1917 - The Alien Invasion: WW1 Dieselpunk Shooter

[Andrade-Games]

1917 - The Alien Invasion will be released on Steam at 10th June.
Thanks to everyone who helped me to get this game through Steam Greenlight!




Steam Shop: http://store.steampowered.com/app/470060/

You are in the role of Dr. Brunhield Stahlmüller, an acomplished weapon scientist who upgrades a WW1 triplane with
superior alien technology to attack the invaders. You will avenge mankind and take the battle into the darkness of space
until you reach an ancient alien world.



Features

• - Fight from Verdun to the heart of the alien world!
  - Majestic and extravagant pixel art inspired by the golden age of arcades.
  - Accessible with a fair difficulty curve.
  - Intense action and highly polished gameplay.
  - 5 stages with huge boss encounters.
  - Bloodshed and gore.
  - Psychedelic soundtrack.
  - Full Xbox controller support.
  - Digital art book (PDF).

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiUv8G55dPQ
GERMAN STORY TRAILER (with english subtitles):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IlnvwTxuiQ

[dan76]

Well done for getting on Steam. Looks good, love the art.

[Andrade-Games]

@dan76: Thanks. My first game "SturmFront - The Mutant War" is also greenlit and will be released for Steam as a enhanced edition.

[Obiwanshinobi]

"Dieselpunk" sounds anachronistic - rotary (French) and truck (German) engines powering airplanes in 1917 were not Diesel (at least this article doesn't mention vehicular appliances before nineteen-twenties).

[wgogh]

- Majestic and extravagant pixel art inspired by the golden age of arcades.

Finally! Prefer that over replications of the Genesys style and so on. The art is really good

[Andrade-Games]

@ Obiwanshinobi: You are absolutley right. But i heard that games like Battle Garegga or Steel Empire (3DS) were titled as "Dieselpunk" so i used this to describe a non historic WW1 setting. You know, it is not steampunk

@ wgogh: Thank you. I am not a fan of low res indie pixel art so i put a lot of effort into the visuals! And I love this darker and more mature Genesis/Mega Drive style

[DocHauser]

Just been playing through this game today. It reminds me of another indie shmup on Steam, Super Galaxy Squadron. I think I prefer 1917 over SGS, though, mainly because SGS is too long and the easy nature of the stages means it gets a bit dull after a while. I liked the combo/scoring system more in 1917 and the stages (while easy) are pretty short, so it doesn't get boring.

Still, with a few tweaks I think it could have been even better. The recoil on the heavy shot doesn't seem entirely necessary; though it doesn't detract too much from the gameplay, I think I'd have preferred a normal focus/slow shot.

I'd also have preferred a standard lives system, say, three lives to start and extra lives at maybe one million and five million. The way the game works now, you basically have infinite attempts to clear a stage; if you die, it just sends you back to the start of the level (even if you die against a boss), so if you want to register your score you either have to beat the entire game, or quit from the pause menu.

After a couple of hours playtime, I managed a couple of 1CC/no death runs - the only achievement I haven't got is the 1500 combo. In my best run, I 'locked' a 1335 combo before the Stage 4 boss and kept the combo locked through Stage 5, so I got a decent bonus on beating the final boss. Final score was over 27 million. Now I just have to work out how to chain Stage 5.

[DocHauser]

Also, when it says 'full Xbox controller support,' that means analogue stick for movement. But I was able to use Xpadder to map the movement to the d-pad instead.

[Andrade-Games]

@DocHauser, thanks for the feedback. The idea behinde the difficulty was to give beginners a good entry into the shoot 'em up genre (they should beat at least the second boss). For me it is important to spread the word of our beloved genre of classic shooting games. More people, especially young players should get into it. And for professionals like you i have designed the combo mechanic.

So 1CC in a normal shoot em up is more or less one combo chain in my game.

My thoughts on a classic live system. I am not a friend of it - because the player should always have the possibility to improve. If you die 3 times at the 4th boss and you will be sent to the beginning, this can be very frustrating. It would make the game longer - sure, because you have to play the game over and over again (If the game had not a level select screen). I think it is very important to value the time of the players, and their time should never be wasted by unnecessary, forced and repetitive gameplay decisions. This is why i don't play open world games from Ubi Soft

Nice highscore

[DocHauser]

I think it's fine to appeal to beginners, but I'm not sure if the current set-up of the game actually does that! Looking at the Steam achievement stats, only 13% of players have beaten Stage 3, 9.2% have beaten Stage 4, and 5.5% have beaten Stage 5. So, even with a potentially infinite number of attempts, almost 95% of players haven't beaten the game (meanwhile, 1.8% managed the 1CC). I think the reason for that is because you get sent back to the start of a stage when you die; I'm guessing this is actually pretty off-putting for casuals. Maybe some of them will persist and try and get further, but it looks like a lot of them just give up when they reach a point that's too tough for them.

At the same time, I think it's possible to appeal to both beginners and hardcore players; shmups are a niche genre, so it's worth aiming to attract dedicated shmup players as well as more casual fans. The normal game could serve as a 'campaign mode' (or something like that) and you could also have an arcade mode, e.g., with 3 lives (with instant respawn where you die), more enemies, faster bullets, and no shield items (because the frequent shield pick-ups make it fairly easy compared to your average arcade shmup). A game like Crimzon Clover does that with both Novice and Arcade modes, so there's something for everyone.

I don't want to sound harsh, though, I still enjoyed it! And I'll check out your other games too. Speaking of which, just downloading Sturmfront now...

[Andrade-Games]

@Doc Hause, i really like the idea of a "hardcore" mode with faster bullets. One mode that is for the heroes-journey and one that is for score attack. I will keep this in mind.

And for the percentages of the achievements: 62,2% have beaten the first boss. This means more or less that only 62,2 percent of the players who bought the game ( maybe in the summer sale) played the game.
I made a public playtesting at "Retrobörse Mannheim" and every playtester was able to kill the first boss

SturmFront will be re-released as an enhanced Steam version (new soundtrack, improved gameplay (faster bullets!), improved art, more content). But you can still play the free version - because the new version will be like a new game. Only some graphics will be the same. Hopefully steam has not a problem with the boss designs....

[schleichfahrt]

If they ban you for the Busenzuchtherrin we will organize a pitchfork and torches riot in front of their headquarters.

[Andrade-Games]

1917 - The Alien Invasion -50% OFF now. A Memorization/Bullet Hell shooter for only $2.49!
Get it now if you like to blast some aliens with a triplane!

STEAM: http://store.steampowered.com/app/470060/

[OmegaFlareX]

Also, when it says 'full Xbox controller support,' that means analogue stick for movement. But I was able to use Xpadder to map the movement to the d-pad instead.

Holy shit, please don't do this, devs. You cannot play 2D games that require precise movement on an analog stick. This should be game dev 101 stuff.

[Andrade-Games]

@ OmegaFlarex: Thanks for the advice!

Actually, it should be possible to remap to controls to the d-pad without any software like Xpadder.
But in the upcoming update it will work immediatly with analoug stick as with the d-pad.

[DocHauser]

@ OmegaFlarex: Thanks for the advice!

Actually, it should be possible to remap to controls to the d-pad without any software like Xpadder.
But in the upcoming update it will work immediatly with analoug stick as with the d-pad.

It's a couple of weeks since I was doing this, but - from what I remember - when I tried to map the movement to the d-pad, you were only able to select an axis. I tried to select what I thought would work, but when in-game, pressing up moved down and vice versa. After a few minutes fiddling around with the options I didn't manage to find a solution, so I just went with Xpadder, which was easier...

[Andrade-Games]

New version 1.2.4 should fix the control issues:

+ You can play now "native" with D-Pad.
+ You can invert the Y-Axis in the options. Some Arcade stick result in an updsidedown movement.
+ New language Italian added.
+ Some typos are fixed ( especially in the french version)

Have fun!

[Andrade-Games]

For the German speaking folks: I am in the German newspaper "Rhein Neckar Zeitung" and talk about Shoot em ups.

Here is the full story:http://www.rnz.de/panorama/zeitjung_art ... 38681.html