My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

A place for people with an interest in developing new shmups.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

I always put the latest one on the first post, although I might have sent you a test version with more levels earlier (the demo has only 3.)

Updates!
Last Chance now has TATE, an options menu, a key config, an old style 'dot' continue counter.... and snakes. :D
ImageImageImage

Also, the shadows are only present in the EXE version. In GMTHL5 mode, I skip loading them to (hopefully) boost performance and also due to GMTHL5 having problems with image_blend().
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

How did you do the continue counter? I've been trying to think of a way to do this for letters as well as fake 3D rotation like Gleylancer's high score input screen but I couldn't figure out a good method to do it.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Well, doing fancy rotation would be a whole other business; but it was fairly simple otherwise. Basically, I just used an array to create a virtual 4X5 grid and spaced to the size of the dot sprite. Something like:

Code: Select all

var i,ii,iii,widhi; i=0;ii=0;iii=0;widhi=sprite_get_height(dot_img)

repeat(4*5)
{
 grid_showdot[i]=0
 grid_x[i]=widhi*ii
 grid_y[i]=widhi*iii
 i+=1 ;ii+=1; if ii=4 {ii=0;iii+=1}
}
After that, I just assign positions of each 'dot' for each number/character in a list which is checked every time the number is changed. Then, during the draw phase, it simply checks for which showdot positions on the grid do not equal zero.

Thinking about it, though, it probably wouldn't be too hard to do some funky scaling and rotation if you dug out the sprite size variable, meddled with it during the draw phase and maybe tagged on some lengthdir functions. The catch with this particular method is that since it starts from 0,0 , the whole grid would be hinged at the top left; but nothing that difficult to work around.

Another catch with my method is that manually assigning the dot positions (I used an actual 4x5 numeral set to help) for a whole alphabet *would* be pretty tedious. :lol: Sometimes you just gotta do it the brute force way, though.

edit: I tried some of this out tonight and I'm fairly pleased with the results, let me know what you think. ;) The solution I found was for both vertical and horizontal rows to be odd numbered, so there could be a center dot on which to base the positions of the others on.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

I finally made some progress on backgrounds...

Image

I did some tweaking to the XYX Map Editor which allows it to dump maps created with it into a format the game can read internally. I'd normally be cautious about how this would affect performance; but earlier this weekend I had the opportunity to play around with both an iPhone and iPad and was pretty shocked how well the game ran on them (even the outdated version.) Both just flat-out blew away my netbook. :mrgreen:
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

You got the full GM Studio thanks to buying GM:HTML5 before it was rendered redundant? Excellent. Maybe it's not a piece of crap anymore after all. :D
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Lol...I'm still using the same old HTML5 version. A friend (who happens to be an Apple fanatic) just came by this weekend, giving me my first chance to try any of this stuff with touch compatible devices.

I've been a bit cautious about upgrading to Studio, personally. Amongst other things, apparently there's some odd rule about not distributing any games made with the beta version. O_o Some of it's features do sound pretty cool, though.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

It's out of beta and apparently everyone that has GM:HTML5 can get Studio with the HTML5 stuff on it for free. http://yoyogames.com/news/105

Going from that link though they're separating the iOS/Android export functions and charging more for them? Sounds a bit WTF to me but it MUST be less buggy than GM:HTML5 by itself considering it's been made redundant.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

I wasn't planning on doing this originally; but I decided to release a 1 level demo for the EXE/Win version. All 3 ships will be playable and there will be an additional mode ("Extreme".) It pretty much removes the need to clear out a previous wave for the next to spawn, making it more of a continuous barrage. I kinda wonder if it's a tad too ridiculous this way, though. :lol:

I still have a few changes to make; but I'll update the first post when it's live. The web version, on the other hand, is back to running too damn slow since I've fiddled with the backgrounds (surprise, surprise), so it won't be getting an update for awhile. >_>
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

... and here it is.

Also, I just added a 4th ship (which will be unlockable in the full game):
Image
As you can probably tell, it's fairly ridiculous. :lol:
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

The game is fairly ridiculous. O_O

Is it meant to have no music, underpowered everything and 30 FPS?
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Well, I could've waited until the music was done; but I'm just impatient like that. :P There is actually a test track in there; but it's just that old metal one by IMP that used to be in Flying V. In the meantime, I've just been blasting Raiden Fighters boss music during testing. >_>

Underpowered? Do you mean the player or the enemies? Nearly everything is weaker and takes fewer hits in Extreme mode, by the way.

Like MegaTank, the game runs at 45fps as a compromise for HTML5 performance. I wasn't sure about doing this at first; but I was happy enough with how MT ran that I considered it a non-issue afterwards.
Also, I honestly don't want to redo a billion and a half step timers.
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Matskat
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Matskat »

Last Chance is shaping up nicely.

I set up the 1 level demo running in one of my cabinets, now I have an entire menu in my frontend containing Gryzor games : XYX, Flying V, and now Last Chance.

I'll post a pic and a link to YouTube showing "Last Chance" in action - arcade style.

Gryzor - You should offer your 3 vertical shooters on one CD, charge $25 or something. This way when they are all done, all of us with PCs in our cabinets can show off your games! Last time I had friends over, everyone was ALL OVER XYX and Flying V...I mean ALL OVER THAT SHIT.

Also, when you finish Last Chance, will you be going back to finish XYX and Flying V? I so badly want to pay you for the full games :)

Good work - awesome stuff!
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Rozyrg wrote:Well, I could've waited until the music was done; but I'm just impatient like that. :P There is actually a test track in there; but it's just that old metal one by IMP that used to be in Flying V. In the meantime, I've just been blasting Raiden Fighters boss music during testing. >_>

Underpowered? Do you mean the player or the enemies? Nearly everything is weaker and takes fewer hits in Extreme mode, by the way.

Like MegaTank, the game runs at 45fps as a compromise for HTML5 performance. I wasn't sure about doing this at first; but I was happy enough with how MT ran that I considered it a non-issue afterwards.
Also, I honestly don't want to redo a billion and a half step timers.
I thought Extreme mode was a harder difficulty setting. It probably doesn't help that I had issues picking up the powerups (bloody Compile-era movement's a bitch for me).

Which Raiden Fighters music were you using per chance? I'll definitely play some of THAT in the background if it fits well. (I noticed it fits well in Aero Flux changing the sound files the other day actually). :D
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

BPzeBanshee wrote:I thought Extreme mode was a harder difficulty setting
Well, I thought it would be when I first put in; but I've come to conclusion it's actually easier (possibly from repeat testing insanity, who knows :lol:). I'll probably swap it for a more neutral term like "turbo", which I think would be more appropriate anyways.

This is the one. I wasn't crazy about RF's music for the longest time; but this track is just too badass to ignore.
Matskat wrote:Gryzor - You should offer your 3 vertical shooters on one CD, charge $25 or something. This way when they are all done, all of us with PCs in our cabinets can show off your games! Last time I had friends over, everyone was ALL OVER XYX and Flying V...I mean ALL OVER THAT SHIT.

Also, when you finish Last Chance, will you be going back to finish XYX and Flying V? I so badly want to pay you for the full games :)

Good work - awesome stuff!
Thanks! Glad to hear your friends are enjoying them too! :mrgreen:
I'm totally going to do something like when I have a few of these done. I made a handful of promo/packaging stuff for XYX awhile back (1,2), I could definitely see doing this for a combo pack, too, and have all kinds of crazy stuff mixed together.

The main priority right now is what I'm doing for NGDEV; but once I'm done with Last Chance, the next one will probably be ZPF. I figure by the time I've at least made some more progress with it (it's been at the back of the line in that regard for awhile now), I can probably get back to the others comfortably.

Some updates:
Image
Added hiscore tables (one for each mode) and a name entry option on the title. Note the text at the bottom ,which will either tell you how great the top player is... or berate you for not ranking in. :lol:
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by z0mbie90 »

Just tested Last Chance and as usual it's beautiful looking game, you really know how to do nice sprites.
Only negative I can think of is that the bullets are way to fast for me, maybe I played to much CAVE and other games with slowerbullets, but damn.

But other than that you do really cool games man 8)
Image
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Thanks, man. Much appreciated! :mrgreen:
...........
UPDATES: I've updated Flying V and XYX with the awesome new TATE system figured out by BPzeBanshee and Pieterator. I don't know what sorcery is involved here; but it looks 100% better! An updated LC (exe) will be on the way shortly, too.

Image

As for a 'slow bullet' mode, I've just added one that almost halves enemies' bullet speed; but also increases their rate of fire to compensate and hopefully keep things fairly hectic. It'll be in the next demo along with the hiscore tables and that good stuff.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Updated the Last Chance demo tonight.

- Improved TATE (now "Rotation" in the options)
- Added a 'slow bullet' mode ("Tortoise")
- Added hiscore tables for each mode and a name entry option
- Some music from our good friend Raigon! (I reused the old boss theme from XYX, though)

Since it's going to be a pretty short game (3 stages for the web version, ~5 for this one), I also added looping, which it will do up to 5 times. Somewhat ridiculous to leave in a 1 stage demo, sure; but what the hell. >_>
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

View breaks at 180 degrees and it looks like you failed to notice the additional 1 pixel offset I've just spent several days finetweaking into GMOSSE and Aero Flux [Radical Proposal]. :P

Other than that everything seems better. Having the powerup system change in Normal mode compared to Tortoise/Turbo mode seems weird but I guess that kinda makes the modes unique. This game is definitely not a walk in the park regardless of which mode you pick. :lol:
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Oops. I guess I did spend all of that time making sure it worked with the standard left/right flips, call me mr. thorough. -_- Thinking about it, though, it kinda seems like a peculiar option to even have in there. *snips off*

As for the powerups, the reason was that the onslaught of extra enemies and bullets made it even more difficult and painstaking to 'catch' all the little capsules, if not impossible in some cases. It's definitely a consequence of having everything so big, I know. Also, I had an unused, bigger "P" graphic kicking around in there (which was originally going to be a simultaneous up/down shot.)
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

180* was indeed the angle I had the most problems with but kept it considering screen flipping (like that switch in MAME for some games that render them upside-down).

Seems legit anyway. When I have been playing this it's been hard but awesome, and the music does make me just a bit jelly too. :3
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Thanks! :mrgreen:
Difficulty wise, I'm aiming for just short of the "now give me your damn quarters!" arcade standard, so I'm pleased to hear that.

.. and Raigon always comes through and surprises me. I wasn't sure about this song at first because of the slower tempo; but it just has that cool 'soulfulness' (if that makes any sense) like the early Raiden games did, simply love it.
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

Almost done with another boss. Aside from maybe Exalted (XYX final boss), this guy is about as complex as anything I've done so far.
Image

I've rearranged the mode names again, too. Just can't make my damn mind up with these. :|
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Gigachester?
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

For Rozyrg,

Is it possible to have some eye-popping scaling effects for the main title screen of Last Chance and have a limited animated eye-catchy opening intro that leads into the main title screen? A bit of slick storyboarding with some some quick cut scenes of busty anime gals racing off into their fightercrafts to fight the on-coming big bosses & smaller fry sure'd be ace in my book.

Adding the usual "Insert Coin" & "Press 1P or 2P" to give LC that unmistakable arcade feel/realism will not certainly hurt. Only if a one-off PCB could be made, I'd buy one for my arcade PCB collection.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

I definitely had some ideas for story scenes along those lines.... just gotta find the time to do them. I've done a few pilot portraits already, which I think you would approve of. ;) Might have to put in a SFW option in there if things go as planned, though.

For the title, I had the idea for the logo to come down and smash some ugly alien creature, leaving multicolored goo splattered underneath it. :D If nothing else, I could do the Metal Slug thing and have each letter drop in one by one.
BPzeBanshee wrote:Gigachester?

:lol:
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

I'm starting to feel LC would be better with shorter; (but consequently more) levels. Granted , it's probably just that nothing I've added in awhile really gels theme-wise with what's already there; but the more I play it in these sort of isolated chunks with just a few enemies, the more I see that as a potentially good format for the game. I also think it'd just be cool to have a more immediate reward for clearing out a tough section without dying.

I'd probably space out the bosses so they'd come after 2-3 of these short levels; but 1 or 2 long 'marathon' stages with a boss tacked on wouldn't be out of the question. I thought of a way to do some Psikyo style level shuffling, too, and that'd probably make more sense with more levels on hand to play with.

Any thoughts? I know the current level isn't *all* that long to begin with; but I figure it might be worth it to try something a bit different.

-------------
edit: Thanks to some unused gfx I had laying around, I now have several sub-bosses to fill the place of the big guys on the shorter levels. I'm planning to make a bunch of others and just have which one you fight be completely random on any particular stage.

ImageImageImage
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

Stage 1 felt a bit long to me, didn't help that the randomness killed me every time. Sounds like you got a good idea going there though.

Also, the bosses look very cool. And the cheese ship looks good, reminds me of Alluro's Ultima-X that was in the original Xeno Fighters.
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by MommysBestGames »

I like the sprite art in your games a lot, especially the vibrant rainbow of colors. XYX title screen monster is very cool. Nice work.
Making a run 'n' gun with a transforming grappling hook: ChainStaff. Also made a shmup with multi-ships: Shoot 1UP DX, and more .
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Rozyrg
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by Rozyrg »

BPzeBanshee wrote:Stage 1 felt a bit long to me, didn't help that the randomness killed me every time. Sounds like you got a good idea going there though.

Also, the bosses look very cool. And the cheese ship looks good, reminds me of Alluro's Ultima-X that was in the original Xeno Fighters.
Glad you think so, I really liked the change as soon as I implemented it. :D It definitely helps with repetition and I think a slightly steeper challenge is more justified when you don't have a huge stage PLUS a boss to have to wade through.

The Amethyst (purple ship) was pretty cheap when I first added it; but it's now somewhat more balanced. I knocked down the damage on the individual shots; but moving up (on the lower half of the screen) allows you to narrow the spread, so certain enemies can be wiped out pretty fast if the positioning is in your favor. If there's one that's broken, it's the Emerald, that one definitely needs some serious balancing.
MommysBestGames wrote:I like the sprite art in your games a lot, especially the vibrant rainbow of colors. XYX title screen monster is very cool. Nice work.
Thank you very much! :mrgreen: Bright colors and fast bullets are my thing for sure.
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BPzeBanshee
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Re: My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

Post by BPzeBanshee »

I didn't think Emerald was that broken. Everything kills me with that ship before I can do anything with it. :(

I guess I just suck. Odds are GMOSSE is probably just as bad for ship balancing and I haven't really noticed. :P
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