Tales of the USCA : First gameplay video

[christianboutin]

Hello, my name is Christian Boutin and I'm currently making a shmup called "Tales of the USCA". I just found this shmup forum and I thought I'd share with you the first gameplay video that I uploaded to youtube this morning. Here it is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq2U5OvGbb4. Hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

The game is a combination of 3 classic shmup types : Horizontal (R-Type), Vertical (Ikaruga, Silpheed) and Depth (Afterburner). The game switches seamlessly between the three modes depending on the situation. I've worked on it for three years and I'm on the last stretch. Aiming for a late 2009-early 2010 release.

You can also visit the game's website at http://usca.exequor.com for more information (and tons of screenshots/images). More screens and videos to come.

Cheers!

Christian

[Aru-san]

Predicting from a mod:

Moved to Development.

[kengou]

I hate to have to say this, but it doesn't look too good to me. The controls and ship movement look very loose in that video. Momentum in a shmup is a real no-no.

Graphics are nice, but I wouldn't care to play it myself.

[BulletMagnet]

Predicting from a mod:

Moved to Development.

Prediction accurate.

[genecyst]

The controls and ship movement look very loose in that video.

nice background and gfx...but ship seems to be too slow and bullets aren't clearly visible.

in other stages how background interact with player? with this gaming speed i think you should work a lot on that.

[worstplayer]

Very nice graphics. But that laggy movement needs to be fixed. Seriously, nothing can destroy gameplay like bad controls.

Anyway, can't wait to see other modes, especially the "afterburner" mode. I love that type of games and there's too few of them.

[MaNaR]

Looks interesting! I like the way the camera/background moves, it really gives a good dynamic feel to it.

The first time the player got hit I was impressed by the sense of damage due to the camera shake, but after more hits it started looking a bit artificial. Perhaps you could have different cam shakes and also have them based on the amount of damage done to the player.

[christianboutin]

Thanks for the feedback!

This one is definitely headed for a "spectacle before score" category, also casual before hardcore. The look and feel is priority. I haven't mentioned it, but as it is a PC game it's going to use the mouse for movement. This does mean that many of the standard shmup paradigms will not make it. Some shmups offer mouse support but when you get right down to it the mouse is only emulating a keyboard. Not here. Mouse first, the rest later, maybe.

Maybe the controls didn't translate well in the video (I've had more positive feedback from people who've tried it). At one point the ship makes it from one end of the screen to the other in less than 2 seconds, so I suppose the "too slow" comment refers more to the reaction time than the speed of the ship? I'll try to cook up a new tech demo for you guys to try out.

@kengou Momentum will be in this game. All part of the fluidity of the cinematic experience. I'm trying and may try some more to mitigate its effect, but if you rush blindly forward you have to understand you'll have to fight some of that rush off if you suddenly want to backtrack. I understand the game won't be for everyone, and most likely not for the purists.

@genecyst Backgrounds aren't generally a big factor in this game. In fact in the video's level you can't ram the ground, your ship will just be kept above it. Outer space levels just don't have a much of a background. So the interaction is between the player's ship and the enemies. There are exceptions though :





@MaNaR Agreed with the camera thing. Somehow it worked well with ammo-type impacts, but when a beam weapon hits repeatedly, as you mention, not so well. Will work on that.

[monkeyman]

Could be interesting, would need a very different apporach to more tranditional shmups though and as you've pointed out, that will put off the purists.

If they're not your target audience then keep a close eye on the difficulty, with the floaty controls you want to keep bullets to a minimum. Add to that the fact that many 'non-purists' hate the difficulty associated with shmups and there's a good case for adding a 'piss easy' difficulty setting.

Good luck

[christianboutin]

I probably won't name it 'piss-easy', but yeah, you get the idea An average gamer should just breeze through at the easiest difficulty level. That's always going to be a goal.