Beat Hazard - XNA Indie

[MDY]

This has just appeared in the Indie section of XBox Live..
It's an Arena Shooter with elements of plenty of shmups and a hint of Asteroids etc..

It's major difference is that the level structure (and dynamic elements in the current game such as supplemental shot power) are decided based on what music track you choose to play - the track essentially IS the level.. So you'll get different formations of enemies, 'boss' ships appear at different times etc.. the background is also reactive to the music and gets extremely busy, though the powerups and enemy fire are just visible enough that you don't get many deaths where you just couldn't see something..

You'll get to dread the quiet bits in songs as your shot power drains down to nearly nothing, some careful manouvering is required until the beat picks up again..

Powerups take the form of damage, volume (which also seems to increase fire rate) and score multipliers (which are plentiful, you often end up with over 50x bonuses - you can also increase this by not shooting - this increases your 'daredevil' meter - but you can't usually do that for long..

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

Worth a look

[lilmanjs]

just play some crazy deathcore, or drum and bass and you'd be powerfull very quickly

[EPS21]

This has just appeared in the Indie section of XBox Live..

Ooh, an oppurtunity for something good might actually show up there...

It's an Arena Shooter

Sigh

Sounds interesting with the choosing a music track affecting what the level is like, reminds me of Audiosurf, but after watching that video there seems to be barely any connection to the song. Way too many seizure inducing special effects as well, seems to detract from actually dodging anything.

[antares]

I tried the demo, it really looks cool. But 400 points seems a bit to much for an indie game. I might buy it when it gets cheaper.

PS: Jeff Minter fans should set the difficulty to hardcore for most psychedelic effects

[BrightSuzaku]

Well, I played a little today on a friend's Xbox. AND IT WAS AN ABSOLUTELY FUN GAME. It's probably the first arena shmup I've ever been "reasonable" at, but only becaus ei hit shooter zen in the middle of a round before a boss decided to lug a flying mine at me.

My problem is hitbox locating. The hitbox is supposed to be about the size of the ship. Problem is, that makes the hitbox a little bit too much on the large side, and on some occasions, it sticks OUT of your ship when the craft has been rotated form "default". This has caused one too many unnecessary deaths.

If the programmer can just shrink the hitbox just a wee bit to be smaller than the ship (I'm not asking for one pixel or anything) that would be fantastic.

My friend and I joked about pointing out the hitbox's location with a little sparkle, like in so many newer danmaku games: it would fit in so well with the already sparkling, flashing, psychedelic visuals.

As soon as I get my Xbox back (it's being borrowed by my sister's no-good boyfriend), then all will be well. Read the whine/story/rant. And yeah, Raiden IV is with him, too. ARGH.

[brianon]

Just got this yesterday on Steam. Great game. Has a few bugs but is really good. Especially when played LOUD

[Pirate1019]

I've been playing it a lot. Definitely not a game to take super seriously, especially with how easy it is to break almost all of the leaderboards, but it's got lots of pretty colors and if you pick the right songs the game can be a hell of a lot of fun.

I think of it this way. I spent as much on this game as a movie ticket, and I've gotten way more than 2 hours of use out of it.

[MrPopo]

The biggest problem I have with this game is that it's pretty much impossible to run through Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here in Survival mode because of your neutered shot power during quiet parts.

[kengou]

Just picked this up on Steam a few minutes ago, tried some (metal) songs. My initial impressions:

-Not only is this an arena shmup, it has inertia. Ugh.
-The screen is always covered in a diarrhea of effects and flashing lights, it becomes difficult to keep track of your ship and enemy shots and aiming cursor - because everything is white-ish or yellow and enemy shots are the same type of bright flashing lights as everything else in this game
-I can't stress enough the flashing lights. I usually laugh at the 'flashing lights seizure warnings' in the beginning of some games, but this one was hurting my eyes after a few minutes, I think if any game will give ANYONE a seizure, this is the one to do it
-The intensity of the player shots seem like the only thing really synced to the music. I'm sure pretty much everything is, and the intensity of the song overall seems to contribute to the stage difficulty, but it doesn't feel nearly as directly connected as Audiosurf, for example
-dodging every boss attack and enemy attack and virtually everything in the game is accomplished by simply flying around the enemy in a circle while shooting at it. I had hoped there would be attack patterns built procedurally from the music, but this isn't nearly so complex, it seems

Getting past all of these complaints, it was kind of fun after a while. As a shmup, it's terrible, but as a music game you can veg out with, it's not bad. I'll be playing it more, but honestly I don't know if I'd really recommend it. Get Audiosurf instead, it even feels more like a scrolling shmup most of the time.

[MrPopo]

Getting past all of these complaints, it was kind of fun after a while. As a shmup, it's terrible, but as a music game you can veg out with, it's not bad. I'll be playing it more, but honestly I don't know if I'd really recommend it. Get Audiosurf instead, it even feels more like a scrolling shmup most of the time.

What bugged me about Audiosurf is that the game tries to transcribe the notes but it doesn't always feel quite right. The long notes will hit somewhere in the middle, and it switches between which instrument it's transcribing. But I suppose that's too many years of DDR making me sensitive to how well something syncs to music.

[Zeether]

According to the Steam forums they are working on an update with an option to tone down the flashing and window mode.

I want them to remove the inertia, it's annoying.

[kengou]

According to the Steam forums they are working on an update with an option to tone down the flashing and window mode.

I want them to remove the inertia, it's annoying.

That's a welcome change.

The inertia is killing a lot of my potential enjoyment of the game. Whenever I die, it's due to either inertia, or the flashing effects obscuring bullets or enemies. The game wouldn't be all that challenging without those (cheap) difficulties.

[0ccamsRazor]

Just tried this out, and aside from inertia and strobe lights obscuring everything, bombs don't restock upon death. There were times when I couldn't break free from enemy patterns, kept crashing into stuff, and lost all my lives. There's no reasonable window of invulnerability when you respawn too; in some cases I rammed into something just to immediately die again when I respawned.

There's also a leveling system that grants you permanent perks such as keeping volume levels upon death, more lives, more bombs, powerups available when you start, etc.

As said before, quite bad as a shmup, but it's still fun to load up OSTs from various other shmups in Survival Mode.

[MDY]

I actually quite liked the fact that you occasionally have to ration your firepower else you can't see what's going on..
It does actually add to your score multiplyer when you aren't shooting..
It is as much an asteroids type game as a shmup - and they've always had inertia in them...

[Taylor]

It's about time someone made a gaudy dual stick shooter.

[MrPopo]

Man, certain songs are just unplayable in this. The rate that enemies come out seem to be fairly independent of the music intensity, while your firepower is directly dependent on it. So trying to play Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden gets me killed since I still have a pea shooter and they just spawned a boss on me.

Surprisingly Boogie Wonderland by Earth Wind & Fire is my highest score, with 2.8mil. Not even my Lordi stuff could get up that high.

[Observer]

I bought the game yesterday for PC (first official Steam purchase) and, boy I'm glad the lights don't affect me at all. And, why of all I picked an Alabaster album to play this game... My mind got partially blasted into a different dimension, bwahaha.

Anyway, the game is cool, looks good and the bosses are quite imposing but the inertia is quite annoying to the point I'm going to contact the author for an intertialess mode. Bosses could use some bullet patterns too, I'll point out Bullet Phillharmonic Orchestra just in case.

But it's a good complement to Audiosurf, where in several modes you feel like you are bullet-eating.

[Uzumakijl]

Rise from your grave!

So, Has anyone played the Beat Hazard update? It came out few days ago and i'm fiding this game much more enjoyable now, They polished a lot of stuff here.

Also, Beat Hazard Ultra DLC is coming out on the 22

[Observer]

More enjoyable? I would say freaking awesome.

Starg even took out the inertia from the ship! Enemies seem to move according to the beat of the song (so if the song goes slow, enemies will also slow down and it gets to some really crazy moments) and the turrets of some bosses seem to "dance" or just plain headbang to the beats. They also fire neat bullet patterns. The lasers are freaking tricky to dodge... Overall, it's a huge improvement from the "classic" game. Definitely going to get ULTRA as soon as it comes out!

[Uzumakijl]

Yeah man, I got used to inertia but somehow the game feels way much better without it, I used to like the older lasers a bit more, You could just avoid them if you were fast enough, But now the only way to avoid them is being between them that's quite awesome in a way hahaha.

The perk system is quite interesting, It really adds a LOT of replay value, Also i really liked the "Random track" option, The classic game really needed this, And the fact that you can still go back and play it makes the update even more awesome, Though i don't see myself going back to play vanilla Beat Hazard after this update .

Also, If anybody wants to add me on steam to compare scores on this game or anything you can do it here http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198024696463 Also it would be nice to have some mates to do Co-op when ultra comes out

[Observer]

Yeah man, I got used to inertia but somehow the game feels way much better without it, I used to like the older lasers a bit more, You could just avoid them if you were fast enough, But now the only way to avoid them is being between them that's quite awesome in a way hahaha.

The perk system is quite interesting, It really adds a LOT of replay value, Also i really liked the "Random track" option, The classic game really needed this, And the fact that you can still go back and play it makes the update even more awesome, Though i don't see myself going back to play vanilla Beat Hazard after this update .

Also, If anybody wants to add me on steam to compare scores on this game or anything you can do it here http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198024696463 Also it would be nice to have some mates to do Co-op when ultra comes out

THIS. I'm so playing only this thing. Hilarity ensues.

Hope TrevHead finds this thread, I was PM'ing him about this.

Agreed on the lasers too, they were far easier to dodge in vanilla Beat Hazard but all the changes made it far more enjoyable and now I feel it syncs a bit better with the songs. It's still geared towards heavy metal and techno punchi punchi music.

edit to avoid double posting:

BEAT HAZARD ULTRA IS OUTwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!

Online Multiplayer available so, god dammit, buy this thing!!!

[Observer]

Ah, what the hell. BUMPING THIS.

Nihilant says: BUY, YOU BUY YOU BUUUUY.

edit: SERIOUSLY, this is AWESOMEEEEEEEE!!!! God dammit, someone play with me.

[Uzumakijl]

Ooooooh man, too bad i can't buy it right now hahaha, I'll buy it tomorrow ASAP.

It was awesome from Starg to release it early though.

I'm up for playing online, Any suggerences for the tracks?

The DoDonPachi DOJ & Ketsui OST sounds like something fun to play

[Observer]

Indeed. I would love to have a go at that music and Psyvariar 2 as well.

Most of the time the lag is barely an issue but it has some occasional hiccups.

It's all pretty awesome. You can play Co-op or vs. where the one with the most score wins, although it's not fair at all if you have all the perks and the other player barely has any.

[mjclark]

Once I used "101 Reggae Greats" for the tracklist, I really got this game for the first time

[Uzumakijl]

Bought it!, I'm enjoying it so far, The online is quite interesting, But it would be funner if people didn't quit that much, I'm up for playing with anybody in this forum though , Just send me an invite.

Also, Gotta level up a bit more to get new perks

[Observer]

Perhaps they get scared when they see the other player has too many perks or how they start spamming special weapons in fear, leaving you unprepared for when things get ugly.

Here is my ID if you want to add me: http://steamcommunity.com/id/abyssalsoul

Let's Ass Kick Together!

[Uzumakijl]

I wonder what's making people quit that much...

Anyways, I've added you, I'm playing right now but i'll probably be playing for the whole day hehe

[Observer]

I wonder what's making people quit that much...

Anyways, I've added you, I'm playing right now but i'll probably be playing for the whole day hehe

Ah, don't forget the lag.

As polished as the code might be, playing with people in your surrounding area/countries will always throw far less lag.

Also, fear to the unknown can be a reason. Happens a lot in RPGs although in many of those game either you party or get ready to quit because that's how it is most of the time.

Same here, this thing got super addicting.

[mortified_penguin]

I've got mixed feelings on the update. Love of new powerups and 200% intensity but some of the enemies are nothing short of obnoxious. The repulsers are usually rage inducing and I just had the starfish boss ball up and sit in middle of the screen for four minutes. I thought having the momentum removed would improve handling but I slam into stuff more than ever, weird.