Xeno Fighters R (2019 GM Studio Port)

[EddyMRA]

School has just started for me, so I may not be able to get a new beta release out as quickly as I would want. At this point, I am focusing most on completing stages. Currently, the six selectable ships provide enough variety in playstyles to put making new ships on the backseat for now.

I am working on the following stages:
*Stage 2: 2035 American Midwest (5% complete)
*Stage 3-A: 1995 Chechnya
*Stage 6-B: Dimensional Refuge
*Stage EX-1: Gemini Canyon

Some balance fixes:
*Zaiva: Decreased the firepower of the main shot on all levels and increased the firepower of the Brionac Gunpod missiles.
*With the autofire option implemented, Slave main shots have been decreased in firepower, and the bullet speed has been increased.
*The Slaves now move at a bigger ratio compared to the fighter they accompany (90% fighter speed, compared to 75% fighter speed before).

Boss fixes:
*Jade Hydra's other guns now fire. Its main turret has extra turrets on them to discourage point-blanking and overlapping. Watch out!
*Black Heart has a new attack for XFEX-R: when it does the afterburner attack and the player tries to escape by maneuvering ahead of it, Black Heart will attack the player from behind.
*The mini Black Hearts now time out after appearing and shooting their twin bullet streams, when they start moving erratically and firing twin aimed bullets.

Other notes:
*Stage 2's length in the remake will be shorter than in the original (done by increasing the scroll speed). Other stages in the original may be shortened as well. Most stages in the original will become the remake's "B" stages, and they may be shortened when put in the remake. The stages that are planned to remain their original length in the remake are 1915 France, Asteroid Belt, Temporal Warp, and the Dreadnought Echidna boss area.

[NARFNra]

Nice! By the way, are you ever going to reupload that boss run you had, or is it never going to be uploaded again.

[BPzeBanshee]

Nice! By the way, are you ever going to reupload that boss run you had, or is it never going to be uploaded again.

Assuming you're referring to the original XFEX, if the vid is over 10 minutes he'll have to split it into parts.
Nothing nasty or anything, just stating the obvious.

Excellent progress, alluro!

[NARFNra]

"Nothing Nasty"? Why would I think that was nasty?

[BPzeBanshee]

Sometimes my blunt manner gets misinterpreted. Wouldnt want a flame war to start on the thread for the best SHMUP game around, would we?

[lilmanjs]

is there a final tracklist for the music that will be in the game?

[BPzeBanshee]

is there a final tracklist for the music that will be in the game?

I think Skynight had some schematic on one of the previous pages, but frankly I think it'd be best it you just see it as Alluro goes along and decides what to use.
Mind you, speaking of music in levels, that gothic song that Alluro once had in the original Xeno Fighters would fit well with Level 2 now, I reckon.

[Skyknight]

"Agony", you mean? I did wonder why it was replaced with "Rough and Tumble"...

[EddyMRA]

Stage 2 (2035 American Midwest) in XFEX-R is in progress. It now has parallax clouds to better simulate the high-altitude scenario that was meant to be in the original iteration of this level. The level will use the same terrain layout, so all Miclus locations you know from the original Stage 2 will be in the remake. The 1942 Japanese planes in the following screenshots are temporary enemies.



Not shown in these screenshots:
*The length of the stage (before the boss appears) has been shortened to about 2 minutes and 15 seconds in the remake, compared to 3 minutes and 45 seconds in the original version.
*The beginning of this stage now has the player flying over a cloud bank, which ends about 5 seconds later, revealing the ground far below and the parallax clouds.
*New alien enemies will be added as extra medium and large enemies to replace most of the popcorn enemy waves in the original.
*There will now be only one missile wave summoned during the stage in the remake, as opposed to four in the original. One criticism of the original version's missile waves was that they lasted too long and became too mind-numbing.
*Defeating Silver Banshee in a certain way will take the player to Stage 3-B (Vietnam). In the other case, the player will be sent to Stage 3-A (1995 Chechnya).

[BPzeBanshee]

"Agony", you mean? I did wonder why it was replaced with "Rough and Tumble"...

Yes, along with Gallantry DX, that happy one in Stage 6 and the heavy metal one in the final boss stage.
I think that was all of the replaced ones.....

Stage 2 (2035 American Midwest) in XFEX-R is in progress. It now has parallax clouds to better simulate the high-altitude scenario that was meant to be in the original iteration of this level...."Silver Banshee"

Yay at the "Banshee".
Was that what's it was always called though? I thought it first called "Doom Satellite" for some reason.

[EddyMRA]

Was that what's it was always called though? I thought it first called "Doom Satellite" for some reason.

I called it the boring generic name of "Doom Satellite" before Skyknight suggested "Silver Banshee" to me as a much better boss name.

[BPzeBanshee]

I see.
Well, I liked it when it was Doom Satellite by preference but I do see your point.
"AAHHHHH RUN AWAY! The DOOM SATELLITE is coming to keel us all! Arrrrr!" <------ Just a bit too corny.

[lapzod]

So I downloaded this the other day and gave it a run through and it blew my mind.

Fantastic! I can't wait for the other updates now~

[EddyMRA]

Here is a proposed stage progression chart, based on Twiddle's idea from a while back:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x235 ... gepath.png
(This image is 1024 pixels in width. I did not want to cause pagestretch of these forums for users who use lower desktop resolutions.)

Stage 4-B (2035 Iceland) will become an important hub stage. It is possible to end the game early if you screw up in 4-B. On that note, the boss of this stage, the Orion destabilizer, has been reimagined from a giant bomb powered by stations to a single-screen generator complex. This complex is powered by modules that are replaced as each are destroyed. There will still be a timer onscreen that will lead to the Orion firing and branching the player to a "failure" stage that will lead to the worst ending.

The boss timer will start out low (about 1 minute as compared to 2 minutes, 30 seconds in the original). The modules can be destroyed, although more will appear after a short while to replace the destroyed modules. If enough modules are destroyed within a certain number of seconds of each other, a given number of seconds are restored to the countdown, to reflect a sudden powering-down of the self-destruct system.

B condition: Destroy Orion with more than 0:59 on the countdown, or do not let Orion have more than four modules docked to it at any one time after destroying the first two. (I'm not sure what's more realistic to expect of players...)

A condition: Destroy Orion before the countdown expires, but also with less than 1:00 left, or allow Orion to regain a fifth power module. Orion is able to set off a fault line anyway, although at least not ALL of them. Cue Second Great Lisbon Earthquake, and Geryon staying off of NEMESIS's radar.

C condition: Countdown expires before Orion is destroyed.

A new stage will be made, which will lead to the worst ending (All-1 Clear):

Stage 5-C (Ravaged Earth)
====================
Visual setting: Lava stage, Giga Wing (Shtuck's starting stage)

BGM proposal: A very somber, brooding, and sad slow song. It will purposely be unfitting for a SHMUP, and it will play over the boss fight as well. Example BGM for this purpose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjMVg57VfNs

Length: Very short, compared to other stages. The stage will last from 30 seconds to 1 minute before the boss appears.

The result of Orion overloading and activating all of the Earth's fault lines at once is nothing short of horrifying. Supervolcanoes have erupted in many places, along with every other active volcano. Tsunami have swept across the globe and drowned most of what was not obliterated by the volcanoes. It's no wonder BRES appeared reluctant to use that option...Even we're not sure if even a little more force would have broken Earth itself apart.

More than 99% of humanity has perished in the disasters, and the BRES assaults that followed. Only scattered pockets remain, with BRES steadily hunting them down. Surprisingly, the base in Portugal is still functioning somewhat. From what we can tell, there is still at least one pocket of survivors in inland Portugal, and a small BRES fleet is there. The head of that fleet is apparently an armored scoutship. BRES is probably trying to gauge just how much force will be needed extinguish the survivors across the globe. Destroy the scoutship before it can bring any information back to its baseworld!

Stage 5-C Boss: Copper Caoineag
Visual reference: Final boss, Viper Phase 1
Boss notes: This boss will also appear as a miniboss in the true final stage (Stage 9).

Epilogue: The destruction of the Copper Caoineag is just a hollow victory in a war ultimately lost. Upon its destruction, the Caoineag relayed signals to BRES's baseworld of threats still existing within the ruins of the Earth. The fleets headed by Dullahan and Bronze Harpy are already steadily destroying humanity's remaining pockets. Soon, BRES will send a cleanup crew to finish wiping out all survivors. The only vestige and legacy left of the human race will be the traitors who helped form BRES in the first place.

BRES has won. We can do nothing but await our eventual extinction. . .

Special thanks to Skyknight for the mission briefing and plotline for Stage 5-C and the All-1 Clear epilogue.

[Skyknight]

One adjustment I'd make to the course conditions: Even if 4A is taken, it's still possible to keep Orion from overloading if 6B is successfully cleared. The internal explanation: Something as obviously last-resort as detonating Orion would require authorization from the heads of the Earth operation. And what with Dullahan being the Earth operations flagship, a couple of those heads are on board. Those heads going down with Dullahan's bridge module=no way to send the complete meltdown codes to Orion, at least until BRES's chain of command gets re-sorted (and you're not going to give them time to do that, are you?). The gamer's explanation: This is mostly a way to let people take 4A intentionally without getting the worst ending automatically (granted, they're STILL not going to get to Fomoire...).

Although, I suppose this means the 4A boss will be a Fomoire mid-boss?

[BPzeBanshee]

Wow, that is seriously a lot of thought put into this.

I can't say anything else about this for the time being, looking forward to the next release sometime next Christmas.

[lilmanjs]

this sounds really cool! will there be a mix of styles for the music? like say some rock, some electronica, some classical etc...?

[EddyMRA]

this sounds really cool! will there be a mix of styles for the music? like say some rock, some electronica, some classical etc...?

Exactly. The soundtrack will consist of widely varied styles of music. Expect there to be rock, techno, electronica, ambient, orchestral, house, and trance to be in the soundtrack, among other styles.

[BPzeBanshee]

While we're actually on the subject of music, Alluro, I've been trying to follow the documentation in your music config to make the music play through the boss part of the level but have not been able to do so properly.
The best I got was that the song reset when I made it to the boss. Sorry if I seem ignorant, I swear I've tried as hard as I can to make it work properly as you mentioned but it just doesn't seem to work right. Any chance you could point me in the right direction?

[EddyMRA]

Again, development has been slow lately. Even so, I have decided to go ahead and do a v0.2 RC2 release with a substantial number of game engine tweaks and fixes, which should hold over until the next version is ready.

Download here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/yq6e4s

There are no new completed stages or new ships as of v0.2 RC2, but here are the following fixes since RC1:

MAJOR:
*Overhauled older, slower score-drawing routine, which should remove most of the lag and slowdown on older computers.
*Auto-fire option, requested by SHMUP fans since 2003 (TM).
*New general configuration INI file. This contains settings such as the auto-fire setting and the music INI file to use.
*Several large sprite animations (such as the Bomber explosions of the Judge Spear and the Bomber Shockwave) have been externalized, resulting in a smaller filesize and less loading time on bootup. You will notice a small delay after choosing a ship, which indicates the external sprite data for its Bomber is being loaded.
*Chains that end are now displayed on the screen for several seconds, with a chain rating (this rating is the Killer Instinct combo rating system, and is expected to be either changed or made customizable).
*The Judge Spear has been seriously overhauled, nerfing it significantly when controller-based autofire is used. It is now an almost perfect clone of the Raiden Fighters incarnation of the ship.
*Miyamoto's Slaves no longer hover in front of him when he has two. They now form up behind him, meaning no more n00b bullet shields, but still giving him the much needed extra frontal firepower.

MINOR:
*Initial popcorn wave in Stage 1 (before the wave of medium white planes) is now greatly reduced.
*Slave speed relative to the ships they normally accompany increased.
*M and L powerups now start out stationary when released by an enemy that carries it. This eliminates the issue of chasing powerups that shoot off in random directions, usually into clusters of enemies and bullets.
*Slave firepower reduced and bullet speed increased due to the new autofire option. Also, in manual firing mode, Slaves have been given a burst firing mode, giving them rapid firing capabilities.
*Amada Vipros' Laser weapon (Serpent Seeker) now mirrors the Aegis' Homing Rays weapon.
*Zaiva's Missile Weapon: the pods have a slower turning rate, but the firepower of the released missiles have been increased.
*Black Heart's afterburner attack is now much more rapid and harder to avoid by maneuvering ahead of it.
*Stage 3-B Miclus locations in the swamp area are now marked more conspicuously (thanks Twiddle).

COSMETIC:
*Explosions now follow the scrolling during high-speed scrolling sections (see the Black Heart test stage for an excellent demonstration of this).
*The Raiden Fighters-style large enemy fade before explosion sequence now inherits the speed and direction of the enemy on certain enemies.
*The A-10 Thunderbolt medium enemy in Stage 3-B had its sprite changed from the Sky Soldiers sprite to the Air Gallet sprite.
*The Miclus, when depleted of medals, now appears above the background before exploding.
*Zaiva's bomber now fades out as it dissipates.

OTHER FIXES:
*Omitting a BGM from playing (by entering "NONE" in the Path key of a given section in the music INI file) now works properly (thanks BPZeBanshee).
*Slowdown issue on some computers when using Miyamoto's Bomber excessively in a given stage has been resolved.
*Very rare bug involving the blue Zero planes in stage 1 randomly disappearing has been fixed.
*The mini Black Hearts now time out if they remain onscreen too long (thanks nZero).
*Teramanta, the Stage 3-B miniboss, now times out after 45 seconds (just as you leave the swamp).

New playable (but incomplete) stages:
*Stage 2 (2035 American Midwest): Backgrounds 100% complete, with Miclus locations, but only one enemy wave completed. Tekuno-Ayako is a stand-in boss at the end. Total completion 10%.
*Stage 3-A (1995 Chechnya): Backgrounds mostly complete, Miclus locations, Stage 1 enemy waves and Tekuno-Ayako as stand-ins. Total completion 5%.

As usual, please report any more issues and bugs.

[emphatic]

Cool, thanks!

[BPzeBanshee]

Amazing stuff, Alluro.
Some thoughts I have about the new stuff:

The improved config is very good - it's specific while easy enough to modify to suit one's needs.
Also, the externalisation of files and scoring system overhaul is much appreciated - while the school laptop I described in an earlier post still has trouble running it (definitely computer-related, nothing you've done) my PC is running the latest edition at full-speed in the menus and in-game when there isn't a lot going on in the screen. It still has issues with lots of stuff on screen, but I suspect that is due to just how poorly nVIDIA made the graphics card to be.
The explosion-scrolling thing has taken me a little bit to get used to, it kinda feels a bit out of place with stuff like the Micluses in Stage 2 but looks nice with the Stage 1 boss (which now has a role in 4 stages, lol, it should get a grammy award).
Speaking of Level 2, do you still even have the "Agony" music file that was used in the original XF level 2? I was wondering why you preferred this new one over that, but then I thought you might use Agony in that Vintage music mod you were going to make at some stage? Just a vintage fan's thought, don't kill me over again just yet.
Black Heart's sudden speed increase for that "difficulty manouvering" first made me suspect someone spiked the Paul's Iced Coffee I just drank prior to seeing it - I was surprised to suddenly see it go so fast in such a short time. Does its job though, I "missed it by *THAT* much" when taking it on.
Finally, weapons. The autofire is much appreciated (I'm still getting used to the "proper" Judge Spear, too lol), but I suspect there's something within the lock-on beam that's not being removed from memory upon F2 reset. Might just be the PC I'm testing on, since with RC2 I can just exit it completely, restart and it seems to run full-speed again. Oh well.
One of these days I've gotta catch you on MSN or something when we're not busy and have another discussion, eh?
EDIT: Level 3-A freezes so you have to press F2, but i'm sure you already knew that.

[EddyMRA]

First of all, I am sooooooo glad that Stage 2 seems to load on other computers without problems. I tried to run XFEX-R on my school's computers, and when it tried to load Stage 2, the game craps out, freezing at the stage select screen. My best guess that the school computer's security settings prevents the game from loading the Stage 2 external background properly into memory, corrupting the memory belonging to XFEX-R. I was worried that this would be a major roadblock to the game's development, since Stage 2 loaded perfectly on my computer.

Might just be the PC I'm testing on, since with RC2 I can just exit it completely, restart and it seems to run full-speed again. Oh well.

Are you referring to the Raiden beam slowing down the game for you? The current algorithm is very CPU intensive, so it is expected that it will bog down less powerful computers.

Here's the custom music pack with the old BGM's used in the original 2003 version of Xeno Fighters EX: http://www.sendspace.com/file/faoovq

Simply extract the contents to your XFEX-R folder and edit xfconfig.ini and update the music file setting to the following:

Code: Select all

MusicFile = xfmusic-2003.ini

Music includes "Agony" by Storm (Stage 2's original BGM) and two Stage 3-B themes: "In My Head" by Joe Lema and "1 Mile Flight" by Mastrix/LPChip.

[BPzeBanshee]

First of all, I am sooooooo glad that Stage 2 seems to load on other computers without problems. I tried to run XFEX-R on my school's computers, and when it tried to load Stage 2, the game craps out, freezing at the stage select screen. My best guess that the school computer's security settings prevents the game from loading the Stage 2 external background properly into memory, corrupting the memory belonging to XFEX-R. I was worried that this would be a major roadblock to the game's development, since Stage 2 loaded perfectly on my computer.

I just had this today, but thought it was a mis-download or something wrong with my USB. It also occurred on the school computer - on the Mac at home (which runs this game full speed no worries) I had no issues loading it. This is kinda bad, since antiviruses can't always be turned off at the school. If I may ask Alluro, what type of PC were you using which had this problem? Mine was a Dell of some modern sort.

Are you referring to the Raiden beam slowing down the game for you? The current algorithm is very CPU intensive, so it is expected that it will bog down less powerful computers.

I see that on older PCs quite obviously, but with this the game speed was getting worse not so much from using it right there and then, but over a period of time. I can have the menu running full-speed, play a game with Raiden MK-II (and some other ships, not all but most) and the general speed of the game slows by the time I finish the level and press F2 to reset, leaving me at a slow menu.
EDIT HERE: Yeah, it was my bad eyesight. The Thunderbirds are good. They're a bit bigger now I think, easier to hit then I suppose?
And great stuff with the Vintage track, Alluro, "Agony" brought back memories. I'm even more excited to see Level 2 finished now, in the meantime, do you still have the original files for the later levels? I recall there was some other happy one with pianos in it for 1915 France and that one got changed in the last 2003 release as well as Level 4 and Level 8A & B.

[nZero]

Hey, saw your Youtube comment, thanks for the heads up on the new version. The game feels really smooth after playing Thunder Dragon 2 haha.

I like where Stage 3-A is going (great fun finding the Miclii) but Stage 2 is failing to load for me.
A-10's in Stage 3-B feel easier to shoot down timely compared to before, even with Judge Spear's corrected firepower, am I imagining things?
Built-in Autofire is ACE
I can't seem to maximize the window anymore on the new version I kind of got used to the small window from recording vids but still

[BPzeBanshee]

@nZero: Simply Press F4 for full-screen.
Could you tell me what type of computer you're using where Stage 2 is failing to load? The one I mentioned earlier is a Black Dell Optiplex 755 MCSF with an Intel Core 2 Duo.
I'm trialling the latest version out on different types of computers and so far this one computer has given me issues running Level 2. Others of the same design have let me run Level 2 however, so I suspect the issue may be processor or graphics-card related. I'm hoping from this we can find out if there's a specific reason as to why the externalisation for Level 2 isn't working.

[nZero]

@nZero: Simply Press F4 for full-screen.
Could you tell me what type of computer you're using where Stage 2 is failing to load? The one I mentioned earlier is a Black Dell Optiplex 755 MCSF with an Intel Core 2 Duo.
I'm trialling the latest version out on different types of computers and so far this one computer has given me issues running Level 2. Others of the same design have let me run Level 2 however, so I suspect the issue may be processor or graphics-card related. I'm hoping from this we can find out if there's a specific reason as to why the externalisation for Level 2 isn't working.

Ah-ha, thanks, I gave up after clicking the maximize button and pressing Alt-Enter! That'll teach me to not read :)

It's a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 Core 2 Duo T9300 with Intel GMA965 integrated graphics. It's cool because after I pick Level 2 it won't do anything but I can still try and choose how many lives I want from the Stage Select screen.

[BPzeBanshee]

It's a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 Core 2 Duo T9300 with Intel GMA965 integrated graphics. It's cool because after I pick Level 2 it won't do anything but I can still try and choose how many lives I want from the Stage Select screen.

Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel integrated graphics - I'm starting to see similarities here.
Yeah, I get the same synptoms. I dont have anything to get to the usual IRC channels, I'll send you a PM with some places we could both be on and maybe discuss this further?

[EddyMRA]

Yes, there seems to be a be a pattern here. I will try to find out what the specs are for my school's computers (they are all the same computer) and report it here. Hopefully, the solution is as simple as changing the format of the stage 2 background graphic. Otherwise, I may have to take the wasteful route and stick that giant graphic internally in the game, making it load and stay into memory, significantly increasing RAM requirements. I did not want to do that in the first place, but if it solves the stage 2 loading problem for everyone, I will do it.

On an unrelated note, development is on a standstill for an indefinite amount of time. This laptop, which is about four years old, has a severe problem. The CPU cooling fan just died recently. Months before, it made horrible grinding noises as it struggled to spin. My best guess is that the fan bearings are shot, necessitating a replacement. My laptop has a thermal protection function, which slows down the CPU dramatically in order to avoid overheating. This renders my laptop virtually useless. There are two fans: the CPU fan and the VGA fan for its dedicated nVidia Geforce Go 6600 video hardware. the cheapest I can find for both parts together is about US$80, including shipping and handling (other online parts warehouses sell the fans for US$86 EACH). To exacerbate the issue, my paycheck, which should have come in a week ago, still had not come in as of this writing, leaving me with no money to get those much-needed replacement parts. I would have replaced the fans months ago if I knew where to look for them.

[BPzeBanshee]

To exacerbate the issue, my paycheck, which should have come in a week ago, still had not come in as of this writing, leaving me with no money to get those much-needed replacement parts. I would have replaced the fans months ago if I knew where to look for them.

Shit man, I thought where *I* lived had a bad paycheck system. In all seriousness, get to whoever's supposed to be giving it to you and stamp your damn feet at them, if you know what I mean. They shouldn't be delaying it by that far and if they're anything like the ignorant people we have in Australia you're going to have to say something.

As for who to find in relation to your computer trouble, my best guess would be to find some kind of custom-made computers store and they could possibly order it there. Since I don't live in America though I really don't know if they have such places.