ASCII Shmup -- Chaos Stream

[Moniker]

Promising little curiosity of a shmup: Chaos Stream by StarGoat

Rendered in glorious ASCII graphics using the roguelike dev library libtcod. No music yet. Gets quite manic on the second stage -- esp the boss.

Demo here.
Dev thread here.

[antron]

Reminds me of Phoenix, when your exploding ship looks like ascii.

[spadgy]

I just stumbled upon this. Here's a video and some more info. It looks really nice for an ASCII game!

[Arcade Legends 3]

ASCII games do not look promising.

[devilmanozzy]

Demo was fun, reminds me of good shumups before the all the dots were pink and the ships were replaced with little girls.

[AntiFritz]

Demo was fun, reminds me of good shumups before the all the dots were pink and the ships were replaced with little girls.

The ascii graphics make it look harder to distinguish the bullets :O

[devilmanozzy]

Demo was fun, reminds me of good shumups before the all the dots were pink and the ships were replaced with little girls.

The ascii graphics make it look harder to distinguish the bullets :O

go to: Options
particles -turn off-
stars -turn off-
and you get...


That is the first boss. Anyways, the game is fun, tho I can't get past the second boss yet. those 4 cannons murder.

[cuttingagent]

This is beautiful but I absolutely must play it in fullscreen.

[daliscar]

Liking this- it's the opposite to the other ASCII shmups I've seen (notably the excellent Vax11) which are stripped back and minimal to go with the ASCII theme.
This is colourful, intricate and full on so just add music and fullscreen for excellence. Also to avoid predictability it would be great if the soundtrack was tecno (or howabout dubstep?) and not the 8bit/16bit midi that everyone will be expecting.

[Despatche]

There's a reason why that's predictable, that reason being "sticking in random techno in an 8-bit or ASCII style game is fucking retarded".

Just... do 8-bit techno. It works.

edit: No, this is way better without music at all.
edit2: Oh, so you're an idiot. Okay.

[daliscar]

There's a reason why that's predictable, that reason being "sticking in random techno in an 8-bit or ASCII style game is fucking retarded".
Just... do 8-bit techno. It works.
edit: No, this is way better without music at all.

I take your point about sticking with what works and trying to match up old and new genres could be a disaster.
But what about some kind of eighties/2012 fusion?
This is the 21st century though and I'd be interested to see something that carries the ASCII theme forwards in some sort of shmup retro/modern crossover, rather like the Space Invaders sprites in Nomltest or some hard tecno with 8bit gfx to stop it from just being stale retro.
Sorry if that's a bit open-minded and imaginative but if you want strict old skool ASCII just stick to Vax11.

[cuttingagent]

Oh god please not dubstep. I fear everyday that eventually all videogames will have nothing but that in the soundtrack. I was watching my girl's little brother play Beat Hazard to dubstep and I felt so unclean. I already hear it practically everywhere else.

I'd much prefer some kinda 80's fusion (good music from the 80's, not top 40 crap. Think Alien Sex Fiend, not Madonna.) or some kinda buttrock or metal or hell, progrock.

Don't make me play shmupstep.

I do agree that there's no reason anything should HAVE to have chiptune. The retro factor of that is not gonna wow anyone in this day and age, we have plenty of that already.

EDIT: You know what would be GREAT in this game is some fucking Glitch Rock.

[daliscar]

OK if not dubstep how about just genuine heavy dub?
"Scientist Rids The World Of The ASCII Menace", "Mad Professor vs The Bydo", "Chiptune Clash Live At King Tubby's".
I can imagine an intense bass reverb when the boss fires a laser

[cuttingagent]

Sure. I'd like to see all kinds of different music in the games. I was just fantasizing the other day about a shmup with some kind of reggae in it. I'd shoot to some rap too. Or synthesized heavy bluegrass. It doesn't take much to make a style of music work for the games, just needs to have a pulse of some sort, although RSG seemed to do just fine without one.