shmups.system11.org

Continued from my previous thread in Chat .. I'm making a sequel to XOP. This one is going to have 4 levels and boss attack, no secret/bonus levels. I am going to go for shorter, more technical levels rather than the messy slaughterfest of the original XOP. I am planning to add a unique scoring system.

I will likely keep bumping this thread with updates when I have them ready to show.


Title screen


Level 1 - A desert. Eventually you will run into an enemy base with lots of tanks and turrets. The sandstorm is constantly moving.


Big Tank head


Miniboss. Arms sold seperately


Shiny looking guy. :O

I actually enjoyed the first xop when I finally got the time to play it. Really looking forward to this getting done. please make bosses that are more animated PLEEEEEASE thankyou...

I've been working a decent amount on this lately. I got most of the level 1 enemies programmed in, and all the level 1 artwork is ready to go. I should have it finished soon, hopefully.

All the music is being done by Tim McFarland, who is also doing all of the enemy designs. He's one talented dude.

I'm pretty much finished with level 1. It's pretty difficult right from the start. I would put it's difficulty around level 6 of XOP on Very Hard.


Some tanks on fire .. soon to be blowed up.


Holy crap!


Excuse me, the Boss would like to have a word with you ..

No offense, but are you sure the sandstorm effect will be well taken? I personally find the grainy sandstorm to be somewhat annoying. Then again, these still pictures probably do not do the effect any justice.

I have played the first XOP -- I downloaded your freeware edition, but it crashes after level 2. That was too bad, I really liked the game.

It looks better in the game while it's moving around very fast.

So where's the demo? Let's see it.

Fair enough. My disclaimer says it all...


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Thanks... that worked. So far it has crashed only once... randomly. Otherwise, I have to admit that you are several stages above the average indie-shmup developer. I rather look forward to your next release.

The artwork in your game is rather flat looking in some regards, but for some reason it works very well (primarily because of unity). I have dabbled a little in pixel art and I know how difficult it is.

Thanks. I wish I could pinpoint the source, but unfortunately there are so many different PCs and software combinations that it's impossible to guarantee a piece of software will run without exploding in flames at some point.



I am hoping the art quality in XOP Black turns out better. I know alot of the art in the original has a rushed feel to it, mostly because I wanted so many different level themes that I gave myself too much to do.

Well, we really appreciate the diverse level themes. I almost crapped my pants when I saw a successfully realized lava/hell theme in a level.

he demod stage 1 for me (as I live one room over from him) and man, it's way better than the original xop. It's like xop but with all the repetative crap taken out. And the sand effect really isn't that bad, it just looks dumb on screenshot format. Although the 256 colour pallette's kinda annoying. But so far it has a lot of replay value from what I've seen. And this time the boss has some sort of animation instead of just a still graphic that shoots stuff at you yayyyy

I should probably take some time to give you another praise for the original XOP game. FOr one, I still consider myself a newbie when it comes to playing maniac shooters. On normal, XOP is easier than DoDonPachi. While I love DoDonPachi, I can't play it very well, but this game really gives me some leeway for some instant gratification (cuz I suck). However, I recently placed XOP on hard in order to stretch out the game's replayability and learning curve.

The bosses in the original XOP may be still-life compared to other shmups, but they are still fun to slay.

I gave the original XOP a try today and while I think it has alot of potential, I found myself kinda bored when I went through it. I played up to 2-2 when I just started crashing my ship into the wall to end it and see if anything unlocked.

Turns out I should have restarted in 1-1, when I first started I was ramming my ship into walls to see what did and didn't kill me and I ended up continuing in 1-1 - I didn't know it would count against me. I 2-lifed the rest of the game up to 2-2 and I guess because I continued, I didn't unlock anything?

I found the game too easy and since I can't get to any of the other skill levels, the game is boring for me (sorry).

I really did enjoy the last level with the transparent enemies. Those mini bosses were what I was hoping all the bosses were gonna be like. More manic. The game did have a sort of neat artistic style to it with the different levels. But 1/2 way through each level I found myself saying "oh man, more of these" (especially the level with the air ships - they just don't really do anything but float at ya).

I do look forward to XOP Black to see how it has evolved.

You really should check out the Options menu and set the difficulty to Very Hard.

I think you will be .. pleasantly surprised

A few more details about XOP Black's weapon system. I've gotten rid of the 6 different weapons, and you now have a wide/straight shot like most Cave games. You can tap for wide, hold down for straight, etc.

I've added a proximity bonus, the closer you are to an enemy, the more points you get for blowing them up. This is apparently like Ketsui, but I've never played that so I don't know exactly how similar it is.

I've also added a screen to let you select your Skill level before the game starts. Thanks to Landshark for the .. encouragement to add that feature

I've been working on Level 2 as well. Here's a few shots :


Floating flowers and bugs? Hmm.


OMG It's a ripoff of Mushi! Except that it's not, because the idea for this level was thought up back in 2002. So if anything, Cave psychically stole my level idea and made a game out of it .. >_>

Also, yes there are a lot of bullets. And this is pretty much up to the Miniboss, who is going to shoot .. more ;O

Weird - I tried yesterday and it wouldn't let me change it from the current settings. Maybe I had to use a mouse? (I was on my mame cabinet).

I'll give that another go.

You can change the difficulty w/ keyboard. If you were using a custom control setup, I guess it wouldn't work though .. anyway, in a future update XOP will have customizeable keys and a preset for X-arcade sticks.

sweet!

I'm pretty much done with level 2, might go back and work on the boss patterns a bit but overall it's done. On to level 3!



The miniboss spewing out bullets. The big green orbs float to the bottom of the screen and explode in bullets, which then float up again. Meanwhile the miniboss is happily spraying a spiral pattern in your face. Woohoo

will this one be a freeware too or will you sell it like you did with XOP at first???

This one is going to be free from the start. I am also putting some of the new stuff I put into XOP Black back into the original XOP (Custom controls, etc.).

woohoo!... i'll be looking forward for it dude!...

On to level 4. The bar for difficulty has been raised far beyond anything in the original XOP. It's truly bullet hell now. This is on wave 1. As usual, on wave 2 there are twice as many bullets. >_>

This is looking sweet! I can't wait to get my hands on it -- whether it is free or not...

I've got all of the levels finished now, however I am going to go back and review them all and make some changes. If anyone wants to help test it out and give me some feedback, I would appreciate it. Send me a PM if you're interested.


EX level. Don't worry, it's harder than it looks. Those bullets are pretty fast ..

Ug, I have a strong hate towards round bullets. Trails are much nicer for plotting. They just all look the same and aimless as they go about without a visible vector

Awesome game,very fun. I 2-all'ed it on my first try on normal, but the hardest difficulty wastes me.

I am adding another level since a few people asked.

Played it, really good, but kinda buggy:

*Switched to 640x480, graphics were weird (desktop icons trying to draw and small window)

*After I got to level 3 and died, didn't continue, and went into extras > Simulate Lag > off, and started again, game crashed out with out error message or log.

Also, on normal, it's really easy (or my comp. is lagging, are the bullets normally that slow?)

PS: If it may help, I was running it at 50fps.

Yes, normal isn't much of a challenge. I did this intentionally, so people who aren't hardcore shooter fans can just pick it up and play. You might want to try it on Very Hard and see how that goes.