VISUAL ATROCITY - Cris Spiegel's projects

[Spiegel]

Hello, everyone. I'm Cris Spiegel and I'm here to present to you my projects. They can also be seen in my website (well, it's a blog, but it doesn't look so):

VISUAL ATROCITY

The first one is called MUHON NO KAZE: WINDS OF REBELLION and it's a verticall scrolling bullet hell in the Cave style but with polarity system. There are blue and red bullets, but some enemies also fire neutral grey ones. For those who think it's something that cannot be pulled off, I tell you that so far things are great and, although the later parts are still kinda messy, it's just a matter of ironing up - development is not near the end yet, still lots of things to do.


You may look for "Winds of Rebellion" on YouTube for some old videos.

PROGRESS: music sound system working properly with streaming; working on the 'blinking' of shot enemies.

Second one is LICHTGESTALT BATORU. It's on hold, but a demo is out. This is an abstract scrolling one where the player is not bonded to only one direction, but is able to shoot in the four cardinal directions. Enemies come from everywhere, so you're encouraged to stay closer to the center of the screen. There's also grazing - fulfill the meter so a powerup appears. First stage is done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz_Ht8r-gTE

PROGRESS: Now with music!; the rest is on hold.

Third one is not really started. It will be called GoGoMaki Dai Jo Bu. My sister asked me to create a game that girls can better relate to. So I'm imagining and sketching stuff inspired by Mushihime-sama, Shikigami no Shiro and cute'em ups. There's nothing really defined about gameplay, only that it will be vertical, there will be a bunch of characters to choose from and their powers will vary greatly.

Cute pencil people is all I have so far,

PROGRESS: Cute pencil people WAS all I HAD: coding has started!; doing sprites for the charas.

I'm using Game Maker 7 to make these games.

GET LICHTGESTALT BATORU DEMO HERE!

This is my MySpace Music profile, with songs I've written for my games:
SPIEGELWORKS

[ShmupSamurai]

Interesting, these look REALLY good. I'm into shmup dev my self.
Current project: Samurai Sabre.

[Kollision]

I've seen one of his games in action, and it is indeed very, very good.
Awesome influence from Cave and Treasure!

[ShmupSamurai]

Ah, nice choices of influnce my friend.

[Udderdude]

VISUAL ATROCITY? Well, that lives up to it's name. D'ohohohoh! Nah, just kidding.

I did try the LICHTGESTALT BATORU demo (By the way, the JAPANESU SOUNDINGU NAMESU are not helping anyone). The control system was quite confusing and I ended up trying to play it with one hand on my Saturn's d-pad for movement, and the other on my keyboard's WASD keys for firing. The pre-configred Joy2key did not seem to work (at least the start button didn't, I had to press Enter on my keyboard).

As for the game itself, it was somewhat confusing. I think I have some idea what I'm supposed to do by watching the youtube demo, but no clue how to actually do it. How do you make that slow moving green circle of death go out?

I think it has potential but it needs quite a lot of polish at the moment.

[Spiegel]

VISUAL ATROCITY was the name of the fotolog where I used to post my illustrations and studies.

About Lichtgestalt Batoru (just don't try to say battle - it's wasei-eigo, not English and it's not even meant to be understood - I have a harder time trying to say lichtgestalt), the controls are to be arranged in a cross shape, just like the d-pad. Joy2Key is preconfigured to DualShock in a clockwise disposition of buttons - just like the page of the game shows -, so if you have other type of gamepad, just set it the way it should be. If it's to odd to use Saturn's gamepad, go for the keyboard - or else, I'm sorry. Enter key is mapped to button #10. Just configure Joy2Key and it will be ok. I'll try to make it all clear in the site later.

The "slow moving green circle of death" - I suppose you're talking about the bomb. It's just like Recca. Halt your fire for a little and it will charge. Fire again to cast it.

Power up: grazing bullets will raise a gauge. When complete, a powerup item will fall from the top of the screen. This item is like a roulette (ChoRenSha style). You can power your main fire up or choose a type of bomb. Yeah, your bullets remain the same albeit stronger, what you can change is the bomb.

In the end of the day, it's just regular shmup, only that it gives you four directions to shoot.

Thanks for trying it.

[Udderdude]

Well, Gamemaker is a PITA to make work with different controllers, but making the config program have the raw keycodes instead of what key it is isn't helping either. I would suggest making an array of keycodes and corresponding string for each, so you can display something besides raw keycodes.

[Spiegel]

Well, Gamemaker is a PITA to make work with different controllers, but making the config program have the raw keycodes instead of what key it is isn't helping either. I would suggest making an array of keycodes and corresponding string for each, so you can display something besides raw keycodes.

I think I can do that. Thanks.

[Dinizz_2d]

Well, here are my first impressions of the game:

- As always, the bullet patterns are very good and fun to evade.
- The game is too hard for those aren't familiar with the mechanics, i suggest a more slow difficult increase.
- The graphics are GREAT, very nice feeling. The boss is awesome.
- I missed MUCH a song, i believe that a music can put a very nice feeling on this game.
- The atmosphere of the game is good.

And for the udderdude comment, i think that the saturn joystick (my FAVORITE joystick of all time) isn't the best choice for this game, i think that the PS2 controller is great for games that allow you to fire in every direction.

Yes, the game needs polish, but it's a demo, right?

And finally, i don't believe that you didn't figure how to release the bomb for yourself... =D

[coffeejoerx]

Sorry for my english, is not so good.

I liked Lichtgestalt Batoru, have a interesting elements, for example the part the scenario is similar a Tetris stage.

For the fact that is a brazilian indie game and Cris made everything alone, it's a really nice work.

[ShmupSamurai]

Dual stick firing rules.

[shadowbringer]

first impressions:
- max score (so far): 305265 (graze level 5)
- enemies can come from everywhere, indeed (however, memorizing the appearance of the most troublesome ones seem to make things easier)
- absorbing bullets doesn't give you points
- fortunately, you're allowed to release a half-charged attack (instead of having to wait for the full charge)
- sometimes, the wrong charged weapon can be troublesome against the spider-like enemies if the normal shot isn't strong enough (I may be wrong, though. Since the shots are spawned from the legs, sometimes just the unreleased charge will not protect you entirely). But the normal weapon can become strong enough for you to not need the charged weapon. (in that sense, I feel that I don't know what weapon I'm getting until I get them enough times to learn.. perhaps some sort of demonstration would help solve this and help new players pick up the game faster?)
- grazing may get some tries getting used to (I mean, the hitbox), noticed that the ship glows when it's grazing
- the graze gauge doesn't require you to chase different bullets, I like how the current graze route I'm using doesn't leave me too vulnerable (however enemies can shoot at you while you're close to them) and allow me to earn enough medals. Haven't tried to milk the spider enemies, though. (too risky for me :p)
- difficulty of the midboss and boss is ok
- I also liked the design and patterns

[Spiegel]

One tip with the spider-like enemies: use the bomb as shield if you need and release it directly onto the enemy. The bullets from it are more effective against weaker enemies.

Thank you for playing!

[Spiegel]

Started coding for GoGoMaki and added music to Lichtgestalt Batoru (just download the demo through the same link). Site also updated - don't forget to visit!

Do you guys have any ideas on how I can divulge my work? It would be nice to have links to my site and Batoru demo in blogs around the net. If you know any URL of blogs and sites, please let me know.