Decimation X (from Xona Games)...

[Xonatron]

Quick question about Xbox Live: I currently only have a silver account and have not noticed if my rating a game is counted. Is it?

I assume it counts, because it gives you the option to rate. You could try rating some old indie games that only has a few ratings, like 10 or 12, and then go back the next day and see if the count goes up by one for all of them.

[No_not_like_Quake]

Ok, thanks.

[JLV 2k5]

Jason: thanks for the insight about the timing issue.

This talk about the online scoreboard is getting me excited about it; still looking forward to the implementation of it.

Question: Will we only be able to see the score of our friends who play Decimation, or will we be able to see all gamers highscore from the entire Decimation community?


Note: I just put up a 4.33 million high score (level 60, those damn green dots got me). I died twice relatively early, and could have possibly squeezed by in some situations where I died, so i know me breaking the 5 million barrier can come soon .

It is so important to power your shit up really early. Rancid3000 and I are now pausing the game to analyze the icon showers to find the best area to collect the powerups (avoiding "pts" and targeting "P"s and "A"s, squared ones, shields if you need it, "I"s, etc).

I have also found that in levels where you still have shields remaining, I just sit in the middle as they pass, blasting away, when the bullet rain comes I hide and try to grab as many powerups as possible. Then when they come by again, I still sit right in the middle and blast away, finishing them off. Keeping your ship powerful (and not dying carelessly) is the key to getting high scores in Decimation.


JASON: I am really interested in talking to you about the programming dynamics.

1) I am a little unclear as to what the "P" icons actually do. Do they give you a larger bullet spread, or merely increase the damage of each bullet?

2) At what rate do the enemies increase in power (health) as you progress through the levels. Is it a linear progression or exponential; does the rate change at certain stages of the game or remain consistent?

3) In addition to enemy health rate increase, I am curious as to how you have programmed their firepower. At each stage to you just increase their fire rate? Is this a consistent increase or incremental (ex: every few levels they begin dumping down more bullets)?


I know its a long post, I apologize for that.

Thanks for all the help!

[Jason]

JLV 2k5,

You'll see friends scores and scores from everyone who owns the game (with a Gold membership, only because Silver memberships are banned from online play, and that's the protocol I'm using to share the scores). I call it Friends Scoreboards to differentiate from Online Scoreboards, which only show the top 50 rankings, or just global rankings, which isn't proper. You want to see your friends too!

The green dots are hard... you have to be aware that you must kill them evenly... so they die at the same time, and one of them leftover doesn't kill off all your men. This is a defining point of the game. I got by this, and got to level 74 with 5.8 million points. Just once.

1. P's fill the power bar (the squares). When it fills, you get to shoot one extra bullet. Bullets are always the same strength. But instead of shooting 1, you shoot a spread of 2. The next time the bar fills, you shoot a spread of 3. This does NOT change the maximum # of bullets you're allowed on-screen at once. B's change that.

2. First enemies have 1 hit point (1 bullet). Second have 2 HPs. Third has 3 HP. They increment by 1 after that, for each new enemy. Linear. But, some enemies are harder to hit... the game has per-pixel collision detection (almost).

3. Enemy firepower increments linearly. The entire wave has a certain amount of power, regardless if it's 1 or 55 enemies, that's why the last guy shoots more. It's constant over the whole wave. But each new level is linearly incremented.

Onward!

[JLV 2k5]

Jason, great thanks for the info / advice. Ya that is the first time ive seen the green boys; im excited to get another chance at them.

So I am assuming 5.8 million is the highest score you have gotten; have you heard / seen anyone do better?

Another scoreboard question. With the addition to the online scoreboard, will it include scores that were achieved prior to the addition of the online feature, or will they have to be set after it is released? I hope my 4.33 million will automatically be up there

Thanks!

[JLV 2k5]

We are also having trouble with "A" powerups here and there. Rancid3000 mentioned that he has missed a couple when it appeared as though they went right through the ship. I just had it happen to me too

[Jason]

JLV 2k5, My level 74, 5.8 million is the highest I've heard of so far. I was over 3 million and still hadn't died yet. This goes to show how the reckless deaths early on squander the chances of getting a high score.

The Friends Scoreboards will include the scores achieved before the update.

There's a maximum number of A's and R's power-ups that you can get. Once you have the maximum, they just pass through the ship and give you points for each frame they are within 'grabbing range'. You know you have maximum A's when the ship is firing every 2nd frame, it's almost like a solid laser, but not quite.

[JLV 2k5]

Jason
Yikes we thought that there was a programming error or something (oops sorry ).

Wow great, that is excellent to know though, because if there is are options of 2 powerups, or an A/R is risky, you don't even have to go for it.

I'm very excited to hear that previous scores will be posted on the online board. Can't wait for it to be up!!

Thanks!

keep crushing

[Jason]

The R's are not that important, since they don't increment bullet speed by that much, and you can always get them later. But the A's are rare, they don't appear as often, so I'd say it's well worth the risk for every A that comes. Since if you don't get them earlier, they are hard to come by later inside the bullet rain. Which means you don't have the power to decimate the waves when you need to, and they live longer, so shields deplete faster, and you get less bonus points for the time bonus for completing a level. All of my high scores are when I have full A's soon.

[JLV 2k5]

yeah i have noticed that too. Thanks for the tips Jason. I also notice that I tend to do better when I not only get As early, but have a diverse collection of powerups. Sometimes I strive to get more Ps, but if you don't have the As and Bs to complement them, you wont have a nice & large bullet stream.

I find that games where I can achieve and maintain this nice firepower early are the ones where I score high. My top nine scores are now 3 million or higher

[JLV 2k5]

is the update still caught up in the review process?

[Taylor]

Didn't read the 6 pages about the Incest Ratio tagline but I did play Decimation X. If cranking this stuff helps you then by all means do, I think I'd be interested in more well made $1 games... However, Space Invaders with mass power ups replacing the aiming and precision isn't really my cuppa. Good luck with Duality.

[Jason]

is the update still caught up in the review process?

It's not in the review process yet. Should be this week though.

[Jason]

... Space Invaders with mass power ups replacing the aiming and precision isn't really my cuppa. Good luck with Duality.

Thanks for the feedback. Precision aiming is lost when you hype it up to this degree, but timing your shot is still there, as you'll see people forgetting to let go of the fire button assuming the bullets are bound to hit the remaining enemies, and after 3 or 4 passes, they clue in and time their shot. So, it's not aiming in the same sense as the original, but it's still there. With the massive amount of firepower, new strategies arrive. Quicker kills means more points and more preserved shields, since they don't auto-restore every level, so you'll want to optimize your attack. And massive firepower from the enemy adds a definite challenge to killing them fast, while diving in to get icons. It's a good reward vs. risk mechanic. I'd love for you to try it out and see if you find it has more than you first expected.

[JLV 2k5]

Didn't read the 6 pages about the Incest Ratio tagline but I did play Decimation X. If cranking this stuff helps you then by all means do, I think I'd be interested in more well made $1 games... However, Space Invaders with mass power ups replacing the aiming and precision isn't really my cuppa. Good luck with Duality.

yeah you should give it another try. watch some of the Decimation X videos on youtube and see what other people are doing to achieve high scores.


@Jason. stinks about the review process. We're all looking forward to the online scores but it'll happen when it happens.

i put up a 2nd score that surpassed 4million today, yessssss

Thanks!

[JLV 2k5]

@Jason - another question came up about Decimation

This is originally from Rancid3000, he had a question about scoring as a function of speed.

How exactly does the speed at which you complete a level impact your score for that board?

Thanks

[Jason]

How exactly does the speed at which you complete a level impact your score for that board?

Time bonuses are inverse squared.
If you beat a level twice as fast, you get 4x as many points.
If you beat a level half as fast, you only get 1/4th as many points.
This is for the time bonus only. All other points maintain their standard values.

The standard is 20 seconds.
Your additional time bonus will equal the standard level completion bonus if you complete it in 20 seconds.
If you complete it in 10 seconds, you'll get 4 times that.
If it takes 40 seconds, you'll get 1/4th that.

[JLV 2k5]

thanks for that information Jason. I like learning about your programming. every piece of information potentially can lead to a better player and or score.

so in knowing that, my next question is about each levels base 20second score and how it increases as the levels progress.

is this linear? if so at what rate? does level 2 (completed in 20sec) give double the amount of points as level 1? 1.5 times? 3 times?

I could probably figure this out but sometimes its hard with all the action.

Thanks!

[Pulsewidth]

As for the name issue, you can claim the 'X' is the roman numeral 10, meaning ten times as many deaths as a single decimation bringing it up to 100%.

But "intense retro" sounds vaguely insulting and the trailer video looks lame so I wouldn't buy this even if I had a 360.

[ncp]

"intense retro" sounds vaguely insulting

what

I mean, I guess if you don't know what "intense" or "retro" (or both) mean. Not a big fan of the phrase myself, but insulting it is not...

[Jeneki]

As for the name issue, you can claim the 'X' is the roman numeral 10, meaning ten times as many deaths as a single decimation bringing it up to 100%.

That's actually pretty clever.

[Jason]

my next question is about each levels base 20second score and how it increases as the levels progress.

is this linear? if so at what rate? does level 2 (completed in 20sec) give double the amount of points as level 1? 1.5 times? 3 times?

The 'standard' points for 1. completing a level and 2. time bonus for 20 second completion, are both identical, and linear. It's 250 pts for level 1, 500 pts for level 2, 750 pts for level 3, etc. You can see on screen what the standard completion bonus is, and the time bonus will be the same if you did it in 20 seconds, and more if you did it faster.

[JLV 2k5]

thanks Jason. I know too that each enemy killed awards points. I would assume this point calculation goes up linearly too. Do the first red enemies award 1 point each, the blues 2, the greens 3, then so on and so on?

By the way, Rancid3000 and I (his idea) have decided to compile a full force strategy document for Decimation X.

We'll give you some updates on that later

Thanks!

[Jason]

JLV 2k5, yes they go up linearly. But it's 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. for them. And the icons count up linearly as well (I believe 250, 500, 750, etc). As well as the pts. icon which gives more points than a normal icon does (I believe 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, etc.).

Wow, good luck with the full force strategy doc for Decimation X! That's quite a compliment that someone is willing to put this much effort in to optimizing scoring for the game. Can't wait to see it! I'll reveal whatever information you desire / require for it.

Thanks!

[rancid3000]

JLV 2k5, yes they go up linearly. But it's 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. for them. And the icons count up linearly as well (I believe 250, 500, 750, etc). As well as the pts. icon which gives more points than a normal icon does (I believe 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, etc.).

Wow, good luck with the full force strategy doc for Decimation X! That's quite a compliment that someone is willing to put this much effort in to optimizing scoring for the game. Can't wait to see it! I'll reveal whatever information you desire / require for it.

Thanks!

I'm excited too haha. JLV and I are putting it together on google documents and we are going to post it in the Strategy section once we think we have enough information in it.

I know there are definitely areas where we need more detailed information from you guys (Jason and Matthew). We'll let you know which areas we need help with once we post it to the Strategy section.

[Xonatron]

I'm excited too haha. JLV and I are putting it together on google documents and we are going to post it in the Strategy section once we think we have enough information in it.

I know there are definitely areas where we need more detailed information from you guys (Jason and Matthew). We'll let you know which areas we need help with once we post it to the Strategy section.

We can post this "officially" on Xona Games if you guys wish to do so, with full credit towards you guys. I would love to bring more shmup fans together anyways.

[JLV 2k5]

We can post this "officially" on Xona Games if you guys wish to do so, with full credit towards you guys. I would love to bring more shmup fans together anyways.

Yeah posting in on the Xona Games site too would be great. At first we weren't sure what you two would think of this, if you would feel it more appropriate that you guys wrote the information/strategy guide. I'm glad you're excited. We are pretty amped up about all of it.

It's probably interesting to see other people's take on the game aspects and strategy within the game. There are always things that others see differently.

Thanks guys!

[Xonatron]

Yeah posting in on the Xona Games site too would be great. At first we weren't sure what you two would think of this, if you would feel it more appropriate that you guys wrote the information/strategy guide. I'm glad you're excited. We are pretty amped up about all of it.

It's probably interesting to see other people's take on the game aspects and strategy within the game. There are always things that others see differently.

Thanks guys!

No worries, we love this! We would much rather have you write the guide. As you said, everyone sees things differently. But Jason (being the coder/designer) would be required to fill in the facts that a gamer could only guess at. Asided from that, go full steam ahead! We wouldn't even mind if the guide had guesses that were mistakes in terms of points and what not. No worries about any of this. The support is great. We would do our best to help you make the document accurate, where it can be, of course.

[Jason]

At first we weren't sure what you two would think of this, if you would feel it more appropriate that you guys wrote the information/strategy guide. I'm glad you're excited. We are pretty amped up about all of it.

I'm pretty excited that you guys are doing this, and putting forth this effort. We don't mind at all, and I love the idea of merely a strategy guide if nothing else. You have no idea how refreshing it is to see someone care enough about high scoring to develop strategies that are similar to ones we've already developed. And I'm sure there are more to come. Any program specifics about speeds, power, points, timing, even collision information, I can reveal. Just let me know what you need!

and Thanks!!

[Observer]

Guys, I think you inadvertently made my day. Decimation X is coming for PC too? Those are the best news this week. That also means it'll come with all the corrections/fixes and such from the go, right?