Sophstar - Steam / Switch / Xbox / PS4 / PS5

[Lethe]

Judging from the demo, went in expecting a pseudo-Compile-like that I'd clear on Intermediate in one or two attempts, so I started with Advanced... this is definitely not a Compile game. There is an odd quality to the way it pulls from practically everything. I'll get into a groove of macroing around and pointblanking for items, but then I'm suddenly trapped in this highly constricted micro pattern, then there's one that really wants me to teleport so I fumble remembering that teleports exist, and then on the next stage suddenly Psikyo patterns and discount DOJ washing machine. Of course if I drop my preconception of shitclearing it quickly (I've barely made it to the end of stage 7 once so far), then none of this is a problem, because there's so many ships and modes to play around with while I'm learning. Yeah, very interesting, idiosyncratic kind of game that I'd encourage everyone here to try.

Couple of concerns about Reyka. First, the melee part of the shot should probably have more backwards range or hit more than one target at once, because if you pointblank a zako wave there's a chance some will fly straight through without being hit.
Second, it has a tapping weapon without autofire, and it's not a comfortable one to use. With external auto, it's magnitudes better and floods the screen, and it's a little stronger than the laser if you hit with all 5 streams. But that's awkward to do because of the melee turning the shot off, so you need to be at a precise distance if you're fighting anything smaller than a house. Without auto I don't use it at all. The best thing IMO would be to rework it but you might not be up for that.

[guigui]

This games looks very nice, looking forward to more reviews from people around here.

Oh, and I like to be that guy again : Switch version ?

[Shatterhand]

Couple of concerns about Reyka. First, the melee part of the shot should probably have more backwards range or hit more than one target at once, because if you pointblank a zako wave there's a chance some will fly straight through without being hit.
Second, it has a tapping weapon without autofire, and it's not a comfortable one to use. With external auto, it's magnitudes better and floods the screen, and it's a little stronger than the laser if you hit with all 5 streams. But that's awkward to do because of the melee turning the shot off, so you need to be at a precise distance if you're fighting anything smaller than a house. Without auto I don't use it at all. The best thing IMO would be to rework it but you might not be up for that.

No no, this is good feedback. I'll take it into consideration for sure. Thank you a lot for it.

Oh, and I like to be that guy again : Switch version ?

No release date but... yeah, it's gonna happen

[banjoted]

I only had time to have a quick go during lunch today but it felt great. Looking forward to getting stuck into all the different ship options.

[Shatterhand]

Couple of concerns about Reyka. First, the melee part of the shot should probably have more backwards range or hit more than one target at once, because if you pointblank a zako wave there's a chance some will fly straight through without being hit.
Second, it has a tapping weapon without autofire, and it's not a comfortable one to use. With external auto, it's magnitudes better and floods the screen, and it's a little stronger than the laser if you hit with all 5 streams. But that's awkward to do because of the melee turning the shot off, so you need to be at a precise distance if you're fighting anything smaller than a house. Without auto I don't use it at all. The best thing IMO would be to rework it but you might not be up for that.

Mate, I made some of the rework you suggeted with Reyka and it's SO MUCH more enjoyable to play with her now. Most players won't notice the difference but yeah, when playing for score, it's a lot better now. No popcorn enemy escapes now when you fire at point-blank because the shot is damaging more than one enemy firing at close range. I also reworked damage of the spread shot a little, so the shot actually does less damage at point blank, making no sense to use it over the main shot to point blank at bigger enemies. Everything fits better now.

I'll still ask the team to playtest this a little more before we push it to an update, but it really made the ship feel better. Thank you a lot for your input.

I only had time to have a quick go during lunch today but it felt great. Looking forward to getting stuck into all the different ship options.

Hope you enjoy it!

[Iaspis]

Great game overall. Also, digging the categorization of online leaderboards and the little details, like the speeding up of the game over timer when you press fire. Good job dev!

[guigui]

Oh, and I like to be that guy again : Switch version ?

No release date but... yeah, it's gonna happen

Great news, definitely waiting for this one. Keep up the good work.

[Lethe]

Mate, I made some of the rework you suggeted with Reyka and it's SO MUCH more enjoyable to play with her now. Most players won't notice the difference but yeah, when playing for score, it's a lot better now. No popcorn enemy escapes now when you fire at point-blank because the shot is damaging more than one enemy firing at close range. I also reworked damage of the spread shot a little, so the shot actually does less damage at point blank, making no sense to use it over the main shot to point blank at bigger enemies. Everything fits better now.

I'll still ask the team to playtest this a little more before we push it to an update, but it really made the ship feel better. Thank you a lot for your input.

Great! Seems to have fixed everything on my end too. Haven't checked if you've caught this one but I also encountered a bug on Timed mode. On the later loops of the stone head boss' Hibachi-style pattern, the initial blue bullets behaved properly, but the later other-colored ones were going straight downwards instead of spinning.

The point-blanking in this game is so entertaining. Hey resident Alfa contingent - how about you try this game out? It's almost like Omega Fighter with crazy weapons, no enemy collision and really fast bullets. I've been toying around with learning Z2 - is holding special and shot at the same time supposed to turn everything except the grenade off? It's not bad, I can see a use for it, it just surprised me that it has a feature like that.

Edit: Actual spoiler

Spoiler

Oh god the bosses have ura patterns

[Herr Schatten]

No release date but... yeah, it's gonna happen

Count me in, then. I'm looking forward to it. The game looks really interesting.

[Shatterhand]

Mate, I made some of the rework you suggeted with Reyka and it's SO MUCH more enjoyable to play with her now. Most players won't notice the difference but yeah, when playing for score, it's a lot better now. No popcorn enemy escapes now when you fire at point-blank because the shot is damaging more than one enemy firing at close range. I also reworked damage of the spread shot a little, so the shot actually does less damage at point blank, making no sense to use it over the main shot to point blank at bigger enemies. Everything fits better now.

I'll still ask the team to playtest this a little more before we push it to an update, but it really made the ship feel better. Thank you a lot for your input.

Great! Seems to have fixed everything on my end too. Haven't checked if you've caught this one but I also encountered a bug on Timed mode. On the later loops of the stone head boss' Hibachi-style pattern, the initial blue bullets behaved properly, but the later other-colored ones were going straight downwards instead of spinning.

The point-blanking in this game is so entertaining. Hey resident Alfa contingent - how about you try this game out? It's almost like Omega Fighter with crazy weapons, no enemy collision and really fast bullets. I've been toying around with learning Z2 - is holding special and shot at the same time supposed to turn everything except the grenade off? It's not bad, I can see a use for it, it just surprised me that it has a feature like that.

Edit: Actual spoiler

Spoiler

Oh god the bosses have ura patterns

Are you by any chance Steam user "Incognito"? Because people on the team are making fun of me because my hi-score on arcade mode was beaten by this user (Let me give my excuses - Being the dev I'm avoiding playing the game 'properly' and uploading scores since I know a lot of scoring secrets people surely haven't figured out yet, but I had a party here last week and I was showing the game to friends, and I had a go at it while being a bit drunk, 1cc it and ended up uploading the score, but I wasn't even playing it properly )

The thing with the boss on timed mode surely is a bug, I'm going to check it out. They start by going down so you have time so see that new pattern is starting, before it starts spinning. If it NEVER starts spinning, there's a bug there.

Also, yeah, that's whats supposed to happen when you hold both fire buttons with Z2, it was planned this way. There are uses for it, and one of the testers said he used this feature a lot.

Count me in, then. I'm looking forward to it. The game looks really interesting.

Yeah mate, I really want you to try it out

Feedback for the game so far has been nothing but great. People who tried it really seem to enjoy it

[Leander]

I got to try the game briefly, seems excellent - well worth a purchase

Since there are different shots for tapping vs. holding shot I was wondering if you would consider adding a built-in autofire button?

[Shatterhand]

I got to try the game briefly, seems excellent - well worth a purchase

Since there are different shots for tapping vs. holding shot I was wondering if you would consider adding a built-in autofire button?

It's just for the Reyka ship, all other ships have full autofire. And to be quite honest, the idea is not to use the "tapping" fire mode of Reyka too much, it's more for the areas where you have fast-moving popcorn enemies on both sides of the screen. None of the other ships have a mechanic like that and it feels like it doesn't make much sense to add an autofire button. (Even more because the game alreaady uses 4 or 5 buttons depending on how you play it... there are 2 "slow speed" buttons, but I reckon most people will chose the slower movement they find more comfortable with it and ignore the other speed button. At least that's how I designed the game )

And I'm glad you liked what you played so far

[Shatterhand]

I've updated the game today and among a few new things, there's now an option to change or turn off completely the "hitting enemy" sound effect. A few people complained about it and now you can choose a different SFX or not have any SFX at all if you prefer this way

[Emppixel]

I am very happy to see the guys over here actually liked the game.

All the effort is paying off and I hope it pays even better in the future

[Lethe]

Had a couple of goes on baby mode to research secret bonuses. Many of them seem related to speedkilling but there might be additional requirements like specific kill timings, score or not using the special/teleport buttons. It's all kind of obscure. What I've found so far:

Spoiler

s1: speedkill eye midboss, score threshold turret on right, kill last big enemy on timing (quickly but not immediately)
s2: kill side ships before midboss core, kill 6 yellow ships after midboss, ??? (unrelated to killing everything)
s3: speedkill first midboss, something to do with two big green ships or the yellow divers with them (need to wait slightly before speedkill?), 4 satellites at top (score threshold?)
s4: get all the enemies during the EoSD section, something to do with the midboss that fires blue walls and goes to the bottom (specific timing? don't teleport?), ??? (think I got it once but don't remember)
s5: ??? (maybe bot midboss?), four double laser ships at top, something to do with bouncy midboss
s6: destroy all arms of bot midboss and wait for laser pattern, score threshold on medium enemy a bit later, ??? (nothing to do with horizontal waves at beginning)
s7: something to do with first midboss, speedkill third midboss?, kill all enemies during laser wall section

[Shatterhand]

I'll just say (for now, We will reveal that at a later point soon ) each level has one secret bonus related to scoring on *that* level. There's one certain enemy on each level that, when killed, will release a secret bonus if you've made a certain amount of points there.

Except on level 2. On level 2 you need to both make a good score run *and* destroy both side ships on the midboss.

But there are some stuff related to timing (Destroy enemy X at Y moment), some other stuff thats positioning (Kill enemy X while sitting at a Y position) and there are some stuff that's a little more obscure.

And I can guarantee you, no speed kills

[Lethe]

That's helpful - but I've seen all of them now and still can't work out the true conditions are on many of them. I'll think I know, then do something slightly different and it won't work. At least I know where they are.

Spoiler

s1: eye midboss, score threshold turret on right, last big enemy at upper middle
s2: first midboss at close range (might have timing factor), side ships before second midboss core + score threshold, 6 yellow ships after second midboss (unknown condition)
s3: first midboss after baiting it to the bottom?, two big green ships + yellow divers at top middle, 4 satellites at top (score threshold?)
s4: midboss pair killed simultaneously, all the enemies during the section following (or maybe just the last one w/ score threshold?), blue wall midboss at the top middle after its fixed pattern
s5: electric wall midboss via teleporting into the blindspot in front of it, double laser ships at top shortly afterwards (unknown condition), bouncy midboss (score threshold?)
s6: destroy all arms of bot midboss and wait for laser pattern, score threshold on medium enemy a bit later, big gun midboss at close range
s7: something to do with first midboss?, third midboss at close range, score threshold on enemy during laser wall section

I can't access Advanced scoring on the leaderboards on keyboard. It says spacebar's the bind but that duplicates the friends/all filter instead.

[Shatterhand]

I can't access Advanced scoring on the leaderboards on keyboard. It says spacebar's the bind but that duplicates the friends/all filter instead.

Really? Did you by any chance changed the default keyboard bindings?

[Shatterhand]

Someone has 1cc the game on the default difficulty with the Arobe-D ship (The easiest ship to clear the game )

The scoring is pretty bad, but it's a 1 credit clear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdHnqzctMDc

[Shatterhand]

A little bit about the Secret items, and how to uncover them on level 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU1wq_HUjao

[Shatterhand]

Just to let you guys know that Red Art Games has recently announced they will be publishing the game on consoles, both physical and digital editions

[BurlyHeart]

Just to let you guys know that Red Art Games has recently announced they will be publishing the game on consoles, both physical and digital editions

Congratulations! This game flew under my radar, but given the amount of praise it has got, I'll be sure to pick it up soon.

[Samuray]

Just to let you guys know that Red Art Games has recently announced they will be publishing the game on consoles, both physical and digital editions

It's coming this Thursday!!!! Man, I'm suuuper stoked for this! Haven't played it yet, I only enjoy physical games…,so this is AMAZING news for me!

[Bydobasher]

Either a Linux version or Switch version will work for me, so if Switch is coming soon, that's what I will buy. Will respond again with impressions once I've played it!

[Lazertron]

Either a Linux version or Switch version will work for me, so if Switch is coming soon, that's what I will buy. Will respond again with impressions once I've played it!

The Switch/PS4/PS5 physical releases are already up for preorder at Red Art Games.

[kid aphex]

Ordered my copy today. Never ordered from Red Art… hopefully everything works out alright.
At the very least, it looks like they don’t take as ridiculously long as LRG…

[Giga Power]

Patiently awaiting the Xbox release.

[FRO]

Just preordered the PS4 version. I haven't got around to playing it via digital release yet, but nearly everything I've heard about the game indicates that it's high quality, so I'm looking forward to it.

[BurlyHeart]

Had a few playthroughs and enjoying it so far. The scoring items getting smaller in physical size and actual score before disappearing is a neat idea. 9 different ships, 60 trials, 8 stages, 6 difficulties, endless mode and more - that's a lot of content for a cheap price!

Which ship is the best ship for clearing the game? I'm not a great shmup player, but this seems to have a lot to entice folks. I would really like to hear some experienced players thoughts on the game.

The bullets sure do get faster from stage 3 on

[Lethe]

I think Reyka is the best ship in general. Its shot does everything you need and I have no idea how to handle some stuff with the ships that lack a real bomb. Maybe one of the others would be good for a cheesy low-scoring run or something, but of all of them, avoid Hirane, its shot is deficient versus zako.

As to "experienced players" there still really aren't any except Kanzaki, and he hasn't handled the ura route which involves turbocharging every boss and then no-missing them all. The earnestness of its madness is much of this game's appeal. The attitude reminds me of an older shmupsfarm-dev oddball, Saviors, albeit Sophstar is much better than that game.