REDSHIFT - New SHMUP in develoipment is unveiled

[AlexSkylark]

So, what's up, guys

My name is Alex Arantes, and I'm from São Paulo, Brazil
I've always been in love with SHMUPs, ever since I first put my grubby little fingers in a copy of GRADIUS back in the 90s (stuff took their time to get to my country back then, hahah), and I spent the better part of my life learning and doing research on gamedev, until this point in time, when I finally felt myself mature enough to develop a game, and of course it needed to be a SHMUP


So, I founded Starlight Game Studio and started creation of this nifty little thing, REDSHIFT!

R= [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/53/52629/redshift-indiedb-new-01.png[/img]

R= [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/53/52629/redshift-gif-01.gif[/img] & [img]http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/53/52629/redshift-gif-02.gif[/img]

Oh, and there's also a trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyKV3VAUGYY

(Sorry about the interface on the shots not being english, I'm in the process of implementing multilanguage - Launch version will have Portuguese, English, Spanish, French and German languages )

The idea behind the game is very simple - You are a vessel roaming around in the PRISM - A pocket universe of lights and colors that exists somewhere outside of spacetime. It feeds on ANOMALIES - objects and life forms pulled in from all universes in existence, and you're the fresh new arrival. Through unkown circumstances, you became a WHITE ANOMALY - one that has all the colors inside you, and therefore is attuned with all colors of the Prism - having the power to absorb energy from other, less fortunate anomalies, and unleash that energy to attack them. And this newfound power may be exactly the means to your escape...

Onto game mechanics, it's very arcade-like, very simple. You kill anomalies, they release energy that you absorb and obtain/level up your color energy. Each color has it's own set of unique attacks and abilities, which you unlock on every level up, but every set number of TOTAL energy levels (the sum of all color energy levels you possess), you'll face a boss.

Now for the real twist - The entire Prism is procedurally-generated. The anomalies' shape (which determine their attack patterns), the enemy waves size and movement pattern, everything is generated in a semi-random manner (I say semi because they still follow a degree of parametrization as to have a steady difficulty curve throughout the game). Even the BOSSES are generated procedurally, with their shape and attack patterns being different every time you play

[img]http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/g ... es.png[img]

Now, I'm making this game to be a true addition to the genre, and as such I've been searching a lot to find my peers (people who love to pew pew stuff on a screen as much as I do ) not only to get sparsed feedback, but to make them into an integral part of the design and development process. I intend to interact A LOT with this community and make it not only a game that I would love to play, but that scratch that itch of having that SHMUP that looks new and brings original stuff to the table, but without losing the appeal and feeling of the old titles that we know and love

So, what do you guys think of what you've seen so far? Have any suggestion, questions, want to call me a heretic? =P
I'll be checking back rather frequently, and rest assured that your voice will be heard

Let's make REDSHIFT the best SHMUP to be released in the near future

Oh yeah, also, here's the social media shanennigans, if you guys wanna show support That'd be really appreciated!

Starlight Game Studio Website/portal
Starlight Game Studio Youtube Channel
Facebook REDSHIFT fanpage
IndieDB Page

[Ebbo]

Any chance of a playable demo build? Just looking through the video makes it hard to give insightful feedback, as well as comprehending the mechanics at play here.

As far as the visuals go I'm not personally that into vector-like graphics with simple geometric shapes, would like to see objects with more distinct designs and animations. The movement of the player ship looks a tad sluggish, is there some inertia involved?

Procedural shooters don't usually cater to tastes of this forum but it's not like it hasn't been tried before with moderate success. I noticed there is some sort of scoring system going on the gifs you posted, how is it balanced with randomized nature of the game?

Good luck with your project!

[AlexSkylark]

Hello, Ebbo thanks for the reply!

Any chance of a playable demo build? Just looking through the video makes it hard to give insightful feedback, as well as comprehending the mechanics at play here.

Yes, there is a demo. I'm not putting it out into the world yet, but I am putting together an alpha test group. send me a private message if you're interested in joining

As far as the visuals go I'm not personally that into vector-like graphics with simple geometric shapes, would like to see objects with more distinct designs and animations. The movement of the player ship looks a tad sluggish, is there some inertia involved?

The vector-style graphics are actually what made the project viable in the first place - I'm a solo developer who's not an artist, after a lot of frustrated attempts on gamedev where trying to work with other people was very disappointing (nobody ever puts in a real effort if you don't have a budget and can pay them... understandable, actually) , I came up with a graphical concept I could pursue on my own. As for the ship movement, yes, there is some inertia involved. Are you saying I should make it faster?

Procedural shooters don't usually cater to tastes of this forum but it's not like it hasn't been tried before with moderate success. I noticed there is some sort of scoring system going on the gifs you posted, how is it balanced with randomized nature of the game?

Every anomaly you kill is worth 100 points, no matter its shape, minus 5 points per anomaly you kill to a minimum of 1 point, with this score penalty resetting every time you level up (I did that to discourage farming enemies to rack up big scores, I want the scoring system to be a reflection of skillful play). Also, there's the combo system - killing a streak of anomalies without being hit racks you up with a combo counter that accumulates a multiplying factor to the point value of anomalies you kill. Other than that, at the end of each stage there's a (rather complex) algorithm that gives you a "stage score" from 1% to 100% based on your shot accuracy, how much damage you took, how much DPS you put in the boss, etc, and your score is multiplied by that number, and you get a rank from F to SS based on that score (to get an SS rank you need to have achieved a very close to perfect score)

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention in the OP - There's a permeating rule to this game that says attacks from one color deal double damage on bodies of that color. That's true both for your attacks and the enemies', so you should mind your ship's color (if you pay attention in the video, you always change to the color of last shot you used), and hitting stuff with the "right" color helps a lot too, specially in boss battles, since bosses are made of multiple, multicolored parts as shown below (and the end-of-stage score calculations take that into account, also)



I hope I addressed all of your doubts, if you have more please reply here or hit me up with a message thanks for the feedback and support!

[Ebbo]

As for the ship movement, yes, there is some inertia involved. Are you saying I should make it faster?

I'd simply suggest removing any inertia from player movement. It only makes dodging bullets and other objects accurately irritating.

[AlexSkylark]

You mean, like this? (whipped up a quick test in here)
https://youtu.be/4QefHCLLHOE

I mean, it can be done, and it probably is easier to dodge stuff that way, but the downside is that by doing that I had to get rid of the physics engine handling movement, which took away the feeling of the ship having THRUST, making it just an object on the screen, rather than a ship.

Does anyone else share Ebbo's opinion? which movement you guys like more, the one on this topic or the previous one on the OP?

[Ghegs]

You'll notice the vast majority of shmups have no inertia at all. It tends to be frowned upon, as it makes controlling the ship feel sluggish and inaccurate, like Ebbo said.

[AlexSkylark]

I take it then that the video in my last post shows a more adequate movement behavior, or would you still adjust anything there?

EDIT: Just so you guys know, the offer to be a part of the alpha testing group is extended to the community All you seasoned SHMUP players who want to be a part of the design process and help this be a great game, hit me up by private message

[KennyMan666]

Not sure you picked the best name, since a procedurally generated shmup named Redshift (with some similarities in aesthetics, even) already exists.

[BulletMagnet]

Then there's this one.

[Ikazu-san]

And then there's THIS ONE.

[wgogh]

I take it then that the video in my last post shows a more adequate movement behavior, or would you still adjust anything there?

EDIT: Just so you guys know, the offer to be a part of the alpha testing group is extended to the community All you seasoned SHMUP players who want to be a part of the design process and help this be a great game, hit me up by private message

I know that many indie games are made based on procedurally-generated survival, wich is a LOT faster to develop than whole stages with different details. You already told us that youre a solo dev, and while this idea may seem tempting, I would suggest not to lay too much in it. It makes the game shallow and too random, so you could at least compensate the effort in other areas. With lack of background, detailed sprites and stages, all together, makes it hard to come as a true addition to the genre, like you want it to be. Poor design is my usual complain with indie shmups... If anything that I said is lacking just because it was not implemented yet, great. With that in mind, I'm sure you will come up with new good ideas. Also, i liked the bosses very much.
I would help alpha testing, but my laptop is shit, and while the game doesn't look like a problem to run, old computers have problems with new engines by themselves.

[AlexSkylark]

I know that many indie games are made based on procedurally-generated survival, wich is a LOT faster to develop than whole stages with different details. You already told us that youre a solo dev, and while this idea may seem tempting, I would suggest not to lay too much in it. It makes the game shallow and too random, so you could at least compensate the effort in other areas. With lack of background, detailed sprites and stages, all together, makes it hard to come as a true addition to the genre, like you want it to be.

Could you ellaborate please on the "shallow and too random" part? When I say the game is procedural, I say it is random-ish, but still following a set of adjustable rules meant to make the game have a steady difficulty curve (that's when the alpha - and beta - testing importance comes). That being said, I have two approaches I can pursue with the procedural enemy wave generation.

In one of them (I'll call it the ALPHA way), I generate the bezier in runtime, using a set of predetermined rules as to make the wave paths concise and not risking any TOO ODD behaviours. That's the thing I'm coding right now.

The other (the BETA way) is the one already in the alpha build, where I have a bunch (something around 13 now, plus their mirrored equivalents) of pre-built bezier curves which were designed by me, each one with an attribute that says the minimum level the player must have so they start appearing in the game. Every time a wave is killed (or finishes their traversing), another one is spawned. (that's a rough resume, and there's a more to it, but you got the idea)

Now, I take that you're saying I should do away with the alpha way and stick to the beta? or do away with both and have hard-coded stages? As you see, in practice, I KINDA have designed stages, but in a more fluid and less predictable form. In practice, what I did was getting the notion of memorizing the stage and having the game play exactly the same in every game session off. So, what you're saying is that this is a bad thing?

Also, I noticed you had complaints about the game's art design, could you please ellaborate on that?

Thanks a lot, and I look forward for more constructive criticism from all of you.
Also, for those interested in joining the alpha testing team, I made out a form to streamline the process: http://www.starlightgamestudio.com.br/e ... -test-form

[wgogh]

Yes, I got the idea, it is all about that 'degree of parametrization'.

One of the things that I would say about the art is the simple background. But I read in one of your comments on the youtube trailer that you plan to create abstract backdrops, which can be good. That could avoid that everything would look too simple at the same time, you know? Also, theres a very little detail that got my attention on the trailer; the enemies bullets can be blurrier than the ship or your own bullets, while it is the ones we must to priorize and solid shiny bullets can be easier to track with our eyes.

I really liked the random bosses, maybe you could do all sorts of crazy organisms in the future. Wouldnt that fit very well in the story of the game?

[AlexSkylark]

Yeah, I'm doing some tests with some backgrounds, but so far none "clicked" with my vision to the game. You see, I'm not a visual artist, tho I have a relatively large experience with Adobe Photoshop (been fiddling around with it since around 1997). REDSHIFT's visual concept actually came out of me trying to figure out "what kind of art I can produce on my own", since I came from 4 or 5 failed projects where I tried to team up with other people, only to find that if you're not paying people, well... you won't be able to count on them. Hence the geometrical, vector-based graphics sprites and abstract backgrounds, I'm really pushing my art skills to the limit, hahahahah

And yeah, the bosses are really cool, I also like them a lot. I don't know if you could tell by the trailer (possibly not) but the regular enemies also follow that same building pattern.
The central piece confers some abilities to the enemy (some examples... the triangle is basic, the square gives 50% more HP, the yet-to-be-implemented pentagon have a force field which needs to be destroyed by a shot of the same color), and each side of the central piece can have a smaller "bit" attached to it, and each different one has its own attack pattern. Needless to say, the enemies are assembled with randomly-chosen "bits", following some parametrization.

One last thing I wanted to mention is that contrary to what may seem, building this kind of "randomness framework" while sticking to guidelines and parameters so as to not have a too chaotic experience, and follow a steady, but fluid difficulty curve was actually way more work than building hard-coded stages. Building a table detailing the sequences of waves and enemies in each wave is orders of magnitude simpler than trying to build the system I did. In fact, most of my development time went on it, and my MobFactory class (plus the parametrizing JSON files) are by far the ones with more lines of code. I'd say they are the heart of the game, and the tuning process will probably also be more complicated than adjusting a hard-coded stage. My goal with it is to deliver a play experience that, albeit random, doesn't feel like the system is just spitting random stuff on your face, but rather something that MIMICS a hard-coded stage while still giving you the fresh feeling of the first time you play a SHMUP every time you start a game. Hence why I also need a reasonably good pool of testers. You sure you don't wanna give it a try? It's actually nice having ppl with lower-end systems so I can optimize the game better for them.

[wgogh]

My pleasure then! That way i can have a less superficial view. You can send me a message.

About the background, have you tried put slides of those abstract paintings that resembles the universe? Similar to the frames of Stellar from Stan Brakhage. Of course, just an idea. Can't even say for sure that would fit. But the concept would be for slowly changing slides.

Spoiler

I don't know how hard it would be to reproduce that kind of painting, but I also have a easier idea. You could photograph interesting things (or simple ones, like a cloudy sky), and use some "alien" filters, the most important being the color filter. In the end you would have something like The Angry Red Planet. Since you have a large experience with photoshop, that kind of effect is piece of cake for you, I'm sure. Also, would be useful if your plan is for coloured background.

Spoiler

And thats me, trying to figure out what would be a good suggestion!

Spoiler

Well, thats kind of a meddlesome feedback, but I always get carried away talking about creative process. Good luck with REDSHIFT, whichever direction you take.