STG Weekly #73: Varth

[LordHypnos]

Nice episode (just finished)! Border Down looks pretty cool. Probably is a bit too hardcore for me, I think, though, but you never know what the future may hold!

[Blinge]

Just caught up. That was really cool, I've played a few credits of Border Down but had no idea about most of the mechanics discussed!
DEL you mentioned you played it in an arcade at first, did you experiment to try and figure out the mechanics or look to the internet for answers?

Also, Medal..

[DEL]

Blinge wrote;

DEL you mentioned you played it in an arcade at first, did you experiment to try and figure out the mechanics or look to the internet for answers?

Yeah I played it in that tourist hellhole the Trocadero. The set-up was nice though.
Like I said, there were no Jap replays to study for the first few months, but the Dreamcast basic stage examples were ok to learn from, at least to ST5. I enlisted Rando's help for an FTP Jap replay to learn the patterns of the ST6D Boss. The whole thing would have gone much faster for me if I had access to Jap replays in the first place.
There's one thing I didn't mention about why I like the two opposite games Border Down and Manpuku Mode (One with very little chaos & the other total chaos). Its because they share one thing in common - a pure one level scoring system, which gives you freedom to 'enjoy' the game. Anything more than a two level scoring engine starts to become less of a blast and more of a puzzle game. For instance, with a 7 tiered scoring system you start to worry more about balancing 7 parameters for a hairline trigger geometric multiplier, rather than being able to enjoy the shooting, dodging, adrenaline and general flow of the game.
With some games you can end up playing the piano or playing dance dance revolution with your fingers. While this can be ingenious and clever, it can also detract from the shooting experience.
Just my 2 cents...

[Gaia]

A DDP daifukkatsu episode with adversity1 or someone would be cool. Would show people how different and challenging 1.5 is when played for score, especially in power mode.

[KindGrind]

Blinge wrote;

DEL you mentioned you played it in an arcade at first, did you experiment to try and figure out the mechanics or look to the internet for answers?

Yeah I played it in that tourist hellhole the Trocadero. The set-up was nice though.
Like I said, there were no Jap replays to study for the first few months, but the Dreamcast basic stage examples were ok to learn from, at least to ST5. I enlisted Rando's help for an FTP Jap replay to learn the patterns of the ST6D Boss. The whole thing would have gone much faster for me if I had access to Jap replays in the first place.
There's one thing I didn't mention about why I like the two opposite games Border Down and Manpuku Mode (One with very little chaos & the other total chaos). Its because they share one thing in common - a pure one level scoring system, which gives you freedom to 'enjoy' the game. Anything more than a two level scoring engine starts to become less of a blast and more of a puzzle game. For instance, with a 7 tiered scoring system you start to worry more about balancing 7 parameters for a hairline trigger geometric multiplier, rather than being able to enjoy the shooting, dodging, adrenaline and general flow of the game.
With some games you can end up playing the piano or playing dance dance revolution with your fingers. While this can be ingenious and clever, it can also detract from the shooting experience.
Just my 2 cents...

I could never reach DEL's proficiency and skill on Border Down, but I played the game a lot a few years ago, and I share the exact same feelings. The game never felt like a chore for me to play mostly because of the one level scoring system. To this day it's the game I go back to the most with Progear. I have this thing for Horis... My only gripe with BD is that I feel like the 1CC on the 6D route is next to impossible. I failed every single time, no matter how much I tried. Hats off to DEL for that.

[President_Obama]

Dat DEL voice, man. Smoove.

[emphatic]

Smoove.

Innit.

[Squire Grooktook]

One suggestion I'd like to throw out: Super Aleste on hardest difficulty.

I honestly think it's one of the best 16 bit console shmups of that era. But it sadly gets a bad rap for being boring due to the awful difficulty balancing on the default settings. The hardest two settings really make for a fantastic game though. Bos and Yace's channel has a whole bunch of stuff for that game, including clears of all the difficulties as well as low score runs and a counterstop.

[DEL]

KindGrind wrote;

I could never reach DEL's proficiency and skill on Border Down, but I played the game a lot a few years ago, and I share the exact same feelings. The game never felt like a chore for me to play mostly because of the one level scoring system. To this day it's the game I go back to the most with Progear. I have this thing for Horis... My only gripe with BD is that I feel like the 1CC on the 6D route is next to impossible. I failed every single time, no matter how much I tried. Hats off to DEL for that.

The French player lerebours recently managed a 6D ALL with just under 100mil. You don't have to go all-out max rank to get there . Thanks, I now know why you're called KINDgrind

Mr President wrote;

Dat DEL voice, man. Smoove.

Pitch too high. I prefer the deep tones of Aquas.

[Icarus]

Mr President wrote;

Dat DEL voice, man. Smoove.

Pitch too high. I prefer the deep tones of Aquas.

Just wait till you hear him sing.

[DEL]

He sings?

Oh shit. Are we talkin' Baritone...?

[Aquas]

^ LOL

Uh, right. No episode this weekend. Should have the ball rolling pretty smooth starting next weekend.

#53 Border Down yt link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDqFrLI5Ds

[Aquas]

We did a podcast this week. Probably a monthly-ish thing. Give us some feedback if you have it, but I think it went decently for a first episode.
We talk about various stuff, announce INDIE MONTH (this August for STGW) and then take guest callers to talk about "What was the first shmup you played / What got you into shmups"

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGl6gWftYE&hd=1
Audio: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uc8f1b9omfjdl ... cast-1.mp3

[mastermx]

I liked it. It gave me something to listen to whilst playing. Looking forward to the interesting questions in later episodes, there's so much to talk about.

Chum! Chum! Chum!

[Lord Satori]

I know you guys probably have something planned for next week already, but eventually I'd like to see you guys cover Samidare (main game + extra stage) and RefRain (pretty sure this one doesn't have an extra). From looks alone you wouldn't guess, but RefRain is actually a sequel to Samidare. The reason the gameplay is so different is that in Samidare, you're actually playing as the M.R.S. system, which is the main antagonist in RefRain. I'd be very interested if you guys did it.

I haven't seen the podcast yet, but I'll probably get to it around later today. I'll post again (or update this post if nobody else posts) with some feedback when I do.

edit: watching/listening now. 2 hours is way too long. It makes perfect sense when you're showing a replay of a game or two and explaining how they work for about 20 minutes before you start, but 2 hours of pure discussion is a little long. Maybe slice the amount of time in half or by a third.

[Aquas]

^ Okay we can make it more around an hour's length. Some people like long podcasts though. Would be good to hear some more opinions. 2 hours is pretty long yeah. I think we'd be hitting around 1 hour 1hr 30mins on average.

[majik989s]

I'm a fan of the longer podcasts, especially when the are infrequent. If you were to do a weekly podcast then an hour or so would be fine but I never felt like 2 hours is too long (then again I listen to the bombcast so I'm used to it). I just take breaks.

It was a great podcast to listen to, I feel like I've been waiting forever for an STG podcast and I wasn't let down. One suggestion: make sure to read questions from the chat that you guys are answering or comments that you are referring to since it is (or can be) an audio only podcast.

Keep up the great work, I loved the call-in part of the show!

[LordHypnos]

I just finished it last night. Took me two nights to get through. I feel like it might have been too long, but IDK. Not a big deal, at least. I definately enjoyed the content. I think I agree that infrequent podcasts should have longer episodes, but more frequent ones should have shorter. Having call ins was nice, I agree.

[CKR]

I like the podcast format. It was a fun listen. I don't know if you have an rss feed for mp3 download, but I used MediaHuman Youtube to mp3 converter to listen to you guys on my mp3 player. I don't like watching youtube channels for two hours; however, it is perfect for listening on the go.

[Softdrink 117]

I like the podcast format. It was a fun listen. I don't know if you have an rss feed for mp3 download, but I used MediaHuman Youtube to mp3 converter to listen to you guys on my mp3 player. I don't like watching youtube channels for two hours; however, it is perfect for listening on the go.

We put the Mp3 up separately for download and linked it both here and in the youtube video description, so you could have just used that. However, a proper feed for audio and/or a more obvious download link is definitely a very good suggestion!

[Aquas]

This Sunday (2pm CDT likely, not confirmed), August 3rd we will talk with the creators of Hangeki.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =228549970

Next Sunday, August 10th @ 2pm CDT we will talk to the creators of Aeternum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MwB5WT ... e=youtu.be

~

I dunno, I guess "Indie Month" really is the best name I have for this thing.
We'll be covering Indie developers and their STGs for the whole month of August. This will include talking with the developers released and unreleased shoot'em'ups. At least 5 episodes as August has 5 weekends! Lucky!

One simple goal I have is to come out of this with a better understanding of what goes into making a shooter. But more than that surely, as you know how the show can go.

I'll be taking questions you guys have for our developers here, and I might use them in an episode. If you have any specific or general questions, you could throw something in here.

[Frenetic]

How about "doujindie"

[Frenetic]

The first episode of "Doujindie" month, STG Weekly #64: Hangeki, is now up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ormO6YvS8

[DoomsDave]

I watched it live on twitch, great show.

[broken harbour]

Huh, no Espgaluda 2 episode?

I think that'd make a great future episode, its got technical scoring, and a bunch of different game modes on the 360 port.

Doooooo it. please?

[amdiggywhut]

I've been watching some of the STG Weekly episodes from the comfort of my treadmill via Youtube. Randomly checking out ones that seem interesting. I do tend to stay locked in on one episode if I see that its closer to an hour rather than two (I'm more likely to finish the shorter ones rather than switch to a different episode).

The Eschatos one has been my favorite so far. I had some trouble with the volume variation in peoples' voices during the Hengeki podcast; I couldn't hear the guest developer(s) without making Aquas and, um, F-Man's voices way too loud. That may or may not be something you guys can fix in the future, not sure.

Anyways, great stuff. I will definitely stay tuned.

[Lord Satori]

Speaking of which, is this week's episode on saturday or sunday? I missed last weeks because you guys said it's always on sunday, but it was on saturday.

[Aquas]

#65 Aeternum with Brooks Bishop and Jesse Bishop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WBfw8ZgdOs

#66 Shoot1UP with Nathan Fouts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8TyWZfkaDY

---

This Sunday @ 2pm CDT we'll have SnopsGames (Mike) on with Snops Attack! Zombie Defense

[Blackbird]

I'll try to catch this one. Will probably be late though.

[Lord Satori]

I was able to catch like 20 minutes before my modem says "oh I was good all week, today's the day I'll act like a piece of shit" and starts dropping like crazy. I'll keep trying to catch em live, but I have the feeling that youtubing them is best for me.