that is far too weak to kill tougher enemies
* An extremely overpowered character
* Autobomb being way too powerful (I wimped out on penalising the player)
* Ridiculously high score punishment for death/bombing - more extreme than Futari actually
* Bosses that are static and dont have much life to them
* Lack of fully fleshed out practise mode for hells second loop
* Hells second loop
* Unfair and ridiculous TLB that can only be beaten by nearly having a stroke
* An unhealthy obsession with revenge bullets
* Horrible character art
* and many many more

As I said, there's an entire universe of reasons that comment struck me as funny - way too many to list here

[WrongEnemy7]

To N0rtyGames
Ow ok that makes sense, but things like horrible character art and lifeless bosses to me were a nitpick since the game was only 80 microsoft points and was on xblig (i know you can't have the best game in there i know there are limitations to indie games on xbox), but the rest of the game while extremely challenging and almost no slowdown (which was a weird thing to adjust to after playing cave ports) was a really enjoyable game for the price i paid.
Maybe i didn't make that too clear, the game is mindblowingly amazing for such a low price, since games in that genre go for at least 40 quid if not more when new, and this offers almost exactly the same amount of content for way less money and also was made by less people then the bigger releases, it's very impressive, and while i understand where you're coming from where you wish it was better cos now you know you could do it better (am i getting it right? am i actually talking to the dev of that game? account name matches so...)

Chronoblast while flawed, is a really good game worth checking out, to me this game can easily be an inspiration because it has a certain quality, it knows what it is, and was made by someone who looks like he knew what he wanted to achieve but just didn't have the skill, time? or the money to make his dream shmup at the time, sure it could be better but it made my day when it came out.
Chronoburst looks like it's going to be a major improvement.

Although i wish someone would fix the crash that happens at start sometimes.

Not everything we (humans) make is perfect. But there is an audience out there for everything, even for things we think suck.

[n0rtygames]

Well, I'm trying to finish up Chronoburst but there's stuff in it that needs a lot of work - mainly the bosses since we wanted destructable parts on them from the beginning and I came up with a system to make them function as modular enemies but, that means I need to split my time between art + code. It's pretty much all that is left to finish the game on the major art side that I can think of - just making the damned bosses a little less static overall.

Like we have this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crJcCPS5JKI

Who is basically missing a tonne of stuff and is 50% made up of placeholder parts. Eventually I might get time to do that but there's 4 other bosses to pull apart and make all modular too. I definitely don't want them to just be static cardboard cutouts so those are pretty much holding things back. It's worth the effort since I don't think anyone has actually seen the new stage 1 boss redesign in action except Kaiser but it's pretty damned good if I do say so myself.

We'll see.

But I'm not going to hijack this thread

[Rozyrg]

I'm not exactly a bullet-hell guy, so I don't have much to comment on gameplay-wise; but I will say that the graphics and animations are absolutely beautiful, especially the backgrounds. Making ones that are full of detail, don't look flat and don't clash with the perspective of other visual elements is quite a challenge.
...and also can take bloody forever to make...

I agree it could use a bit oomph in the fx department and yeah, the enemy waves seem fairly repetitive. I think long stages are totally fine, personally; but you might want to look back to some older games for examples on how to execute that better. Even with only a few distinct enemy types, each would at least have several ways to vary their behavior - just enough to surprise the player and keep things interesting.

I also agree that there should be some kind of boss, even if it's just a simple Zanac style turret cluster/fortress thing. Having flow is good; but it's even better alongside tension, buildup, climax and the occasional unexpected change in tempo.

[n0rtygames]

^ Rozyrg makes a point re: simple bosses.

If you wanted to keep the same flow of swarms of enemies, you could actually just delay the bonus rush (but make it somewhat shorter perhaps) as a reward for killing the boss.

As a simple idea - a central sphere core that you must shoot with spinning indestructable spheres around it. It would allow you to create some sort of time attack conditions on the boss where defeating it in a certain amount of time would release a bonus wave right before the level ends.

The indestructable spinning spheres around it would give the player physical enemies that they have to dodge out of the way of while still point blanking the boss to gain more hyper to prepare for the final rush to get themselves up to the 3x multiplier.

Just an idea that popped in there.

edit: also would allow for extra tick damage vs indestructable parts which the player must offset against the time pressure scenario for maximum gains.... which I totally condone in every possible way. Good source of calcium.

edit 2: Just for the love of god fire a targetted bullet once in a while.

[Ixmucane2]

Good graphics. My main complaints:

• A good way to be written off as a casual game is having a casual hitbox. I have the impression of having been hit in the transparent corners of an assumed rectangular ship sprite, which is more insulting than mere glitches.
• One button, sparsely used for overdrive mode, is a simplistic control scheme. I don't oppose autofire, but one or two buttons could be used to control it (for example: no button = the current medium spread, Z = ultra wide spread (very important with streams of enemies from the sides), C = narrow spread or DDP-like phallic laser, Z+C = omnidirectional guided projectiles).

[n0rtygames]

[*]A good way to be written off as a casual game is having a casual hitbox.

I assume by casual you mean too relaxed and not snug to the sprite (if we're going for a "full hitbox" game as opposed to bullet hell style tiny hitbox) right?

I got thrown off a couple of times by the hitbox myself, I could have sworn that I died when I wasn't hit. I got the impression it was in the nose of the jet where the green cockpit was after a while, but I'm really not so certain.

[S20-TBL]

I found the hitbox placement to be kind of dodgy, myself. On one spread pattern I'll be able to squeeze through just fine, but when attempting the same on another pattern I somehow get killed by a bullet scrape while trying to sneak through a gap that was no wider than the earlier one.

I was using the ship's central cockpit as a reference point for dodging, but the side of the plane nose got scratched and I blew up somehow.

[Ixmucane2]

"Casual hitbox" is, of course, an euphemism for "incredibly wrong hitbox"; it's casual in the sense of zero thought effort going into it.
Diving between bullet clumps that appear to be separated by about the width of the ship and finding out that it is an impossible fit rather than an easy dodge with a wide margin (an expectation created by normal games) is a frustrating surprise.

[Squire Grooktook]

your target audience doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a "casual" shmup fan.

This kind of thinking is what in my opinion is "killing" the genre and shoving it more and more into a corner of ultra hardcore niche gaming. I think the audience exists but they don't want the same rehash of bullet hell game with a difficulty setting tweaked so they can play. Geometry Wars, Luftrausers, Velocity 2x and others have shown that it is possible to make a shmup for a wide audience, but it needs out of the box thinking.

I agree partially, but I don't think it's a matter of needing to abandon things that make the genre what it is. If you put inertia in your game or take out the arcade structure than you pretty much aren't making a shmup, because your game won't be striving for the same experience goals that define the genre and what draws anybody at all to it. You can do things other than "rehash the same bullet hell", but if you want to call yourself a shmup you have to have certain boxes ticked off.

[Doctor Butler]

This game is extremely boring.

There's very little in the way of action, other that endless waves of popcorn, whom die as soon as they arrive on screen. On the rare occasion that enemy fire does appear on-screen, it's so sparse, and un-dynamic, that avoiding it is almost literally effortless. There's almost nothing to really do, and the same 10 second wave repeating ad-nauseam drives that fundamental flaw home.

The scoring mechanic is good, though. I like how you try to encourage an aggressive, rush-down playstyle, and if you follow everyone elses' advice on this thread, your game will turn out well.

Good Luck.


(Oh, and the art's nice)