Zunius - A Psychedelic Rogue-Like Bullet Hell

[jaberwocky33]

Hi all,
Shameless self promotion below


I've been working on game named Zunius for a very long time now and am very happy to announce its being released for PC via Steam on October 17th 2019!

Zunius - A Psychedelic Rogue-Like Bullet Hell
Steam | Trailer



All of the things (code, art, music, sound) were done by my ownself. Its been a real labor of love and was built for people who love shmups. Please add to your Steam Wishlist and if you have any questions let me know

Cheers,
jaberwocky33

[Sumez]

You'll probably want to resize your images if you want people to be able to even see them, and find your text also.

[jaberwocky33]

You'll probably want to resize your images if you want people to be able to even see them, and find your text also.

Fair enough I got too ambitious with the images. They are now removed.

[Krushal]

Definitely a couple of small images would be appreciated, though.

[jaberwocky33]

Definitely a couple of small images would be appreciated, though.

Too funny

Alright I've put a image in thats probably too small. Hopefully at some point we will end up with a goldilocks size picture

[chum]

Based on the trailer video, the controls have inertia... this is a big no-no. There are a couple of other red flags in the trailer. IMO you should really do your research on stuff like this while developing your game.

[jaberwocky33]

Based on the trailer video, the controls have inertia... this is a big no-no. There are a couple of other red flags in the trailer. IMO you should really do your research on stuff like this while developing your game.

Chum, just replied in a longer PM - but for anyone reading this thread...

Yes the controls have inertia. As you progress through the game you get pickups like coffee which makes your ship faster (obviously) or more maneuverable.
The game is inspired by games like Binding of Issac and Spelunky and trying to bring that sort of gameplay to a shmup.

Totally get it that traditional shmups don't play like this - but its by design.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Eh, no one likes inertia, not even in Isaac. It's perhaps the one thing in Isaac that no one really appreciates

Other shmup mechanics are indeed a matter of genre and taste, but there's a good reason inertia is universally hated. It simply doesn't bring anything good to the game.

As for powerups and such, that's fine. Plenty of games have speed powerups, and famous series like darius even have slow ships.

The easiest way to deal with it is to just add an option for no inertia. This way your original design can get preserved too.

[jaberwocky33]

Eh, no one likes inertia, not even in Isaac. It's perhaps the one thing in Isaac that no one really appreciates

Other shmup mechanics are indeed a matter of genre and taste, but there's a good reason inertia is universally hated. It simply doesn't bring anything good to the game.

As for powerups and such, that's fine. Plenty of games have speed powerups, and famous series like darius even have slow ships.

The easiest way to deal with it is to just add an option for no inertia. This way your original design can get preserved too.

Short answer - if only it was that easy
Long answer - Back in the olden days shmups were "if you get hit, you get killed" games. This wasn't a game design choice. This was done because CPU's simply didn't have the power to run (complicated) physics sims.
Nowadays we have plenty of CPU power to run physics sims. As soon as you have a physics engine that allows collision response there is normally inertia (its not inertia but you get my point) on the player character simply because this allows you to push the ship when it collides with bullets etc. You can mask this inertia but its always there in the physics engine somewhere.

Phew.

[Shepardus]

Long answer - Back in the olden days shmups were "if you get hit, you get killed" games. This wasn't a game design choice. This was done because CPU's simply didn't have the power to run (complicated) physics sims.

The implication being that nowadays it is a game design choice, I must ask, what's a physics engine doing in your shmup?

Also, I'm unsure how seriously I should be taking the "4,294,967,295 unique worlds" claim in the trailer, considering how it's followed by "more than eleventy-twelve enemies." Either way, I'm skeptical how "unique" they can be - is there meaningful gameplay variation, or are they just technically unique? More concretely, I'm more interested in what rules and "building blocks" go into your world generation than how many ways you can permute those elements.

[Austin]

I am mixed on what I see. Inertia is generally a no-go for me, but I did grow up with PC shooters like Raptor and Stargunner, both of which have those physics, and I enjoy them for what they are (when controlled with the mouse). I'm not sure how well it will work though in this game with dense bullet patterns.

Can't say I'm a fan of the aesthetics one bit--the large, chunky ship designs in particular. If the sound effects in the trailer are indicative of what's in the full game, then they are grating to my ears and clearly have had little to no effort put into them.

Gameplay-wise, the rate of fire also looks pretty low based on the trailer. I'm not a fan of shooters that only let you have a couple of shots on screen at once. Really kills the flow of the action.

Anyway, some of that is obviously subjective, but that's my two-cents on the subject.

[Sumez]

Lol trying to make an argument for an inertia based physics engine in a shooting game on the shmups forum in 2019.

Seriously though, every budding shooter dev should look up the term "euroshmup" and why it's universally frowned upon before typing their first line of code, or making their first "design choice".

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Hey man, first of all kudos to you for getting to the point where you can release a demo. I'm sure you put a lot of effort into your game.

However, I strongly suggest you listen to these fine gentlemen telling you that adding inertia is a big no-go in shmups - not because they're self-proclaimed experts but because experience has shown that inertia is simply a shit idea. It's not fun, it makes steering your ship hard for no reason. Look at the big classics of the genre; not a single one uses inertia. Their creators simply knew what they were doing.

Personally, I don't really see much about the graphics that looks psychedelic to me. Primary colours do not make a game psychedelic. Also, the speed at which the game runs is slow, your ship crawls over the Screen, and combined with the fact that you shoot only few, slow moving shots, this makes for a not very exciting shmupping experience. At least that's what it looks like, I haven't played it yet of course.

Another thing: ditch the rogue-like. Go for a set number of stages and design every little detail, make every stage unique in graphics, music and gameplay. Having thousands of generic stages won't help if they all feel kind of the same.

[FRO]

I'm going to be the voice of dissent, here. Not because I think inertia is a good thing in shmups (as a rule, it's generally not), but because I don't think there's anything wrong with including it in your game, to explore that angle. In real life, we have inertia, so as games have become tuned toward realism, it makes sense that most genres would follow suit, even shmups. Again, I'm not saying inertia is necessary, or "right" for shooting games. I generally agree with the consensus, that inertia is not a good thing. But if you design your game well enough around that being a mechanic, it can work. I would say inertia and bullet hell together is maybe a more inherently bad choice. It works in a game like Tyrian, because you have a life bar and armor on the ship, so you can afford to take a few hits. But in a game where you're trying to have players navigate large swarms of projectiles, I would say minimize the inertia, so its impact will be far lessened.

[Squire Grooktook]

I recently asked my non genre-fan friends what they thought of inertia in shmups, and they all gave a nauseated face and said "ewww no, I wouldn't want to play a shooty game with that shit."

Inertia in shmups are universally disliked by genre fans and genre non-fans. I have never once heard any player state they like it even once, only developers who seem deadset on including it for some forsaken reason. It's never good, even if you design well around it. It fundamentally goes against what people instinctively seek and find appealing in the genre. It's bad.

Do not include it in your game. Period.

[awbacon]

Inertia is too difficult to deal with in shmups, especially something like a bullet hell shmup. When I let go of the stick I want the ship/character to come to an immediate dead stop

[Shepardus]

Honestly the inertia thing is somewhat of a red herring - that only matters if the rest of the game is interesting, of which I have yet to see evidence.

[Vanguard]

Not a roguelike.

[jaberwocky33]

Zunius the Non Psychedelic Non Rogue-Like Inertia Based Bullet Hell is out TODAY!
I will start a separate thread for this momentous occasion