Xeno Fighters R (2019 GM Studio Port)

[BPzeBanshee]

If you have a joystick or USB Gamepad I recommend you use Xpadder to deal with your keyboard issues until such a thing is considered/implemented.

[ploos]

I use an arcade control panel, for goodness' sake.....although I guess I could use a keytosomething to translate what I want the stock controls to be....but I prefer PnP. Thanks, though.

[BPzeBanshee]

No worries man, just trying to help.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is the issue you have with using the keyboard?

[ploos]

I thought that was evident in the first part of my last. Taint the same otherwise, and I'm fussy that way.

[Skyknight]

Meanwhile, I've been adding a few pages to the wikia (http://xenofighters.wikia.com/ for those of you who don't know about it). At the very least, I've put up pages for three of the four default fighters. {waits to see how long it'll take for the katakana for Phyxius to be corrected...never mind the shipplay write-ups}

(Actually, now I've set up the pages for all four default fighters)

[BPzeBanshee]

On my end, I've gotten hold of Mixcraft 5 and been experimenting. It has quite extensive MIDI support so I'll be using it a lot more for future songs based on MIDIs.
Not that it's completely related to XF-R, I uploaded this for all of you to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_hz_ou4kcc
It's Knights of Legend, the first stage theme of Thunder Force II. As extra stages in XF-R get made I'll be wanting to have nice ones to put in and since there's only 1 music file in my mod that's actually from Thunder Force II I decided to try this. By God there'll be more stuff to remix yet!
Please let me know what you think and how I can improve it.

[Skyknight]

{nudges topic} Do we have a progress report? Although I imagine Super Mario Fusion is taking a fair bit of your time...

[EddyMRA]

Some ideas bounced off me involving extends and difficulty settings:

Rank:
*Novice: Starts out at rock-bottom rank, maxes out near the middle.
*Expert: Always starts out at maximum rank (the current difficulty in XF-R)

Extends: All extends would use medals as their milestones instead of score.
*Novice: Simple count based on medals collected. Example milestones: 75 medals collected for 1st extend, 200 for the 2nd, 450 for the 3rd, etc.
*Expert: A more complex system that takes into account score gained from medaling. Example milestones: 5 million medal points for first extend, 20M for second, 50M for third, etc. This system encourages expert players to build up medals to 100K as fast as possible and maintain 100K mode as long as possible.

Thanks to Twiddle and Kaiser for these ideas.

[Ixmucane2]

Rank:
*Novice: Starts out at rock-bottom rank, maxes out near the middle.
*Expert: Always starts out at maximum rank (the current difficulty in XF-R)

How would rank decrease? Without rank decrease (by dying, perhaps?) expert mode would be just very difficult with no rank, i.e. simpler than novice mode. Both modes should have rank (starting tougher and/or rising faster for expert mode, of course), or rank management should be restricted to expert mode.

Extends: All extends would use medals as their milestones instead of score.
*Novice: Simple count based on medals collected. Example milestones: 75 medals collected for 1st extend, 200 for the 2nd, 450 for the 3rd, etc.
*Expert: A more complex system that takes into account score gained from medaling. Example milestones: 5 million medal points for first extend, 20M for second, 50M for third, etc. This system encourages expert players to build up medals to 100K as fast as possible and maintain 100K mode as long as possible.

Isn't scoring a sufficient incentive to optimize medal value? For an expert player, who should be playing for score anyway, a reason to trade off medal value for medal count should be an interesting twist, if extends are valuable and if simultaneously building up medal value and catching them all is impossible.
Do you plan to award many points for life stock? Can deliberate suicide help scoring? Would expert players who can finish the game without dying too much want extends for other reasons that I cannot imagine?

[EddyMRA]

The exact rank mechanics have not been decided yet.

Extends are being considered due to the sheer length of the game.

[emphatic]

How about adding a really huge end of game bonus using the lives left x no-missed stages or something. Or a no-miss-no-bomb special bonus?

[EddyMRA]

Here's a couple of minor updates:


The new title screen by emphatic and Herr Schatten in game.


Small tanks now cast their shadows properly no matter what direction they're facing. The earlier tanks had their shadows already on the sprite itself, so when the sprite is rotated, the shadow is rotated as well, causing odd visual anomalies, such as this:


New Jade Knight sprites by Herr Schatten have been implemented:

[Skyknight]

Jade Knight, you mean? We already have new Jade Hydra sprites...

[EddyMRA]

Jade Knight, you mean? We already have new Jade Hydra sprites...

Silly me. I meant Jade Knight.

[emphatic]

Wow, very nice!

[Herr Schatten]

Wow, very nice!

Indeed. Awesome stuff. Great work on the shadows of the tanks. Did you make them seperate sprites?

[EddyMRA]

Indeed. Awesome stuff. Great work on the shadows of the tanks. Did you make them seperate sprites?

In a sense, I did. I have a semi-transparent blackened copy of the tank sprite drawn underneath and offset from the main tank sprite.

[EddyMRA]

Here's a WIP video of Stage 3-A (1995 Chechnya). It is an 85% complete, with the only major thing left to do is the boss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krPve45S9MQ

Here is a new stage that's currently a work in progress. It's Stage 3-A, which takes place in the First Chechen War (1994-1996).

This stage's design is heavily influenced by classic Raiden. The main type of enemy in this stage is the sniper tank, which usually have a delayed appearance at a player's vulnerable sides. Included are the sniper helicopters, which hang on the screen for a while and firing potshots at the player. Large enemies include SR-71 Blackbirds and larger tanks.

The only thing left to do for this stage is to make the boss, Jasper Gigas, which is a giant tank. Techno Ayako is just a placeholder until then.

Also shown is the new title screen, made by emphatic and Herr Schatten of the SHMUPS.com forums.

Stage BGM: The Advance (Battle Bakraid)

[Skyknight]

Meanwhile, for the sake of the wikia, do we have any positive IDs for the fighters from the Vietnam stages in Sky Soldiers? The only ones I identified were the Thunderbolt (the Air Gallet sprite is being used) and the Intruder (one of the Sky Soldiers planes NOT being used).

[EddyMRA]

Meanwhile, for the sake of the wikia, do we have any positive IDs for the fighters from the Vietnam stages in Sky Soldiers? The only ones I identified were the Thunderbolt (the Air Gallet sprite is being used) and the Intruder (one of the Sky Soldiers planes NOT being used).

In Xeno Fighters R's Vietnam stage, one of the small white planes have been confirmed as F-5 Freedom Fighters. The larger plane that carries Slave icons is the Avro Vulcan B.2, used by the Royal Air Force. The helicopters, due to their large size and six helicopter blades, could be Sikorsky MH-53's. The B-52 Stratofortress is obvious. I cannot identify the other white popcorn plane (the one without a tail) for the life of me.

For Sky Soldiers:
*F-5 Freedom Fighter
*E-2 Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning: with the radar on the top.
*Brown planes (also used in Xeno Fighters): EA-6B Prowler?

[sonicfan966]

Those new Jade Knight sprites look great.

Also, if your curious this is my high score on the game:

You can not believe how long I lasted with no extra lives left.

As for feedback, I think you might wanna nerf Gyaraga a bit;
The fact that it can survive more then one hit with a fully upgraded laser, only to be restored with another single laser pick up gives him HUGE priority over the rest

And if I may ask, are you still accepting suggestions for fightercraft in the game?

[nZero]

Also, if your curious this is my high score on the game:

You can not believe how long I lasted with no extra lives left.

You should post that in the high score thread

[EddyMRA]

As for feedback, I think you might wanna nerf Gyaraga a bit;
The fact that it can survive more then one hit with a fully upgraded laser, only to be restored with another single laser pick up gives him HUGE priority over the rest

And if I may ask, are you still accepting suggestions for fightercraft in the game?

Gyaraga is a lethal joke fighter. Without the ability to survive a hit, it'd be pointless because its firing rate is rock bottom. It's supposed to be powerful when you power it up fully.

And no, I'm no longer taking ship suggestions.

[lilmanjs]

love how stage 3-A looks now. I wonder though if my Moby song will still fit for the stage. I think for my music mod that uses only game music, I might try to make one that only has music from Neo-Geo shmups.

[sonicfan966]

Some more feedback that I should've got to when I made my previous post, as it bothers me more so then anything.

At some points of the day, the game will run perfect, and then other times it'll run unplayably slow.
Why is this?

[EddyMRA]

Some more feedback that I should've got to when I made my previous post, as it bothers me more so then anything.

At some points of the day, the game will run perfect, and then other times it'll run unplayably slow.
Why is this?

It's your computer. Check if anything else happens to be running when you launch the game.

[Skyknight]

And of a sudden, I'm wondering if my 3A song pick "Being Rushed" works anymore. I chose that one on account of its desolate quality. The large tanks and SR-71s make the stage less desolate...somehow. (Just on account of it looking more cluttered/populated?)

[lilmanjs]

heh, does this even fit for the stage anymore?
link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCEqsl-Spwg

[EddyMRA]

A couple of minor updates, mainly bugfixes:
*Raiden mk-IIβ: It can now point-blank small ground enemies it overlaps properly.
*Green Walrus: Each of his three forms has lower health. However, his first and second forms last just 10 seconds before he goes into a swan dive.
*Game no longer hangs for a few seconds when resetting the game while music is playing.

The bonus system has been completely rewritten. Finally, bonuses are multiplied to the proper current chain counter. Also, multiple bonuses acquired at the same time no longer have the same multiplier.

[lilmanjs]

yay! more updates! love the screens you used.