Chronoblast - Skyravens (XBLIG 360) - by n0rty games

[n0rtygames]

In reverse order... since it's easier with the quote system that way..

Steve, have you had any thoughts on any filters in display mode at all (scanlines/crt emu etc) for anyone who cant stick the 360's output through a slg3000. would be nice for my front room xbox on the lcd.

Yup! I've actually made a start on this and adapted the scanlines shader from MAME for this purpose. If you play the game at 1080p, you will notice scanlines.

I can't remember why they didn't actually make it to the final release, but I believe it had something to do with either weird results and certain resolutions (things nobody would really use with obscure numbers) and cause huge bars down the screen due to the aspect ratio calculations being a bit off -- and also not quite rotating properly. The former may possibly have failed the game in peer review. I'd forgotten it was in there, so thanks for reminding me. I'm in a mood to play with that shader again now!

BTW.... I was acutely aware that my video quality wasn't great at getting the detail (which I thought was strange at the time). With the SLG3000 in toe on my tri-sync, the image appeared to lose some fidelity and sharpness. I've just tested with an Extron Emotia scan convertor.... converting the 31khz 640x480 signal to a proper 320x240 15khz signal. Image is a lot sharper and really makes it pop in scanline / retro glory.

Will see if I can do a supplementry video tonight focusing on CRT quality.... may use another screen set-up for playing/video convenience.

I'm liking this.... I'm liking this a lot.

Awesome, glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for the glowing review! Damned decent of you. I was honestly expecting a bit of air sucking through the teeth with mention of a few teething issues here and there, but I'm rather humbled to have received praise like that. Look forward to the updated video! 640x480 is as low as I've gone with it at the moment on a PC CRT.

Steve, Not sure if it's already been said, but a replay and save feature would be most excellent...... would certainly help any YT video runs for us cab users! lol

Well, funny you should mention that. There's code in there for recording user input. In fact, there's also an attract mode - however I disabled these for the final release as I began to notice some weird sync issues. I suspect this might be because I captured the input on my PC and then attempted to use that same replay on the xbox.. This is never a good thing.

I really want to go all the way with replays eventually, perhaps even allowing transmission between players -- but that's an incredibly complicated area that'll require a lot of testing. It might be easier to allow replays (once I suss the sync issues) to be saved to a memory stick and then provide a means/instructions on how to extract the replay file from a memory stick for those who might actually be a bit bonkers.

What a great gift to get something like this out of the blue. I've been looking forward to this for months and the game does not disappoint. It's great to see gems like this appearing before Microsoft dumps the xblig platform altogether. I forgot to give it a rating, will be giving it a solid 5. n0rty, I got your email and I replied though my company address so I'm not sure if it got through.

Thanks a lot! I don't have any PMs or emails from you... I went through and sent a PM to people who had expressed interest previously in case they missed the thread - if that's the mail you mean? I don't know if replying to the PM notification you get from the forums actually sends anything. So System11 may very well have your email.... or it's just sitting in a mailqueue somewhere waiting to bounce back

Cheers guys!
- Steve

[exquisite_torture]

Bought this after seeing Fagin's review.

[Tigershark]

Just bought this and played for about 15 minutes. Initial thoughts are that this is a very good game. Great stuff.

[fagin]

Weird thing with the High Scores.......

I have now downloaded it for two consoles and flipping between the two (recovering the same profile on each) my high score is only relevant to the highest score on that console....... the accounts are the same!? Is this a bug in the code?

[n0rtygames]

Weird thing with the High Scores.......

I have now downloaded it for two consoles and flipping between the two (recovering the same profile on each) my high score is only relevant to the highest score on that console....... the accounts are the same!? Is this a bug in the code?

*puts tech hat on*

Right, so this will need a bit of explaining.

XBLIG is a bit garden fenced. There's no facilities provided (and it's also against the rules entirely) to do network communications outside of XBLIG. You basically can't do it - if you find a way, you get banned. On top of this, there are actually no leaderboards provided to XBLIG developers. We don't get achievements, we don't get leaderboards. This is generally why most developers on the platform don't put in the effort to do shared high scores. Unless they're mental.... *raises hand*

So here's what happens, when you launch CB - you basically join an online game with other players. You'll see them in the 'players met' tab of your friends list. Scores are transmitted to each other in a peer to peer fashion. For the most part, I'm trying to run Chronoblast as much as possible to seed high scores. Routinely checking the scoreboards and players met to ensure I'm seeding fresh copies and where possible restarting the game. I'm actually sitting here essentially trying to provide a high score service for the game off one server for now.

Now, because the game data is saved in what we call the "Isolated Storage" - that is the same directory as the game itself - I suspect what's happening here is that you are recovering your profile and all games associated with that account, but you are not actually getting the high scores table as that's stored on your xbox.

It's a little crap, I completely agree - however on XBLIG it really is the only way to go about doing any sort of leaderboard service. But hopefully this gives people an insight as to why some XBLIG developers don't usually bother with high scores. Also, can you imagine the fun I'd have with MS/Peer Review trying to explain that I just allowed potentially thousands of players to fill the scoreboards with "ASS"?

That said, I've just turned it back on for a bit of a break and a nice cup of tea - so you should find scores syncing up soon. This of course won't be a problem on a PC release, because I can just write the high score service myself and host it on a proper linux box!

If anyone has any suggestions that would make them feel more comfortable with this, please let me know. Perhaps a PS2 DOJ style code generator somewhere down the line? One thing I have offered to do is try to offer regular patches and put the most recent high scores that I see in to the patch - others on the forum have also said when the next patch goes live (the scoring is SO much better now) - we can get a high score thread going and I'm more than happy to trust entries from here and hard code these in.



In short: It's Microsofts fault.

Cheers,
Steve

[Cagar]

Someone get hell-difficulty gameplay to youtube!

[fagin]

Steve,
No problem and thanks for the explaination. I don't normally worry about high score tables but for some reason this game is pulling me in to take more notice.

Cagar,
I just tried HELL earlier..... it properly handed me my arse on a plate. Red hot and sizzling away. I'll see if I can do a HELL setting for the next video.

[n0rtygames]

Steve,
No problem and thanks for the explaination. I don't normally worry about high score tables but for some reason this game is pulling me in to take more notice.

Cagar,
I just tried HELL earlier..... it properly handed me my arse on a plate. Red hot and sizzling away. I'll see if I can do a HELL setting for the next video.

Fagin,

Go back a few pages and check out the amazingly easy to trigger safe spot that was discovered. You'll feel just like you're doing a superplay!
Only problem is, I now have to add more bullets to that pattern. Blame him.

Cagar,
You said you got a UK account right? I'll have a look in to workarounds so you can have a whirl

Cheers!
Steve

[fagin]

Steve,
Make the next patch optional then!

Anyway..... Chrono Pron video is now up -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw4jx8wQeh8

[n0rtygames]

Lovely stuff.

I've had to explain to my fiance what "scanline pron" is though.

That was awkward.

[emphatic]

Anyway..... Chrono Pron video is now up -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw4jx8wQeh8

The swearing made me LOL.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yep, Chronoblast is listed on the Japanese region XBlig site indeed. Makes me curious if our resident Japanese damaku aces (SWY-Yusemi, Clover-TAC, etc.) are up to the challenge of ace'ing CB on Hell mode? That'd be quite something if they could ace it on their first try, hmmm?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[n0rtygames]

Yep, Chronoblast is listed on the Japanese region XBlig site indeed. Makes me curious if our resident Japanese damaku aces (SWY-Yusemi, Clover-TAC, etc.) are up to the challenge of ace'ing CB on Hell mode? That'd be quite something if they could ace it on their first try, hmmm?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

It's actually had a review from someone called GluonP, whos claims in the STG world are 2-1 on DOJ and 2-5 on Ketsui. Apparently, he mirrors the same feelings as all the feedback I've had here. The difficulty curve is just too err... vertical.

I'm afraid I don't speak or read Japanese, but I got the general gist from google translate and the abridged version the blog owner sent back to me.

http://hakotossdm.blog42.fc2.com/blog-entry-1569.html

[Giest118]

Consider me added to the group of crazy bastards who beat the TLB in practice mode and saw the awesome special ending.

You might want to fix a few things about this:

1) Why is Akane the only one who gets the "both-laser-and-shot-at-the-same-time" perk?
2) You can select the TLB in Autobomb mode.

[n0rtygames]

Consider me added to the group of crazy bastards who beat the TLB in practice mode and saw the awesome special ending.

Wait, which special ending are we talking about? Lovehearts?

You might want to fix a few things about this:
1) Why is Akane the only one who gets the "both-laser-and-shot-at-the-same-time" perk?

Bad decision I think. Depending on peoples feedback, I might tone her down. She's already got the major advantage of speed and being able to drag her shot around ala Batsugun Type 2 is pretty powerful enough as it is. It's easier to remove her perk than it is to buff the others. Have raised it in dev forum..

2) You can select the TLB in Autobomb mode.

Yeah, I thought people might want to just face the TLB and have a laugh on a non legit run. I mean lets face it, it's pretty much the only fucking way anyones gonna see it now. I always found it a little shitty going on to practise mode on DFKBL and then just dying constantly to Hibachi. I did like being able to cheat and bomb my way to Futari's TLB though. For most people, without Autobomb their experience would be "BANG".. "BANG".. "BANG".. "BANG".. "BANG".."BANG"..."GG"

I can see that not being fun.

[Giest118]

Fair enough on both counts.

By special ending I mean bikinis.

[n0rtygames]

By special ending I mean bikinis.

and the mystery of why I have the ability to see the ending in practise mode is revealed....:>

[Emuser]

Needs a pause-when controller-dies function :<

...if possible

Edit:
If possible, a thing to consider would be an option to set the red counter/gem value in practice so that strategies can be better refined, its kind of hard to gauge a few things when playing training and the default bronze token is what the value is set to.

[Cagar]

Thanks to gamepointsnow for easy UK-code purchase.
Now I just have to go home and play it.

[Emuser]

Alright, I pretty much just discovered that stage 3 is the omnigod stage of scoring on hell, its possible to get 1B on stage 3 alone if you can just manage to have a super ready at the 1st needle ships, which is pretty difficult since you'll probably use supers and bombs on the 2nd boss from before.

Some of the stuff I'm listing here may have been said already, but here are some more suggestions from me after a good session with this and getting 845M on hell just now:

Different background options
Screen is a tiny bit off center favoring the top, not a HUGE deal really but its been mentioned.
Button to reset screen settings to default
Pause if controller dies function
Restart option in training menu so you don't have to back out and set everything again
Be able to set N gem value in training
Option to practice 2nd loop stages?
Consistent music whenever at main menu
Skippable bootup/ending

Fix Stage 1 hell boss safespot/freeze exploit
Stage 2 hell boss blue needles are obnoxious
Stage 3 is the omnigod scoring stage, the rest of the stages are icing in comparison
(2nd extend CAN be reached on hell)
Stage 4 boss needs a tone down
Stage 5 needs more enemies in general, maybe do away with the pickups before the boss
Stage 5 boss could use an extra phase or pattern
TLB Health reduction maybe to 3/4, leave some openings in 1st phase 2nd pattern, they're basically walls

I can't think of much else, but I will use this post as my main list and if I think of anything else I'll edit this instead of posting every time for 1 little thing.

[shaowebb]

Anyone one else ending up with a random enemy hiding during the explosion that signals stage bosses? Twice now I've had to try again due to an invisible bullet masked in the explosions getting me. Didn't even see the guy for all the eye candy sploding off. BTW I love those explosions since I can beam the stuff in them to fill my gauge before every boss. Great touch.

[emphatic]

Anyone one else ending up with a random enemy hiding during the explosion that signals stage bosses? Twice now I've had to try again due to an invisible bullet masked in the explosions getting me. Didn't even see the guy for all the eye candy sploding off. BTW I love those explosions since I can beam the stuff in them to fill my gauge before every boss. Great touch.

I thought you were invincible during that phase right before the bosses? Because at the end of stage 3 (?) there are lots of bullets happening as well as those huge blocks.

[n0rtygames]

Anyone one else ending up with a random enemy hiding during the explosion that signals stage bosses? Twice now I've had to try again due to an invisible bullet masked in the explosions getting me. Didn't even see the guy for all the eye candy sploding off. BTW I love those explosions since I can beam the stuff in them to fill my gauge before every boss. Great touch.

This is (read as: should be) an impossible occurrence. Your ship is invincible during transition sequences, as I felt the graphical effects were nice but would lead to a lot of frustrating player deaths.

[shaowebb]

Im gonna see if I can't force it to happen again. Leave some enemies on the screen and let their bullets get out before it triggers and see if thats what did it. Maybe ship explosions were happening before the transition explosion went off and Im mistaken, but it seemed like it was in there during it and not just before it and then happening right before the transition. I'll see If I can't recreate it and report back if I find anything. If it helps both times were on stage 2.

EDIT: NM. I've tried for two days to recreate this. On stage two I can leave an enemy till the end and get shot and it does nothing. My only clue is I did it right before the explosion or something both times. I honestly though it was hidden by the explosion, but I guess I just never saw what hit me and then the boom went off.

[Special World]

Wrote up a short review on my blog: http://catstronaut.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... ronoblast/

Congrats on getting your game finished and released, Norty!

If you're still taking suggestions, I think the game would flow better if bombing didn't nuke your chain. Always hated that about Cave games, but I dunno if anyone else agrees. I think it'd be cooler if it just froze your chain while it was onscreen, so you wouldn't get those valuable few hits from enemies while the bomb was going off, or maybe just reduced your chain by a third instead of completely devastating it.

[n0rtygames]

Wrote up a short review on my blog: http://catstronaut.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... ronoblast/

Congrats on getting your game finished and released, Norty!

If you're still taking suggestions, I think the game would flow better if bombing didn't nuke your chain. Always hated that about Cave games, but I dunno if anyone else agrees. I think it'd be cooler if it just froze your chain while it was onscreen, so you wouldn't get those valuable few hits from enemies while the bomb was going off, or maybe just reduced your chain by a third instead of completely devastating it.

Yeah, the bomb issue has been addressed in the dev thread. Scorings being completely rebalanced. Bullets are generally going to be starting out a lot slower, with the speed quickly rising as you force the rank up through hypering/no misses and the enforced level increase. You'll also have all ships able to pull off a dfkbl style A+C shot. Go read the dev forum...

Check out the tutorial vid I posted on youtube if you haven't already. You'll quickly see this system is more a hybrid of futari/doj

You hit the nail on the head with regards to this being a chance to nail down core mechanics before doing my own stuff. I don't want to fill it with gimmicks that just don't work. I've had plenty of gimmicks over time and I've taken them out because I was unsure of how they'd be received and to be honest - I've always said you need to get the basics down. Press fire - blow shit up - get points for things.

To be honest, nice article. A few criticisms here and there, but generally well deserved and will be helpful in this patch I'm putting up.

Regarding the artwork, that's being redone by another artist. Unfortunately the guy who did the art originally basically hates anime, doesn't dig shmups and had no real enthusiasm for it. I like the comic style, but I'd like something more "shmuppy". I don't mind western at all, I quite like it. But I'd much prefer something like Capcoms offerings in the Street Fighter series which has always been a bit "anime meets marvel"

Also - the voice acting was done by Kara Edwards who's a VA for Dragonball Z.. so, cheesy/goofy is perhaps her speciality...


p.s - thanks for taking the time to write about it!

[Special World]

Those changes sounds great; I'm a huge fan of rising rank. I was looking out for it in regards to the hypering a la DOJ, but I didn't really notice it if it's already there. I had a huge love affair with Futari Black Original, though now I mostly stick to maniac. I think slowing down the bullets will help a lot in making that style of scoring more accessible. My apologies if anything regarding the scoring was completely inaccurate, but I didn't want to read this topic and have my review be biased one way or the other.

I hope your new artist works out well for you. I criticized the art, but it feels like a part of the game for me now. So I hope the new guy just blows it out of the water, or I'll miss that goofy yellow grin :p

And don't take my criticisms harshly. You've put out a really solid game, and that's a *massive* achievement. I'm looking forward to seeing the small evolutions it'll go through as you tweak it.

(also, congratulations on making the first two stages of DOJ feel easy)

[n0rtygames]

My apologies if anything regarding the scoring was completely inaccurate, but I didn't want to read this topic and have my review be biased one way or the other.

Oh meh - first impressions are important. Fagin did a video review on his youtube channel and he said it bears a resemblance to DoDonPachi without really *being* DDP. Thing is, I love lasers. I mean like.. I REALLY like lasers. So I had to make a laser. The scoring system is a lot easier than DDP and rewards controlling space and point blanking a lot more though. Thing is, I can't really think of a way to explain that on the 'how to play' screen.

So I just put "more risk = more reward". I should probably add a bonus for grazing in some fashion too, to really nail the risk/reward play. As it stands now, in the patch - for the first two stages you can basically do a DFK1.5 and yawn your way through the first couple of stages with my equivilent of C-strong (or any of the ships) - stage 3 is where it'll start to punish you.

Remembering to drop a couple of bombs at the start of a stage when you have nothing to lose is probably going to be the way forward. Sacrificing 200,000 per bomb and potentially losing the (now significantly smaller) no miss bonus is pale in comparison to being able to keep slower bullets on screen and get those big cancels you mentioned.

Also for those who actually dig Chronoblasts current Psikyo/Feveron fast bullets vibe - I've added a mode beyond Hell which features fast moving projectiles and suicide bullets.

I'll also be making some changes to Autobomb - so that it's more DFK like. Less damage, less duration, consumes your hyper (as it already does) and overall, will feel less like an extra life.

(also, congratulations on making the first two stages of DOJ feel easy)

I laughed really hard at this. Somethings wrong with me. Vanilla or Black Label?

[Special World]

I think the problem for me was that you talked about letting off laser to suck in items right before you said "more risk = more reward," so it really just sounded like you had a really shaky grasp of risk vs reward systems >_> The Cave rapid/laser setup is a great one to be sure, but my understanding of the scoring system and core mechanics combined just felt way too close to Dodonpachi for comfort. Maybe once I start point blanking and you mess around with it a bit it'll feel more distinct.

Don't make the first two stages TOO easy, now. It's nice to not snooze through the first stage.

And it was DOJ Black, btw.

[MinuteFong]

Hi Steve - got a message last night via XBoxLive that there was a patch imminent that toned down the difficulty and added some other features...do you have any more details? Cheers for all the good work
Kev