Sine Mora(Suda 51 shmup)

[Iron Peach]

Sine Mora, why must you look so pretty but have so many gameplay problems?

[Sumez]

On another note about fire power. I've noticed that when you tap the shot quickly you can shoot more shots than just holding down the button, which means you can take down enemies and bosses faster. It can skew scores a bit in that you can get extra time from speed killing things.

If you watch this run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYjlcHLBdcI, you can see how this can be exploited by using a turbo/autofire pad. I contacted the devs on this and they said it was a bug and are working on a fix.

Damn, I thought that was obvious. From the first few seconds I played the demo, I immediately fast-tapped the button (even on the X360 controller) to fire as per old habits. Afterwards I tried holding down the button to see if autofire worked, and the difference was pretty obvious.
I thought it was intentional too - it's like that in plenty of old games, and if they are planning to fix it, I hope that means faster auto-fire, not capping the manual fire rate, cause the slow autofire rate would make the game nearly unplayable IMO.

[spadgy]

The other day I interviewed the creative director of Sine Mora. Here's the interview in all its glory on development industry website Develop.

He makes some very interesting points about bridging the gap between mainstream players and hardcore shmuppers, storyline in shmups, and his hopes for introducing more people to the real deal STGs.

Oh, and he considers Story Mode to be a gateway to Arcade Mode, which he considers to be Sine Mora's main mode.

If the link doesn't work, let me know - I'm posting from my phone!

[Randorama]

The link works fine, I am using a win XP laptop.

You made smart questions, thanks for your work Spadgy.

[Kollision]

I tried to comment in the page itself but it's not working, so here I am thanking you and Reiker for the interview, spadgy.

[Ed Oscuro]

Are you sure you spelled shump right, Spadgy?

Interesting interview, though it seems like a lot of softball questions.

[spadgy]

Thanks for the kind words Randorama, and thanks for the nice comment on the story itself DJIncompetent!

I tried to comment in the page itself but it's not working, so here I am thanking you and Reiker for the interview, spadgy.

Very strange - sorry that didn't work for you! And thanks for the complement here!

Are you sure you spelled shump right, Spadgy?

I spelled it right all the way through, didn't I?

Interesting interview, though it seems like a lot of softball questions.

I'll take that criticism! If that's the case, I'd say this; I was keen to give them a chance to explain why they presented Sine Mora the way they did. My intended audience is actually not us lot, but in fact games developers, who are often interested in re-appropriating niche genres for the masses. I thought Sine Mora presented an interesting case of just that, and wanted to give them a chance to explain their process and logic. Still, I will take your criticism on board; it does help.

[Ed Oscuro]

My only comment is that if game developers are the intended audience, it'd be a good time to make them justify some of their beliefs on the game development process, and maybe to push back against some specifics. Doesn't have to be hateful, but if it's just "please astound us with your insight" there won't be much value to it, for any audience.

[Klatrymadon]

Christ, I'd hate to see the "hardball" questions!

"A smattering of peevish gobshites on the internet don't like it. They say it's an iffy, plodding Euroshmup for babies and idiots and dogs. Do you agree with this appraisal? I bet you do, don't you? Go on, say it - it's fucking bollocks, isn't it? It is, though, isn't it? Just say it. Go on. Look at me. Just say it's fucking shite. Say you're sorry. Just say it, you cunt."

[Ed Oscuro]

cool story Klatrymadon

[Klatrymadon]

I didn't realise yesterday that I'd worded that (crap) joke more as an indirect insult to everybody here. How rude! My apologies.

To anyone still bothering with Story Mode or the achievements, I need to clear Story on 'Challenging' to unlock the alternate narrative, aye? I'm going to try for a 1CC in that mode later, although I keep finding the foundry/Tsuchigumo/Papa Carlo combo a bit of a slog with the weaker ships - so much scope for daft slip-ups. I'll be glad when it's out of the way and I can get back to Arcade, heh.

[E. Randy Dupre]

On another note about fire power. I've noticed that when you tap the shot quickly you can shoot more shots than just holding down the button, which means you can take down enemies and bosses faster. It can skew scores a bit in that you can get extra time from speed killing things.

If you watch this run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYjlcHLBdcI, you can see how this can be exploited by using a turbo/autofire pad. I contacted the devs on this and they said it was a bug and are working on a fix.

Damn, I thought that was obvious. From the first few seconds I played the demo, I immediately fast-tapped the button (even on the X360 controller) to fire as per old habits. Afterwards I tried holding down the button to see if autofire worked, and the difference was pretty obvious.
I thought it was intentional too - it's like that in plenty of old games, and if they are planning to fix it, I hope that means faster auto-fire, not capping the manual fire rate, cause the slow autofire rate would make the game nearly unplayable IMO.

Yeah, this really doesn't bother me as I tend to play everything fast-tapping the fire button, rather than relying on an autofire. I don't know if it's because I jump back and forth between old games and newer ones, and so can't rely on autofire always being an option.

[nash87]

glad to hear they're considering adding a cap to the bullets and rate of fire. i hope it erases the leaderboards scores too. once i realized that there was no limit on how fast that button could be pressed the game was no longer fun or challenging and i jumped to top 10 on leaderboards with a TE stick on the first try. hope they add playback to the top 10 spots too. the no.1 score seems a bit too high to be possible imo

[MommysBestGames]

Cool interview spadgy!

Here's a list I put together of things I hope they consider fixing in an update:
http://www.mommysbest.blogspot.com/2012 ... dback.html

[Reiker]

http://www.mommysbest.blogspot.com/2012 ... dback.html

I'm no longer at Digital Reality, so I'm no longer able to comment on the patch, unfortunately.

What I'm able to do though, is to thank you, Nathan, for taking your time and posting this feedback.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.mommysbest.blogspot.com/2012 ... dback.html

I'm no longer at Digital Reality, so I'm no longer able to comment on the patch, unfortunately.

What I'm able to do though, is to thank you, Nathan, for taking your time and posting this feedback.

Whoa, what happen?

[Alfred]

http://www.mommysbest.blogspot.com/2012 ... dback.html

I'm no longer at Digital Reality, so I'm no longer able to comment on the patch, unfortunately.

What I'm able to do though, is to thank you, Nathan, for taking your time and posting this feedback.

Thank you for SkyDrift and Sine Mora, Both are excellent and well made games. I look forward to playing more Digital Reality games. Thank you.

One question were MS/DR happy with the sale numbers?. Based on the online leaderboards they look like they did alright.

[Udderdude]

Whoa, what happen?

I can't really say anything on his behalf, but it's pretty common for game dev companies to let people go shortly after a game's been released. It happens.

[CStarFlare]

He mentioned his contract ending a month ago. (see page 22)

[casualcoder]

I tried the demo on xbla recently and was excited for its potential. I didn't play it for very long but I'm usually right about my first instincts and this one just didn't I feel right. From the very start I found myself saying "come ooonnnnnnn" too many times while waiting for the numerous and overlong cutscenes to end. Once I was playing, it wasn't much better. The ship movement was too slippery, and wasn't balanced against the bullet formations. This issue was foreshadowed by the positive reviews glowing about how you could eat bullet-after-bullet and still stay alive. In my opinion, that is not so much a design feature as much as a way to paper over the overall gameplay issues.

I also wanted to like the bullet patterns but couldn't figure out why they used a system of polarity colors like that of ikaruga or even Outland without actually having a polarity switch function In the game.

It reminds me a bit of my feelings I had when I played games like REZ and Every Extend Extra - I wanted to like it, but couldn't really find the point in it... I will give it one more try though because the reviews are quite positive.

[denpanosekai]

I had a 360-less friend try the demo last night. He was pretty excited at first... in the end he didn't even bother finishing the last level. Ship movement is atrocious. What did the latest patch fix?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

According to Eurogamer / Major Nelsons blog, Sine Mora made the top 5 the first week it launched but is out of the top 20 the following week
(week of April 9th) http://majornelson.com/2012/04/17/live- ... april-9th/

I would guess that the "anime games" sale didnt help. I know I bought a 2100 point card with the intention of getting Sine Mora but spent it on SNK games. Sine Mora will have to wait a bit now.

[Iron Peach]

I know I bought a 2100 point card with the intention of getting Sine Mora but spent it on SNK games.

Not Metal Slug 3 (or XX)? The screen filter just ruins all the hard work of the artists!

imo KOFUM98 does a 95% awesome job, if you like fighters.

[KidKobun]

I tried the demo on xbla recently and was excited for its potential. I didn't play it for very long but I'm usually right about my first instincts and this one just didn't I feel right. From the very start I found myself saying "come ooonnnnnnn" too many times while waiting for the numerous and overlong cutscenes to end. Once I was playing, it wasn't much better. The ship movement was too slippery, and wasn't balanced against the bullet formations. This issue was foreshadowed by the positive reviews glowing about how you could eat bullet-after-bullet and still stay alive. In my opinion, that is not so much a design feature as much as a way to paper over the overall gameplay issues.

I also wanted to like the bullet patterns but couldn't figure out why they used a system of polarity colors like that of ikaruga or even Outland without actually having a polarity switch function In the game.

It reminds me a bit of my feelings I had when I played games like REZ and Every Extend Extra - I wanted to like it, but couldn't really find the point in it... I will give it one more try though because the reviews are quite positive.

I pretty much had the same experience as you: I could not stand the ship movement, the unconventional bullet patterns, or the default pea-shooter. Also, it can be a royal PitA to try and recover lost weapons at times...especially when they go flying off the screen never to be recovered. And while the game looks great, it was difficult to tell whether you could fly across something or you were going to take damage from it. In other words, everything was too well blended and didn't stand out enough.
Honestly, I don't think I have ever raged so hard playing a shmup. I hate to say it, but I really feel like I wasted my MSP on this one and should have downloaded the demo first. I do like the story and characters though. It is very fresh and unique, but the gameplay leaves much to be desired.

Oh, and the grinding for an achievement? What's that all about? "Hey, let's lump a load of prerequisites into 1 20-point achievement." I thought that was total BS. I would rather have a load of smaller 5-point achievements. Gives you a nice reminder and sense of accomplishment more frequently.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Potentially another example of the double standards present in some of the criticisms of this game, the one about grinding for achievements, if you've not got exactly the same complaint about the achievements in the 360 conversions of the Cave shooters.

[KidKobun]

Well if you quantify it like that, then the same can be said for almost any game that has an achievement/trophy for say... beating a game on multiple difficulty settings and/or completing the game on all difficulty settings. The achievements in this game just didn't match the same level of accomplishment, but instead falls into an area of micromanagement instead. But this is just my opinion.

[Zaarock]

The achievements in this game just didn't match the same level of accomplishment, but instead falls into an area of micromanagement instead. But this is just my opinion.

Yeah, some of the requirements for the ranks are just more stupid than some of the cave game achievements. Like one of the earlier ranks requires you to continue a hundred times.. Grinded for that one since it was the only requirement I had left. stuff like completion on the ship + weapon completion grid and playing all the modes are good ideas, but stuff that have nothing to do with actual performance in the game that you might have to grind because you could already reach the next rank after it are just dumb.

There are lots of dumb achievements around for sure, but because of the achievement "rank" system they put in here they could cram way more of it in each achievement :p

[Iron Peach]

If all this has got you down, let us remember Akai Katana is available for pre-order from RSG on Amazon long ago.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

This is loltastic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UPs9NOZ ... ature=plcp

damn those oranges!

[BPzeBanshee]

This is loltastic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UPs9NOZ ... ature=plcp

damn those oranges!

You just made my day Trev. That was fucking hilarious.