Starhall 2 planning and progress thread (playable demo out!)

[Pteriforever]

23/2/2014 demo download link: http://www.forgottenplanet.com/caillan/sh2_demo.zip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKubsdCM01c (Stage 1, outdated video)

PROGRESS: 31%

Since I'm changing some stuff up with this game, I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread to gather ideas and feedback.

==STUFF THAT'S DEFINITELY HAPPENING==
--9 Shottypes. Most will be fairly similar to their counterparts from the first game, except Orange A which will be totally different.
--6 Stages. Everyone will play up to Stage 5, while the final stage, Stage F, is home to the TLB.
--There won't be any SH1-style Magic mechanic, but Magic type will still stay, only it will apply to Special instead.
--As you can see, new cutesy font ^.^
--I have no idea where I'm going to get them from, but there WILL be music and sound effects.
--Redone Special system; SH1's system made the mistake of having fun stuff and then discouraging the player from using it. There won't be any score multipliers for saving Specials; instead, point items will be worth much more shortly after using them. Using a Special will use up the entire energy bar, rather than just one segment. They will become more powerful with higher energy, up to a maximum of level 3. Level 1 Specials will be equivalent to SH1 Specials, while Level 3 Specials will be equivalent to SH1 Magic.
--No more mysterious arcane hidden itemvalue multipliers. NB status, what stage you're on, and how many lives you have won't be variables in the itemvalue formula. The Nullify! multiplier will remain in a different form, however: Nullify! will simply trigger the same itemvalue bonus as Specials, so it should be fairly clear what's going on. Then again, Nullify! wasn't really that important in SH1, and I doubt it will be here either.
--New Guard mechanic. Below the Energy/Magic/Whatever bar, there will be a blue Guard bar, which fills up with grazetime. When it's full, you get an itemvalue multiplier. More importantly, if you're hit while your Guard bar is full, it will simply reset to zero, and you won't lose a life. This is designed to ensure that being seriously unable to cope with something will always be punished more harshly than a minor screwup.

==STUFF THAT'LL HAPPEN IF I DON'T FEEL LIKE KILLING MYSELF AFTER I FINISH THE REST OF THE GAME==
--Stage U. I'm not giving any details, just... Stage U.
--A TW4-style Extra mode, with bosses from Abmneshi and SH1.



So what does everyone think? :3

[Cagar]

Kinda hard to tell without seeing what the stages will be like, but sounds better than the 1st game i think

[Taizen Chisou]

I was wondering when you'd get to talking about this!

What do you think you'll be doing for music this time around?

[Pteriforever]

Kinda hard to tell without seeing what the stages will be like, but sounds better than the 1st game i think

Thanks I hope it will be

What do you think you'll be doing for music this time around?

Hmm... well, EP15's made a few new songs I could use, but for the rest, it's either make my own or steal from various sources... I'll think about it. I've got an insane number of MIDIs I got from resource packs, but those always tend to give off a "This game was made by a 10-year-old on YYG" feel for some reason.

[Cagar]

btw can I "cagar label" your games?

[Kaleb Parham]

Reminds me of Mars Matrix. But a quick word of advice: Stick with only two colors for bullets that are rather similar like red and purple or purple and blue. More than that on screen at once can get downright confusing.

[nasty_wolverine]

Reminds me of Mars Matrix. But a quick word of advice: Stick with only two colors for bullets that are rather similar like red and purple or purple and blue. More than that on screen at once can get downright confusing.

see psyvariar, variety of bullet colors still neatly defined patterns.
cave usually uses two colors quite always, blue and pink, with some bullets being mixed. only the mushi bullets are purple. the yagawa games are even more colorful.
its matter of right bullet design and pallete choice, and good pattern design

[Taizen Chisou]

What do you think is going to be your development cycle for this game? That is to say, how long do you suppose it'll be before we start getting playable demos and final versions and such?

btw can I "cagar label" your games?

What does "cagar label"-ing usually entail, anyway? :3

[Pteriforever]

btw can I "cagar label" your games?

Sure, if you like :3 Would you like me to send you the sources?

Reminds me of Mars Matrix. But a quick word of advice: Stick with only two colors for bullets that are rather similar like red and purple or purple and blue. More than that on screen at once can get downright confusing.

Hmm... I normally quite like having a variety in colours, but I'll think about it.

What do you think is going to be your development cycle for this game? That is to say, how long do you suppose it'll be before we start getting playable demos and final versions and such?

I'm hoping to get a playable 3-stage demo out sometime next month. As for a final version, I'd like to say by the end of April, but I'm not certain yet. ^.^

[Cagar]

Sure, if you like :3 Would you like me to send you the sources?

Please do, a skype or something is well welcomed too.

What does "cagar label"-ing usually entail, anyway? :3

I just edit the game to fit my straightforward caveish taste, which can most likely mean changes to everything.
Usually it's just scoring system and balancing it.
Gimme your skype & source if you want to

[EmperorIng]

If you're interested in FM music, that's something of a side-specialty for me. I've done FM music and SFX for game soundtracks before. I also do electronic and synthy rock-type stuff.

[Pteriforever]

Please do, a skype or something is well welcomed too.

And sent ^.^

If you're interested in FM music, that's something of a side-specialty for me. I've done FM music and SFX for game soundtracks before. I also do electronic and synthy rock-type stuff.

Wow, those are nice

[Pteriforever]

The highscore table is fully functional now :3


(Like all the menus, the background cycles through different colours)

I've also been polishing Stage 2 a bit more.



Here's a pic of the boss. I'm thinking I should make the familiars a different colour to the rest of it.

[Pteriforever]

PROGRESS: 38%

Most of the stuff since the last update has been... secret. However, now, I'm working full blast on Stage 3. It has a sky theme:

[Pteriforever]

PROGRESS: 42%








Here is Midboss 3A. His patterns are delicious.

[Kaleb Parham]

Reminds me of Mars Matrix. But a quick word of advice: Stick with only two colors for bullets that are rather similar like red and purple or purple and blue. More than that on screen at once can get downright confusing.

Hmm... I normally quite like having a variety in colours, but I'll think about it.

Not saying you can't have many colors in-game, just on screen at once. Just with my games, I had several colors on screen, but it got too confusing sometimes. Of course, if the bullets are slow moving, it can be ok to have several colors at once.

[Cagar]

Somewhat hyped for this game

[Pteriforever]

Lots of stuff done ^.^

I've finished Stage 3, added sound effects and music -- Some's by EpicPilgram15, the rest is by Kil6969 -- and finished difficulty conversion for Stage 1. I've also done some minor polishing; You get a little fire effect when shooting, a little blue star shield thingy when Guard is active, and up to three orbiting energy spheres when there's a special ready, so you don't need to look over to the side of the screen to check.

Also, an important milestone was reached today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 9_-A#t=198

[n0rtygames]

You have a pony avatar... you're making a danmaku game with simple geometric shapes.

Did you and Giest sit down, touch "fingertips" and Fuse together in a flash of bright white light?

On a more serious note:
Any builds we can play? Or are you just waiting til its done?

[Pteriforever]

You have a pony avatar... you're making a danmaku game with simple geometric shapes.

Did you and Giest sit down, touch "fingertips" and Fuse together in a flash of bright white light?

On a more serious note:
Any builds we can play? Or are you just waiting til its done?

Umm.... possibly. I don't remember anything like that happening, but he did disappear a few months ago, and since then my TW3R score started improving a lot...

I'm planning on making a 3-stage demo version; that should be done in a week or two ^.^

[Cagar]

You have a pony avatar... you're making a danmaku game with simple geometric shapes.

Did you and Giest sit down, touch "fingertips" and Fuse together in a flash of bright white light?

On a more serious note:
Any builds we can play? Or are you just waiting til its done?

Umm.... possibly. I don't remember anything like that happening, but he did disappear a few months ago, and since then my TW3R score started improving a lot...

I'm planning on making a 3-stage demo version; that should be done in a week or two ^.^

Excitement!

[Pteriforever]

There we go ^.^

I've finished the demo version, you can get it in the OP.

Please tell me if you find any bugs, oddities, or just things you don't like :3

Jsyn, the final version will have a practice mode, and I'm planning on reducing the number of lives available, so no need to tell me about those things.

[Taizen Chisou]

Yes, it's defs an improvement over the first. Not sure if I have issue or not in ending with 11 lives on my first shot, though, bahaha~



I'll give the other difficulties a shot soon.

[Cagar]

I finished chaosside with 5 lives too, on my first try.
You might want to rack up the difficulty a bit

[Pteriforever]

Whoa o_o Okay then...

Yeah, in that case, it definitely needs changing. The rest of the game will be harder, of course, but even so...

How about I reassign the patterns for each difficulty to the next one down, and make a new, 50% harder set for Chaosside?

[Taizen Chisou]

Haha, there's a pause screen~
I don't recall if the first had one or not.



As you can see, I didn't turn out to play quite so well against the hardest difficulty. Though I probably should have figured out that I picked the slowest ship >_>

Fun, fun. Remind me to bug you about how scoring works later.

[Pteriforever]

Ok guys, bad news.

Windows 8 just screwed up my hard drive, so development will be on indefinite hiatus.
I'm sorry ;~;

[Pteriforever]

Update: Okay, there's a good chance the data isn't lost, but... don't hold your breath just yet ^.^

[Pteriforever]

So I've been really slack about keeping everyone up to date, so here's a quick explanation.

After the incident three months ago, I managed to get the game's file back but it was hopelessly corrupted. I had to go back to the demo version from February and remake Stage 4, which went well. I kept going at a slowish but not unreasonable pace, and I'm now about halfway through making the stage portion of Stage F.

[Tryzna]

I keep dying in second stage on hightest difficulty(yeah, im lame), but damn i enjoy it! Great job Pteriforever, im looking forward to more updates and till then, this stays on my hard drive;-)