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

[Observer]

Absolutely agreed. There needs to be some sort of script or something that detects "dubious" voting behaviour (for example, accounts recently created, lacking any games and just doing rating spam or just a general 1-star rating spam... I could understand someone buying 5 awful games and rating them all 1-star though, heh).

Well, hope the anti-shmup Valve nazis rethink things and we can see you guys there. Jamestown seemed to have done a nice job attracting more people, things need some further pushes and it would be a nice battleground. I would rather have forum flame wars (with all the lulz and comedy gold involved) with people about a game's quality/value/blablabla than some dumbass putting 1-stars and condeming entire releases to oblivion! (I heard the Cthulhu Saves the World dev was also seriously affected by this?)

All hail the score rushes, duality madness and pew pew. (Oh, and the awesome OSTs too)

[Xonatron]

Haha I appreciate all your support! Zeboyd Games was affected by (at least) the first rating manipulation... all the best games were targeted.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

This RPS article might intrest you Xona bros http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07 ... h-program/

It seems that Zeboyd's games coming to Steam has kicked the XLIG debate off again

[Observer]

It does seem that Valve finally spotted a niche to exploit with all these screw ups on XBLIG. The author of Cthulhu saves the world reported the game as a sales success on PC... something I didn't hear in a while, let alone in this generation! Nearly brought manly tears to my eyes. I do really hope they now approve Xona Games on Steam with the super-mega Intense Shooting Xona Pack or something like that.

[Xonatron]

Thanks for the support. Zeboyd Games performed better on XBLIG than we did, so that's likely why they were accepted. We will be accepted too once we prove our games can sell. Which I think they would if they were on a proper platform.

[Xonatron]

"Zeboyd Games has already made more revenue in less than a week on Steam than we have in over a year and a half on the XBox Live Indie Games service." - http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/18/zeboyd-gam ... g-revenue/

If there's anything you guys can do to get us on Steam... it'll make all the difference in the world to us as an indie studio.

[Observer]

"Zeboyd Games has already made more revenue in less than a week on Steam than we have in over a year and a half on the XBox Live Indie Games service." - http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/18/zeboyd-gam ... g-revenue/

If there's anything you guys can do to get us on Steam... it'll make all the difference in the world to us as an indie studio.

Argh, man, the whole situation you guys had to go through is infuriatingly unfair.

Guess we can only give kind-hearted advise. As a PC player, guess this is what Valve might be going after, leaving their STG-allergy aside:

- Avoid straight console porting (for example, not including any sort of screen option and stuff like that).
- Consider the inclusion of small achievements/feats (score goals, etc.) for the achievement-thirsty crowd. I know you guys had this in mind already IIRC.
- Definitely try to offer more of a package than a single game. From what I can see, Jamestown got away with it due to the sheer power of its Metal Slugesque graphics and 4-player gimmick (well, and the plethora of unlockables). Zeit2, well, 100 achievements and terri-bad long levels made it I guess, urgh, quite an average game. DualityZF can hold on its own though, that's for sure.
- Multiple control supports (this goes without saying but it never hurts to mention it) but just mark the 360 pad as the default as it will probably keep most people happy. I play with both a 360 and a regular PS2-like one and, of course, keyboard.
- Leaderboards/scoreboards support. Or accept Steamworks. (Yet have a non-Steam/non-DRM'd version ready too just in case like the Recettear guy did, people will beg for one in the long run) If Jason had ready the whole code and framework for real leaderboards, state clearly you can include them.
- Multilanguage. I can't stop stressing this one. Unlike XBLIG, which is only available on a few regions, Steam has a huge european crowd so english, spanish, french, italian, german and portuguese will definitely help. Japanese would be awesome to get and probably drag the elusive japanese crowd. You'll have to add non-unicode support or whatever the function was called. There probably is someone out there willing to do this... (I mean, a japanese translation, hell, it could even be for the manual). If you check the other shooters, pretty much most are multilanguage with the exception of Jamestown. Hell, I don't know how Jamestown got away with it.
- Show all the prizes won by the games, play the trump cards. I really want to murder Microsoft for the rank thing because, as stated earlier, it led to confusion.

If you are trying to submit DualityZF, make sure is pretty much finished with only perhaps achievements/leaderboards and languages left to configure. They state that in the submission form and they seriously mean it. They rejected the Super Crossfire games once if I'm not wrong, but the guy is trying again... I hope he'll succeed and of course you too!

I know you guys are responsive and care for your games so not worth mentioning "ability to update fast in case of bugs", heh.

If they let in that atrocity of Razor2 (god, no, I bought it!!! ARGH!) and the horrid Yar's Revenge, they sure as hell have to accept you now!

Post an entry at your site too, see if places like Rock, Paper, Shotgun (mail the guys about your situation, just like they said: tell Valve you are gonna provide a PC version of your games, not a port from the console) and Destructoid could quote you.

Good luck!

[Zeether]

I posted in the "bring this game to Steam" thread on Steampowered about it, but I don't know if Valve actually pays attention to the thread.

[Xonatron]

Observer, thanks for all the advice, it's great.

Zeether, thanks for the post. I'm not sure if they listen to that thread or not, but ever bit likely helps. What's the URL of that thread?

[Zeether]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... st23725983

Like I said, don't know if they pay attention but it's probably worth a shot.

[Jason]

Online version of Score Rush released!
With 30+ Leaderboards and 30 Badges!

Leaderboards:
- each difficulty
- combined difficulty
- fastest boss kill
- quickest completion
- tons and tons of others ... stats & challenges galore!

Features:
- There is slowdown control.
- You get a new bomb on death.
- Plays in the any browser, thanks to Turbulenz!

Note:
- Xbox 360 controller works with plug-in version (go into settings).
- It's Beta so I'm still working on it!
- I want to hear all feedback (form on homepage) -- good or bad!
- Give it a minute to load!! It loads fast after the 1st time. My loading screen isn't finished yet

Enjoy!

[Special World]

We are truly living in the future.

[guigui]

Online version of Score Rush released!
With 30+ Leaderboards and 30 Badges!

Leaderboards:
- each difficulty
- combined difficulty
- fastest boss kill
- quickest completion
- tons and tons of others ... stats & challenges galore!

Features:
- There is slowdown control.
- You get a new bomb on death.
- Plays in the any browser, thanks to Turbulenz!

Note:
- Xbox 360 controller works with plug-in version (go into settings).
- It's Beta so I'm still working on it!
- I want to hear all feedback (form on homepage) -- good or bad!
- Give it a minute to load!! It loads fast after the 1st time. My loading screen isn't finished yet

Enjoy!

Pretty interesting, but why do I have to be facebooked to play this ? I'd rather pay for the console version.

[Observer]

Eh, just create an account on the site, I don't have Facebook either.

All I can say is that Score Rush is fantastic and that I found the mouse control to be extremely good and suits the game pretty damn well for something that was actually developed with a pad in mind. All in all, the transition to PC has been superb!

Needs at least one more song during the regular stage but other than that, it's great. The game always feels fair despite the amount of bullets (something Jamestown sadly missed since some of their patterns are way too cluttered and bullshit) and I love how fierce the bosses get!

Conclusion: The Doucette Bros. are geniuses and it's a pity things got delayed so much but I guess now is the perfect time to strike with full power!

[rancid3000]

Jason, where exactly do I go to enable the xbox 360 controller? I searched through the menu in the game but could only find options for mouse control. Or do you mean "settings" somewhere else?

[Jason]

We are truly living in the future.

We truly are. This online version is playable by almost anyone, anywhere. And we're currently chatting about how to incorporate online play. Just think how cool that will be!

[Jason]

Pretty interesting, but why do I have to be facebooked to play this ? I'd rather pay for the console version.

Heh, you don't have to be facebooked!
That's there for convenience!

Please note this is a social gaming platform -- not just a single web-game -- and to experience leaderboards/badges/friends/comments it needs a username (either sign up, or sign in with facebook).

[Jason]

All I can say is that Score Rush is fantastic and that I found the mouse control to be extremely good and suits the game pretty damn well for something that was actually developed with a pad in mind. All in all, the transition to PC has been superb! ... The game always feels fair despite the amount of bullets (something Jamestown sadly missed since some of their patterns are way too cluttered and bullshit) and I love how fierce the bosses get!

Wow... loving the compliments, and I'm glad the transition worked out so well. It was rough making it work with mouse/keyboard (it actually works with just keys!) coming from the gamepad (the Xbox 360 gamepad still works, but only in plug-in mode, due to browser restrictions). Everyone always seems to think the game is fair -- you can always kick ass. I feel it may be a bit too punishing on deaths (unlike Jamestown) for newbies, and this is something we can still adjust.

All feedback welcome!
Glad you're enjoying!

[Jason]

Jason, where exactly do I go to enable the xbox 360 controller? I searched through the menu in the game but could only find options for mouse control. Or do you mean "settings" somewhere else?

Ah sorry... this is a setting in the gamesite itself:
- click on your profile image (top-right)
- select "Edit Profile"
- click "Game" tab
- unclick "Prefer HTML5 Canvas"
This will allow you to run the plug-in (it'll ask to install Turbulenz's plug-in).
This takes over HTML5, and let's it do things HTML5 cannot (gamepads, locking mouse to the screen, etc.)

DETAILS: HTML5 is very slow at catching up, so Turbulenz made their own plug-in to override HTML5, and override slow JavaScript browsers, so that the game can still be played when the software foundation doesn't exist. Unfortunately, since we're running on top of the browser, which is running on top of whatever OS you're on, on whatever hardware that's on, we're severely restricted.

[Iori Branford]

Congratulations on finally getting onto PC (in some form). I especially appreciate the alternate mouse mode, or I will once mouse grab is working (in Chrome my mouse is still able to escape from the canvas).

[Jason]

Thanks Iori!

Note the in-game settings have a mouse lock, and if that doesn't work, you can use plug-in, which allows:
1. Xbox 360 controller, and
2. Mouse Lock confines to the game screen for sure.

to get Plug-in:
- click user pic in top-right
- select Edit Profile
- click Games tab
- UNclick "prefer HTML5 canvas"

This will install the plug-in. Until HTML5 catches up with online gaming, this is all Turbulenz can do about these issues.

[guigui]

Pretty interesting, but why do I have to be facebooked to play this ? I'd rather pay for the console version.

Heh, you don't have to be facebooked!
That's there for convenience!

Please note this is a social gaming platform -- not just a single web-game -- and to experience leaderboards/badges/friends/comments it needs a username (either sign up, or sign in with facebook).

Ok sorry about that, I actually quit any time I see that F logo... Such a jerk I am.

[Xonatron]

I would like to draw your attention to our newest title, Score Rush Extended:

Score Rush Extended