Icarus-X: Tides of Fire - Fast-paced Vert [Steam/iOS]

[TheQuadsphere]

WARNING: LIFEBARS
but also: no lifebars (read below)

Hey all,

some of you might have played Icarus-X on mobile devices... For this sequel i'm developing the game primarily for PC (with plans to port to tablets later) and hope to get on Steam via Greenlight

Click the image below for screenshots and Gameplay video on the Greenlight page

Blast your way through waves of enemies and bullets and defeat massive boss ships in this fast-paced vertical shoot'em up (aka shmup or STG) with a traditional Arcade Mode and an experimental Campaign Mode that borrows from the mechanics of ARPGs such as Diablo and Borderlands.

CAMPAIGN MODE

Choose from 3 ship classes, gain experience up to level 30, loot randomly generated weapons, shields and mods from your enemies and carefully spend points in non-resetable skill trees.

Make your own challenge: overwhelm lower level enemies with devastating firepower, min-max your ship's stats to farm a specific chapter for rare loot, or bite all that you can chew and risk losing it all in hardcore mode.

• Randomly generated enemy waves
• 3 sub-modes: Casual (no death penalty), Normal and Hardcore (perma-death)
• 3 ship classes: Fighter, Cruiser and Destroyer
• 30 levels of ship experience
• 15+ stats to min-max, such as Critical Damage, Armor, Shield Regeneration, Hitbox Size and more
• 3 skill trees (Attack, Defense and Technology)
• Evolutive special powers
• Billions of randomly generated items with 4 quality tiers and according rarity
• 4 tiers of difficulty
• World ranking

ARCADE MODE

• 1 bullet death: no life bars or shield shenanigans
• Chain scoring: combos increase your score multiplier
• 1CC scoring: you can continue when out of lives but your score and chain will reset
• In-game power-ups

COMMON FEATURES

• Gamepad support
• Vertical screen support
• Replays
• Leaderboards
• Achievements
• Original soundtrack

Now you might be thinking "Oh great another ShmuRPG..." and think of it as the pinnacle of euroshmupiness... you're not wrong!
Frankly, the Campaign Mode, with all its possible min-maxing, has been a real challenge (read nightmare) to balance but I think I managed to make it work.
The basic premise is: Damage-focused builds maximize your score but leave you very vulnerable, Defense-focused builds will absorb most incoming damage but it might take you 20 minutes to kill the Boss (therefore lowering your score), and Tech-focused builds let you abuse your special power in both offensive and defensive ways. And then there's every build in between...
Finally, as many Diablo players will tell you: in the end, the only really worthy playing mode is Hardcore (perma-death). This one should keep you on the edge of your seat and make you think twice before putting all your eggs in the Damage basket

And for those allergic to life bars, the good old 1 bullet-death Arcade Mode is there. If you played Icarus-X, the game mechanic remains mostly the same (but the content is all new). I should have a gameplay video for Arcade Mode out soon.

I'm currently working on implementing Replays for both Arcade and Campaign modes.
The game will be released during Q2 2015 if everything goes well.

Thanks for reading, your feedback and Vote on Greenlight are much appreciated!

[Pretas]

The Xbox 360 (lifebar) Mode in DDP SDOJ only worked because it was built on top of an arcade-style game. Any attempt to do the opposite and shoehorn a console/computer-style euroshmup into the model of a Japanese arcade STG is doomed to failure, and assuming that it will be sufficient to appease discerning hardcore players is delusional.

I'm sick and tired of seeing euroshmup devs gallumphing onto this forum to antagonize its users for their justified hatred of Amigaesque mechanics like lifebars, inertia, shop systems, etc.

[qmish]

Spoiler

inertia

Are there any shmups that use stick movement as console action games? Like, increasing of movement speed depending of how far you press.

euroshmup devs gallumphing

it's forum about shmup genre, not jap stg fascism. Or you all hate Tyrian, Jet'n'Guns Gold (its overhyped though i guess) etc?

shop systems

Capcom's Forgotten Worlds

.. For this sequel i'm developing the game primarily for PC

Good news! I remember too many cases when cool game was abandoned on iOS/Android and either not working on current OS or even disappears from Store. Because, well, life things etc. i dont blaming devs. But i think that releasing on PC or consoles are more safe to be a step in history, instead of potentially lost and forgotten.

And just wanna say i like that "rotating triangle of laser" weapon thing

[Lilium]

A general rule of thumb when posting on forums would be... if there's something you're not interested in then don't make a statement about it. Just ignore it and don't jump in to tell the dev that you're sick and tired of their work.

[DanMagoo]

Hey Quadsphere,

This whole forum should come with a warning to Devs that they are at high risk of collision with a bunch of closed-minded assholes.

There really needs to be a whole separate forum for people who are positive about the genre and want to see it flourish.

Good luck with your game, when it hits I'll pick up a copy.

[DanMagoo]

jap stg fascism.

Isn't it sad that this is actually a thing on this forum.

[system11]

The Xbox 360 (lifebar) Mode in DDP SDOJ only worked because it was built on top of an arcade-style game. Any attempt to do the opposite and shoehorn a console/computer-style euroshmup into the model of a Japanese arcade STG is doomed to failure, and assuming that it will be sufficient to appease discerning hardcore players is delusional.

I'm sick and tired of seeing euroshmup devs gallumphing onto this forum to antagonize its users for their justified hatred of Amigaesque mechanics like lifebars, inertia, shop systems, etc.

Hey guess what?

This forum is for all shmups, it was started in Europe by people who grew up playing all types from Space Invaders through consoles, arcades, home computers and anything inbetween. Just because YOU don't like a style of game isn't sufficient reason to shit all over someones announcement in a typically trolly fashion. I'm sick and tired of seeing it.

Enjoy a week off to chill out a bit.

[Squire Grooktook]

Enjoy a week off to chill out a bit.

...and there was much rejoicing.

[cave hermit]

Pretas, at least play the game before shitting all over it. At least this guy is making an attempt to cater to STG supremacists like you.

[Knockworstface]

I love Icarus X on my iPhone and iPad. It's an excellent shmup. Looking forward to the sequel. The developer is awesome. He really has a passion for the genre. This will be an instabuy for me.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Looks interesting. Almost like a modern Tyrian 2000 in the sense that its strength is in offering a hefty selection of abilities that differ very wildly, even moreso since it looks like defense and creative abilities are in the mix. The trick is in avoiding the pitfalls Tyrian 2000 had: inertia is bad, lifebars make it easy, etc. Tyrian 2000 did have tough difficulty modes and attacks that could chew through your lifebar in seconds depending on the boss or if an enemy rammed into you, but what this causes is the problem of going through an eight minute level, surviving plenty of scratch damage, only for one mistake at the end to force you to restart the level.

I'd make the shield replenish only up to a certain point, and when it drops losing a large chunk of armor, i.e. three hits to armor is enough to kill, similar to lives in shmups. Something that allows you to have a rechargeable source of health to ward off the occasional minor blow, but one that doesn't give you a massive shield AND armor bar (especially not if the armor is also replenishable like it is in Tyrian with both random pickups and special ship abilities that can do it). Basically, you have a shield that can recharge, but its maximum charge is reduced if you fall below a certain threshold. The only games I can think that have this segmented lifebar sort of thing off the top of my head are Akai Katana (1 hit death to bullets but lasers deal scratch damage) and Shin Hokuto Musou (hp recharges, but only up to the max of the current segment, there are health items that full recover though).

At the very least I'd suggest implementing some kind of invulnerability on a 'heavy' hit so you can't take a massive string of damage and eat a death if your shield drops and your armor starts taking a beating. How you handle this also obviously depends on the sort of abilities you're designing the game around.

Another thing that needs to be said for this sort of game where powerups can wildly change your attack power; make sure there's modes and levels that make playing with all the best equipment still challenging, even if it's an extra special level where it assumes you use the craziest weapons. It's no fun getting to the point where you power up to the point where you hold down shot and win the game (Raptor for DOS... that azure beam cannon...). It's fun to have a powerful shot type and still have difficult enemies to face.

Randomly generated enemy waves

This is probably necessary for a game meant to be replayable if you're playing the same level over and over to farm drops or something, but careful about enemy encounters and levels feeling too unstructured. Maybe limit the randomness to: at X wave, 3 possible enemy patterns can appear. You don't want levels to seem too full-on random, and it's going to be a challenge to work well compared to games with completely fixed, but interestingly designed enemy encounters.

[cave hermit]

I have never actually played a "euroshmup", and in general I have some distain for progression systems in arcade style games (since I feel that at the core arcade games should be about truly standardized gameplay where the only factor in the outcome of a round is pure skill, not randomized elements or some arbitrary progression locked item/skill). However, I do enjoy progression systems in the context of RPGs, and I enjoy lootfest style games in a sense. So while I'm a little wary of the idea, I will give it a try at some point, and maybe my opinion will change

[Doctor Butler]

Can you go into more detail about the gameplay?

[TheQuadsphere]

Thanks a lot for your feedback everyone. I most definitely don't want to antagonize anybody, the 'warning: lifebars' thing was really meant as tongue-in-cheek (I hope some of you got a smile out of it).

@BareKnuckleRoo : you make so many good points, thanks a lot for your input. The segmented lifebar is really interesting, I will look into it.
Campaign endgame (the last tier of difficulty) will be challenging, even with the best equipment. At the moment, it 'feels' like 2-bullets-death (1 bullet depletes your shield entirely, the next kills you). So while you might feel invincible during the first 2/3 of progression (and that still depends on your skill), endgame is meant to be borderline impossible. And then there's the perma-death mode which will probably induce some "throw my gamepad across the room" moments...

Maybe limit the randomness to: at X wave, 3 possible enemy patterns can appear.

That's pretty much how I do it. Arcade mode on the other hand is completely scripted/deterministic, no surprises.

Note that to record most segments shown in the video, I hacked myself a totally overpowered shield and that's why bullets barely do any damage I reget doing this, the ship really seems invincible. Hopefully the Arcade mode video and final trailer will make up for it.

Finally, rest assured there is absolutely NO inertia in the ship's movement, in either modes.

[nasty_wolverine]

If you are implementing lifebars, look at proper arcade games that had it and made it work. Guwange, Deathsmiles, Akai Katana have life bars but are beautifully done. I think its something to look at. Also Akashicverse has a sheild which is welldone.

also, no inertia on PC mode. inertia is never a good strategy with shmups unless its a arena shooter (aka asteroids).

A good way to test if a game is fair, reduce the game speed to 50-75%, see if you can no-miss no-bomb the complete game. if you cant, then revise those patterns that kill you, coz if cant do it at half speed even the best wouldnt be able to do it at full speed.

edit: just watched the video, i think the most euroshmup-ish thing about this game is the bullet patterns, or lack there of. bullets are too slow, and feels more like being dumped in by the enemies, coz bullets. you need to play a lot more good shmups to appreciate what good patterns can do for your game. seriously, coz right now all the patterns are really dull. 0/10 would not buy just because of that.

[Lord Satori]

Yeah, the patterns looked kinda dull to me, too.

[TheQuadsphere]

@nasty_wolverine: I have to agree on the video, there's not many 'bullet frenzy' sequences and those shown are not really challenging.
I want to point out that I don't generally do super fast bullet curtains that require you to stay in a general safe spot/area. I prefer patterns that force you to be moving constantly. I understand the appeal though, and will look into including more fast/challenging patterns.
I really should have posted here earlier, you guys give the most valuable feedback

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Note that to record most segments shown in the video, I hacked myself a totally overpowered shield and that's why bullets barely do any damage I reget doing this, the ship really seems invincible.

Yeah, it's best to use footage of the game as close as possible as to how players would be playing the game. It's kinda like watching footage of someone playing an arcade game in MAME but they've used a cheat to disable collision detection and make themselves invincible. It's not as enjoyable to watch, and doesn't accurately depict the difficulty of the game.

[nasty_wolverine]

Watch a play through of armed police batrider or battle garegga, while not cave danmaku or psikyo super fast bullets, it has some amazing simple patterns that do a lot more with less bullets. (Although later stages do get crazy)

Also go play Chorensha 68k, its free for PC. Old school shmup which shows less is more.

Its not about how many bullets or how fast, but how interesting it is to dodge said pattern.

[Shepardus]

I want to point out that I don't generally do super fast bullet curtains that require you to stay in a general safe spot/area. I prefer patterns that force you to be moving constantly. I understand the appeal though, and will look into including more fast/challenging patterns.

Well the thing is that a well-designed bullet pattern shouldn't be reliant on safe spots, regardless of how "fast" or "slow" it is. A dense pattern may force you to constantly adjust your position so it feels fast-paced and engaging even if the bullets are actually slow, because the rate at which the player is reacting to situations and executing decisions is still high (for example, most Touhou spellcards). Same thing goes for if the bullets are fast but not as dense (for example, Dangun Feveron, countless other games, certain Touhou spellcards).

Also, seconded nasty_wolverine's recommendations. I don't fully understand why but Cho Ren Sha 68k always feels really fun to dodge in, even if it's easy enough to me that I can reliably 1-ALL it. Even if I remember everything in the stage and how to dodge everything, I'm still moving around all the time and never feel bored. Link to the game if you need it, by the way. You may have to run it in Windows 98 or 2000 compatibility mode or run it with RunFirst to get it to run properly.

[Skykid]

I love Icarus X on my iPhone and iPad. It's an excellent shmup. Looking forward to the sequel. The developer is awesome. He really has a passion for the genre. This will be an instabuy for me.

I bought Icarus X way back when there was little in the way of shmups on iOS and was pleasantly surprised. Some areas needed polishing, but on the whole not a bad attempt.

Good to see the dev still at it.

[Squire Grooktook]

. I don't fully understand why but Cho Ren Sha 68k always feels really fun to dodge in, even if it's easy enough to me that I can reliably 1-ALL it. Even if I remember everything in the stage and how to dodge everything, I'm still moving around all the time and never feel bored.

I think it's because of the high move speed and no focus mode. Dodging has a "thrilling" feel to it, and unlike some other games that don't have focuses, moving all over the screen and macro'ing constantly actually is the most effective way to play, meaning the speed doesn't become a frustrating artificial handicap.

On a similar note, I'd also recommend Aero Chimera, which does have a focus but has some really clever stage layouts and boss patterns that force you to use full speed to dodge/manage them effectively.

[TheQuadsphere]

Also go play Chorensha 68k

On a similar note, I'd also recommend Aero Chimera

Welp, both these games own me so hard... I feel old

Anyways, I did a quick pass on the first boss's first phase (the one seen in the video) and came up with this (10MB gif warning):



This is on Hard difficulty, I tuned it for Impossible but the gif would be just me dying repeatedly... What do you think?

[nasty_wolverine]

This is good, at least it looks like a pattern, something that should be fun to dodge... I'd say its good progress.

[Icarus]

I think the main issue I have with that attack pattern is that the bullet lines appear to "slide" a little to the side as they move, when graphically they have the impression of being straight-moving lasers. That, and they appear to rotate slightly in the opposite direction to their movement.

Any kind of bullet curvature should hint at their direction, otherwise it becomes confusing to decipher. Look at Ketsui's fourth stage boss for an example of good curving line patterns.

[TheQuadsphere]

I think the main issue I have with that attack pattern is that the bullet lines appear to "slide" a little to the side as they move, when graphically they have the impression of being straight-moving lasers. That, and they appear to rotate slightly in the opposite direction to their movement.

Any kind of bullet curvature should hint at their direction, otherwise it becomes confusing to decipher. Look at Ketsui's fourth stage boss for an example of good curving line patterns.

Good point. Here it is with 'straightened' shots (It feels easier to anticipate, but still challenging):

[Squire Grooktook]

I think the main issue I have with that attack pattern is that the bullet lines appear to "slide" a little to the side as they move, when graphically they have the impression of being straight-moving lasers. That, and they appear to rotate slightly in the opposite direction to their movement.

Any kind of bullet curvature should hint at their direction, otherwise it becomes confusing to decipher. Look at Ketsui's fourth stage boss for an example of good curving line patterns.

I dunno, I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing? I feel like if you're not going for density, any little thing you can do to make the pattern look more visually confusing can only help.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Is that red ring that occasionally appears around the cockpit the hitbox indicator? Just curious.

It looks pretty fun.

[Icarus]

I dunno, I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing? I feel like if you're not going for density, any little thing you can do to make the pattern look more visually confusing can only help.

It's not a problem for us, the people who are experienced with this genre. But for people who might be coming to this game as their first taste of the STG genre, which is likely given the formats it's on at the moment, anything that looks like shoddy programming - and I usually class bullets that slide laterally either by the movement of the player's ship ("bullet wobble"), or for no apparent reason whatsoever, as shoddy programming - might turn them off the game and the genre in general.

That's just my opinion, though. It's obviously up to the developer to decide what's best for his/her game. I've played a bit of the iOS version before, and while it's not bad, it's clear it needed a bit of sharpening up before it could be classed as good as the likes of Llamasoft's Gridrunner (which I consider the best vert), Taito's Darius Burst SP (the best hori), and the various Cave ports (all very solid games). But at least it's good the dev is soliciting for and listening to feedback.

[TheQuadsphere]

Is that red ring that occasionally appears around the cockpit the hitbox indicator? Just curious.

It looks pretty fun.

Yes. It is displayed when bullets are nearby. In Campaign mode you can reduce it to 1/3rd of this size with skills and items.