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

[Rozyrg]

It uses that same lava flow cylinder trick I showed you before; but it took more work integrating it than I thought it would. Mainly since both pieces need to rotate, scale, etc. properly with the sections they're on for it to look interesting at all in motion.

A different one of these bosses uses another effect I'm also proud of. Its kinda like that funky grid-based continue counter but using pieces of a larger image. The result is like a flipping playing card... with layers.

[Rozyrg]

Legit update time!

The thing I've working on the last few months has gone from being a funky bonus add-on to Zenohell to a full on Fire Arrow spin off game. Naming it "Fire Arrow Gaiden" (using the graphic I showed off before) isn't really an option, though. >_>

If all goes to plan, it will be bundled with the original and sold through Kaiser's dev outpost on Steam and maybe my itcho.io page.

OUYA/Android versions are still a thing as that's the primary way I like to test; but I'll probably not bother with trying to sell on those storefronts and just pack the APKs in with the Windows version for those that want them.

[Rozyrg]

Making decent progress for a change. Video footage will probably be coming soon.

I'm seriously considering porting/finishing XYX now (publishing through Kaiser on Steam); but there's a good chance I might just go insane during the process.

[Loris Biaggi]

I'm seriously considering porting/finishing XYX now (publishing through Kaiser on Steam)

Great!

[nasty_wolverine]

whatever happened to Flying V?

[Rozyrg]

Last time I worked on it, I was drawing/coding a few new enemies and stripping out the border art/side displays due to a change in GMS. There's not a ton new to see; but if you like I can make some fresh video footage of it along with the Fire Arrow X/Gaiden/whatever one.

(Side displays are definitely going back in once I figure out the issue... at least on PC)

.. and like I said earlier, feel free to suggest ways to improve it over the last incarnation. Right now there are no set stages, it's just stuff I'm (re)building and tweaking balance and basic mechanics, so it's all pretty open.

[nasty_wolverine]

Last time I worked on it, I was drawing/coding a few new enemies and stripping out the border art/side displays due to a change in GMS. There's not a ton new to see; but if you like I can make some fresh video footage of it along with the Fire Arrow X/Gaiden/whatever one.

(Side displays are definitely going back in once I figure out the issue... at least on PC)

.. and like I said earlier, feel free to suggest ways to improve it over the last incarnation. Right now there are no set stages, it's just stuff I'm (re)building and tweaking balance and basic mechanics, so it's all pretty open.

nice!! i would love to see new footage

[S20-TBL]

My goodness, those faces. Your art is sharp as ever.

Are those beams drawn with draw_line functions?

[Rozyrg]

Nah, it's just some sprites scaling in ways that look odd in stills. I think it's the letters from the boss warning flying away? (I'm too lazy to ever manually bind a screenshot key in GMS, so I usually end up with shots like this futzing about with PrtSc.)

I've done a few interesting things in this one, though. I made some Starfox style diamond shaped lasers, rolling tank treads, even a fakey warp rotation effect (think of a spinning playing card.) GM is always a fun toy to experiment with if nothing else.

As for the faces, it's loosely based on this wonderful madness. I wanted it to be a background for a weird bonus stage or something; but it didn't really work for that, so it's just a transition effect for this particular boss.

[Rozyrg]

New Video Time!

Regarding the Flying V section, the new silver coloured craft are intended for a water stage - that and not finishing them yet is why they look and move a bit odd. I had to squash the screen down below it's native res as well, meaning I play even more shit than usual too.

[nasty_wolverine]

New Video Time!

Regarding the Flying V section, the new silver coloured craft are intended for a water stage - that and not finishing them yet is why they look and move a bit odd. I had to squash the screen down below it's native res as well, meaning I play even more shit than usual too.

FLYING V!!!!

all of them look great! looking forward to playing them.

[Rozyrg]

New Salamander-ish brain sub boss for Fire Arrow X. He's actually quite jiggly in game.

[Rozyrg]

Just added the Last Chance WIP (dated 2013) to my itch.io page. I'll probably add a few more old demos/WIPs there later.

[Rozyrg]

Greenlight page is up for the Fire Arrow/Fire Arrow X compilation.

[Kaiser]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlcHXdRp8Fo

New gameplay of Fire Arrow X (this time with HeavyViper's OST)

[Rozyrg]

Glad to see the new build didn't self destruct on you.

[emphatic]

Looks and sounds amazing. I'm sorry to say that the gameplay does turn me off a bit. I can't see myself enjoying the enemy spam for a very long time. Bosses are sweet looking too, but that first boss has the difficulty of a last boss.

[Rozyrg]

Thanks!

Fair enough on gameplay. Level design and pacing is kinda my weakness, especially with the semi-random elements at work. It's hard to make it where every combination works perfectly together and hit all the right beats. That's really the bulk of work that needs doing once all the mechanical stuff is done. It's way too dense right now, especially on the B stages.

Master Form pretty much is the final boss, the main difference being that he has a varying number of forms depending on the mode your playing. Part of his purpose is just to run down the timer at the final stretch (note that it doesn't timeout after reaching 0:00 on the video, I haven't coded that in just yet.) The rest of the bosses are designed to be highly aggressive but die fairly quickly.

Part of the game(s) gimmick is a really accelerated difficulty curve anyways. It might be too severe at the moment; but testing will hopefully fix that.

[gibs]

Made a little toy for building enemy paths. (EXE and GMX)
Might not be too useful for anyone else, honestly, though. The 'paths' are just XY coordinates exported as 1D arrays and saved to a text file. I can put some example code how to utilize them if anyone wants. You can also put width/height values in the config/path file for a custom window resolution if 320x240 isn't what you need.

The bad news...
It turns out I'm going to have to shell out the cash for GMS' Android module after all, dunno why I thought it came with the HTML5 upgrade. -_- On the plus side, it hasn't hindered me at all from testing stuff on the OUYA via USB, so I guess that's fairly generous of them not to put some ridiculous, obvious barrier in place.

Hello
Does anybody still have the Rozyrg's tool please ?

[Rozyrg]

Yeah, I still have it.... I used it for pathing enemies in FAX not long ago actually.

I'll put it in a dropbox folder and link it back here next time I have a chance.

[Rozyrg]

Found it.
Pretty sure this is the most recent version. Please forgive the horrible UI design, the tools I make tend to be spartan at best. Let me know if you need any help using it or implementing it's output.

[Rozyrg]

This may or may not turn into a new shmup - the main point was to build a simple stage editor that let you test on the spot and has as many options (for pertinent things like enemy behavior) as possible immediately configurable.
The actual shooting game bit is rather untraditional so far, though. Mouse controlled, non vertical orientation (since using a mouse lets you cover the width of the screen more quickly) and I'm considering other somewhat heretical design choices if it actually gets further along.

[tiaoferreira]

Well, mouse isn't the better idea to me. Some players stay tired when they play with mouse. I suggest you to test all ways of control the game, and choose that the majority of testers consider it good.

Particularly, I preffer joypad or keyboard, but this is only my opinion.

[Rozyrg]

I know it's not preferable for most people, especially with this genre, it's just something I've really wanted to do for awhile. All of my others (save the old versions of Last Chance) have been made with keyboard/joypad in mind anyways.

Anyone who's played Gridrunner++ can vouch for the extra speed and precision and just different 'feel' you get with a mouse... that's what I want for this one.

Something I've always been curious about is how well it carries over when using an arcade style trackball. Anyone out there with an X-Arcade or similar device that could test that?

[mice]

As you know already, mouse can be used in my latest games and I have to say that I'm opening up to this more and more. It's not as bad as I thought it to be.
If space invaders had used a trackball from the start, maybe the genre would have looked different?

[BPzeBanshee]

I've considered the prospect of going like overhead shooters (ie. Smash TV) with a mouse control for aiming purposes but the game really needs to be built for it - most arcade shooters tend to lend more to the simple and precise direction controls that mouse/analog input only serves to muddy up. Space Invaders etc definitely would not have gotten off the ground with a trackball.

[Rozyrg]

Yeah, designing around it from the get-go is really the key. The big issue is NOT repeating mistakes like having inertia and other crap that interferes and basically cancels out the potential gain in precision.
If there's a cheaper alternative to the X-Arcade I would still like to do some trackball experimentation, though. I'd even consider messing with old Atari paddle controllers (via USB) if that's even feasible. Those things just oddly fascinate me.

But yeah, if it all goes according to plan this game will have mouse control, shops (think Tyrian), relatively long levels, somewhat lax difficulty, and a non standard orientation (even for yoko), I don't expect it to go super well with the crowd here; but I'm enjoying tinkering with it.

[Rozyrg]

Most glitches I encounter while testing are just boring ones that crash the game; but this one was pretty fun.
(Adding one last mode to FAX before launch)

[mamboFoxtrot]

If those weren't power-up icons, I would've assumed that this was just normal bullet hell scoring!

[Rozyrg]

Something I've been working on while wrapping up FA/FAX.