Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

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Itku
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Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

Image


My Nature I shall try to raise,
I shall summon my genius: my Nature from thy hole arise,
my Haltia, from under a fallen tree,
my Helper from beneath a stone, my Guide, from out the moss;
come, dread inspiring Death,
come at time of anguish dire,
to give support, to safeguard me,
to help me and to strengthen me for the work that must be done,
the hurt that must be known about.



Image


O master of Tapio’s farm, O mistress of Tapio’s farm,
come away from melting gold, from smelting silver come away;
in thy bowl I put bits of gold, bits of silver,
in thy cup, these bits of gold are as old as the moon,
the bits of silver as old as the sun, brought by my father from a war,
obtained with trouble in the fray, when I was a child, when I thumbled about as a brat,
as tall as father’s knee, as high as mothers spinning staff.


06NHA-ZPXYQ-WBBLJ
JYKMM-C9KFF-69I7Y


Image


https://youtu.be/BJqHwR-sNUw
http://store.steampowered.com/app/79638 ... Feminarum/
http://polarnightgames.com
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qmish
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by qmish »

i dont really understand this, but looks beautiful.

Is it inspired by some folklore traditions?
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Shepardus
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Shepardus »

qmish wrote:Is it inspired by some folklore traditions?
Steam description says "Terra Feminarum is a Finnish mythology themed Japanese style danmaku shoot ’em up," so yes.

I remember seeing this on Twitter (probably @shmups?). Colors are nice. Some of the patterns looked pretty neat too, though the trailer was kind of heavy on the radially symmetric patterns for my taste (the second trailer on Steam is better about this).

Any info on specific mechanics, scoring system, etc? Looks most strongly influenced by Touhou, judging by the style of the bullets and point items and "spell bonus" and whatnot.
Last edited by Shepardus on Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:19 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by qmish »

Ah, yeah, i even googled title now and got

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Feminarum

edit:

What if bullet patterns were based on traditional ornaments? You considered that?
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Bananamatic »

ei vittu
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Despatche »

Is this the first real attempt at a singleplayer 16:9 game?
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Itku
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

Terra Feminarum is now available on Steam and Itch.io

http://store.steampowered.com/app/79638 ... Feminarum/
https://png.itch.io/terra-feminarum

There's also a demo available with 2 playable stages, so you don't have to buy a pig in a poke.
https://png.itch.io/terra-feminarum-demo-v02

Happy Kalevala's Day!
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by ciox »

Good luck with the release, and be sure to spread the word, niche titles really need it.
Despatche wrote:Is this the first real attempt at a singleplayer 16:9 game?
Depends what you mean by real, if you mean it has patterns that are as complex as Touhou/Cave then it's pretty likely that this is the first attempt, otherwise you've got titles as early as 2012 (Snops Attack) going for singleplayer 16:9 vert, popular casual titles like Skyforce, very recent titles like Pawarumi...
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Herr Schatten »

Classy avatar, Itku!
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by BulletMagnet »

Couple of early thoughts/impressions:

- Shot and focus are pretty standard; most defeated enemies drop energy, tap the "special" button when the meter is half full or higher for a defensive area bomb, hold it when completely full for "hyper" mode, for a few seconds of higher-powered shots and score item drops from targets (and Cave-style "cancel the bullet pattern into shinies" awards for finishing bosses with it). Getting hit cancels the mode but won't kill you.

- At the end of each area you choose one of three awards: an extra life, a permanent shot upgrade, or unlocking/powering-up a fourth-button special ability that usually resembles some manner of "invincibility dash" move and is governed by its own regenerating meter. No "traditional" power-ups during gameplay. In "Story" mode you play stages one at a time, and can replay levels to complete "challenges" to earn one more power-up at the end; each character's progress is saved separately. "Arcade" is a more traditional all-stages run.

- Three characters to select, with different shot types, movement speeds, fourth-button abilities, and story dialogue. Speaking of which, I don't know Finnish mythology at all, but the setting and dialogue seem to have an appropriate level of fairy tale-ness about them off the cuff (and the latter can be skipped or turned off). I can only guess that some...liberties were taken with those character designs, though. :P

- Third-party 360 controller works fine, d-pad included. Sound levels and key/button mappings can be adjusted, as can a couple of graphical settings; in windowed mode my laptop did pretty well framerate-wise.

- Presentation most closely resembles Touhou, and is generally fine in that regard, though I'd presumably need to know more about the game's inspiration to spot the uniquely Finnish stuff therein. I did have some bullet visibility issues; the background brightness adjuster helps somewhat, though some of the smaller hazards in particular are easy to lose in the muddle no matter what. I'd also suggest borrowing Touhou's boss position indicator, since the bosses I've seen are relatively small targets and regularly obscured by their patterns.

- More than that I found several enemy attacks hard to react to unless you know they're coming (the second boss's "rising water" thing comes most quickly to mind); more warning signs of some sort are definitely warranted IMO. I also sometimes felt that grabbing point items in particular could feel kinda niggly; I'd sometimes miss one when I could swear I'd gotten close enough to grab it.

-One last, minor niggle is the apparent inability to enter fewer than three initials on the score entry screen; I have to tack some other random letter onto the end of "BM", and feel shamefully uncivilized whilst doing so.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

ciox wrote:Good luck with the release, and be sure to spread the word, niche titles really need it.
Thanks. We'll try to do our best. Currently the situation looks as grim as we thought. Getting the game out and seeing even few people to enjoy it still makes me very happy.
Herr Schatten wrote:Classy avatar, Itku!
Your too! There's always a place and time for a few Moomin characters.
BulletMagnet wrote:Couple of early thoughts/impressions...
Well-made summary of the core mechanics. Thank you very much for the valuable feedback too. I'm always happy to recieve even the most minor details which could improve the game. As a developer I don't make any promises to avoid any dissapointment. But I can guarantee we analyse and consider every piece of feedback the players provide us. I appreciate your efforts.
BulletMagnet wrote:I also sometimes felt that grabbing point items in particular could feel kinda niggly;
I don't go deep in details when I'm talking about game mechanics, cause I think it spoils the fun to find out things yourself. I'll give you a tip here though. The area around the player where the items get collected is not static.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by PepsimanVsJoe »

I've only had enough time to play through the story mode with one character, but I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen so far.
The fundamentals seem to be sound, and the difficulty is balanced pretty well. Although, like Bulletmagnet pointed out, a couple of the boss patterns feel a little "unexpected". One of the later bosses spreads a bunch of pellets everywhere. I thought they were bullets at first, so I didn't go near them. Next thing the boss does is throw out a few spears. The spears collect the pellets and then smash into the "walls" of the game-screen, causing a massive flurry of bullets. I didn't know I was supposed to grab those pellets earlier, so I was quickly overwhelmed.

Once I knew what to do, the fight became much more manageable.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

The game is -50% off until May 12th. on Steam and itch.io.

We are making slow but steady progress on the update. Unfortunately I can't give ETA, because we are making major changes "under the hood". With the changes we can provide better performance and get rid of some technical issues we currently have with Terra Feminarum. Our upcoming project also benefits with these changes drastically.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by clippa »

Ooh, you making another shmup?
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by CloudyMusic »

This slipped under my radar, I'll definitely be checking it out. Hard to say no at that sale price. :o

EDIT: OK, yeah, this game is pretty cool. I recommend it.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Despatche wrote:Is this the first real attempt at a singleplayer 16:9 game?
I must admit Under Defeat HD's "vertizontal" 16:9 feels like a pretty "real" attempt to me (not as compromised as Zero Gunner 2 - Psikyo with slower bullets - which is more of an arena shooter at heart, though).
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off

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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

clippa wrote:Ooh, you making another shmup?
Yes, that's the long term plan. But before that we give some time for Terra Feminarum.
Keres wrote:This slipped under my radar, I'll definitely be checking it out. Hard to say no at that sale price. :o
I just watched your stream vod from the last night. Congratulations for clearing six chapters!
You said on the stream that you are not that familliar with touhou style games, but you still did pretty well, even without picking any weapon upgrades.

About the bomb delay: Bomb triggers immediately (on press) while the mana gauge is not full. With the full gauge you need to release the button before the bomb is triggered because keeping the button pressed will trigger the special mode (hyper). That caused the "lag" you felt on the stream.

Weapon upgrades will help you with the timeouts and the popcorns on the last stages. Hypers will help you control the flow of the boss phases.

Thank you a lot for streaming the game. It really helps with finding out the flaws and things that needs to be improved. While we had many things already on the update list that came up on your stream, there were also multiple new things that I added to the list.

I'm really glad that you liked the game.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by CloudyMusic »

Oh, cool, thanks for the information! Glad you found my feedback useful. I definitely plan to spend some more time with it!

One other thing that I didn't specifically mention on-stream, but that I definitely wanted to bring up in case it's not already in your plans: I can bind a "Start" button in the joystick config, but I can't pause the game with it. So I have to reach over and hit the ESC key on my keyboard whenever I want to pause/restart. :P
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

Keres wrote:One other thing that I didn't specifically mention on-stream, but that I definitely wanted to bring up in case it's not already in your plans: I can bind a "Start" button in the joystick config, but I can't pause the game with it. So I have to reach over and hit the ESC key on my keyboard whenever I want to pause/restart. :P
Thanks for letting me know. It seems like we left out the option to rebind the pause key (yeah, this is quite embarrassing even for doujin dev). I'll put the issue on the list.

Please try your "unused" buttons of the controller. It's highly possible that pause is currently mapped on one of those.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Iori Branford »

Runs in Linux/Mac too. REQUIRES CASE-SENSITIVE FILE SYSTEM
Just install Java JRE and rename the terra_feminarum.exe to terra_feminarum.jar, then you can run it like any other program.
Last edited by Iori Branford on Tue May 08, 2018 6:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by CloudyMusic »

Itku wrote:Please try your "unused" buttons of the controller. It's highly possible that pause is currently mapped on one of those.
Sure enough, the "Back" button on my 360 controller (button 7 in Windows) brings up the pause menu. Thanks for the idea!
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Despatche »

Bought this. I kinda like the way the upgrades are structured: there are twelve of them, you have six opportunities to get them in Arcade and can get all twelve in Story, six of those are firepower while the other six are extra lives, etc. Normal was a lot harder than I was expecting! Whisk of Mortals makes me real mad. Good to know the Pause issue is a bug and not just me messing up.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by KennyMan666 »

So I picked this up, and one graphical weirdness I'm getting playing on a 4:3 display is that when I start the game after the first time, the empty areas above and below the play area are dark grey rather than the black they should be. But, if I enter the Tutorial, they become black, and stay that when when I exit out of it (which would be why it's fine on the first run of the game).

Agreeing on the point that some attacks are very "unexpected", in that they seem designed so that you're practically meant to die to them once to figure out how to deal with them next time.

Also fuck that third stage boss and her fucking barrier of rocks at the bottom of the screen. And Talvikki's boots are stupidly good, while Aino's seem almost useless, though I've only gotten one pickup for those and only played up to and including stage 3 with her.

And since I played the characters in the order of Lempo, Talvikki and Aino... that 2nd stage boss is supposed to be a guy? Like. I know the being it's based on is traditionally a guy, but... what.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by M.Knight »

I also played it a bit myself, and so far I enjoy it, but I feel the game doesn't gain much by having a 16:9 screen space instead of the usual 4:3. Quite the opposite, as your player shots often feel rather narrow compared to the screen's width and the patterns don't always give you lots of vertical space to dodge them. I usually like having to move around to shoot enemies and collect items like in Dangun Feveron but here it seems a bit too much, most notably due to the restrictive and dense bullet patterns, as well as the limited time the items stay on screen compared to a TATE shmup.

The boss patterns look like a lot of thought has been put into their theming and the way they are made of physical objects that interact with the rest of the bullets (Spears that create water waves, charcoal pieces that explode on the floor, etc.) and that's impressive but it sometimes comes at the expense of clever forewarning. It wasn't rare to get killed by an attack I didn't see coming the first time around.
There's also the stage 2 boss circle of bullets that spawn around you that always gets me killed because I tend to move often and here you don't have much time to react to the circle's appearance and stop moving.

The power-up mechanic is intelligent and forces you to make some choices based on your run : do I think I can handle the next level without the safety of a bonus life? Should I get some life reserves at the expense of power and thus opportunities to score and quick-kill some enemies and bosses before they become dangerous? The only downside is that the boots often feel kinda useless or limited in their use. I have yet to try them all out at their max power so maybe it is a long term investment?

I first thought the scoring system was primarily about using the bomb to cancel bullets into score items but it turns out saving them for Hypers instead generates items that are even more lucrative, especially if you clear a boss phase while in Hyper Mode. I don't know how to feel about it, but I haven't tried to optimize my runs as I focus on survival right now.

Aesthetics and atmosphere-wise, I find the Finnish folklore influences very welcome. It is not every day you fight a boss to the tune of a Levan Polka arrangement for instance! The flavor text in the descriptions and dialogues is a bit too fancy for my tastes but it works well within the context of the game and its mood. The artwork and its anime influence is less original and there are some very boring cliché character designs (the loli and the trap for example) but aside from that, I also like them and the mix with the Finnish mythology is sorta interesting in its unusualness.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by unsane »

Ohhh it's brootiful!
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Itku »

Thanks for the feedback Despatche, KennyMan666 & M.Knight. Much appreciated!

Terra Feminarum version 1.5 has been released today. You can check the build notes from here.

The game is 90% off until Aug 14th. on Steam. and itch.io. The OST can be found now on youtube.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by CloudyMusic »

Looks like a nice update! I'll try to revisit this sometime soon. :)
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by M.Knight »

Thanks for the heads-up! Wow, the discount is massive. Even cheaper than Crimson Clover on sale. :shock:
I'll use this opportunity to play the game some more too.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Despatche »

I am pleased to see this update. Unfortunately I can't play it right now. Hopefully I'll be getting to it soon.

Some of the changes seem great. I wasn't really asking for a lower difficulty, but I'm certainly not complaining. The removed "charge time" sounds pretty nice, though the additional barrier seems a bit much. I preferred that using hypers had real risk to it, like in DOJ.

Thank you for doing something about Whisk of Mortals, and about Riptide which I was afraid to say anything about! Can't wait to see what they're like.

At any rate, I will be keeping 1.0 around, because version history is important, especially with fairly large gameplay changes like this.
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Re: Terra Feminarum - the Aurora Borealis of Shmups

Post by Shepardus »

Well, for a discount like that I can't refuse. I'll stream this the next time I get a chance, which probably isn't this weekend unfortunately. Also picked up the soundtrack because metal Ievan Polkka.
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