[NSFW] Chaosrise, a hentai bullet hell game

[Ziza]

http://www.MultiworldSoftware.com

Current Public Demo: http://www.multiworldsoftware.com/relea ... eSetup.exe

Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MultiworldSoftware

The public demo is now available on Kimochi!

Hello everyone!
I'm Ziza and I am creating this thread to announce (and keep you up to date with) the development of a bullet hell game with hentai elements: Chaosrise. This is also my first post, so - hello ^_^ I figured this community may be a good place to share our work in progress. We are open to your feedback and suggestions!
Although the game comes with NSFW stuff, this content can be turned off easily (this feature is not yet available in the current demo though, so be warned).

Your browser may not like the .exe but you can trust me, it's safe and we are working on this issue too.

I will be regularly updating this thread and I am also more than happy to answer any of your questions, hear your suggestions and engage with the community as much as possible.


2015.12.12 PUBLIC UPDATE

Current public demo contents:

Spoiler

• 1st stage of the game
• 2 playable characters (Aria and Noire)
• Lowest difficulty level
• 1 mid-boss
• 1 pseudo-boss (it's indestructible, avoid it!)
• 2 enemies
• 4 hentai game-over CGs (2 for each character!)
• Skill Window
• Main Menu
• Character Select Menu

Know issues / bugs / suggestions:

Spoiler

• Pause/GameOver transitions could be a bit faster
• After leaving the Pause/GameOver menu, the game could be kept frozen until a button is pressed
• Powerups may be too transparent
• The invulnerability period after being hit / using Spell should be more obvious

Controls:

Spoiler

Arrow Keys - movement
Z - attack
Left Shift - slow down + show hitbox
Left Ctrl - slow down + show hitbox + focus fire
X - spell
Esc - pause menu. Access it right away to use your first Skill Point :D!

Gameplay:

Spoiler

Don't attack all the time! As you shoot, character's attack power decreases. The red indicator shows how much power you have left; stop shooting to naturally regenerate your attack or gather red souls to regain it.
Early tests show that this is currently the most controversial part of the whole gameplay mechanics and it's still being tested and reviewed; new players will find it hard to efficiently manage their firepower, but trust me, you can quickly get there.

Spell makes you invulnerable for short time and has additional effects based on the character. Each use depletes your magic power by 1/3; you can hold X key longer to keep the spell working but it will drain your magic further! Magic will regenerate naturally - or by devouring blue souls.

Green indicator shows the amount of life you have left. The life will regenerate a little bit when you collect green souls, but every hit will always lower it exactly by 1.

Killing enemies is not only awarded with score, but also with experience. Gathering appropriate amount of experience – shown by yellow indicator – increases character level. Each level awards you with points to increase your skills, which can be done anytime in pause menu or after completing every stage.

The main source of score are not the enemies alone, but white souls left by them. If you wish to beat the high score, take your interest in these souls!

Screenshots (WARNING - some screenshots may be considered a bit NSFW):

Spoiler

Bullets!




Hentai!





Dialogs!





WE HAVE IT ALL O____O!

We have a lot of content ready (still being tested and adjusted; early, non-H prototypes of the game were actually released some years ago and I do hope none of them are still circling the net) and are really hoping to release the full game around mid 2016.

Your feedback and support is appreciated! ^_^

[Cagar]

-

[Ebbo]

I have to agree with Cagar's remarks considering the gameplay. In a bit more broader sense I think the whole game needs more impact. Shooting enemies down lacks tactile feedback, explosions and animations in general feel lifeless and lack weight and even just changing characters in the menu is unnecessarily sluggish.

If your goal is to make a h-game, that's all fine and dandy but I think the game doesn't embrace its hentai aspect either. First time I played through the demo I really couldn't even tell it's attempting to be a h-game. The title screen reminds me more of some sort cyberpunk hacking game.
Also while the art is technically good quality some of the poses and faces look somewhat derpy. Even my backseatgaming wife pointed this out

[BulletMagnet]

A few thoughts from a non-developer:

- The "don't shoot all the time" mechanic is okay as far as it goes, but I think it'd work better in a "do it and good things happen" context than a "don't do it and bad things happen" one; an easy solution that other shooters have used is that not shooting attracts surrounding items to you (you could even replace the "recharge" stat on the upgrade screen with one that affects the range of the attraction).

- Speaking of upgrades, it's kind of a neat idea, but 1) I'd make it so you have to confirm the stuff you put your skill points into before leaving the screen, so an errant button push doesn't screw you over, and 2) I'd also suggest including an "arcade" mode balanced around "fixed" stats for those who want a more "pure" experience.

- I could see "offensive" spell use being implemented in a way to make scoring more interesting (and/or naughty?), you might want to do some research into that...

- As far as the h-content goes, I guess this is mostly personal taste talking, but offering it mostly as a "punishment" for screwing up could be an issue; "get hit, lose clothes" is fairly PG-13, but "game over and get tentacle raped" is probably a turnoff to a fair amount of potential players (even if, as others point out, it's kind of tough to lose, at least on the demo's settings). An option to tone down or eliminate the naughty stuff would probably expand your audience to some degree...on another front, maybe you could make it so the "arcade" mode only allows you to use your skill points to unlock randier content, instead of better stats?

- I found the spread-shot character a fair deal more effective than the homing-shot one, so you might want to rebalance a bit.

- For "watch out!" spots like the end of the first stage, a quick onscreen indicator before a threat appears from an unexpected angle would make it less frustrating.

- I assume joystick/controller support is on the to-do list, but I'll mention it anyway, just in case.

[Ziza]

Hey everyone, apologies for not being in touch earlier, I've been away and quite busy most of the previous week!
Thanks a lot for all your feedback; as a community focused on shmup games, I'm glad to see you are able to offer a much more valuable (and demanding!) feedback in terms of gameplay.
Now, prepare for some quote hell as I refer to your comments...

If someone wants the hentai, he can just game over and see the few pictures. What's the point of the hentai? What are you trying to achieve with it? I want you to answer these questions!

That's pretty much it! Furthermore, the plot will be centered around this aspect and therefore more content - not only gameovers, but also cutscenes - will be available later on. But in terms of gameplay mechanics, it's more of an addition that may broaden the audience but can also be disabled completely in case anyone's not interested.

About the gameplay:
-The enemies are hard to see
-The score/powerup items are hard to see

Yeah, we are working on that.

-Too many aimed patterns; the player can just slowly tap from side to side
-Too_much_life

Keep in mind that the current version is just an alpha demo, with the lowest difficulty level and just the first stage; the game will be longer and much harder, introducing more patterns further on. The amount of life remains to be adjusted as the game develops :)

-What's the point of game overing if you can keep your score by using a continue?

Whoa, thanks for noticing that. Looks like it's not resetting on game over, that's a bug to fix.

This is just yet another bad touhou clone with one sloppily thought out idea thrown in as an attempt to make it feel original and unique.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but I'd imagine if I did a game of a genre I'm not familiar with AT ALL, I'd do proper research, avoid cliches and things that "probably have been done many times before".

We're not really trying to be original :=] Similar concepts, albeit niche, have been created before, and in terms of bullet hell itself we're not reinventing the wheel either.

The only above average thing that I can point out is that the pictures are pretty good quality.
Oh and btw, for a small game like this, please have a ready-to-run .exe instead of a setup .exe

Thanks <3 We'll have a ready-to-run exe for next releases as other people have mentioned that already too.

In a bit more broader sense I think the whole game needs more impact. Shooting enemies down lacks tactile feedback, explosions and animations in general feel lifeless and lack weight and even just changing characters in the menu is unnecessarily sluggish.

Indeed, we are working on improving animations and adding more of them to improve the overall "feel" of the gamepley - as well as speeding-up some menu transitions.

If your goal is to make a h-game, that's all fine and dandy but I think the game doesn't embrace its hentai aspect either. First time I played through the demo I really couldn't even tell it's attempting to be a h-game. The title screen reminds me more of some sort cyberpunk hacking game.

Again, the hentai aspect is not something we wish to entirely focus on - in terms of mechanics, it's more of an addition, rather than an internal part of the gameplay.

- The "don't shoot all the time" mechanic is okay as far as it goes, but I think it'd work better in a "do it and good things happen" context than a "don't do it and bad things happen" one; an easy solution that other shooters have used is that not shooting attracts surrounding items to you (you could even replace the "recharge" stat on the upgrade screen with one that affects the range of the attraction).

That's a very interesting approach, we'll make sure to explore it :O

- Speaking of upgrades, it's kind of a neat idea, but 1) I'd make it so you have to confirm the stuff you put your skill points into before leaving the screen, so an errant button push doesn't screw you over, and 2) I'd also suggest including an "arcade" mode balanced around "fixed" stats for those who want a more "pure" experience.

We are working on 1); as for 2), can you please elaborate a little? I'm not sure if I get the idea (unless you just mean "a mode with the upgrades removed alltogether").

- As far as the h-content goes, I guess this is mostly personal taste talking, but offering it mostly as a "punishment" for screwing up could be an issue; "get hit, lose clothes" is fairly PG-13, but "game over and get tentacle raped" is probably a turnoff to a fair amount of potential players (even if, as others point out, it's kind of tough to lose, at least on the demo's settings). An option to tone down or eliminate the naughty stuff would probably expand your audience to some degree...

The "punishment" aspect indeed is an issue but, on the other hand, many H games come with this feature and, of course, we plan to introduce it into the plot, as you progress through the game, too. Although the option is not yet in the demo, the whole adult aspect will be possible to be disabled too :)

- I found the spread-shot character a fair deal more effective than the homing-shot one, so you might want to rebalance a bit.

So far our further tests (with more stages' and difficulty levels' prototypes) show that later on it sometimes is the other way around; we try to design the game so that there are situations in which one or the other character's abilities can be more useful. As we proceed with the development, balancing will come with it <3

- For "watch out!" spots like the end of the first stage, a quick onscreen indicator before a threat appears from an unexpected angle would make it less frustrating.

Yeah, that's a fair point, I've been thinking about adding this for a while now but haven't had time yet =_=

- I assume joystick/controller support is on the to-do list, but I'll mention it anyway, just in case.

Options menu, once fully ready, will allow to customize any key bindings and, if all goes well, controllers will be supported same as keyboard!

[BulletMagnet]

as for 2), can you please elaborate a little? I'm not sure if I get the idea (unless you just mean "a mode with the upgrades removed alltogether").

Either removed or toned down significantly, yeah - while most "traditional" shooters have a power-up system of some kind, in the best ones it's entirely possible to clear the game just by purely shooting and dodging, and most of the depth comes from getting all you can out of the scoring system. I understand you're approaching this project from a somewhat different angle, but including a mode/setting along those lines would probably help you appeal to genre-centric communities like this one.

[Cagar]

We're not really trying to be original

See here's a problem imo.
Right now the only "original" thing is probably the hentai aspect, yet you say that it's not an integral part of your gameplay. (Which is true)
Why would a shmup fan or a random guy want to play your game?
Because it's very similar to touhou? Nah, the genre is full of games like that, and the more of them come, the less valuable it's becoming (or it's became).
Because of hentai then? Isn't it pretty risky to invest so much time on such a hazard selling point?
And, on top of that, I'm in a strong belief that the theme is doing the opposite of "broadening" the audience.

Oh, and by aimed patterns I literally meant aimed patterns. Patterns that are aimed precisely straight towards the player's center and that can be dodged by a simple tap. Even if the pattern actually has 24 different bullet directions, it doesn't matter if the center bullet (the bullet that the pattern is wrapped around) is dodged by a single tap.
Aimed patterns during the stage section from popcorn enemies are usually just to keep the player moving and on his toes, while semi-random, more complex aimed patterns or non-aimed (static) ones are the things to be actually dodged.

Wow what a post

[Rozyrg]

I've wanted to do something like this for awhile now; but I always run into problems early on: like getting bored of porn very quickly whenever I actually work on it.

Also, I just never really settled on the right way to pull it off. As long as the basic gameplay is good and that's the primary focus, you should be fine; but it's really worth considering how much you'll be limiting your potential audience before you get too far in. Using myself as an example - as much as I love some seriously pervy shit, a lot of the stock hentai stuff really puts me off. Therefore, even if the game itself was clearly pretty good, I'd still be on the fence about it.

If you want to study some examples of (mostly failed) attempts at games with heavy sex appeal, the 360's XBLIG service was pretty infamous for bad T&A games. Most are great examples of just how not to do it.

Anyways, best of luck.

[Hagane]

Because of hentai then? Isn't it pretty risky to invest so much time on such a hazard selling point?

Actually, doing a hentai game seems to be a rather viable way for an indie to get started.

I worked on a game for about 4 months while also working a day job. After it was finished, I sold it myself on a blog and also through a japanese site called DLsite. It made around $15,000 in the first month or two, and totaled $30,000 by the end of the year (and still makes money). Given that it only took 4 months, I made enough from it to support another project. The only development cost is time, and so it's a self sustaining process.

That said, the two things that made it possible are, 1. It was an hentai themed action game in a niche genre that's in high demand (and still is). 2. I made it alone, and so the profits were enough.

Fun fact; Hentai games are literally about the most financially viable career option out of college if you can make a game by yourself. Just make a platformer and put porn in it. They don't tell you that in college..

The guy made some rather solid metroidvanias with some porn and made a decent profit for an indie. And there are some projects on Patreon that are making quite a bit of money too, in the range of $10000-$25000 per month / update.

[Rozyrg]

Not surprising it's through DLSite. Shame that it's one of the only places for it as Steam, Google, Apple etc. are still pretty skittish about sexual content (further bolstering the audience limiting arguments.)

Still, very cool to hear a legitimate success story, unlike the XBLIG stuff I mentioned which is mostly just pathetic and depressing. It probably helps that his stuff is as professional looking as it is, though.