[X360] Score Rush, 4 player shmup (Xona Games) NOW RELEASED

[Jason]

Ha ha, well thanks for testing it out, spadgy, and I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[guigui]

Hi all and Doucette Brothers.

First of all, thanks for that Score Rush, I like it as much as everybody here.
Since criticism is more constructive than flowers sent to you, here come some remarks about the game :

- Invincibilty during screen shake is indeed a good idea. However, the fact that you dont exactly know when the invincibility is going to end is scary. I always fear to cross that stream of bullet during shake : what if shake ends while I'm in the middle of it ? Why not insert a rotating jauge around the player that empties as the shake lasts, ala hypers in those modern Dodonpachi games ?

- Also about shakes, that would be cool if everything onscreen shakes, excluding your hitbox !

- As already mentionned, a life bar for bosses would be a great additionn, and a little onscreen warning message right before they appear. Also a little music change, I'm sure that Dragon Music Production has other guitar riffs in stock, dont they ? Note that music change during the last boss is soooo cool.

- As for the twin stick control, I dont really like it either. I just cant control my ship correctly with that little plastic thingie. Did you consider mapping shot to the four button of the XBOX controller ? A shots right, B shots down, Y shots up, X shots left, B+Y shots up-right etc... On one hand, you can shot in only eight fixed directions but honestly I think this is enough for this game. But on the other hand, you gain the ability to play with those huge arcade sticks we are so comfortable with ! Of course, allow the most controller options possible.


Anyways, keep up the good work !

[Xonatron]

guigui,

Thanks for the notes! Great feedback too. We love constructive criticism!

The invincibility is not supposed to exist. It is a fail-safe method to never let you die when it's not your fault. We could extend it, I feel, maybe a tiny bit more as I have died when the screen was still shaking partially. It was never meant to be a mechanic to be used (abused?). Do you think it should be?

And, everything does shake, or rather just the camera shakes!

Life bars, boss warnings, music changes, all of this will likely be in Score Rush 2 (if and when it is made)! Note though that the final boss music is so cool because it's the first time you hear a change in music. This was supposed to be just a simple $1 game. There was so much packed into it that it almost feels the need to have boss warnings and music changes, which is good really!

We have considered doing ABXY for directional shooting, but you would lose your ability to aim well. Such fine tuning is more likely to appear in larger games. I'll keep this in mind though.

Thanks so much!

[guigui]

The invincibility is not supposed to exist. It is a fail-safe method to never let you die when it's not your fault. We could extend it, I feel, maybe a tiny bit more as I have died when the screen was still shaking partially. It was never meant to be a mechanic to be used (abused?). Do you think it should be?

I dont get this part. You did decide that the screen shakes when huge ennemies are taken out, didn't you ? So you also decide to give invincibility during that time. I thought that was a mechanic (imo a good one by the way, good alternative to bullet cancel) to be used, and abused ! And it could be better used if it was made more clear to the player when it ends, thus the idea of the visual timer and of the non shaking hitbox.

If/when (I pray for when) Score Ruch 2 comes out, please just give the option for ABXY directionnal shooting ; point-blank-aim do not need fine-aim.

And thanks to you for being that responsive.

[Xonatron]

guigui, it basically went down like this: Screen shakes were done for aesthetics. And our game play philosophies guided the rest. One of them was to always make player deaths the known fault of the player. No cheap deaths. With screen shakes people were dying, so we made sure they wouldn't die. It wasn't meant to even be known, but we found people were complaining about deaths because of the screenshakes so we had to tell them they couldn't die. Near the very end of the shaking you can die though, and maybe that's the problem.

[Jeneki]

I finally got my N.A. 360 up and running again, so I ran out and grabbed all the indie and live arcade stuff I've skipped out of since August.

Probably the most notable aspect of Score Rush for me is the controls. I normally do not like moving around with an analog stick, but here it's implemented really well. I don't feel so much like I'm dodging bullets, it's more like I'm flowing around them.

Maybe I'm just beaten down by all those Geometry Wars style games where changing direction is more like steering a car, where you have to turn in wide arcs instead of a nice quick transition.

[Xonatron]

Thanks so much, Jeneki.

This is why all those indie-based multi-directional shmups feel so wrong: http://xona.com/2010/05/03.html. And Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury on XBLA makes the same mistake. Basically they lock to the 12,3,6,9 directions due to improper understanding of the thumbstick deadzones. Lesson to be learned: Only enable the deadzone when both X and Y positions are within the deadzones.

[Xonatron]

I also like how you said you can "flow" around the bullets. That's a beautiful thing!

[Jeneki]

Something to consider for future game releases: When a game displays the score, "insert coin", or other information inside the playable area, it can be difficult to see your ship and enemy bullets when you fly over them. When a game encourages point-blank attacks, some people spend a lot of time up there.

Some games fix this by having that information temporarily disappear, go transparent, or move to the bottom of the screen when you fly close to them.

[Xonatron]

Jeneki, thanks for the feedback. We know of this issue and thought of these solutions and decided against them. There's just too many players on the screen to move that score around, plus in our future games we want some notifications in the score HUD section that we don't want you to have to search for. Plus, if you spend any amount of time up near those scores you'll die quickly from enemy collisions. Plus we draw the bullets and hitbox on top of the HUD so you'll never not see a bullet. Everything's give and take in game design. I think what we have works good enough.

[Jason]

Actually, I think if it went transparent, it would be great. Although you do normally get hit by enemies when you're up there, I find myself up there a lot especially when fighting the 2nd boss type on very hard levels, and it is safe in those moments, and the HUD is distracting. It was something I was going to program, but didn't out of priority; there were more important and pressing issues at the time, even though this isn't something that would be terribly hard or lengthy in time to program... my apologies. In any case, it's an issue we were well aware of. Thanks for mentioning it.

[mjclark]

Hey! Downloaded Score Rush last night and it's proper well good for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
This is what indie games should be all about.
I particularly like the way that it's a vert but you can vector the ship's fire in any direction (like in those oh-so-many arena shooters).
Are there any other vertical scrollers with 360deg firing or is this unique?

[Xonatron]

Thanks so much!

Are there any other vertical scrollers with 360deg firing or is this unique?

There are some, but as far as I know none specifically of the dual-stick bullet-hell (and wide screen) vertical scrolling variety... so it's pretty unique. The dual-stick firing was born out of necessity from the wide screen that made full coverage very hard with a slow moving fighter, and the slow fighter was required to navigate the bullet hell!

[Nick420]

I really want to play this game. Looks exacltly like the type of shmup i would play.
No XBLIG in Ireland

Please bring to steam...Please...

[Xonatron]

I really want to play this game. Looks exacltly like the type of shmup i would play.
No XBLIG in Ireland

Please bring to steam...Please...

We tried and it was rejected... Even our contact within Valve, who was a supporter but unfortunately away during evaluation time, was confused as to why it happened. I believe, and I'm likely 99% chance of being right, is our super ultra devastating low sales from XBLIG scared Valve away. So, XBLIG hurt us directly from poor sales, and indirectly by Steam rejection, and thirdly kicked us when we were down from the ratings abuse which Microsoft refused to fix: Score Rush and Decimaton X3, two top 30 XBLIG games are now near the top 200 or something, off the charts, no more sales.

How's that for a warm welcome to the gaming industry?!

Gamers have no idea what game developers go through. And I hope this doesn't come off as whining (it isn't), just the harsh nature of the industry.

[rancid3000]

I really want to play this game. Looks exacltly like the type of shmup i would play.
No XBLIG in Ireland

Please bring to steam...Please...

We tried and it was rejected... Even our contact within Valve, who was a supported but unfortunately away during evaluation time, was confused as to why it happened. I believe, and I'm likely 99% chance of being right, is our super ultra devastating low sales from XBLIG scared Valve away. So, XBLIG hurt us directly from poor sales, and indirectly by Steam rejection, and thirdly kicked us when we were down from the ratings abuse which Microsoft refused to fix: Score Rush and Decimaton X3, two top 30 XBLIG games are now near the top 200 or something, off the charts, no more sales.

How's that for a warm welcome to the gaming industry?!

Gamers have no idea what game developers go through. And I hope this doesn't come off as whining (it isn't), just the harsh nature of the industry.

What is this about ratings abuse? That story sounds terrible =( Hope you guys bounce back with Duality ZF.

[Xonatron]

Here's some background on the ratings abuse:
http://www1.edge-online.com/news/micros ... es-ratings
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ft-Ratings

[DJ Incompetent]

What address at Steam/Valve would be best to email feedback to let Xona Games on?

[Xonatron]

What address at Steam/Valve would be best to email feedback to let Xona Games on?

Wow! I can see where this is going, let me check into it and see what's the best course of action for feedback. Thank you so much.

[Observer]

Wherever we can go troll Valve for doing this, let me know and I shall follow. I could understand them though if they checked the recent info on sales and such...

Maybe you could re-submit the whole thing as a Xona Retro Pack (with Decimation and Score Rush) so it gets more alluring... You could even leave a trailer of DualityZF at the end of both games or as an easter egg.

Also, don't forget of Gamersgate and D2D, they might still be viable. Good luck guys and it was one hell of shitty situation you had to go through. What's worse, Microsoft attitude towards this just proves why I have little sympathy for them.

[Xonatron]

There's no official work on the best feedback to Valve, but I have heard rumors that direct feedback to Gabe works well. Not sure if he's too big to listen to our case or not!

We did submit the idea of doing a 3-game package, but we have no idea if they considered it. It might make sense to officially submit our games in one submission as a 3-game package deal.

We appreciate all the support.

D2D and Gamersgate are great, but 80% of our sales would be from Steam if we got onto all of them. We cannot make a living off of just the others. So we are pushing for Duality ZF onto XBLA rather than porting our games to PC and pushing for distributions on small networks. We would do it if we had more time and resources.

[Nick420]

I really want to play this game. Looks exacltly like the type of shmup i would play.
No XBLIG in Ireland

Please bring to steam...Please...

We tried and it was rejected... Even our contact within Valve, who was a supporter but unfortunately away during evaluation time, was confused as to why it happened. I believe, and I'm likely 99% chance of being right, is our super ultra devastating low sales from XBLIG scared Valve away. So, XBLIG hurt us directly from poor sales, and indirectly by Steam rejection, and thirdly kicked us when we were down from the ratings abuse which Microsoft refused to fix: Score Rush and Decimaton X3, two top 30 XBLIG games are now near the top 200 or something, off the charts, no more sales.

How's that for a warm welcome to the gaming industry?!

Gamers have no idea what game developers go through. And I hope this doesn't come off as whining (it isn't), just the harsh nature of the industry.

Ah no way man, Im sorry to hear of your bad experiences with the release :-/ Im sure that Duality ZF will have much better success for you guys with the wider audience, easier access etc. Heres hoping anyways, you deserve it.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

It is sad that Valve are nazis when it comes to Japanese styled games. Im up for pestering Valve and letting them know we want it. Im sure with Jamestown and the demand for a online 4 player co-op on steam that we could get a few ppl to support the idea. All we need to do is put the word out and direct it through the correct channels.

Speak up if you support this then I / we can have an idea if its worth moving forward with this or to leave it stillborn

[Xonatron]

It is sad that Valve are nazis when it comes to Japanese styled games. Im up for pestering Valve and letting them know we want it. Im sure with Jamestown and the demand for a online 4 player co-op on steam that we could get a few ppl to support the idea. All we need to do is put the word out and direct it through the correct channels.

Speak up if you support this then I / we can have an idea if its worth moving forward with this or to leave it stillborn

And if Valve was interested, and XBLA too, we might be interested in doing a very polished sequel to both Score Rush and Decimation X, one deserving of XBLA and thus deserving of Steam. But it would be nice to have the Xona Games trio out first, for all those PC players that would play it right now.

[Observer]

I agree with Jason.

I think a "Zona Mega Intense Pack" or something like that would sound much more appealing for Valve. Stuff in packs, like cramming the OSTs as a preorder bonus or offer to make a TF2 hat or a Portal 2 item (that seems to work too, lol).

Well, one can only hope things will go well. It really breaks my heart to see something as stupid as a rating system being abused the way it is. I mean, really, as someone working on the marketing/publicity area, such a brutal mistake is... I don't even know how to describe it. But, like Jason stated, the problem isn't the lack of solutions but Microsoft actually moving their asses to implement one.

[Xonatron]

We are getting hit again with a second rating manipulation, that destroyed our top spots in Japan now. Decimation X, the original, still stays at #3, while the two games of our above Decimation X (they were #3, #4, and #5 out of 1,800 games) are kill off:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/ja-JP/Games ... y=TopRated

My two posts (on a thread started by a Microsoft employee behind the matter):
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/ ... spx#516323
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/ ... spx#516374.

[ZacharyB]

That's awful. What a shark fest this is.

[Xonatron]

And noticeable no reply from Microsoft.

[Observer]

Is XBLIG the only one using this kind of rating system? I usually just browse the Steam dedicated forums to see what's the general consensus about a certain game and I'm not sure if anything other than Metacritic is used. And as if I care about Metacritic, I have no idea what that is either.

I checked the thread and, yeah, surprisingly silent for a matter that could eventually hit ANYONE. How could someone defend against this if you can ask a bunch of people to start inflating the score of a game and bring down the others?

[Xonatron]

Is XBLIG the only one using this kind of rating system? I usually just browse the Steam dedicated forums to see what's the general consensus about a certain game and I'm not sure if anything other than Metacritic is used. And as if I care about Metacritic, I have no idea what that is either.

I checked the thread and, yeah, surprisingly silent for a matter that could eventually hit ANYONE. How could someone defend against this if you can ask a bunch of people to start inflating the score of a game and bring down the others?

Metacritic offers the average of critic reviews, which most XBLIG games do not even get enough reviews to quality for, so it's saying something just to be on Metacritic.

But you are right, it's hard to defend against hit botting, even if done manually. But then again metrics can be taken against bullshit votes, such as accounts that only rate one game up and others down. Solutions like this exist. Digg.com deals with it. One solution is just putting more traffic into the XBLIG channel to have more legit votes. Or to ask for votes upon quitting the trialed game.