Hi guys, I´m here to bring you this new shmup!!
My name is Alejandro Navarro. I am co-founder in Sumersión Studio, an emerging game developing company (www.sumersion.com), in Santiago of Chile.
I´m here to introduce you the funniest shmup of the year, ARKADIANAX!! (I hope it will be lol)
This shooter is quite different to the others, first of all, because is a mix of 3d and 2d.
As pilot of the ARKADIANAX, we will have to face this 2d and 3d enemies, using the right cannon for each one. The environments are built to remember us those classic atari and arcade games we used to love.
- The game:
In each level we will collect energy pieces that´ll make our ships stronger and faster. At the end of the level we´ll have to destroy a big and a powerful boss.
If we destroyed several enemies and grabed a lot of items and powerups, we will unlock a PASSWORD! (Yes! Remember Megaman or Castlevania??) F*ck yes!
This game is specially made for fanatics of the old videogames (Like me of course!), but new public will enjoy it too, and I really think they are going to love this game.
This has controller support, and can be played in coop campaign. Has 10 stages full of action, seven powerful bosses and more than 30 enemies!
We have a lot of adventure, action, a powerful story, nostalgia surprises and much fun with it!
- A little bit of story:
Alex and his pal, Panda (A cute kitten), go down the stairs to play in a abandoned room (That used to be the office of his dad, when he was there) With his portatil videogame, he promises to defeat BUGATRON (A mean 3d robot). In that very moment, this room charged with some kind of power makes his videogame fussionate with and old and dusty computer . The kid and his furry buddy begins the journey of their lives, they now are the pilots of the guardians of the universe, the ARKADIANAX!
- The development:
I´ve been developing this game for 14 months aprox. (All by myself) Is almost finished (95%), and I really need all the support I can get. If you need anything, plase contact me, I will be glad to help.
Here is the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQ5NuiBYEU
This is SGL page:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =110948663
This is the demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?31ee3wbk133i8s6
(Be patient please, the loading times are expensive)
Thanks a lot, I hope you like the game!
And please, I need all your support, we love shmups, let´s support them!!
Bye!!
ARKADIANAX, 2D/3D shmup for PC (And MAC)
Re: ARKADIANAX, 2D/3D shmup for PC (And MAC)
Hello and welcome to our forums, I watched the trailer and it looked promising enough, I'm sure it's hard to start in the game industry and to make a game overall, You guys (or just you?, not sure since there's other people listed on your website) have a nice enough concept here and i think this has a lot of potential, please don't misunderstand this as harsh comments, think of it as something that will help your game move forward.
First of all, The menus are quite intrusive, on the first stage i was reminded to change the shot type around 5 times and it was kind of annoying to have a big window pop up and stop the actual game to remind me something that is everywhere, If you want to keep all those reminders at least make them less intrusive and way smaller/simpler.
A somewhat big problem that the game has is the lack of an invincibility period after you get hit, you see, pretty much all good shoot em ups (and many other good games) have this feature, when you get hit here you just keep ramming into stuff and you can die easily because of it. This is quite a problem and a bad design choice overall, I hope you look into it.
I'm being honest with this part and i hope you don't consider it as nit-picking but the menus/loading screens and some of the non actual game graphics look rather unpolished and unfinished like the xbox controller loading screen with this one the orange font with no outline is hard to read, the actual controller looks unfinished, The stage select menu has 0 indication of what to do, Not even a "Select your stage" or anything... besides that it looks pretty original and nice to the eyes.
The difficulty select screen and the password screen could be something that is actually on the same screen as the stage select one. There's really no need to have two more screens after a long loading screen just to select 2 things that could be selected within the main menu, and once again, both of this screens look totally unpolished and hard on the eyes, also inputting a password is a bit more tedious than it should be because the icons don't scroll from the end when you push up, this means you have to press down 4 times to get to the last icon, instead of just pressing up to scroll backwards and select that icon with just 1 press.
Regarding the game HUD, it looks nice enough and serves its purpose, but the "Bomb" icon could use a little title saying "Bomb" above it so new people could tell what is the bar for.
There's few typos here and there, and quite some mistakes on the english translation which is understandable to some extent, but it is pretty obvious that the translator is not fluent in english. Adding to the fact that all fonts are hard to read from a distance.
Some "style" mistakes could be the "INSERT NO COIN" message at the title screen, You know, the game goes as an homage to old arcade games most games usually have a text saying "FREE PLAY" instead.
The voxel graphics are pretty nice even though, i don't quite understand the ship hitbox, I don't feel like the ship itself is the whole hitbox sometimes. Sometimes i get hit when i'm turned to one side, sometimes i don't, when i powerup i can't tell where my hitbox is besides the orange paint on the middle of my ship, but even then it's misleading since i can't fully see my hitbox when my ship is turning to one side since the graphic changes, but it feels like my hitbox doesn't actually change.
A really good example of how this can be done right is the way ring^-27 handles it, take a look at this video http://youtu.be/kIGRzq32xcg?t=13 , when you move the ship turns to one side but the actual hitbox graphic does not move, this adds a lot to the game, since the hitbox isn't the whole ship graphic, but rather a portion of it, you should make it clear on where it is located.
Regarding the controls, you should let people configure them on a separate options menu, quite some people play with keyboard only or controller only, and not everyone feels the same key bindings comfortable, personally i think there should be an option for using the thumbstick too with the 360 pad and an option to change the keyboard binds from WASD and BNMH to anything else, there's really no reason to not include this and the lack of an options menu for key bindings or screen options (Like a windowed mode) will give your game a really bad image, this is a common complaint for all kinds of games and it should not be overlooked.
The game feels just about right there's no inertia which is amazing, lately a lot of shmups have been ruined by it, but a lot of things do need more work, There isn't really much replayability due to the lack of a scoring system, also the game seems to be on the easy side which doesn't makes it too replayable neither, aside from that if you can't reduce the loading times at least let the players stare at something nice to look at the current loading screens are really hard to look at and really long, the actual gameplay is actually fun and original but it will most likely be overlooked by all the other flaws which can be corrected.
Judging by the opinions of other gamers i know, if your game were to release on steam on its current state it would be bashed upon which would be really a shame since it has a lot of potential, it just needs to get more attention to the details and some polish and you would have a great product.
I'm trying to help you guys with your game since i see a lot of potential in it, If you need some help with the english translation i would gladly help too, good luck with the game and your future developments it's nice to see more Latin-american videogame developers
First of all, The menus are quite intrusive, on the first stage i was reminded to change the shot type around 5 times and it was kind of annoying to have a big window pop up and stop the actual game to remind me something that is everywhere, If you want to keep all those reminders at least make them less intrusive and way smaller/simpler.
A somewhat big problem that the game has is the lack of an invincibility period after you get hit, you see, pretty much all good shoot em ups (and many other good games) have this feature, when you get hit here you just keep ramming into stuff and you can die easily because of it. This is quite a problem and a bad design choice overall, I hope you look into it.
I'm being honest with this part and i hope you don't consider it as nit-picking but the menus/loading screens and some of the non actual game graphics look rather unpolished and unfinished like the xbox controller loading screen with this one the orange font with no outline is hard to read, the actual controller looks unfinished, The stage select menu has 0 indication of what to do, Not even a "Select your stage" or anything... besides that it looks pretty original and nice to the eyes.
The difficulty select screen and the password screen could be something that is actually on the same screen as the stage select one. There's really no need to have two more screens after a long loading screen just to select 2 things that could be selected within the main menu, and once again, both of this screens look totally unpolished and hard on the eyes, also inputting a password is a bit more tedious than it should be because the icons don't scroll from the end when you push up, this means you have to press down 4 times to get to the last icon, instead of just pressing up to scroll backwards and select that icon with just 1 press.
Regarding the game HUD, it looks nice enough and serves its purpose, but the "Bomb" icon could use a little title saying "Bomb" above it so new people could tell what is the bar for.
There's few typos here and there, and quite some mistakes on the english translation which is understandable to some extent, but it is pretty obvious that the translator is not fluent in english. Adding to the fact that all fonts are hard to read from a distance.
Some "style" mistakes could be the "INSERT NO COIN" message at the title screen, You know, the game goes as an homage to old arcade games most games usually have a text saying "FREE PLAY" instead.
The voxel graphics are pretty nice even though, i don't quite understand the ship hitbox, I don't feel like the ship itself is the whole hitbox sometimes. Sometimes i get hit when i'm turned to one side, sometimes i don't, when i powerup i can't tell where my hitbox is besides the orange paint on the middle of my ship, but even then it's misleading since i can't fully see my hitbox when my ship is turning to one side since the graphic changes, but it feels like my hitbox doesn't actually change.
A really good example of how this can be done right is the way ring^-27 handles it, take a look at this video http://youtu.be/kIGRzq32xcg?t=13 , when you move the ship turns to one side but the actual hitbox graphic does not move, this adds a lot to the game, since the hitbox isn't the whole ship graphic, but rather a portion of it, you should make it clear on where it is located.
Regarding the controls, you should let people configure them on a separate options menu, quite some people play with keyboard only or controller only, and not everyone feels the same key bindings comfortable, personally i think there should be an option for using the thumbstick too with the 360 pad and an option to change the keyboard binds from WASD and BNMH to anything else, there's really no reason to not include this and the lack of an options menu for key bindings or screen options (Like a windowed mode) will give your game a really bad image, this is a common complaint for all kinds of games and it should not be overlooked.
The game feels just about right there's no inertia which is amazing, lately a lot of shmups have been ruined by it, but a lot of things do need more work, There isn't really much replayability due to the lack of a scoring system, also the game seems to be on the easy side which doesn't makes it too replayable neither, aside from that if you can't reduce the loading times at least let the players stare at something nice to look at the current loading screens are really hard to look at and really long, the actual gameplay is actually fun and original but it will most likely be overlooked by all the other flaws which can be corrected.
Judging by the opinions of other gamers i know, if your game were to release on steam on its current state it would be bashed upon which would be really a shame since it has a lot of potential, it just needs to get more attention to the details and some polish and you would have a great product.
I'm trying to help you guys with your game since i see a lot of potential in it, If you need some help with the english translation i would gladly help too, good luck with the game and your future developments it's nice to see more Latin-american videogame developers
“Approach your target and attack. Your mission starts now. Are you ready?”
Re: ARKADIANAX, 2D/3D shmup for PC (And MAC)
Hi Uzumakijl!
Thanks for all your comments, I will work on those to make out of this a better game.
The game is entirely made by myself but the save/load script.
The programming is made in Blender with logic bricks, so it is hard to add or change some features (And some can be fixed quickly).
- About the first menu, it should appear once and then no more (I will fix it)
- I thought a lot about the invincibility thing, and I really want to make it different of other games (Not just shmups. Megaman and Marios use it too) That´s why I added a lot of energy.
- Are all of the orange texts hard to read? I could outline them
- About password and difficulty menu, it is really hard to mix them, because I should rebuild almost the entire logic of the game.
- You are right about the bomb meter, I will add a bomb meter text before its full.
- The hitbox is always at the center of the ship.
- About key binding and replay value, I will seek for another script, maybe it can be done (So, let´s see...)
- About translation, if you want to help me, that´s great
I will send you my email in a PM. If you do have time to help, you will have your name in the credits of ARKADIANAX.
Thanks a lot for your comments, it´s really appreciated!
Thanks for all your comments, I will work on those to make out of this a better game.
The game is entirely made by myself but the save/load script.
The programming is made in Blender with logic bricks, so it is hard to add or change some features (And some can be fixed quickly).
- About the first menu, it should appear once and then no more (I will fix it)
- I thought a lot about the invincibility thing, and I really want to make it different of other games (Not just shmups. Megaman and Marios use it too) That´s why I added a lot of energy.
- Are all of the orange texts hard to read? I could outline them
- About password and difficulty menu, it is really hard to mix them, because I should rebuild almost the entire logic of the game.
- You are right about the bomb meter, I will add a bomb meter text before its full.
- The hitbox is always at the center of the ship.
- About key binding and replay value, I will seek for another script, maybe it can be done (So, let´s see...)
- About translation, if you want to help me, that´s great
I will send you my email in a PM. If you do have time to help, you will have your name in the credits of ARKADIANAX.
Thanks a lot for your comments, it´s really appreciated!
Re: ARKADIANAX, 2D/3D shmup for PC (And MAC)
Moving thread to Development.
No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.
My videos
My videos
Re: ARKADIANAX, 2D/3D shmup for PC (And MAC)
Thank you Ghegs, I wasn´t sure where to post...