Fire Arrow Plus

[Kaiser]

Fire Arrow Plus is a compilation of two caravan games designed by our local dev Rozyrg, specifically, not only he managed to fix up the original Fire Arrow after years of leaving it unfinished but he also decided to go an extra mile and make a half-sequel/half-remake called Plus. Plus is a different beast as it's less of a conventional caravan BUT, it's still caravan. What helps is that HeavyViper, again a composer from this forum helped replace the music (due Rozyrg losing rights to the original music) making the game actually complete.

Fire Arrow (Remastered):
• Enemy waves and various other elements are randomized. Unpredictable special events may even trigger on subsequent plays.
• Difficulty ramps up rather quickly and the better you do, the harder it will get.
• Collect as many medals as you can, as you progress further into the game, they will become more valuable and plentiful.
• Novice, 3 Minute, 5 Minute modes provide varying levels of challenge as well as a potentially greater variety of enemies and bosses to encounter. There is also a special unlockable mode that provides the greatest challenge.
• Freely switch between a wide spread shot (Red) and a narrow vulcan shot (Blue) to better adapt to the situation. Unlock the bonus ship for even greater firepower!
• Along with screen-clearing bombs, you also have a powerful DUAL ATTACK.

NEW to Steam version:

• New endings!
• More convenient menus.
• Completely rebalanced gameplay.
• Bonus round is now accessible by normal play on a certain mode.
• All new original soundtrack.
• Native gamepad support.

Fire Arrow X :
• This semi-sequel or semi-remake depending on how you look at it expands upon the basic gameplay of Fire Arrow while also changing up some of the rules.
• All the same modes and explosive action... now with more enemies, crazier bosses and even greater challenges!
• An unlockable endless mode if you need your endless fix after completing what the base game has to offer.



Get your copy today! Until February 8 the game is 20% off, costing only $3.99!
DOWNLOAD LINK HERE:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/509780/

DRM FREE VER: https://gryzor.itch.io/fire-arrow-plus

HIGH SCORE THREAD:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59301

[reckon luck]

Looks interesting. Wishlisted because my backlog is huge right now.

How does the randomization work with scoring? Could you have runs with higher scoring potential than others, simply because of the RNG?

[Kaiser]

Looks interesting. Wishlisted because my backlog is huge right now.

How does the randomization work with scoring? Could you have runs with higher scoring potential than others, simply because of the RNG?

Well the way it works is that the types of enemy formations per section are randomized but all of them (as in, all that could appear on that section) are intended to provide a similiar value. I've personally been able to achieve similiar scores on all the modes despite the varying formations and bosses, the most important thing about scoring is not dying.

[MommysBestGames]

Bought it. Loving the art. And I love super short, looping score attack games. Looking forward to it!

[Kaiser]

Bought it. Loving the art. And I love super short, looping score attack games. Looking forward to it!

Thanks! Now for the folks who don't like Steam, don't worry just like our previous game, this is one is also DRM-free! https://gryzor.itch.io/fire-arrow-plus And you can get the DRM-free version here.

[MommysBestGames]

I played it some. It's pretty fun! I love the look and the sfx have a solid punch. There's a lot of nice variety in it, especially that grey-blue octagon shape that comes out in lots of patterns and attacks in different ways per run.

So this could be for a future update for you to consider:
I have a lot of trouble peripherally noticing my ship and dodging bullets. I see that you have the enemy bullets as flashing-purple. This would be to give them high visibility (good thing!) But for me they strobe so fast, and my ship is for some reason just being lost in the side view for me. I dropped the player shot alpha to the lowest (0.5) so that was a great option. Two more possible options to consider: 1. Allow players to darken/fade out the background (down to nearly black). 2. Make the bullet strobe speed changeable, so it's either very slow or something.. as they are now they strobe so fast and move so fast, it's just not working for me. I'm not a great (like some here) player though! So bear that in mine. I have played a lot of shmups though and I don't commonly have this problem (of really, really losing my ship), even with Batsugan.

[Rozyrg]

Glad you liked the game, MBG! I loved your stuff on XBLIG.

Darkening the background should be a fairly easy thing to add - it will naturally impact the game aesthetically; but there's not a lot you can do about that. I'll have to make sure it doesn't look *too* crap before I push an update through for it, though. (Speaking of, the sea background used to be extremely taxing on the eyes... of course, I realized it as soon as I had got done coding the damn thing.)

Bullets are a bit more of a complex issue since I tend to make them animate at different speeds or start on different frames... and if they rotate or do other effects, that's all baked into their animation. This is ALWAYS an issue to some degree, though, a little more time spent to solve it for someone wouldn't be time wasted.

Thanks for the feedback.

-----------------------------
edit: added in both features. FAX: when set to "OFF (MOST)" spinning bullets will still animate (at their minimum speed), special bullets like missiles and GKD's flame blasts will still go at full speed; but the rest remain at frame 0. "SLOWEST" reduces all affected types to their minimum speed. In FA, when set to "OFF (MOST)" , all except boss-special shots will no longer animate.

As for the background darkening, I've chosen the simplest possible method for it but it still seems quite effective.

[MommysBestGames]

Cool, thanks for considering the fixes and making it work great!
So I'm playing with
*0.5 alpha player shots
*darkest background
*off for enemy bullets (probably the biggest help)
*off for max particle effects.

I'm playing a little better score-wise, but mainly it's so much less of a strain now to see what I'm doing.

Question: what does the RT do? I don't get it. It says "GY Special".

Also, without spoiling things, if I play long enough do I get different backgrounds scrolling through? I've seen screens from things that look pretty different.
I've played about 2mins in at my best on the 3 minute mode.

[MommysBestGames]

Also, I personally don't like it when the ship goes half-off the screen on the left/right into the darkness. I end up losing my ship most of the time when going and rubbing the sides of the screen. How do others feel about this in other games? I'm used to the ship stopping right when it bumps the edge of the screen.

[EmperorIng]

The bosses in this one are very creative; it feels like a marked step up from Zenohell (personal favorite goes to Face Form - very reminiscent of something you'd find in a Data East game, imo). I've had some trouble with bullet vs. ship visibility, but I haven't messed with the options yet.

I really am enjoying what I've played thus far though!

[clippa]

Having brilliant fun with this so far. I've managed to clear the 5 minute mode in fire arrow plus with 1 second to spare but I'm finding it hard to get onto the leaderboard.

Could you give me some tips on scoring? Are you penalised for bombing? Do you get more points for killing enemies quickly or up close?

[Kaiser]

Having brilliant fun with this so far. I've managed to clear the 5 minute mode in fire arrow plus with 1 second to spare but I'm finding it hard to get onto the leaderboard.

Could you give me some tips on scoring? Are you penalised for bombing? Do you get more points for killing enemies quickly or up close?

Tips in no order:

1. Letting go of the shot button sucks in existing medals.
2. Bombing doesn't punish the scoring I think
3. You get more medals by killing enemies close to each other, also I think
4. To score really high you have to not die, at least if you do, once-twice while scoring well should qualify for top 10 but for top 3 you need to play it almost perfect.

[MommysBestGames]

I'm used to the ship stopping right when it bumps the edge of the screen.

I for one truly and deeply hate games that do it that way, I much prefer the flexibility of being able to move my hitbox anywhere on the screen.

Hey, can you tell me a specific game (hopefully on MAME) that you can remember you don't like that does this? I'd like to look at it to better understand how it's bad and what it feels like. Pick out a few examples of the 'worst offenders'. I'd like to learn from this. Thanks.

As for Fire Arrow Plus I also changed my ship speed from 8 down to 4. That was too slow. Now I'm trying 6 and liking it a little better than 8. I'll see if I can score better with the slight speed reduction or not.

[clippa]

YAAAAS! Thanks for the tips, kaiser

[cave hermit]

So I just got this, I'm not quite sure how to feel about it yet, but I will say that the presentation is top notch, really feels like it's meant to be in a cab.

I'm kinda confused about the purpose of the medal toggle in the options though, it just seems to remove the medals from the game entirely without any kind of score bonus compensation.