TFIV Rebirth dev thread

[wondersonic]

Hello,
Being a fan of the Thunder Force IV episode (AKA Lightening Force), I've started a direct spin-off of this game.

For the little story, this game was previously written in Java/OpenGL but I recently switched to Unity 3D which brings faster development and deployment!

Current version: 0.0.14
- webplayer
- win32
- win64
- MAC OS X Universal

Videos:

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPt_duj9RGw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILyrVtjqA-U

http://youtu.be/djfIZ39z8cM

http://youtu.be/MFQYMYUrJsU

Screenshots:

In game screenshot of first level:


Unity 3D scene at runtime:








Constructive comments, advices and ideas welcome of course!

But also participation greatly appreciated (test, 3D modelisation, sounds, music remix...)

Best regards,
WS

[wondersonic]

First Level scope here

WS

[neorichieb1971]

I downloaded all the files but the go.bat window just disappears immediately.

[wondersonic]

I downloaded all the files but the go.bat window just disappears immediately.

Oups, my first public bug

Please, could you open a command window (cmd.exe), run the go.bat and send me the stack trace

Or better, fill an issue

thanks
WS

PS: only the tf4r.zip file is needed

[wondersonic]

BTW, I suspect your Java Runtime Environment is not version 1.6.

I'll add a comment about it.

[monkeyman]

Looked through your concepts and ideas section and am curious why you want such an emphasis on RPG style abilties in a TF game.
I mean if you want to continue from TF4 then you may want to keep the same gameplay principles. Trying to shoehorn in a character driven narrative and experience system, shops and upgrades over time really doesn't seem like it'll add anyhing to the game. (Unless you want the player to rock out at some point near the end of stage 5 while the ship gets fitted out with the power sword thing).

Still, I've been proved wrong in the past...

[wondersonic]

Hello monkeyman,
I'm agree with you that these new concepts in the world of shmups may seem strange at first glance.

I've played TF4 since 1992; and these last years from time to time (using emulators). The fact is that I really like this game! However I've always wished to have more levels, weapons, strong enemies... I've tried 5 minutes TF5 but found the third dimension awful (about TF6 I've just seen some videos but I've not played it).

As I like [action-]RPGs also: interesting stories justifying traveling in virtual worlds, getting more XP and so weapons, enemies etc..., I came to think that mixing both dynamic game style from shmup with reflection and strategy needed in RPG could give good results: choosing the right weapons for a given level; loosing your over-powered ship for a rusty one while loosing in a poker-like game... will certainly add interesting things to the game (at least difficulty).

So, I've never said that I want to keep the gameplay (I could decide to add casual/adventure playing styles) and I don't want to limit the number of levels

Oh I forgot to say that while developping a shmup I found there are numerous parameters involved like for the ship:
- speed
- inertia
- shield
- energy
- bullet speed
- bullet quantity (new for shmups?)
- bullet power
- invincible bullet (not destroyed when hiting some obstacle)
- bullet movement (homing, waving, direct, rear...)
- from 1 to n craw(s)
- ...

All these parameters are limited in TF4 but can be enhanced according to experience.

You know (almost) everything... and I hope you are wrong

Anyway thanks for your advice (I know TF4 fans may want just a TF like shmup).

WS

[monkeyman]

I won't start a debate about shmup/rpg hybrids in general (this has been covered in a number of topics and the jury is still out), I just think if you want all these ideas which go against the core gameplay of the TF series then why not create your own world.

By calling it a TF4 follow you are setting up certain expectations about gameplay which will be ultimately be false. By creating your own setting, people will be more likely to keep an open mind about the project and may be more receptive to some of the more unorthodox ideas.

[wondersonic]

I get your point and I'll think (seriously) about it.

I'll start an other topic about such expectations

BTW, did you try it?

[wondersonic]

Some WIP available here:

Installation instructions.

I've spent time on the first level and on the game core, not yet about the naming.

R.
WS

PS: these last days, I've also studied the broken thunder, aqua cube and thunder spirits versions (to say that I'm searching information about thunder force remake) and I've played TF5 and TF6.

[Kaiser]

Some WIP available here:

Installation instructions.

I've spent time on the first level and on the game core, not yet about the naming.

R.
WS

PS: these last days, I've also studied the broken thunder, aqua cube and thunder spirits versions (to say that I'm searching information about thunder force remake) and I've played TF5 and TF6.

Studying the super-crap TF games like Broken Thunder is not a good idea. Remove the inertia, everyone hates it here

[wondersonic]

Some WIP available here:

Installation instructions.

I've spent time on the first level and on the game core, not yet about the naming.

R.
WS

PS: these last days, I've also studied the broken thunder, aqua cube and thunder spirits versions (to say that I'm searching information about thunder force remake) and I've played TF5 and TF6.

Studying the super-crap TF games like Broken Thunder is not a good idea. Remove the inertia, everyone hates it here

Studying "super-craps" is a good idea... to prevent the same kind of errors

And you are right, inertia in a shmup is totally nonsense; unless you did it on purpose (for example to simulate a drunk pilot ).

[wondersonic]

And the first video

WS

[Ebbo]

I've never played any Thunder Force games but I can certainly tell that vid didn't really remind me of TF. I was pretty much thinking "Umm, seriously?" all the time while watching that.
Why so huge resolution?
Why the level is scrolling from right to left?
Why the only weapon is some kind of indestructible shield which I don't remember seeing in any game from the series?

[soloista]

I don't see much sense in making the ship as small as a bullet. There's way too much play area going on.

[wondersonic]

I've never played any Thunder Force games but I can certainly tell that vid didn't really remind me of TF. I was pretty much thinking "Umm, seriously?" all the time while watching that.
Why so huge resolution?
Why the level is scrolling from right to left?
Why the only weapon is some kind of indestructible shield which I don't remember seeing in any game from the series?

Hi Ebbo,
if you never played any TF game before then I strongly advise you to try it starting by TF3 then absolutely play TF4

Once you've finished TF4, then I'm sure viewing this video will remind you TF. The fact is that if you did not finish TF4, then you'll not understand the first 40s of the video

Huge resolution? Why not? but I'm aware of it and as said soloista I'll work on it for the following levels (I mean I'll surely reduce resolution again down to 640x480 and give the ability to scroll).

This level only will scroll from right to left just to:
- be original
- make the game start directly after the ending scene of TF4 (but 18 years later )

About the shield, I just wanted this very first level to be somewhat hard. If it is not clear in the video because of poor sound quality the ship used in this level is an escape capsule because the real ship has been destroyed at the end of TF4. So you are in a very small ship for this reason and the only weapon available in an escape capsule (usually focused on your survival ) is (hopefully) a shield (but limited => has to regenerate over time).

Oh and that's not because you didn't see a weapon in a previous opus that it can't exist in future releases

Anyway, try this first level yourself (and see the remaining tasks)

And of course thanks for your comments!
WS

[Udderdude]

Why are you even bothering to call this Thunderforce? It has nothing in common with it. Just call it something different.

[Gungriffon Geona]

okay, this is terrible! like there's nothing here that I can even say 'well this part is kinda neat' or anything, it's just flat out terrible.

[wondersonic]

Why are you even bothering to call this Thunderforce? It has nothing in common with it. Just call it something different.

I'm open to propositions but you only saw the very first level. The second one intends to start by the escape from the pirat headquarter (the final big reen asteroid) with either the Styx or the Rynex (not decided yet) although with the Rynex, I've got a cool picture...

You are maybe not aware of this but I only started shmup and opengl development one month ago

okay, this is terrible! like there's nothing here that I can even say 'well this part is kinda neat' or anything, it's just flat out terrible.

I like this comment

Ok, I'm not good at drawing nor to compose musics but at least I try to make something so maybe you (Gungriffon Geona and Udderdude) have great ideas to share in order to make this 'flat out terrible shmup' (completly open source) 'kinda neat'?

Material currently available to me:
- everything I can find on the web
- any genesis sprite, music or sound effect
- my imagination
- anyone's help

BTW, I'm sure (I got download information from googlecode) you didn't even tried to download the game. This is not hard though and judging my work on a poor youtube video is somewhat rude In other words, please help

Regards,
WS

[worstplayer]

So, after about 3 minutes of unskippable intros and load times, game finally started, I immediately slammed into an asteroid thanks to unresponsive controls, and wasn't able to resume the game. What is going on? Am I missing something?

#1 - provide a way to restart the game
#2 - RIGHT SHIFT TO SHOOT? WHY? Arrows+ZXC is used in like every shmup ever, why change it into something way less comfortable?

[wondersonic]

So, after about 3 minutes of unskippable intros and load times, game finally started, I immediately slammed into an asteroid thanks to unresponsive controls, and wasn't able to resume the game. What is going on? Am I missing something?

#1 - provide a way to restart the game
#2 - RIGHT SHIFT TO SHOOT? WHY? Arrows+ZXC is used in like every shmup ever, why change it into something way less comfortable?

Hello,
Thanks for your time!

Yes, the game downloads the different levels just when needed; the goal is to be more flexible regarding updates of levels.
Once the core part of the game is stable, it won't be updated thus just updated levels will be automatically downloaded.

Regarding the unresponsive controls, I've changed the way keyboard is polled just yesterday evening, so this is not yet updated but I'll add joypad control very soon. Keyboard may be subject to problems as explained here but I've got tests to perform. BTW, issue created.

#1 => yes, I've got to do it (should not take too much time)
#2 => related to issue #2

Regards,
WS

[wondersonic]

A new video.

Updates:
- reduced area (640x480)
- scrollable area
- asteroid explosion
- lives for casual mode
- game over sequence => auto restart
- should work on Linux/MAC OSX now (need testers)
- shoot with C key
- decreased volume of some sound effects

Known issues:
- problems with simultaneous key pressed
- slowdowns in the video related to the screen capture tool (75 fps)
- poor video quality (sound and resolution)
- video repeating at the end?!? (related to youtube!, have to investigate)

Regards,
WS

[Topshmups]

Why do you have two posts about the same game?

And you really need to make the install a bit more user friendly for those who don't know how to do it.

Looking good though.

Mikey

[wondersonic]

Hello,
There is one dedicated to anyone's expectations and one for work in progress

What would you prefer regarding installation? (note it has to be cross-platforms and I know about java webstart but it is currently sort of broken since Oracle bought Sun...)

Thanks if you appreciate the videos


WS

[BPzeBanshee]

Hello Wondersonic, some suggestions from me about this game:

- The shield. I like how it's a bit easy to spot but it still remains the same colour and whatnot even when you die and life is taken. This along with the choice of spriting confuses me.
- Pause button needs to be somewhere a bit more universal and easy to reach other than the Pause button on the keyboard (which since I'm using Boot Camp on Mac I dont have it marked as pause but as F14 or something weird like that)
- Regarding inertia - I have no issues with something such as an escape pod using it but the controls are quite wonky as it is at the moment. Hopefully the poll change in the keyboard you mentioned earlier will be updated to the thing and the issue will be fixed. Please don't use inertia when you finally have us playing as a ship - it's more fitting since no Thunder Force game (remake, dud or any other) has inertia for the actual ship, it just doesn't fit in.
- The cutscenes do get a bit annoying after playing a while so a way to skip these would be nice.
- The asteroids. Why so many, and why are there asteroids in foreground and background of screen? That's a massive distraction, and the spiders you have featured don't look like they fit in very well. The noise is still rather loud for their shooting, so maybe tune that down a bit too.

Also, in regarding to your RPG/Shmup hybrid idea, I highly recommend you take a look at Tyrian, not for its gameplay but for the way it does the shop system which if I understand your idea correctly will fit right in. If you plan on using the Styx as a fighter use the TF 4 sprites and not the TF 3 ones since the ones from the same game will fit in better.

That's my two cents, man. Don't lose faith yet, this place is renowned for wanting to rip apart new projects and the way you've made it, it will always be able to be modified to be better even when it becomes a "full game" per say.

[wondersonic]

Hello Wondersonic, some suggestions from me about this game:

- The shield. I like how it's a bit easy to spot but it still remains the same colour and whatnot even when you die and life is taken. This along with the choice of spriting confuses me.

Thanks. The shield remains the same colour until some time pass. If you did not see it turning yellow, this just means you are good
or you died too often When pressing the fire key, the shield lifetime decreases. When you unpress fire key, the lifetime increases slowly. If you die, the shield lifetime is reseted to its full capacity. According to mission level, I'll modify the maximum lifetime.

The "choice of spriting"? what do you mean? the shield sprite is not good?

- Pause button needs to be somewhere a bit more universal and easy to reach other than the Pause button on the keyboard (which since I'm using Boot Camp on Mac I dont have it marked as pause but as F14 or something weird like that)

Ok, to change it, maybe the 'P' key?

- Regarding inertia - I have no issues with something such as an escape pod using it but the controls are quite wonky as it is at the moment. Hopefully the poll change in the keyboard you mentioned earlier will be updated to the thing and the issue will be fixed. Please don't use inertia when you finally have us playing as a ship - it's more fitting since no Thunder Force game (remake, dud or any other) has inertia for the actual ship, it just doesn't fit in.

About inertia, I thought I reduced it enough but if you encounter it again, then I'll just remove it. I guess, I don't remark it anymore

- The cutscenes do get a bit annoying after playing a while so a way to skip these would be nice.

Indeed when developping, I just remove them. I'll do it asap.

- The asteroids. Why so many, and why are there asteroids in foreground and background of screen? That's a massive distraction, and the spiders you have featured don't look like they fit in very well. The noise is still rather loud for their shooting, so maybe tune that down a bit too.

About asteroids, well, the ones in frontground and background are easily identifiable by there dark colour == no hit. The ones in the background are there as well to serve as terrain where the spiders can walk.

About spiders, I didn't finish what I was thnking about: make the laser they shoot bounce on the asteroids

About the sound volume, yeah I can again decrease it.

Also, in regarding to your RPG/Shmup hybrid idea, I highly recommend you take a look at Tyrian, not for its gameplay but for the way it does the shop system which if I understand your idea correctly will fit right in.

I think shops is not a such good idea (currently), I'll see in future

If you plan on using the Styx as a fighter use the TF 4 sprites and not the TF 3 ones since the ones from the same game will fit in better.

Indeed, I already seen these. Thanks! However I'll still wonder if I'll use the TF4 twin shot or the TF3 twin shot for it. Very different!

That's my two cents, man. Don't lose faith yet, this place is renowned for wanting to rip apart new projects and the way you've made it, it will always be able to be modified to be better even when it becomes a "full game" per say.

Thanks for your encouragements! Indeed I follow someone else advice "do small at first and enhance later"

[wondersonic]

...since I'm using Boot Camp on Mac...

BTW do you mean, the game worked on MAC OS X?

If so, I can close my first defect

[BPzeBanshee]

Technically I'm running Windows XP on Mac hardware using the Boot Camp custom drivers. I have not tried this game on proper OS X nor do I intend on doing so for the time being (it just isn't that great with games from my experience). So software-wise it's just like any other Windows XP computer. I'd appreciate it a lot if you could implement some windowed/fullscreen toggle, then I'd trust it more.

By choice of spriting I meant that you used Rynex's rocket thrust as a shield when there is an actual shield in the original game that you could've used instead. And by the coloring I understand the decrease in power, but when it goes for example red, and then I die once and use the shield again it's still red.

P key is good, or even Escape if you intend on having a proper pause menu implemented in future. I dont know what it is that happens besides a soundplay and minor freeze when you currently press Enter, maybe replace that with a Pause menu. Either way they're good alternatives.

I don't think its inertia that's causing the buggy controls - it's like sometimes when it goes in a direction it goes faster or slower than it should and small changes throw it off quite a bit.

As for the asteroids, coloring is of little help when a large black thing suddenly blocks your screen when you have over 9000 rocks coming towards you and you have no room to recharge your shield. Frontground asteroids are just plain distracting and annoying. It's a 2D game - keep the 2D elements to the main player ground and what's behind it. As for the spiders, maybe make them darker or something to fit in with the background asteroids. If they're meant to be firing from a large distance it may help to have the lasers expand into the player dimension to give the false appearance of coming in from a distance, but that's not really a high priority since the lasers can clearly be seen as is anyway.

Stage 5 of TF IV has Styx fighters actually shooting somewhat, and if memory serves me right the Sega Saturn version of TF IV actually lets you play as the Styx after beating it on Hard mode. As I recall it used TF3 sprites for the bullets, though I could be wrong. Good area to investigate there.

One other consern for me is how you intend on the direction of scrolling. I can understand going right-to-left for the first stage (since end of TF4 distinctly shows it in leftwards direction) but future levels should have the ships going in the traditional direction (left-to-right) depending on the direction of the destination in regards to storyline.

[wondersonic]

Technically I'm running Windows XP on Mac hardware using the Boot Camp custom drivers. I have not tried this game on proper OS X nor do I intend on doing so for the time being (it just isn't that great with games from my experience). So software-wise it's just like any other Windows XP computer. I'd appreciate it a lot if you could implement some windowed/fullscreen toggle, then I'd trust it more.

Ok, window/full screen switch is not that easy to handle. However, I've added the windowed mode as the default for MAC OS X. (modifications not yet available from download area).

By choice of spriting I meant that you used Rynex's rocket thrust as a shield when there is an actual shield in the original game that you could've used instead. And by the coloring I understand the decrease in power, but when it goes for example red, and then I die once and use the shield again it's still red.

I find the Rynex's shield not appropriate for this level. And different ship, different weapons/shield

However, I'll keep the original shield for the Rynex

About the shield color. It was a bug. Now when you die, the shield power is reinitialized to its full capacity.

P key is good, or even Escape if you intend on having a proper pause menu implemented in future.

'P' key replaces now the 'Pause' key.

I dont know what it is that happens besides a soundplay and minor freeze when you currently press Enter, maybe replace that with a Pause menu. Either way they're good alternatives.

There was a bug also regarding the 'Return' key listener (not deactivated since the title screen). Corrected.

I don't think its inertia that's causing the buggy controls - it's like sometimes when it goes in a direction it goes faster or slower than it should and small changes throw it off quite a bit.

I see, although I've modified the inertia parameters, they seem to impact somewhat the gameplay. I've found a new way that I must test tomorrow.

As for the asteroids, coloring is of little help when a large black thing suddenly blocks your screen when you have over 9000 rocks coming towards you and you have no room to recharge your shield. Frontground asteroids are just plain distracting and annoying. It's a 2D game - keep the 2D elements to the main player ground and what's behind it.

I'm not agree with you Ok, these big black asteroids may be annoying but they are part of the challenge. However I've made them a little transparent to be able to see what's behind.

Moreover, managing shield availability all along this level is precisely the goal of this level!

As for the spiders, maybe make them darker or something to fit in with the background asteroids. If they're meant to be firing from a large distance it may help to have the lasers expand into the player dimension to give the false appearance of coming in from a distance, but that's not really a high priority since the lasers can clearly be seen as is anyway.

I've darkened by 30% the spiders. Regarding the zoom aspect, I'll think about it.

Stage 5 of TF IV has Styx fighters actually shooting somewhat, and if memory serves me right the Sega Saturn version of TF IV actually lets you play as the Styx after beating it on Hard mode. As I recall it used TF3 sprites for the bullets, though I could be wrong. Good area to investigate there.

After some thoughts, I've decided to use Styx weapons for Styx and Rynex weapons for Rynex

One other consern for me is how you intend on the direction of scrolling. I can understand going right-to-left for the first stage (since end of TF4 distinctly shows it in leftwards direction) but future levels should have the ships going in the traditional direction (left-to-right) depending on the direction of the destination in regards to storyline.

Hopefully, that's what is planned!

Thanks for your advices!
WS

[BPzeBanshee]

Great stuff, man. That's pretty much all my issues solved. I'd still recommend the way you've gone about the asteroids being more like Raiden in the form of only being on the one dimension, but if the transparency's good enough for the huge useless annoying rocks it shouldn't be much of a problem anymore anyway.

One other thing about the YouTube videos man - I can't complain about quality when I can't upload decent videos myself from internet constraints anyway but maybe just turn the volume down a bit on the video recordings, the sound gets quite distorted when it is amplified and then lowered in quality and can be quite painful for people's ear (mine especially).