ABA Games Gunroar

teller · Post by **teller** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 6:51 pm

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/index_e.html

It's cool

Sincerely,

teller

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 8:45 pm

Yeah, I was amazed by it. The odd thing about the game is that it scrolls automatically with the ability to move forward further by moving to the top of the screen. Some Psyiko ports had something like this, but in this game it's real and not a method of showing only part of the screen like in the Psyiko ports. Another cool thing about the game is how it actually shows you the ranking precentage.

the2bears · Post by **the2bears** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 8:54 pm

Quickly downloads... ready to play. I love Kenta's games, he's ahead of schedule

Bill

edit: Man I love that guy's style! Just a quick run through but this is fun.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 9:27 pm

Downloading now

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:17 pm

I have some issues with this game. First of all, there's too much stuff on the screen. I'm not talking too many bullets. I'm talking residue from bullets that were nullified when an enemy was destroyed, as well as shrapnel from destroyed ships. In this abstract format, there is far too much clutter to keep track of, which distracts you from real threats. Second, the control system is rather clunky. Granted, the full 360-degree scheme may is necessary later on, when you are forced to circle around enemies, however, for some reason it just doesn't gel with me. Third is the notion of the multiple scrolling speeds. It's all fine and dandy until you reach a boss, then it becomes a pain in the ass to expose the whole thing. Granted, you probably wouldn't want the whole thing exposed at once, but the least he could do is make the threshold for advanced scrolling a little bit further down the screen.

Overall, it's another welcome game, though in my mind flawed.

druuna · Post by **druuna** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:37 pm

Wooow...really a GREAT game

First I love the idea of a boat in a virtual sea, never seen something like that in a shmup.
Gameplay seems very interesting, I really need to play it a few days before say anything but after 10 a minutes run all I can say is that the game seems very well made...with great interesting gameplay's ideas.
I suggest only to play this game with a joypad, movements are quite complicated.
Great job ABA

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 12:39 am

WOW ABA GAMES have done it again!

I really, really like how this game plays, not to shabby on the whole processing department either, my comp gets no slow down from running it.

My first impressions are that boss battles are a pain because is very hard to get close enough to them so that you can do any damage with you're guns/lance attacks.

uwfan · Post by **uwfan** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 12:58 am

remember this is only the 0.1 version as well, keep an eye out for future updates, because he usually fixes/tweaks any problems in future releases.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:04 am

yeah, while I love the game, I do admit that the controls are a bit loose. Hopefully, this will be addressed in future versions.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:20 am

If this game is like what I think it is, it's terrible, especially after the excellent Torus Trooper...hopefully someone can maybe explain play mechanics that aren't immediately obvious

edit - ah, there's an english helpfile

"Rank multiplier (displayed in the upper right) is a bonus multiplier
that increases with a difficulty of a game.
You can increase a rank multiplier faster by going forward faster."

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:53 am

Interesting that rank slowly decreases during boss battles.

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:53 am

Hopefully this gets a Mac OS X port soon, past ports have come rather quickly.

WarpZone · Post by **WarpZone** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:27 am

Hmm, using a gamepad, I found the controls fairly tight. The scrolling for bosses does seem a little awkward, though you only have to destroy its center core- the other little red "squares" are optional.

So far I really like this game, and it's all about controlling rank. Although it gradually increases by a certain amount as you get further in the game, you can purposely increase it early on. This means you don't have to sit through "boring" initial stages if you don't want to, and you can find a rank "level" that you like and just stick with it for those stages. As long as it's higher than the "default" rank for that stage, you'll be benefitting until your rank level becomes the default. It would be interesting to see high scores from the first stage alone....and that's one thing that bothers me a bit: the game seems pretty stingy about remembering high scores. Just the best and the most recent.

blip · Post by **blip** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:57 pm

Mr. Cho is soliciting feedback on his blog:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ABA/

I don't know if it's considered impolite to post English on a Japanese blog, but he seems reasonably fluent in English (he codes in it)...

Stormowl · Post by **Stormowl** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 2:06 pm

this is definitely more fun to me that Torus Trooper was. i just wish it would scroll steadily and that you wouldn't have to go up to the top of the screen all the time, especially at the bosses.

ForteMP3 · Post by **ForteMP3** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 5:13 am

The scrolling system is a bit odd, yes, but damn if this isn't one of ABA's better titles. I still love TT for being an original mix on several genres (It's part F-Zero and part Tempest and then some) but Gunroar is quickly becoming another favorite of mine.

However, I certainly would like to see more game modes added, a-la Parsec47 and rRootage. Perhaps some different secondary weapon types or different movement types, but so far, so good.

BUHA · Post by **BUHA** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 6:43 am

I can't get the hang of the controls! No matter what I do, I end up shooting in the totally wrong direction

I better stick with games where you only shoot in one direction.

StorminNorman · Post by **StorminNorman** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:22 am

If you hold down the fire button, your ship locks to the currently facing direction, which makes the early levels a lot easier.

I've got most of the scoring system figured out, but can someone explain it in detail? I'm particularly curious about what the bullet-break does.

My big complaint with the game is that the score covers too much of the playfield.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 12:36 pm

I can sincerely tell you all that I do NOT like it one bit!

And I am blaiming the stupid controls for that!

Music isn't as good as some of his other games' music.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 1:40 pm

yeah but the music can be changed, just copy and paste the music from the other ABA games you like.

On the controls front, yeah I think they are OK, I've gotten used to them but I feel that robotron style controls would of been better suited for this style of game me thinks.

anyway that's my two pennies...

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:06 pm

I like it, one of the best from ABA

Could do with less twitchy controls, but aside from that it's very enjoyable

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:26 am

It's my favourite ABA game so far. It's AWESOME.

You can get used with the controls... in the beggining I thought it was crap, now I am most of the time always shooting where I want

that's what I figured about the score system so far:

You push the screen, the rank goes up.

The rank works as a multiplier for the score of each enemy destroyed.

The ships that have gun turrets, for each turret destroyed, you get a multiplier for that enemy. This multiplier slowly goes down. When you destroy the ship, you earn it's score*rank*it's own multiplier.

The boss is full of turrets.. I've made 1.2 million in a boss alone.

And I've managed to do 2.5 million in the 1st score a couple of times.

In later levels the rank goes up by itself. I think each level has "minimun rank". If the rank is lower than that, it will rise.

And while rank does decrease in boss battles, it doesn't seem to affect it. You will fight it with the rank you got there, the boss doesn't seem to get easier if you just sit still and wait for the rank to go down.

StorminNorman · Post by **StorminNorman** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:32 am

Shatterhand wrote:In later levels the rank goes up by itself. I think each level has "minimun rank". If the rank is lower than that, it will rise.

Not only that, but if the rank reaches that minimum during boss battles, it seems to stop counting down completely.

I still don't entirely know what bullets do for score, though.

EDIT: I just experimented by sitting at the top of the screen and facing downwards, shooting. All I can say is that this game gets really insane after about rank 200.

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:55 pm

The Mac port came out yesterday:

http://shinh.skr.jp/osxbin/

I like it, really good stuff. I think I might prefer a more Guardian Force or Robotron style control set-up. I find that sometimes I accidentally slightly depress the fire button and then I'm stuck firing at the wrong angle. I'll live, just gotta get used to it.

straight · Post by **straight** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:16 am

Great game. I really like how it looks if you crank the luminosity way up (unlike most of his games -- a7x I have to turn the luminosity all the way down to be able to follow it). See the README if you don't know what I'm talking about.

I feel like this would be a whole lot easier if I hadn't played so much Warning Forever. The controls work exactly opposite, and especially when I start circling a boss ship I find my WF instincts steering me wrong all the time.

shiftace · Post by **shiftace** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 1:44 am

Good fun. I wish it didn't crash this crappy computer so much.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:13 am

straight wrote:Great game. I really like how it looks if you crank the luminosity way up (unlike most of his games -- a7x I have to turn the luminosity all the way down to be able to follow it). See the README if you don't know what I'm talking about.

I feel like this would be a whole lot easier if I hadn't played so much Warning Forever. The controls work exactly opposite, and especially when I start circling a boss ship I find my WF instincts steering me wrong all the time.

Yeah. I know how you feel. The controls take a bit of getting used to since they are so different from Warning Forever's controls.

uwfan · Post by **uwfan** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:36 am

lets face it, the guy is a f*cking genius.

the idea of a rank multiplier that increases faster, the faster you move up the screen is one of those brilliant ideas that is so good and yet so simple, you think why has no-one thought of this before?

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:46 am

blip wrote:Mr. Cho is soliciting feedback on his blog:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ABA/

I don't know if it's considered impolite to post English on a Japanese blog, but he seems reasonably fluent in English (he codes in it)...

Since he's decent at English and has an English page, I think it would be okay... just make sure you use easy to understand English (short sentences, easy grammar) to make sure your feedback isn't misunderstood.

Also, is it just me or are his game names getting more coherent? Tumiki Fighters, Torus Trooper, Gunroar... a big jump up from Parsec47, rRootage, and A7Xpg.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:30 pm

It was mentioned briefly in the high scores forum, but Gunroar is at v. 0.13 now with some slick additions like twin stick play (Smash TV controls) and double play mode (controlling two ships at once). I finally get to use the right analog on my Logitech Dual Action!