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

[Rozyrg]

Rozyrg can you please stop doing so cool sprites. You make me very jealous man!

Rozyrg, these graphics are too godlike!

Awesome sprite work! The upgraded graphics must have taken you hundreds of hours!

Thank you thank you thank you!

At this point, it's likely it's been close to hundreds, yes; but mostly because of those backgrounds!

I LOVE ZPF! It's slower and a little easier. Fire Arrow was too hard/fast for me! Hey Rozyrg, I just noticed... why are all of your games SO FREAKING HARD!?

Glad you like it! I really want to get back to work on it, I've got tons of ideas for it kicking around in my noggin. As for the difficulty, I dunno... I think it's just this odd byproduct of building a game and testing it a lot yourself. At some point, you just get hardened to whatever challenge you've intended there to be and adjust accordingly just to keep the process interesting. That and people's perception of difficulty really really varies and I like both what are considered very easy (i.e. MUSHA) and very hard (i.e. Truxton) shooters.

which one would you say is the most 'complete' out of the lot Rozyrg?

Wellllll, technically Megatank and Laser Carrot are complete, they're just such short/simple games that they don't really count. Also, I can already think of tons of ways to improve them or make them 'more complete' and those are wasps nests I don't need to start smacking.

• Fire Arrow would've been about the same as those (quick,cheap) had I not kept fiddling with it, with placeholder gfx and all. I've gone beyond finishing it in that respect; but yeah, of my current goals : 1 main stage, 1 bonus stage, 4 endings, with the only holdup being ending pics and the finer details of the bonus stage, it's pretty damn close.
  
  XYX: has 4/6 levels and 6/7 bosses fully complete, with the other 2 stages mostly complete. No endings are done beyond a few boring text scrawls. Right on the line; but I pretty much had gotten total brain freeze for new enemy ideas or anything else by the time I had reached that point.
  
  Flying V: was only supposed to be 3 levels long originally; but now has 4. From all the requests I've gotten to 'finish it' after it's expansion, I'd estimate that more was expected, so I'll judge it's completeness by an arbitrary 6 stage standard: therefore, 4/6 levels and bosses completed.
  
  ZPF 3 levels (mostly) and 2 bosses completed. I never really had a specific length in mind for this one: in theory, I could keep adding levels until I'm totally out of ideas for it. Still, assuming said standard, it's 3/6.
  
  Last Chance 2~3 levels and 2 bosses complete. This one's a bit trickier to estimate as it has half-stages and the progress I've made is fairly well scattered between them all; but the general plan is to have at least 10 of these and 5 bosses.
  
  ... and with any other side stuff I've shown here or elsewhere (the ninja platformer, space harrier clone, DQ-ish rpg thing), WYSIWYG.

[Rozyrg]

Unlockable ship added:



- Switching (X key default) alters the shot pattern rather than changing ships
-- Like Red & Blue, it changes from a straight vulcan shot to a spread shot, except the movement of the bits makes it more chaotic.
- The Dual attack is slightly different
- As of now, simply finishing the bonus stage will unlock it, although depending on the outcome of further testing, 5min completion may become a prerequisite later.

[BPzeBanshee]

Is that a bit of z-depth trickery I see? Nice!

[Rozyrg]

Thanks. I made sort of a broken, half-assed attempt at this effect for Flying V's ship select; but it's always puzzled me how to do it right.

The whole reason there is even another playable ship was because I finally figured it out.... then I thought of different colored lasers twirling synchronously and combining, as if they were coming out of a particularly deadly softserve dispenser. Thus, it had to be made. >_>

I still can't come up with a decent name for it because only delicious orange and lime sherbet come to mind.

[Skykid]

Came from mice's post. Can't believe what I'm seeing (been missing!), those screens look unreal. I'm predominantly bound to my Mac, which is damn frustrating as I wouldn't mind jumping on these now, but I can get round to a Windows based system soonish to give them a shot.

Can't wait!

[BPzeBanshee]

'Bout time you Shmups Chatters stopped ignoring Development.

[Skykid]

Just realised some of these have browser versions! Had a go on Megatank, Last Chance and Laser Carrot briefly. Really like MT, that one had me back for several goes. Not sure if you're ever going to update these again, but it would be really nice to see the Wave you reached on the MT results screen in addition to the score.

Laser Carrot is weirdly amusing, and Last Chance needs me to practice - that one's tough right out off the bat.

Am I assuming if I create a Yoyo account I can play the rest? I thought they were all Windows EXE's.

[BPzeBanshee]

They are all Windows EXEs with some exceptions. You shouldn't need a YoYo account to download them though. The HTML-based ones were made with either GM:HTML5 (now defunct) or GM:Studio (I think) and since there's various issues associated with it, it's easier to make them Windows-only.

If you're a bit technically minded you could get a hold of VirtualBox or WINE or a similar program to run Windows apps on your Mac. With VirtualBox there's an additional glitch associated with it's Direct3D/DirectDraw handling that cause an issue with GM games, I figured out a way to solve that for fullscreen mode but Rozyrg's games don't have that and Windowed mode with it is a lost cause.

[Skykid]

I've got Wine set up that runs Crimson Clover and ChoRenSha. But Icarus set it up for me, and every time I try to get something running I always bugger up the process somehow (and that's following instructions.)

[BPzeBanshee]

Hmm, gotta say the last time I tried Wine it was pretty unfriendly/buggy too which is why I prefer VirtualBox - that one's a bit more user-friendly but requires emulating Windows, having a fair bit of disk space for the virtual HDD, and having a Windows disc/image to install to begin with.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Thanks. The whole reason there is even another playable ship was because I finally figured it out.... then I thought of different colored lasers twirling synchronously and combining, as if they were coming out of a particularly deadly softserve dispenser. Thus, it had to be made. >_>

I still can't come up with a decent name for it because only delicious orange and lime sherbet come to mind.

And there's the softserve flavor of both the old-school "vanilla and chocolate" combo to try out as well. It's available at my local Snow White Drive-In (sorta like Foster's Freeze national franchise chain but just a smaller chain of independently owned joints) with the usual tasty ice cream cone to accompany it. Add some quick-drying chocolate coating shell for some mighty tasty flavor as a bonus.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[railslave]

Any chance you can do a timelapse tutorial on how to draw ships!!
Takes so much imagination , driving me insane ..
this is my pride and joy atm.



Do you use a pen and tab or just go in one block at a time ? Im debating wether to start using a pen

[Rozyrg]

Really like MT, that one had me back for several goes. Not sure if you're ever going to update these again, but it would be really nice to see the Wave you reached on the MT results screen in addition to the score.

Laser Carrot is weirdly amusing, and Last Chance needs me to practice - that one's tough right out off the bat.

Glad you liked MT - If I ever get back to working on it, there's actually a lot that needs (re)doing; but...duly noted.

..and that's pretty much all LC is supposed to be. I spent at least a week adding stuff to that no one will likely ever see. If anyone actually beats that thing (250+ levels and all), I should probably take a road trip to their house to give them an award in person...lol.

Any chance you can do a timelapse tutorial on how to draw ships!!
Takes so much imagination , driving me insane ..
this is my pride and joy atm.



Do you use a pen and tab or just go in one block at a time ? Im debating wether to start using a pen

Looking good so far. If this makes any sense, I'd probably make it look a bit more vertically oriented. As a general rule, a ship design should be dynamic and suggest motion as much as possible.

I do have a tablet (which is broken, sadly); but I've barely used it towards any of my game sprites at all. One might be useful for initially sketching out the big stuff; but a mouse is probably still the best for the intricate pixel-by-pixel work that it's going to come down to eventually. Tablets are awesome, though, especially if you're wanting to do more general digital art as well. I'd definitely recommend getting one if that's the case.

As for a timelapse video, I'm not quite sure how to do that, honestly. I'd probably also have to edit out all the bits where I'm looking at porn when I get stuck on some part. Sounds like a good excuse to break out my DVD recorder again, though, so I'll probably experiment a bit and see what happens.

And there's the softserve flavor of both the old-school "vanilla and chocolate" combo

Glad we're on the same train of thought here. There's just so much potential for food-related fun in games that's been left unexplored. Like, I almost want to make a hunting game just so I can have the animals explode into fully cooked drumsticks and steaks after you shoot them... with laser rifles. >_>

[railslave]

thanks, ill get to work on making stuff look a bit deeper you set a high bar, its good!

Is there a good height and width for sprites that just seems to look the best ?

[Rozyrg]

Again, that goes back to the scale issue. If you're working at 1:1 scale and always have an easy reference to what the screen size/game window will be on hand, that's the sort of thing you can check as you're working and gradually refine. As for precise size, it doesn't hurt to cheat a bit by looking back to the classics: just find a good screencap and count the number of pixels wide/high relative to the image size.



A rule of thumb for enemy size, though, is to think of them as multiples of the smallest enemy: for instance, using that enemy's size as though it were a tile, the next largest could be 2x2, then 2x4, 4x2, 4x4 of that tile repeated and so on.

[railslave]

I just get lazy i guess and want to make everything 30x30 on the same window 240 x 320.



, i love the variety of enemies craft you have, its staggering the imagination you have tbh..i was checking out your side scrolling stuff last night (well trying too, without getting my ass handed to me)

Im starting to realize very fast that all shmup games artists have a degree in fine art(for the most part), judging by the shading and complimentary colors ect..

thanks for the screencaps ill be studying these..

i really like the very close drop shadows as well, tight!

Theres a programmers Bible on here, needs to be an artists one imo.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks. I'm glad that comes through.

Yeah, you really do get quite a bit out of a little fine arts training early on. It's easy to take it for granted later; but it comes in handy pretty much no matter what style(s) you end up utilizing. OK, I had more than a little, although it was hardly formal at all. I absolutely SUCKED at painting, though.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I recall doing a color chart excercise with three different tubes of goulche (magenta, cyan & yellow) in one art class. So yes, it does help out with selecting the proper colors to use in sprite artwork. Back in 1991, I was using Autodesk's Animator program running on MS-Dos that utilized a 320 x 200 resolution (almost at a typical 320 x 240 res format of those classic arcade games from the early '80s & beyond) to create some cool animation bits (including a homage to Atari's Missle Command) all stored on the venerable 1.44MB floppies as the preferred medium of choice + there's Animator Pro that runs on Win95, also, to consider.

Of course, it helps to utilize a good color theory book/chart to use the appropiate complimentary colors with the main overall single color scheme used in sprite work as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Rozyrg]

Wow, and the oldest stuff I remember is Deluxe Paint. I was seriously drooling over the Amiga versions (IV I think?) that let you do full screen animation. I still want one, too, dammit.

My general rule with color is to blend as many together that will work within a given palette (for instance white>yellow>orange>pink>purple>blue) over strict homogeneity; but palette limitations kind of enforce it some degree. That's a good thing, though, and only being to devote so many shades to a color set will often make you settle on 2 or 3 groups that have to agree with each other or have the potential to be mixed and matched around.

On the topic of mixing, it's a good idea to select colors that are easily shared between sets. Yellow, for instance is a safe choice for a lighter shade since it can be mixed with blues just as well as it can be with say, skin tones. Blues and browns are safe for the darker end since either blend easily with greys and they also can add just a touch of color to a grey set to keep the palette from looking too monochrome. I prefer to pick my lightest/darkest as to maximize color blending potential; but sometimes you do have to play it safe.

[Rozyrg]

Inching closer now: the unlockable ship is finished, a hidden (full) boss and special sub-boss have been added, made some tweaks making resistance somewhat less 'thick' right at the start, added 2 higher medal levels... I just need to finish the bonus stage arrangement and last ending screen.

[BPzeBanshee]

Any chance of a difficulty decrease? It's too damn hard in the first 30 seconds for me and the pea-shooter you start off with feels exactly that.

/difficultywhinge

Looking forward to it regardless!

[DocHauser]

Don't listen to him! The difficulty's fine as it is!

[n0rtygames]

Don't listen to him! The difficulty's fine as it is!

THIS.

[Rozyrg]

I changed it because I noticed I would almost instinctively bomb/dual attack at the start of every game just to get an opening to grab some powerups. Now you have a little leeway while you're getting on your feet; but they're still going to be coming straight for your throat. Those huge green tanks come up pretty early in the stage, for instance.

[railslave]

I realy want to play your games all the way through , realy want to experience every bit of art, get inspired, but they are impossible .. merciless

[Rozyrg]

Well, I've thought about adding a novice mode, so we'll see. The unlockable ship definitely makes things a bit easier, too... and I've just included sort of a backdoor way to acquire it, although there is some dark RNG wizardry involved.

edit: Novice mode is in for sure now. It might be a bit too easy, though. :/

[railslave]

Well, I've thought about adding a novice mode, so we'll see. The unlockable ship definitely makes things a bit easier, too... and I've just included sort of a backdoor way to acquire it, although there is some dark RNG wizardry involved.

go on, bring a smile to this little bleaters face.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYm6AcGYwVY

maybe im just picking the wrong ship , one to fast for me ?
As i said it would be nice to appreciate more of the work you put into the stuff, especially your sidescroller!

[Rozyrg]

Well, it's not dependent on the ship you choose: you can adjust the movement speed in the options/pause menu. I might not have been clear enough about what the 'speed' option did, though, someone who did a quick LP of the game seemed to think it altered the speed of everything.

As for why I have it this way, speed ups always got under my skin, and even when games give you a bunch of playable craft with varying speeds, I don't consider that ideal at all. The TF series always had it right in my opinion.

Novice mode details:

• - enemy rank increases nerfed (affects ROF, spread density,etc.)
  - slower bullets
  - enemies cannot fire beams
  - medal values are halved
  - no unlocks, no access to bonus stage

As of now, I think it might be a tad too easy; but I think I'll leave that up to yall to decide.

[BPzeBanshee]

My main issue was mainly with exactly your point:

because I noticed I would almost instinctively bomb/dual attack at the start of every game just to get an opening to grab some powerups.

One shouldn't have to do that just to get a damn powerup for your piss-weak peashooter.

Once you get past that initial phase though I imagine it's all good. XF-R had a similar problem a while ago with Miria which was resolved by a simple tweak to its initial firerate, but I can't imagine the firerate being that much better in Fire Arrow anyway - maybe one less weapon upgrade tier or an initial-only boost?

[Rozyrg]

The 'press' autofire option (based somewhat on Metal Black) actually does give you a faster ROF initially, which is enough to give you a slight upper hand, and is especially good for wiping out sub-bosses. The catch is that you have to sort of pulse the fire key to get a steady hispeed stream; but the timing is pretty lax. I kinda want to make it the default; but I just know I'd get complaints. ...and I don't want to recode the 'how to play' thing.

Starting out a power level or two higher isn't a bad idea, though.