SKYCURSER - A New Shmup After One Year of Development

[SKYCURSER_Phil]

Hi Shmups Forum,

Some friends and I have been developing a shmup for the last 13 months and we thought it was finally time to unveil our progress to the players on this forum.

Anyway, the project is called SKYCURSER http://www.skycurser.com and it's a 2D horizontal shooter with a style we like to think of as "Splatterhouse" in the sky. The sprite design is wholly 90s era hand drawn pixel art since we, as middle-aged adults, finally have the skills and technology to make the game we've always wanted. There are also clear Metal Slug and Gradius influences and more subtle ones from Doom and Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Given our love for the arcade, the game is being designed to run in a JAMMA compatible cabinet through a CRT monitor. We currently have a fully dressed and working prototype cabinet that just successfully made it through a rowdy four hour location test at a brewery with barely a glitch to mention.

Granted, I'm excited about the development and hope you will be too. If you are, feel free to ask me anything or leave any feedback. We're super eager to see what this forum in particular has to say.

Thanks in advance,

Phil

p.s. If I've unknowingly made a mistake with forum etiquette or rules, I'll take a "my bad" on that.

--
Here's what we got:

VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueXElb7HzjY

WEBSITE & SOCIAL
http://www.skycurser.com
https://twitter.com/skycurser
http://www.facebook.com/skycurser
http://tumblr.skycurser.com

SCREENSHOTS



CAB SHOTS

[Lord Satori]

That tentacle skull thing is awesome.

[ciox]

Yeah, really cool aesthetic, I love shooting weird enemies over normal cities, weapons look good too.
If there was anything to comment about, I guess it's the removal of score, most players like to get something more out of a shoot'em up after clearing it, especially since it doesn't take long to clear a game at high skill, though it's perfectly fine if the Kills counter works in a score-like fashion meaning there's many ways to get extra kills to show off your skill, like kill enemies in a way that gives you extra kills or secret ways to spawn extra enemies to boost your kill count.

[Biggu Bossu]

Looks intriguing!

I feel the blood fx aren't as satisfying as they can be, though. When you hit an enemy and it explodes (with fire and smoke, but here it's blood), I feel the explosion fx are more effective when they're a little larger than the enemy. It's also better when they linger on the screen just long enough to give feedback. I expected some pieces of meat flying around too, like debris out of a spaceship. Metal Slug, Dodonpachi and Raizing shooters do all these, and it serves them well. Considering you've got such excellent spritework here, I wish you'd go all the way and make all visual feedback as satisfying as you can.

But I wouldn't want to sound too negative, it looks like you've got something good there. I'm looking forward to the project's completion.

[Shepardus]

Agree with Buggu Bossu that the blood effects could linger for a little longer to have some more impact. You should also have the character portrait disappear or switch sides (bottom to top or left to right) when the player gets close to it, otherwise it could easily get in the way when things get more intense. I feel like the player sprite is kind of on the large side, restricting the amount of space you have to work with (relative to the size of the player), but I've seen shmups do well with small spaces before so it might work out just fine for you too; just wanted to note that shmups at this resolution tend to have a much smaller player sprite than what you've got.

With that said, looks nice so far, those are some seriously cool sprites and backgrounds!

[mice]

, it looks like you've got something good there. I'm looking forward to the project's completion.

What he said.

[Cagar]

ok going ham:
Otherwise really solid, but where's the score display?
I understand that you probably want to simplify it and try something new with the KILL counter as it's almost (..well not really) the same thing, but I'm pretty sure that most shmuppers would find a score display more satisfying.

If I were to tell you, I'd suggest you to play around in shmups and see how and why is the score distributed. Just look at the counter while you play and try to think!

(and play BATTLE GAREGGA when doing this!)

EDIT: Maybe have a special input that you can do (like a shoryuken motion + shoot, look up Battle Bakraid) while you play that switches the kill counter to score counter?

[Blackbird]

Looks pretty legit! Is there a PC version of the game as well? It's really cool that this exists as an authentic arcade game/cabinet, but for a lot of us there aren't any arcades around ^_^;.

[arcadehero]

Looks pretty legit! Is there a PC version of the game as well? It's really cool that this exists as an authentic arcade game/cabinet, but for a lot of us there aren't any arcades around ^_^;.

Not sure exactly where you are at but there is Aurcade where they are tracking locations and there are quite a few locations out there now. As a low cost kit I think that it would be easy to find as long as locations were willing to pick it up. One balancing act is that if locations know that there is a planned rev on other platforms, they may not buy it because it kills sales. Unless that period was long (by at least a few years).

[SKYCURSER_Phil]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Super appreciative and valued given the scene here.

I'll do my best to answer some of the questions and respond to aspects of the feedback.

In order as they were posted:

Regarding score counting, we totally understand your point and considered how just having kills would possibly detract from the experience hardcore shmup fans like and expect. Honestly, we haven't finalized the "scoring" aspect of the game; however, we're leaning towards a system that incorporates aspects of "style points" and efficiency. For example, if you kill a bunch of stuff with just the shotgun, you'd get an achievement of some kind. In some sense, that could be translated into a numeric scoring system. We'll definitely keep that as an option. I personally don't think it would detract from the "Doom" vibe we're going for.

Regarding the blood effects, yup. We're already working on a revision that is a higher frame and detail amount.

Regarding character portraits switching sides, it's funny you mention that. Lots of internal debate over it. It will continue

Regarding player sprite size, we're locked in on it. In game, it feels claustrophobic at times which is exactly what we're going for. It's a corridor shooter in the sky to some extent but still totally manageable. Once people play it, the feeling adds urgency that is welcomed.

Regarding the input of street fighter style specials, we're totally on that for the next release. The current idea is to have each kill made with a weapon rack up a bit of energy towards a super. So, if you kill enough stuff with the minigun, you get a minigun super. Similarly, we're looking into regular special moves that can be done with the katana. Gonna be wild.

Finally, as for a PC version of the game, we're not there yet. We definitely want to get it into as many hands as possible; however, from a marketing and promotion perspective we're trying to hit a niche of people we think we understand - the diehard arcade and shooter crowd. If there's enough demand for a PC version after we finish the arcade version, we'll do it for sure.

I think I touched on everything people asked. Obviously, thank you again for your input and know that we take it very seriously. Keep it coming,

Phil the dev team (Chris and Brad)

[MommysBestGames]

Love the art and the gore direction! Though I definitely expected some meaty chunks falling out (rather than the basic, in-place, blood anim), like Biggu Bossu mentioned. Otherwise, super-pumped to shoot some mutants to bits!

And, did I mention I love the art? I love the art.
Excited to see how it actually plays.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm most amused at how, despite its horror influences, the second I saw that background I instantly thought of Hacha Mecha Fighter's first level.

In seriousness, eager to see how this shapes up.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Gotta agree, those graphics are damn good. I can't tell much else about it from the one video, but it looks pretty nice.

About special moves, though, you really have to be careful. This is based only on my experience with Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams, but not only can they be a real pain for scrubs like me to execute, its also rather easy to accidentally trigger them by just moving around normally and shooting. Cotton 2 has a system to prevent this, in that you can only do special moves when you're not in your shooting animation, but this has the opposite problem of making it a bit difficult to quickly use one if in the middle of mashing the shoot button (or using auto-fire).

Granted, you said these moves would only be with the katana, so that might make things less of a headache already. I can't really think of any alternatives to joystick motions besides maybe a charge-attack system or having the player press and hold the button and then do the motion and release. Either way, I just don't think that the "motion, then button press" system is really optimal for STGs.

[Shepardus]

∀kashicverse -Malicious Wake- also has a special moves system, in which the game has you hold down a special button while inputting your motion (which also slows bullets near you and your own movement, thankfully), then press fire to signal the end of the motion. I think it works reasonably well but some people have had trouble getting the hang of it, and it can be frustrating to fail a move several times in a row because you pressed the command input button a little too early and accidentally appended an extra direction to the start of your command.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Roughly in general, how PCB kits are going to be made for general distribution? I'd be down for a such PCB kit. And will the PCB kit include some cool nifty swag such as a Official OST music CD, and another SkyCurser themed promo items?

Interesting layout with the 8-way digital joystick and three button scheme going on...the American Sammy produced Daioh PCB used a 6-button layout even though it was a vertical (tate) screen oriented shmup title (and still remains the only one to this very day).

Yep, by going the extra mile with the over-the-top blood splattered effect animations will give Skycurser that cool edge.

The upcoming 19th annual California Extreme show to be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California on July 18-19, 2015 would be cool to showcase this cool Skycurser shmup in person (and even perhaps, host a Q&A session with the Skycurser dev team in the forum hall room would be cool indeed if times permits). The site for it is: http://www.caextreme.org

Will Skycurser be a single player or a two-player co-op shmup title?

Will the actual Skycurser PCB save both high scores and high score initials to NVRAM for posterity upon it being powered down for the night? Some Jamma motherboards use a CR-2032 backup battery for RTC and such high score/high score initials saving functionality indeed.

A slick animated opening intro leading into the main title complete with a sample demo run that eventually leads to the obligatory High Score screen and high score initials for others to check out (and to cycle back to the opening intro again) is a no-brainer when it comes to such arcade shmup PCB titles.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[MommysBestGames]

I was thinking about the game some more, and like Shepardus mentioned, I'm worried the player sprite is too big. I know you said it gives you a sense of urgency... but I can't help but notice that it's enormous... a casual glance at big ships like from Eco Fighters, X-Multiply, Progear, or Last Resort shows your ship is still much bigger!
Just concerned gang... could drop it down to 50%-75% size (as a quick hack) and test it out, get it front of some people.

Hey, in general, what's some hori games with the biggest ships, for comparison?

[Atomiswave]

Hi, i Like the cabinet look !

[mice]

Gamemaker? PCB? How is that connection done?
Been surfing your page for dev info but I can't find any.

[Necronom]

Hi Phil,

game is looking great. The meathell concept seems to be just the right mix of oldschool and breath of fresh air. Since you're going for the gore the blood effects should definitely be something that feels dominant and satisfying. Please don't neglect the sound here! As an example, there are many reasons the old Splatterhouse arcade game is so much fun even today, one of them are the sounds when you chop off the heads or smash them with a 2x4 into the wall
Besides that...so looking forward to it, especially the PC version

[Kaiser]

Seeing the tumblr post, I can throw some tips from my experience in GM (especially all the quirks I learned in Zenohell and am still learning)

- Pre-load sounds (ALL OF THEM, it will increase the preliminary loading time BUT it will solve the problem of loading them on the run again), if that doesn't help then, compress them until the point where the loss of quality is becoming notice'able then go back a bit and stick with it.

- Sound channels, this is an another important thing, because using them, you can optimize how much different sounds can play at once. You need to have a variable argument in your sound play function whether the sound should restart upon another instance or let it stack up. You should not let the sound stack up on it's previous instances when you are using sounds that repeat often (or simply get called often).

- Disable precision collision checking ON ALL YOUR sprites, this is a huge perfomance boost. Define your own collision boxes for the sprites using modify mask function when double clicking on a sprite, square's best used for the perfomance.

That's about it, give it a try, it should help in theory.

[system11]

I'd like to know more about the proposed hardware, are we talking some kind of custom board, or basically a Type-X deal?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Regarding character portraits switching sides, it's funny you mention that. Lots of internal debate over it. It will continue

we're trying to hit a niche of people we think we understand - the diehard arcade and shooter crowd.

Debate? What debate? This is something you're actually wasting time in debating? I can't accurately convey my sheer bafflement. Seeing the video of the ship disappearing completely behind the gigantic portrait at the bottom of the screen will set off alarm bells to anyone, doubly so seeing that the developer doesn't realize how bad a design choice this is. I don't know how to put this politely; if you want the game to be taken seriously by people who play shmups seriously, you can't do this kind of amateur shit. It's 2015; there have been so many well-polished, modern shmups released nowadays that this is essentially design 101 - if you put large display elements into the playing field that could cover the player, you have to program them to move out of the way when the player approaches (or design the game in such a way that you can't move into those elements by making them outside of the playing field, see: Dodonpachi's bomb bar).

Even in games like Giga Wing or Rapid Hero where the relative space taken up by the onscreen elements (Reflect Bar, Bombs) is small it would still have been greatly appreciated to have those meters move out of the way if you have to move to the corner. A lot of arcade games from competent developers hid or faded elements in the game window then the player approaches them so as not to reduce visibility (Progear, Akai Katana). This includes score counter elements at the top of the screen being programmed to fade out, and that's in an area the player would rarely be in a vertical shmup. Older arcade shmups got away with it because a lot of core design elements that are now commonplace in modern shmups weren't the norm, but that doesn't mean that you should make such a glaring mistake as to cover up a massive part of the playfield permanently in a game with already massive sprites.

This is especially egregious given that the portrait appears to serve no value whatsoever other than as eye candy. It's not a score counter, it's not a bomb meter, it's not a life meter... it's just eye candy. Nobody is ever, ever going to say something like "gee, I love how I can't see my plane at all when I'm in the bottom-left corner!".

I think your game looks very pretty, and I'd love for it to succeed and get the kind of reception classic shmups get, so please understand when I say this is a terrible design choice that it's because I know your game deserves better than for this sort of thing to be an issue. Shmups with this kind of production quality shouldn't have these kinds of stumbling blocks.

I was thinking about the game some more, and like Shepardus mentioned, I'm worried the player sprite is too big. I know you said it gives you a sense of urgency... but I can't help but notice that it's enormous... a casual glance at big ships like from Eco Fighters, X-Multiply, Progear, or Last Resort shows your ship is still much bigger!

I don't think large sprites are necessarily a bad thing in a shmup. I'm more concerned about hitbox size (I'd love to see how a shmup works with a gigantic boss-sized sprite and a tiny core as a hitbox!) relative to the density of enemy attacks onscreen. There seem to be very few attacks in the demo video, as the initial video is more simply showing off the weapons against enemies that really don't seem to fight back in any meaningful way.

[qmish]

I hope you won't remove this Doom'esque portrait but 'll find the best way using it not in expense of gameplay.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Can't they just have it disappear or alpha blend when the ship gets near it? Have they said what the hardware is?

[MommysBestGames]

I'm more concerned about hitbox size (I'd love to see how a shmup works with a gigantic boss-sized sprite and a tiny core as a hitbox!) relative to the density of enemy attacks onscreen.

Thank you, that's better put. I'm more concerned with the hit-box size being ridiculous. I didn't see any heart/core thing for the player ship, but yeah, that would work.

And yeah, the character portrait is fairly insane. It's bad obscuring the player ship, but also not great obscuring enemies/enemy bullets. The obvious difference to Doom is, Doom had a solid bar across the bottom containing the portrait--it didn't overlay onto the action; *all* the action was inside a special frame.

[SKYCURSER_Phil]

Wow. We're very thankful for the feedback and can really tell we did the right thing by posting our "early" progress.

Anyway, like before, I'll do my best to answer the big questions and address people's observations in the order they were posted.

Regarding the amounts of gore, yes. We have major plans to step up all aspects of the particle effects. Think: slowly dissipating mists of blood, giblets, squirts and bursts. We know we're not there yet and are glad we got called out on it. It's a priority for sure.

Regarding specials, we absolutely agree we have to be careful. Now that we know Shmups is watching, we won't show any specials off until they are close to being right and ready for critical feedback.

Regarding the quantity of PCBs and kits (I think this was the question), we have zero clue. Personally, I'd like to start getting prototypes into people's hands asap. However, the tentative plan is to get half a dozen dedicated cabinets made and set up in locations around the US so people can test it out even in its incomplete state. In addition to that, we're planning on sending some early prototypes of the board out to people interested in writing a story or covering it in any way. Holler if you're one of those people.

Regarding SKYCURSER themed promo items, YES! We're super excited about the promo items and have even considered Zippo lighters with the logo on them OR leather bomber jackets. Could be really fun.

Regarding California Extreme, maybe. That wasn't on our radar; however, we are going to be at the Louisville Arcade Expo in March for sure and another big convention in April. Stay tuned to our social media (twitter and facebook) if you're interested in where we're going to be next.

Regarding multiplayer, sorta. The plan is to have the time attack portion of the game (aka Meat Mode) be two player. Story mode will likely be a one player situation. The cab pictured above is misleading and has too many buttons and one too many joysticks. Sorry about that. We had the hardware sitting around and the cab already had the holes so we just went with it for the prototype. Confusing for sure.

Regarding saving scores, yes. The game currently saves high scores and we're working on network connectivity so that there can be universal high score lists.

Regarding the sprite being too big, yeah. It's big. For what it's worth, I promise it doesn't detract from the gameplay.

Regarding Game Maker (the game engine and dev environment) and the PCB, it's pretty slick. Essentially, we write the code once and then the Game Maker engine compiles it for a hardware target. Currently, we're building for x86 (intel) but the early versions and hopefully future versions will compile to ARM and Linux. We've had to give up our hardware fetishism a bit in order to keep things practical in regard to development speed and cost. If anyone out there is a linux nerd, holler at us. We need a scripting buddy. Similarly, if anyone is an ARM nerd, get at us. Oh, and the connection from the board to the cabinet is full JAMMA.

Regarding game sound, it's a priority for sure. Luckily, Chris, the Art Director, has a recording studio at his house.

Regarding the Game Maker tips. Thank you. Huge. We may have more questions for you.

Regarding the hardware being a custom board, sorta. The current board was sourced from an OEM manufacturer in China we found on Alibaba. It's solid and flexible but not quite at the price point we want. It's also not in an attractive package - just a raw board with wires popping out of it.

Regarding the "cockpit camera" obscuring the player sprite, yeah. We know. The internal debate is over how we're going to iterate upon the concept; i.e., continue to provide rich feedback to the player regarding the hero's status for the purpose of emotion building. We want people to see Guy (the hero) and what he's going through as the game progresses. The next major build of the game will have the cockpit cam area containing weapon meters, contextual queues, and story telling components. However, just like any good director knows, editing is crucial. Since we're still in alpha mode, who knows what will happen. High likelihood that there will be some element of "doom guy" though. We won't ship with anything that detracts from basic gameplay.

Regarding hit boxes, one of the gameplay elements in SKYCURSER is the dynamic between meat and metal. In a sense, meaty enemies are weak on their metal parts. Metal enemies are weak on their meaty parts. We haven't fully realized this concept yet; however, the Mission #1 boss does have a special hit box for the missile stuck in his dome (I'll share another pic with an updated boss sprite that contains the missile). Given its recessed position on the larger boss sprite, the missile was a "fun" programming challenge for us amateur game devs.

Double regarding, the hardware isn't sexy. Right now it's a Core 2 Duo with a Mobile Intel Express 4 series chipset. Not ideal but nonetheless, more than a capable target for the stage we're at. Since we're committed to Neo Geo level graphics, we're not going to have any modern blending or graphic assists. Everything will be hand pixeled(sp).

Again, thank you all for your feedback and early support. When I said previously that "we think we understand" you all, I truly believe we were right - a group of passionate gamers that are really going to support us making the best shmup we can.

Thanks again and keep it coming if you've got it,

Phil

p.s. regarding, regarding, regarding

[Tatsuya79]

It makes me think of Cosmic Cop.
Same minus and plus concerning the great art style but oversized ship.

[pbsk8]

In the introduction trailer, what game is that one on the right most arcade cabinet?

[SKYCURSER_Phil]

In the introduction trailer, what game is that one on the right most arcade cabinet?

"Demon Front" on PolyGame Master

[ELabit]

When you guys finally release the hardware it'd be nice if you offered kits for either US style cabinets or Japanese style with move strip and flyer type marquee