[X360] Score Rush, 4 player shmup (Xona Games) NOW RELEASED

[Xonatron]

Wanted to share Score Rush for all your Duality ZF starved gamers, it's built upon the Duality ZF engine, and should be available on Xbox LIVE Indie Games as soon as we figure out all the Windows Phone 7 launch stuff. The WP7 launch is complicated, to say the least. It's hard to get accurate information on what to do, even though we were pesonally invited by Microsoft to have a launch title on the phone. Anyways, Score Rush is a spiritual prequel (not sequel) to Duality ZF, intended to bring forth a Duality ZF-like experience to XBLIG, while the world waits for the XBLA release of the true Duality ZF.

Score Rush:

Box Art:



Download:
marketplace.xbox.com/Product/Score-Rush/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025855071c

Trailer:
youtu.be/BtuiCoQBwD8

Official Site:
xona.com/scorerush/x360

Screenshots:

P.S. Score Rush is actually named from a game mode in Duality ZF by the same name, which was named by a Shmups Forum member.

P.P.S. Score Rush quotes Malc in the MEMO section. Check it out!

[DJ Incompetent]

Goddammit Matt.



I want to mud-sling a thousand insults for 2 people working on developing 4 games at once.
But I can't.
Because I'm confident every one of them are gonna be worth playing.

I'm just going to shake your hand for putting all your effort toward this genre, and I'll walk away.

*walking away*
...
*walking away*

Godspeed Doucettes. Godspeed.

[Xonatron]

Hahaha! LOVE IT. I'll tell you something. I've been up since 7am this morning and it's 1:26am and I haven't gone to bed yet. And I was up until past 1:30am the night before. I'm going to bed as soon as I post this. Jason's basically on the same schedule, just to get all these games done for the WP7 launch. And did I have to check my email notifications before I went to bed? No. But I did. Creation is addictive. More opportunity comes our way in the gaming industry than we'll ever be able to take advantage of. And "bored" is one emotion I haven't felt in years. I wouldn't mind feeling "relaxed" though, at some point! Just glad we are able to contribute something that is (hopefully) well-received in the genre we love the most.

[Sined]

Decimation X, Score Rush, Decimation X3 (XBLIG) and Duality ZF (XBLA) ! Score Rush and Decimation X2 (WP7)...

Congrats Xona! We feel that you are doing everything to give pleasure to players, the same pleasure you have to develop games...

When do you think Score Rush will be release for XBLIG ? And Deci X3 ?

For XBLIG you will name Score Rush 2 and Score Rush for WP7 ?

Thanks and stay safe please

Sined

[Xonatron]

There is a lot of turmoil (star wars anyone?) in the Windows Phone 7 release and "things to do" leading up to it. So we are trying to figure out those complexities now, and once that is settled we will release Score Rush onto XBLIG. Decimation X3 probably right after. If the WP7 ends up taking too long, or if we somehow miss the opportunity to have Score Rush as a launch title on it, then we'll quickly release it to XBLIG.

And, I think we will call it Score Rush 2, because it will be different. At least in intensity. The WP7 can only handle 2.5 screen fills per frame. With Duailty ZF (and Score Rush) we were doing WAY more than that.

[Xonatron]

Score Rush is now in peer review. Expect the game to be on XBLIG in 3 or 4 days.

When it goes out, I'll have to send out a call to encourage user ratings. The user ratings in Xbox LIVE are now very hard to come by due to an error (?) where they don't let you rate a game in your game library, which is where you are taking after playing a game! Not asking for 5/5 ratings, but just asking to be rated at all. The past 40 XBLIG games are left without ratings since this update glitch.

If you have a XNA CC membership, feel free to review it:
http://catalog.create.msdn.com/gamedeta ... 197&type=1
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/67757.aspx
(The links may give errors without a membership.)

[Xonatron]

New Score Rush trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtuiCoQBwD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtuiCoQBwD8&hd=1 (HD)

And official release date:
December 9th, 2010

80 MSP ($1 USD).

Be sure to check it out for us. (And rate it. The Xbox LIVE ratings system is disable in Game Library and blocks out lots of ratings.)

[Jockel]

"Intense Retro" makes me want to puke.

[Jason]

Why?

[Sined]

Just 2$ to play Score Rush (9/12) and Decimation X3 (7/12)...It's Christmas day before the date !

"Intense Retro" makes me want to play !

[ZombieMonkeyGames]

Having play tested this game, I can say without a doubt that not only will it make shmup fans out of anyone that plays it - but it will impress and challenge even seasoned veterans. You really are in for a treat.

[Xonatron]

I also want to know why "intense retro" turns you off. Detail it and make your input valuable to us.

[linko9]

I can't speak for him, but I personally hate when the term "retro" is used for any game with a score counter, shmups in particular. Is Call of Duty Black Ops "retro" just because Doom existed in 1993? Your game looks like an interesting modern take on a genre that happens to have been around for a long time; it certainly doesn't seem "retro" to me. Anyway, keep up the great work, I wish I had a 360 to play it on. Maybe some day.

[Xonatron]

What would make our game retro in your eyes?

In our eyes, here's how it's retro: Retro just means past. Our games recreate past experiences. That's the connection to retro. Creating past experiences is our philosophy actually. We are trying to recreate the experiences we once had when playing exhilarating hyped-up 80's arcades. I remember feeling blown away at the intensity of the games. That's what we are after. That, in our eyes, covers both "intense" and "retro".

What tagline would you use to explain our games, given this philosophy?

[kengou]

I feel like the problem with "retro" is that some of us don't LIKE the connotation that shmups are a thing of the past. We play them all the time. Calling them "retro" as a selling point is like saying they're worth playing for nostalgia, not for their own merits as "modern" games. I know that might not be your actual intent, but that's just the connotation I and probably others get from that sort of tagline.

[originalz]

What would make our game retro in your eyes?

In our eyes, here's how it's retro: Retro just means past. Our games recreate past experiences. That's the connection to retro. Creating past experiences is our philosophy actually. We are trying to recreate the experiences we once had when playing exhilarating hyped-up 80's arcades. I remember feeling blown away at the intensity of the games. That's what we are after. That, in our eyes, covers both "intense" and "retro".

What tagline would you use to explain our games, given this philosophy?

If someone says that a game is "retro" to me, I assume that it uses old-style graphics and sound. There's certainly no lack of indie games in this style, so I think you might be giving your games a disservice by classifying them that way when they're clearly of original and high-quality assets.

If someone tells me that a modern shooter has "retro-gameplay", then I'll dismiss their opinion as being ignorant of the genre. If a developer says that their modern-looking shooting game has "retro-gameplay", I'm going to assume that they don't fully understand the genre and what makes a game good, only knowing that they used to be popular in the past. In that case, I'd set my expectations for a very basic shooter that won't be worth playing for more than a few minutes, and the game would have to be really damn good right away to change that opinion since there are hundreds of throwaway shooters out there.

Of course, we're a very different crowd than your typical gamer who doesn't keep up with the genre. If you think that the retro tagging is good to draw them in and they react positively to it, no need to change it I guess.

[Xonatron]

Thank you all. Now I understand perfectly.

And now I understand how calling Call of Duty Black Ops retro is as bad (to some of you) as calling a modern day shmup retro. They deserve more respect than to be casted off to the past. What's ironic is that's our purpose, to give shmups respect again and to revive them in the eyes of the mainstream gamer. In a sense, we are pushing them out to gamers who think they are retro. And not just shmups, we want to make 80's arcade racing games and whatnot too. All of this is based on "retro" experiences, using updated gameplay based on retro gameplay. The details are not so easy to explain.

If you know of a better tagline for us, what would you suggest?

What works here doesn't necessarily work "out there". I was at a business conference with Score Rush a month, and the title screen was on display:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5 ... =508090799
Some guy in his mid 20's comes up to me and asks, "What's a shmup?"

[ZombieMonkeyGames]

Intense Cutting Edge Shmup.

Intense (it is)
Cutting Edge (as far as t2d goes, the Duality Engine, your scoring system, your weapons - all of it is new new new. New, that hasn't been cloned or copied, is cutting edge)
Shmup - Its a genre. Xbox doesn't have a genre 'shump' so you putting it on the box reveals more to the game's nature. The experience your delivering is so much so that it will in part trigger some gamers going on the web and looking up what it means, which will ultimately lead them (like it led me) here.

Granted I'm not in on what the new ones coming out are (or if the 'new ones' are just ports of old ones), but your game bombards me with a thrilling experience that, after all the shaders and visuals are looked over is NOT retro. 2d graphics != retro. If you wan you can describe it as 2d, but I think that the descriptor 'shmup' is synonymous with this already. You are taking a timeless game genre and bringing new ideas to the table, as a rock solid 60 FPS with visuals that I don't think the older games had going for them.

Now I'm talking specifically about score rush here. I'd say from the visuals that the decimation X series being described as 'retro' is appropriate. This, and Duality - and most likely anything you make with the Duality engine - is not, and should not be classified as retro.

You've gone out of your way to breathe new life in the game genre you love - stand up and be proud of it!

[Xonatron]

We're not just making shmups though... even thought that's all we've made... so I was looking for a tagline to Xona Games. Picture our shmup games as well as retro racing games (2D scaling sprites) and retro beat 'em up games. There I go again with using "retro". But imagine those games redone with our philosophies on intensity, gameplay, control, etc.

Not all gamers know what "shmup" means, although I have tended to use it a lot in our materials.

And, to me, 2D is retro. The new contra the new Super Mario Bros. Wii, all of these are now more based on retro games because they are 2D than if there remained 3D. So some part of 2D, in certain genres, is retro. All games were 2D in the past. You can appreicate the difficulty of dancing around this term accurately. This is something we cannot waste time on in our marketing. There's no time for accuracy, only generality.

I appreciate the great feedback!!

[Dave_K.]

Glad to see you guys paying attention to threads like this. Trailer looks great!

[ZombieMonkeyGames]

Well, Behemoth is all 2d and that's not changing anytime soon. You'll find most of the 2d houses (if not all) do not use the word 'retro' to describe their products.

http://www.thebehemoth.com/games.html

Then we have ska

http://www.ska-studios.com/games/

No retro. Your in a rut using that word to describe your games, when that's not really what your going for. For me, retro means I can SEE the pixels. Blocks, on screen. In the explosions, the menus, everything. Decimation X is retro - but I really feel as your developing that you guys are slowly moving away from that. As creative as you've been with your systems, engine and marketing - spend a few minutes, days, lunches, whatever finding a more appropriate way to describe your games, than retro.

Retro is a choice, and if your going for retro, its a decision to actually aim that low on the art and then match the presentation to that. Your already aiming higher, your description should aim higher too.

[Xonatron]

Great input, and great points. It's the retro experience (gameplay, excitement, etc.) we are after, not the visuals. However, to get those experiences you need somewhat retro visual (2D, 2D scaling sprites instead of 3D polygons, etc.)

Now that "retro" is back, "retro" isn't retro anymore. I'm starting to get this. We haven't really adopted "intense retro" as our tagline yet, so there's no need to stick to it.

[Xonatron]

Glad to see you guys paying attention to threads like this. Trailer looks great!

We haven't really paid attention to that thread, although we are certainly inline with it. Score Rush doesn't have a strict timer (The "Score Rush" game mode in Duality ZF does), but it is just a single-stage crazy-intense run. And for those of you who are good enough, more difficulty modes unlock with more scoring potential. I've actually beat the first three (normal, hard, expert) and unlocked the 4th mode: crazy, getting a 500,000,000+ score on it. So far no XBLIG devs can beat the game in normal. There is no easy. The scoring system is cool, because it grows linearly with the increased HP and attack of the enemies, as you move up in difficulty modes. It's up to you and your friends on how far you can take it. Someone will get 1,000,000,000. I think two players in hard can do it, taking into account the extra points for faster kills. It'll be interesting to see what the skills in these forums can do. I was honestly at the edge of my seat when I beat expert. Had Jason not already beat it, I wasn't sure if I would be able to!

[TodayIsForgotten]

Yeah. You should definitely drop intense retro. It does seem misleading since your games are current technology or more modern as well as the game play. Retro I think games like Berzerk or maybe even Phoenix. Simple game play with difficulty that scales to become harder and harder.

Maybe your tagline could be scaling difficulty like the retro days...har har

[Xonatron]

How about:

"Harder and harder until you die... just like real life."

lol

Come comedian said this long ago. Speaking about how "times were tough when I was a kid", comparing how easy new games are compared to old-school games. It was great.

[Sined]

Score Rush just released !



For 80 MSP -> http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Produ ... 025855071c

Go!

[Xonatron]

Beat me to it!!!

Someone let Malc know we quoted him in the MEMO menu option. Check it out!!

[Sined]

Score Rush is amazing shmup ! love it

[Kaspal]

and again, the question for you, Xona guys is, are you planning on releasing those babies on the PC??? i remember wantng to play all of this babies (DualityZF specially) back in the days, but since i've been bannd from XBL(X) and i dont intend to get another X360 (just a japanese model... and it will take a while), and the fact that i and others DONT LIKE TO BE ONLINE JUST TO FIRE UP A GAME (i dont mind dwnloading it from the service it is stored, but just to fire it up!? seriously?!), i AM hoping for you to release this games on steam or something we can actually pay you, and enjoy the games without going to the microshit online service...

so, again, are you gonna release this over the PC anytime?

[Jason]

There is nothing concrete, but our goal is to release all the shmups on the PC under steam, perhaps in a packaged deal. This will not happen before Duality ZF is on XBLA and Steam, but likely soon afterwards. I cannot confirm this, but this is what we want.