Newly Released Cabal-Like Demo

[Dronami]

Hey all,

I just released a demo for my in-development Cabal-like (i.e. Wild Guns or Sin & Punishment) on Steam. It has 16 screens and 5 bosses across 2 stages. Also, I designed this for experts so it's pretty damn tough. There's a fully functional offline High Score system, and if you're really, really good you can get 20 million points.

Here's some Steam Keys. Feel free to just grab one and let me know which one you took in a response if you'd like. If all of these run out, please just contact me (see below) for another one.

9TWJN-640KM-MWL86
HBW38-84446-2NCII
FBBM2-8T9Y0-G48CX
L3Z85-9AJH3-PTIWR
3L9AF-R90KJ-QW9G5
IJL80-2QK7C-GFMQK
VNNFF-IE9RC-MDP4Y
TVJWQ-BM27C-QCMPQ
2QRXZ-TINH3-H06YC
HGNKT-J5FEM-KFV4C

I'd really love your feedback, and here's how to get it to me:

- Just let me know in this thread
- Email me at dre@dronami.com
- Message me on Discord at Dronami#6381
- DM me on Twitter at @DronamiGames

Thanks and hope you all enjoy!

[Ghegs]

HGNKT-J5FEM-KFV4C

Thanks, grabbed this one. Will post some thoughts in the thread a bit later.

[Steven]

3L9AF-R90KJ-QW9G5

Got this one.

Will check it out when I get a chance.

[Sumez]

Any kind of footage? Screenshots, videos? Does it have a title?

There are too few of these sorts of games, and I'm super interested in knowing more!

[sunnshiner]

Thanks OP, I got this one-

9TWJN-640KM-MWL86

Steam page here-

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2349 ... a_Trigger/

[spmbx]

2QRXZ-TINH3-H06YC

I redeemed this one

[BulletMagnet]

FBBM2-8T9Y0-G48CX

Redeemed this one, will try to have a go at it after work.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

HBW38-84446-2NCII was snagged by someone silently.

I've taken L3Z85-9AJH3-PTIWR and will let you know my thoughts after I've played it.

[sunnshiner]

Ok, here are some quick thoughts after I downloaded and had a quick look-

Full disclosure, I don't know what it plays like because I only have a single stick Hori fightpad so I couldn't play it but there's no real need for it to be twin stick, is there? It looks like it'll make the 'dodge' button a frustrating PITA to use and twin stick plus buttons is too much to think about (it's not a sim) and doesn't work (in my opinion) in this type of game. I am old and impatient though, digital movement and six buttons is about my limit

That's it, sorry. Apologies for wasting a key.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Full disclosure, I don't know what it plays like because I only have a single stick Hori fightpad so I couldn't play it but there's no real need for it to be twin stick, is there?

I don't think there's a need for it to strictly be single stick either. People nowadays are used to twin stick games, and a major complaint people levelled at Wild Guns Reloaded for instance was the difficulty in wrapping their head around the controls. While I appreciate the simplicity and brilliance of how the movement and aiming work in WG, I can understand it's a fairly difficult control scheme to get used to, so making it more accessible is probably the way to go (or offer two control scheme options, one for twin stick, one without, or an option where D-Pad is move+aim, L-stick is move only, etc).

[sunnshiner]

Full disclosure, I don't know what it plays like because I only have a single stick Hori fightpad so I couldn't play it but there's no real need for it to be twin stick, is there?

I don't think there's a need for it to strictly be single stick either. People nowadays are used to twin stick games, and a major complaint people levelled at Wild Guns Reloaded for instance was the difficulty in wrapping their head around the controls. While I appreciate the simplicity and brilliance of how the movement and aiming work in WG, I can understand it's a fairly difficult control scheme to get used to, so making it more accessible is probably the way to go (or offer two control scheme options, one for twin stick, one without, or an option where D-Pad is move+aim, L-stick is move only, etc).

Yeah, that'd work

[NairobiNantucket]

I mainly lurk here but liked how this looks.
I activated

VNNFF-IE9RC-MDP4Y

Someone else already snagged

IJL80-2QK7C-GFMQK

Going to play in a few hours and let you know how it runs on a Steam Deck.

[Nugs]

I played a couple of credits last night.
It's not my type of game so can't give too many suggestions on gameplay but functionally it was all good.
No issues with the menus (apart from treasure being misspelt) , performance, controls etc.
The maturity level is right up my alley with all the 69, 420 bonuses and the level 1 boss made me laugh.

[Dronami]

Wow, I'm happy so many of you are trying the demo out. Hope you get some enjoyment out of it.

sunnshiner, thanks for the feedback. A major goal for the final release of the game is 10+ playable characters who differ wildly in mechanics, ease-of-use, and effectiveness. At least 2 of these characters will play closer to Wild Guns where movement and aiming are mutually exclusive and the entire game can be played on the equivalent of an SNES controller. There will be leaderboards segregated by characters so that this inherent imbalance and somewhat experimental approach to the player characters doesn't ruin the scoring.

Nugs, thanks for playing and glad you noticed the jokes! Trasure is intentionally misspelled, although apparently I misspelled "multiplier" on the tutorial and that was not intentional. I will probably fix that tonight as well as another bug where shooting certain barrels doesn't make them flash.

Lastly, I'd advise anybody reading this to please use LT for precision aiming as much as possible. I personally only let go of LT when I'm trying to dart across the screen to acquire a new target. Anyways, enjoy!

[Nugs]

I don't think I used LT at all.
I'll give it another go tonight.

[NairobiNantucket]

Lastly, I'd advise anybody reading this to please use LT for precision aiming as much as possible. I personally only let go of LT when I'm trying to dart across the screen to acquire a new target. Anyways, enjoy!

You can optimize for the average case here and just let precision aiming be the default and LT speeds it up, no? I played much better when I integrated LT.

In any case, enjoyed my time with it so far. Ran like butter on the Steam Deck out of the box. However, I did come across an issue twice where my movement and my aiming would get stuck in a direction. Occurred once in my first attempt on the first screen and again in my last attempt making it to BADUNKADUNK. Took some time of unpaused gameplay until I could regain control. Not sure if it's a Proton issue, but it wasn't my controller since I paused and opened up input test to be sure. If it helps at all, my device identifies to Steam Input as a Switch Pro Controller (3rd party) and I have haptics/gyro disabled.

The game is quite dense, hard to believe I've not even made it half way through your demo. Do you have a final estimated runtime in mind? With 10+ characters planned it feels like you want to have the last word in this genre.

Lastly, I really dig the music.

[Dronami]

Good call Nairobi, I'll consider making precision aiming the default. It may be a menu option, but more likely, it will be character-specific. I am very dedicated to the unique characters gimmick to the point where character selection will affect fundamental mechanics like this. Some characters will indeed be annoying or obtuse to play, intentionally so, but I promise at least a hefty chunk of the characters will be designed around player feedback and ease-of-use, so this type of feedback means quite a bit.

As for the input issue, by any chance did you get hit while rolling? I believe there's a bug where if you get hit at the end of your roll, where the animation is still playing but the i-frames have run out, it might mess up the player's state. But I don't think I've seen the reticle ALSO moving, so it might actually be a controller issue. I don't know what Proton is, sorry. But you can email me (see above) or directly message me if you keep seeing this and want help debugging.

As for the runtime, I'm designing this game around branching paths. Every stage will have a major branching condition that varies from stage to stage. For example, in Stage 2 you branch if you get all the keys. The reasoning behind this is that I want to keep playthroughs down to 20-40 minutes. I love modern games like Streets of Rage IV and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, but these games are insanely long and really annoying to attempt 1CC's as a result. The answer to this issue is to just have branching paths so that the player experiences a subset of the content over a single run. There's the same amount of "game" there but the runtime is also reasonable. However, there will be an additional mode where you play every single stage in the game, one after the other, possibly with a stage select. Also, I'm aiming for each stage to be 10-ish minutes, and every playthrough will have 4 stages, I think.

Also, glad you like the music! Good luck, and I posted some Tips & Tricks in the game's forum if you're stuck.

[Dronami]

A couple players requested a stage select or practice mode. I don't have enough bandwidth to do a legitimate version of this, so instead I put in a little cheat. If you open the pause menu, select Restart, then hold R3 and press A, you can skip to stage 2.

[XtraSmiley]

I did not grab this, as I don't use Steam, but very cool OP, I'll send it out to a few people on Discord. Thanks!

[Dronami]

Hey, thanks XtraSmiley, it really means a lot!

Looks like all the keys have been taken so here's ten more. Enjoy.

X38XA-5DLVD-QILHW
I8FAX-FD20Y-P4X89
WIBT2-LN9AB-MXAIR
C9723-M2798-G5KYK
MPXR3-QHH4Q-73ADV
R736B-L05X8-3NQLF
LDFM8-MG2LV-GCIN3
QJEKX-69N9F-RWTRN
3FP94-2AD76-3ZIJH
LHF4I-VQ9P3-22H5I

[cave hermit]

Just redeemed [X38XA-5DLVD-QILHW], will give it a try soonish!

I've been playing a fair bit of Nam 1975 lately, so I've been in the mood for this sort of game lately!

[velo]

I grabbed R736B-L05X8-3NQLF, but I worked through the list backwards, and the last 4 are already taken.

[Dronami]

Wow, these are going faster than I expected. I'll check all the keys once or twice a week and keep adding batches of 10 as long as people keep grabbing them.

Heya cave hermit, I need to beat Nam-1975 as well, I've been neglecting it for a while. It's super hard, possibly even harder than my demo! I really dig the distinction between walking and running and will likely model a character in my game around that moveset. I think it has short vs. long dodges like OG Cabal which is another thing I'll likely rip off. Probably won't get around to adding more characters or co-op until next year, though.

[Dronami]

Well, I misremembered. NAM-1975 doesn't have short vs. long dodges. I just now realized that the path through the game is randomized, or perhaps based on your performance. Some bosses just do not appear in playthroughs and I'm not sure why, exactly. At any rate, I think I can handle this with a few weeks of practice and if I can pull off a 1CC I'll post it here.

[Dronami]

Alright, looks like the last batch is gone. Here's 10 more. Enjoy!

If you grab one, here's some tips:
* Try to use LT for precision aiming
* There are healing items in the BG that are always in the same place
* If you want to practice Stage 2, you can open the Pause Menu, hold R3, then select Restart to skip to Stage 2 to practice it.

7DXBE-N03KV-P4KG2
WNR29-P3N8K-ZJT2X
44MX4-QLW2R-P544Y
GMPG3-CXAYI-HGYQ3
0E8JM-9L3AQ-MPL02
DIVDJ-VQPI6-Y3JHH
TKTXE-TD30R-I8M88
8T95L-XY8NM-9RGZ5
KPDN0-ZB9I2-HD77T
Y735C-M4W90-RNJIV