Hydorah 1.1 released!!

[Zosite]

For both those infidels who still refuse to take the splendid Hydorah seriously (enough) and keep calling it euroshmup, and those of you apostates who decided to abjure from your former religion in favour of some intergalactic armless evil god... Know ye all that a new and vastly improved version of Hydorah has been released. As usual, you can download it for free at its official website http://www.locomalito.com/hydorah.php.

And now please let me detail you some of its improvements over 1.0 version:

- Up to 6 graphic modes, no less, including fullscreen proportional
- Old blurriness significantly reduced; leveled to NONE if played under 640x480 desktop resolution.
- Added optional SCANLINES using Game Maker surfaces!
- Added optional VSync!
- Added custom joystick button configuration
- Slightly lighter backgrounds, to better appreciate its superb pixel art
- 'Wave' primary weapon fixed: now escorts can also shoot through obstacles
- Scoring adjusted; downgraded on several cases.
- Infinite Milking is finally OVER; there's no boss timeout but you won't get any points while fighting middle and final stage bosses except those coming from the destruction of the boss itself or its sections if it applies
- Final score displayed in game over screen and both endings for your screenshot needs
- Sound and music work much better now; using FFdshow no longer necessary (at least not for me)
- Difficulty also adjusted and toned up a little
- Savegame system improved; now it won't force you to play with initial configuration which used to get saved along with the game itself. Any new change on config will find its way to your saved game on loading
- Implemented in-game usage of F4,F5,F6 keys to change graphic mode or toggle scanlines and vsync
- Several other minor fixes

...and, well...

- 2 more save options so they're initially 5 now; yeah, I know this "feature" alone will be enough for some of you to stop reading right here. Then again, don't look now but nobody kinda forces you to use them as nobody did ever blackmail you to use more than one credit on any other game (which would allow you to see the entire game no matter your skills by the way; you can't do that in Hydorah).

All of you are indeed entitled to your opinion, but IMHO it's time to start considering this splendid little jewel seriously for scoring competitions as long as nobody uses the save system and the path to Meropticon and Hydorah gets fixed on competition rules.

[To admins]: maybe this thread should be merged with the old one, but this new version features some quite important changes that made me think a new topic would be useful. However, I leave it to your discretion to move it there, no questions asked.

[Aquas]

Great! My old PC couldn't run this one (quite right) so I was just waiting for a reason to try it again as it has been in the back of my mind. These sound like some decent changes.

[ciox]

I'm really glad this happened, the game didn't deserve to get blasted the way it did on release. Sounds like it's time for new scores too since the difficulty has been upped, gonna put in a run later.

[Udderdude]

Nice to see the devs still care about this one.

[EmperorIng]

I'm all for a competent indie shmup. The negative reaction kept me off the first release, but I'll gladly try this one and see how it is. After all, I do loves me a horizontal.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The negative reaction kept me off the first release, but I'll gladly try this one and see how it is.

What negative reaction? Around here, it was as hyped as a new shmup that is not on DC/not by Cave can be.

[Nick420]

Been thinking of trying this for a while since i'm a massive gradius fan. This is the push I needed. Thanks for the info.

[EmperorIng]

The negative reaction kept me off the first release, but I'll gladly try this one and see how it is.

What negative reaction? Around here, it was as hyped as a new shmup that is not on DC/not by Cave can be.

The last few pages of that topic are pretty nasty.

Plus it was sort of general laziness, too!

I've played a bit of it, and I have to say, as some morphing of gradius, it's really fun! If this were retail in some fashion, I'd have no qualms about forking over some dough, ha ha.

[shmuppyLove]

Woooooooooo

I found some bugginess though with the joystick support. I couldn't remap the joystick buttons, and when I pressed the joystick button to start the game from the menu screen the button seemed to stick on.

[Zosite]

Woooooooooo

I found some bugginess though with the joystick support. I couldn't remap the joystick buttons, and when I pressed the joystick button to start the game from the menu screen the button seemed to stick on.

Couldn't say about the sticky joystick button, but in order to remap the buttons it must be done in a rather weird way due to some GM nastiness on that department. Not that I think you didn't do it well already but just in case:

To remap joystick buttons you must press on your KEYBOARD the number assigned to the button of your choice and not the button itself on your joystick (those numbers can be easily checked out on Control Panel -> Game Controllers -> Properties). It works for me with the X360 pad, couldn't say about others.

[shmuppyLove]

Ok figured out the remapping, yeah that is a bit weird but not impossible to figure out.

The sticky button, basically when the title screen comes up with "PRESS ENTER", I press button 1 on my joystick, and it sticks, so that it goes to the menu, and then starts the game right away.

It doesn't happen with the keyboard though, so I just use that in the menus instead.

[Obscura]

It's better than 1.0, but polishing a turd won't get you very far.

The recovery points are terribly designed. There's a reason why Gradius never dropped you right before a boss with no chance to even get a single freakin' speed up. It's possible to get into literally unwinnable scenarios because of this, where it's impossible to dodge a boss's attacks.

Also, parabolic bullets that can go off the top of the screen and then come down on you after leaving the screen, from a boss where you have to sit at the top of the screen to attack it? Wow, that's bullshit.

[Zosite]

"Polishing a turd"? Entitled to your opinion indeed, too bad you forced us to taste it in such... manners.

Nevertheless, please let me reply to your rightful complaints:

There's a reason why Gradius never dropped you right before a boss with no chance to even get a single freakin' speed up. It's possible to get into literally unwinnable scenarios because of this, where it's impossible to dodge a boss's attacks.

Granted, I've seen such scenarios. Time to use one of those save slots some people seem to hate. And take note that I'm NOT saying it shouldn't be fixed somehow in a future version.

Also, parabollic bullets... blahblahblah... Wow, that's bullshit

No, that's *difficult*, and if you're a Gradius fan like it seems you are (like myself and any other living being worthy of such name) I'm pretty sure that term is not completely unfamiliar to you. I'd even concede the word 'unfair' as the situation you describe would require quite good reflexes to avoid. And now is when the classic Gradius high-speed stage comes to mind. No matter, for I'd never concede the word 'unwinnable' as in your other complaint above.

On the other hand, I promise you that your suggestions will find their way to game's developer for an eventual new version. I'll just omit the 'turd part', for I've been told he's not that used to deal with ill-mannered gamers, and it's my sincere hope that you'll understand it.

[Obscura]

No, that's *difficult*, and if you're a Gradius fan like it seems you are (like myself and any other living being worthy of such name) I'm pretty sure that term is not completely unfamiliar to you. I'd even concede the word 'unfair' as the situation you describe would require quite good reflexes to avoid. And now is when the classic Gradius high-speed stage comes to mind. No matter, for I'd never concede the word 'unwinnable' as in your other complaint above.

1. I'm actually not a huge Gradius fan. I casually like the first one, but it's not a favorite either, and Konami completely loses me with later entries in the series. Generally, I'd much rather be playing an R-Type game.
2. I'm pretty sure there's never a case in the Gradius series where a bullet leaves the screen and then comes back to hit you. The closest thing is those homing enemies in Gradius 2's first stage coming back around, but they move slow as hell.
3. I'm not saying that the game as a whole is "unwinnable"; rather, I'm saying that it's possible to get into situations where you're completely screwed and have no choice but to lose all of your remaining lives to a boss attack that you literally can no longer dodge because you're at 0 speed-ups, and you can't get another because the checkpoint placement is really terrible.

A more aggressive rank system akin to the first three Gradius games would probably help some, but the checkpoints, power-up carrier placements, and power-up system in general need to be better thought out.

[Zosite]

Splendid! Now THAT last post of you is the one that is going to be passed as it is to game's developer. Thanks for your feedback.

[BPzeBanshee]

You know Obscura, I was going to write a respectful and detailed post, but it seems you've already made your mind up so I won't make the effort. Citing Gradius and knowing next to nothing about it doesn't help your argument either.

The boss you're talking about isn't that hard (protip: don't point-blank), and if you want to put helpful advice regarding recovery points, pick the spots where it isn't working.

I found them to work just fine except for the Path of Scylla. I also found boss fights more than clearable because Hydorah DOESN'T take away all of your powerups unless you already had buggerall to begin with, which leaves the best.

learn2play man.

[Obscura]

No, Hydorah doesn't take away all of your power-ups; it takes one off of everything, and gives you basically no chance to restore some of them.

Gradius, if you die, you'll start at a checkpoint where you can get a known number of power-ups. In other words, you'll either attack each section at high power, or at some known low power. Hydorah doesn't have this stability; you can literally drop down to zero speed-ups and have no way to get any more.

Oh, and I wasn't point-blanking that boss. Being able to be hit by bullets that have already left the screen is just stupid. People complain about off-screen enemies shooting at them in Under Defeat HD, and no one bats an eyelid, but I guess since this is indie, we have to praise the everliving hell out of it no matter what, right?

[BPzeBanshee]

As I've said, the recovery points have worked fine. I'm always restored to a spot in Hydorah that provides powerups to get me back on track. Where I'm at a boss I can kill it off whether I'm on 0 power or on 4 or on 10. If that isn't the case for you, I repeat, pick the spots where it isn't working and make an actual valid bug report instead of a whinge.

Off-screen enemies shooting before they've entered or after they've left the bottom/left of the screen is indeed stupid. Blood drops following the laws of gravity in a very predictable sense, however, is not.

but I guess since this is indie, we have to praise the everliving hell out of it no matter what, right?

No idea where you got that idea from, all I want is for you to read the part I put in bold and not sound like a turd while you're at it. Squashing bullshit != absolute indie praise, and if you ever saw some of the stuff I've posted on WIPs you'd know better of me.

[Aquas]

I would like the game to be more difficult. It was easy... only untill the last few stages did it really get *exciting*. But even then it was fairly breezy. Yes, I would love to see a more aggressive rank system. I did notice that there IS rank. Certainly, with the right difficulty tuning this can be a superb game.

[system11]

I seem to have a problem running Hydorah or the new Matilda game.

Quite often graphics appear then quickly fade away to black, I can get into the game in both cases but all sprites have big square black blocks over them, like the sprite transparency isn't working.

If it helps - Vista 64 bit with Nvidia Quadro card. Tried XP mode and it hangs on boot, a friend with an actual XP machine reports the same problem.

[Zosite]

Yeah, it's a well known problem which doesn't seem to be related to SO but more to some cards and/or their drivers. Locomalito, main game designer, is currently working hard towards fixing this nasty issue coming from the using of GameMaker itself which basically consists in all textures supposed to be transparent to appear black instead.

However, there're some things I'd try if I were you. They aren't granted to work but some people report these as being useful for them:

* Try to NOT change main desktop resolution before playing. If you play at your current resolution (without changing to 640 x 480 to improve pixel sharpness, etc.) you may get your problems gone. This is my particular scenario: I always get the problem you describe but ONLY if I change desktop resolution for playing; doing so I'll see the problem as soon as I exit-reload the game and on any further play until I reboot. Worth a try IMHO. Just assure that nothing else changes your resolution before playing either...

* Change graphic drivers (and I'm not saying -update-; sometimes older drivers prove to be much better as it's my case with 2007 drivers and living happy).

Good luck!

[Captain]

alternately, make a shortcut to hydorah and add -vidmode 1111,2222,33 to the target line

1111 and 2222 are your resolution, such as 1680:1050 and 33 is the refresh rate

example:

-vidmode 1680,1050,60

and remember to put a space between what you add and the existing target line!

[BPzeBanshee]

I tried that and it didn't work. Where did you hear that from?

[Captain]

works with some games and doesn't with others.

and it worked for me.

[Tyjet]

What are the exact system requirements for this? It keeps on crashing and freezing on me.

[Udderdude]

You must make a sacrifice of one arcade PCB to the Gamemaker deities if you wish to run this game >_>

[BPzeBanshee]

Well I ran it fine with a Core 2 Duo the other day. i3 works too but obviously that's overkill. It stutters a bit in the main menu anyway due to filesaving stuff, but actual freezes could be a RAM limitation or a graphics card issue, so a description of your hardware would help.

works with some games and doesn't with others.

and it worked for me.

I've looked this up since you didn't provide a reference. GM games do support accepting additional parameters via the commandline, but it has to be coded in manually - if Locamalito made Hydorah support -vidmode in that way (which is entirely possible) then it'd work for everyone, and it isn't.

Anyone having issues with this game should:
1) try what Zosite said above
2) try and trigger the same thing to happen on a GM-made game (shameless plug: see sig)
3) send an email with the issue to Locamalito and hope he can figure it out or send a build with -vidmode support for experimentation (which I could do for you anyway but it'd be no help if it's Hydorah-specific)

[Enemy]

is the slight stutter in the movement of the main ship and scrolling in the game on purpose or should it be running at a weird frame rate instead of 60fps ??

[BPzeBanshee]

Should be running at 60 FPS afaik. Your issue is probably vsync-related, turn it off by either setting it to 0 in the config or going to screen settings in the Main Menu and hitting F6.

[Enemy]

Should be running at 60 FPS afaik. Your issue is probably vsync-related, turn it off by either setting it to 0 in the config or going to screen settings in the Main Menu and hitting F6.

why cant it be smooth with vsync on, if the vsync is making it stutter then its not running at true 60fps, it must be something weird like 57.99 or 58.99 or something like that surely ....