ring^-27

[Observer]

Official site: http://sumishiro.blogspot.com/

A little video of the earlier version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIGRzq32xcg

After seeing the enthusiasm caused by the megafucking awesome Crimzon Clover and how the thread reached 16+ pages (probably the first doujin ever reaching SO FAST that amount of posts without taking into account western efforts like N.G.Dev stuff and a couple others), this is for you, the STG thirsty people, PC doujin supporters, fellow schmukmuppers, whatever. I present you ring^-27.

How can I describe this? Well, it's like Crimzon Clover meets Hellsinker in ultra low-res (and I mean, really, really low res). Bullets everywhere, numbers everywhere, items everywhere, pew pew, big bosses and cool enemies, less guided laser missiles and more of an "anchor" secondary weapon that sticks to an enemy for even more points, items and massive explosions/cancellations and extra firepower.

Actually, disregard that. I always try to find a way of comparing the games to explain things easier. Just go, download the latest version and try it. I find it hard to explain in english what this game is other than "fucking awesome" in caps.

And, no, quit asking. You can't TATE this. Maybe later, go pester the developer about that and make it happen!

It appears that the game was initially introduced during Comiket 78. It was commissioned to Temperance Lance (the creators of Patriot Dark) who included it on the same disc as their test version of the upcoming shooter L.U.X. Needlessly to say this was one of the surprises of C78 and probably worth trolling their booth to get this.

Warning, sumishiro is using that atrocious Windows Live download service that runs out of bandwidth fast. Tread with care.

[Drachenherz]

Now put the existing game mechanics in a decent graphical package, and I'd be sold.

But like this. Meh.

[Dave_K.]

Great find! Reminds me of Guxt with the super low res graphics and excellent tunes.

[Plasmo]

Now put the existing game mechanics in a decent graphical package, and I'd be sold.

Huh, what do you mean? The graphics are amazing imo. Great style, looks very appealing to me!

[Drum]

Now put the existing game mechanics in a decent graphical package, and I'd be sold.

But like this. Meh.

As sick as I am of ultra-retro monolithpixels, they still beat the heck out of ugly-bugly prerendered 3D and smeary photoshoppery.
I'd like to see some awesome Toaplan-y pixelart but I know deep down that's just too much to ask of professionals these days, let alone indies. Besides, it'd just get swamped by bullets and sparklies anyway.

[emphatic]

Looks good. Downloading the available zip now.

You can't TATE this.

If you play this in TATE windows, then the game is TATE just fine. I couldn't find any full screen option though, but 8x zoom filled my laptop's screen 1280x800 90% or so.

[captpain]

Can someone please explain to me what button 2 does? I'm confused

oh, so you stick the little probe thing to a bad guy, and then you can take it off to cancel bullets? I guess there's some scoring element with those gem things.

[Observer]

Looks good. Downloading the available zip now.

You can't TATE this.

If you play this in TATE windows, then the game is TATE just fine. I couldn't find any full screen option though, but 8x zoom filled my laptop's screen 1280x800 90% or so.

heh, I was expecting this one. I think it's you the one who always asks about TATE'ing every doujin vertical shooter and how the devs have this tendency of NOT allowing/implementing it? Because I've also become addicted to TATE'ing. Thanks for commenting this.

And, yeah, I couldn't find a full screen support either. I wonder how this looks on a true low-res CRT at a minimal zoom or if there is a way to force full screen, or make the game output to a TV via dual screen... as long as it doesn't add a lot of input lag. I'm really not too familiar with this kind of thing though so hope the "techier" people might figure it out.

Either way, I just reached stage 3 boss in one credit and it really is pretty damn good. The backgrounds have some neat and weird details, the mid boss has some quite strange effects and movement, it's pretty well done.

Maybe we could also get a guide of the scoring system and mechanics. It has some crazy rank milking and some sort of "gem" exchanging ala Espgaluda where you fill blue gems (which you spend on bigger enemies using the secondary weapon) for greater bonuses and once you run out of gems, rank starts to ramp up like hell.

[Dave_K.]

Seems to also have Mars Matrix inspired scoring with the Red gems continually +1-ing, so no deaths until stage 3 and my score was up to almost 30M. Count goes down by 1/2 or something when you die.

This game needs a strategy thread pronto!

[emphatic]

Can someone please explain to me what button 2 does? I'm confused

oh, so you stick the little probe thing to a bad guy, and then you can take it off to cancel bullets? I guess there's some scoring element with those gem things.

I'll quote the YouTube video comments.

The scoring mechanics involve two different weapon types: Anchor and Bomb. Anchor lets you "cling" to an enemy part until you destroy it, kind of like Triggerheart Exelica but without the funny part of throwing said enemy against something. While you are clinging, red crystals are cast for huge score bonuses. This causes your blue crystal meter to decrease. Blue crystals appear when you beat enemies normally, they max out at 512 and once they reach zero bonuses and such seem to end so you have to switch between "anchoring" the bigger enemies (which also cancels out all their bullets in your typical Cave "shower of numbers and items", highly rewarding) and defeating the smaller quickly.

I didn't play much with the bomb type but it does seem to increase the bullet count by A LOT, and you obviously have a bomb instead of the anchor to deal with stuff quickly.

Another thing to note is that your firing modes tend to vary a lot when you enter anchor/bomb mode. Said firing modes go from guided laser missiles (wohoo!!!) to four laser options or a gigantic stream of frontal bullets or tracing ones.

heh, I was expecting this one. I think it's you the one who always asks about TATE'ing every doujin vertical shooter and how the devs have this tendency of NOT allowing/implementing it? Because I've also become addicted to TATE'ing. Thanks for commenting this.

TATE is important to me with vertical games, as I want to play them full screen in my cabinet. I haven't gotten Crimzon Clover, because I am frustrated by the non-TATE-ability.

[Observer]

Mmmm, I think there were some slight changes in the new version. I see that sometimes, some bullets appear marked/coloured in red.

You do indeed have to stick the anchor in a pretty Triggerheart Exelica way but the effects vary depending on the enemy you "cling" on. On stage 3, if you lock to the big enemies at the beginning, you'll produce the same electric toothpaste beam as them. Sometimes you get four linear lasers, on others you get lock-on guided laser missiles, a brutal forward shot and more. Quite nice overall!

Bomb type does indeed produce more bullets overall and I think it has suicide bullets? Version 0.1 also had Extra available from the go and that was freaking awesome... Does Extra unlock in this version?

EDIT: Yes, it does. Clearing Normal (even with continues) unlocks Hard. Hard includes the suicide bullets I mentioned.

Anyway, if anyone kind of got a hang of the scoring system or just knows how to exploit rank to points unknown, that's SFKhoa so we better drag him to this thread soon to shed some extra light.

I'm also wondering whether this will be a commercial STG or not... The blog says something about 6 stages, right?

[Elixir]

I played the first trial and liked it. It's fun, has this nice fluffy feeling to it. It plays hell on my eyes after awhile though.

[Van_Artic]

bomb type reminds me of Fairy Wars, if bullets are close they will cancel each other, but that consumes the blue crystals you collect from killing enemies with the normal shots
when there are no more blue crystals, "bombing" will still cancel bullets but doesn't turn them into red crystals, when you do this the canceled bullets give you more points, but that increases rank (it jacks up if you cancel many bullets at once)

the idea is to gather as many bullets on screen, bomb at point blank range to an enemy, while beign careful not to bomb the bullets, and destroy that enemy to cancel all the bullets so that will not consuming blue crystals

[captpain]

Thanks emph... now I wonder what the 'rank' thing is. It keeps going up when the blue gem count is depleted. I wonder if it's difficulty rank, or something else.

I played the first trial and liked it. It's fun, has this nice fluffy feeling to it. It plays hell on my eyes after awhile though.

It could really do with some more bullet colors mixed in.

[Van_Artic]

there's a third unlockable type called "Circle" it reminds me of Akai Katana's shield

[Drachenherz]

Now put the existing game mechanics in a decent graphical package, and I'd be sold.

Huh, what do you mean? The graphics are amazing imo. Great style, looks very appealing to me!

Tastes differ. But I have to admit, I'm judging the graphics from the video, haven't played the game itself. It looks very appealing, gameplay-wise, but the graphics as they are in the video are a turn-off for me.

Now put the existing game mechanics in a decent graphical package, and I'd be sold.

But like this. Meh.

As sick as I am of ultra-retro monolithpixels, they still beat the heck out of ugly-bugly prerendered 3D and smeary photoshoppery.
I'd like to see some awesome Toaplan-y pixelart but I know deep down that's just too much to ask of professionals these days, let alone indies. Besides, it'd just get swamped by bullets and sparklies anyway.

Yeah, I know what you feel. Me too, I prefer nice pixel-art to the modern and cold polygonal grafics-style. But this game overdoes the pixely-artstyle... But I think I'll give this game a try anyway, because as mentioned before, gameplay and -mechanics like, it looks really promising.

Oh well, guess I'm spoiled by Crimzon Clover...

[Tyjet]

Nice to see progress with this game. I'm also glad to see that I can choose my weapon type for each ship.

Bomb type is fun in extra mode. I can see a million ways to exploit the scoring with all these suicide bullets. Although the rank increase is rapid. I just went from Rank 6 to Rank 99 from the stage 2 boss alone and by the time I got to stage 3, bullets were extremely fast.

[Avatar Ignis]

What is the most recent version of this game?

Definitely had to give this a try, looked too quirky to pass up. really digging bomb mode, good combo of punish and reward

[Observer]

Current version is 0.50.

Drachenherz> I was also very skeptical regarding the graphic style but I would download it and give it a whirl if only for the lulz. The more you play it, the more you forget about the graphics and the more they start to look pretty interesting. Most enemies and background have some really crazy effects and work put on them. Even the simplest enemy has a cannon firing animation. And let's not even mention stage 3 appears to happen god knows when with the timer going insane from the go.

[monoRAIL]

This is one of the best games I've played in a while. The audio is absolutely amazing - really satisfying explosions and pickups, and it has a player death sound that I actually enjoy hearing, which is probably a bad thing for my score.

If you haven't already - check out the practice mode. You can turn on all of the powered-up weapons (the weapons you get when you've bombed or anchored a large enemy) as your normal firepower. Really shows how much variety there is in the weapon types.

I found the end of stage 3 a little chaotic - getting shot from behind when you have limited rear-firing options is frustrating.

Does anyone know if the full version will be available to buy online?

[Observer]

Does anyone know if the full version will be available to buy online?

At the moment it's not even known if the game will be commercial or freeware. I assume it'll be commercial but no info as of yet.

And glad you liked it! Thanks for the type, I'll take a lot at that. I feel that after stage 3, the different weapons should be selectable or something. Or create a ship that can switch weapons back and forth.

Those damn bullets sniping from the rear are a pain. Hope that gets fixed because the boss is really cool.

[Despatche]

Come to think of it, "commercial doujin" is very obvious and I don't know why I attempt to make a distinction. Stupid...

Does anyone know if the full version will be available to buy online?

It's unknown if the game is even going to be finished.

[monoRAIL]

Google translation of the developers blog seems to indicate that she's female. There's also a lot of 'baking cakes' related posts on the blog which would support that

[tinotormed]

Suggestions/recommendations for the next v1.0 version from this one besides adding a few more stages:

- add two digits to the score ( I experimented on the practice mode and adjusted the medals to 400k+, and it turns out that there is a bug in which the score rolls back to 0 after 4,999,999,990).
- the replays should not display a negative score ( this is the bug that happens after seeing my replays. I know, my score is beyond 2 bil+ in practice stages, but this bug seems like I still need to look at my end-of-stage score while watching the replay)

Well, those are my suggestions and recommendations for now.

Those damn bullets sniping from the rear are a pain. Hope that gets fixed because the boss is really cool.

Nope, this is because the bullet speeds are affected by rank. It does happen when you are casting a special ability without the crystals (the blue display on the bottom-left). These thing are used to prevent the rank from increasing, and you can get them by destroying the enemies without using your special weapon yet. Red crystals can also be revealed by opening the portals on stages 1 and 3, but I still have yet to investigate the routes on where it came from, especially the secret penguins that give you points by using an alternate weapon (used only by casting a special weapon on the enemy).

So anyways, I might plan to make a score thread for this as well as practice mode.

[monoRAIL]

Ring^-27 Ver 1.0 Trial is now available: http://sumishiro.blogspot.com/2011/06/r ... trial.html
Haven't played it yet but the screenshots on the blog appear to show one new level since the last version.

[monoRAIL]

Played it a couple of times now, there's no new levels but level 3 is significantly different. New background art, some enemies have been redesigned and it has a better flow, particularly in the boss fight at the end. There's also a 'to be continued' cut scene and credits screen at the end.

[mjclark]

Ring^-27 Ver 1.0 Trial is now available: http://sumishiro.blogspot.com/2011/06/r ... trial.html
Haven't played it yet but the screenshots on the blog appear to show one new level since the last version.

So where's the actual link to download the game on the blog page?
If I click the right hand menu it just takes me back to the blog page!!

Solved: For some reason the zip file link isn't in Firefox only IE.

And has anyone tried that other shmup on the blog Lu?

[Despatche]

the link to the skydrive isn't in firefox? god damn mozilla what are you doing over there.

site works fine in google chrome, game works great on this old xp box.

[manatworks]

This is one of the best games I've played in a while. The audio is absolutely amazing - really satisfying explosions and pickups, and it has a player death sound that I actually enjoy hearing, which is probably a bad thing for my score.

If you haven't already - check out the practice mode. You can turn on all of the powered-up weapons (the weapons you get when you've bombed or anchored a large enemy) as your normal firepower. Really shows how much variety there is in the weapon types.

I found the end of stage 3 a little chaotic - getting shot from behind when you have limited rear-firing options is frustrating.

Does anyone know if the full version will be available to buy online?

second that,it plays so well and the soundtrack is amazing too, especially the first stage

[ncp]

press left/right on the mode select for weapon select, btw.

Also, I can't figure out bomb mode. It seems like the bomb is very close range and chains to nearby/touching bullets?

edit: and anchors if you leap all the way to the enemy

oh, van_artic already mentioned it the bomb leaping