Jamestown Lives!

[captpain]

Are any of the other ships useful? The second one felt like a chore to aim, and the 4th is kinda fun sitting on enemy and holding special (though i thought primary fire felt awkward with the exploding mechanic). I haven't tried the third yet.

The second ship, the one with the aimed special, is useful in some of the challenges. It can really quickly clear the screen.

[mjclark]

So what do those stars do?
Do they just give a bonus at the end of each stage?
Got to write "betentacled" again too

[Gerk]

I havn't been home to dl Jamestown, is there a vert mode built in?

It's Verizontal, and the most natural-feeling one I've played to date (being fair, however, I don't have much experience with them.)

It runs at 8:5, with a bevy of stretching/border options available.

[louisg]

I havn't been home to dl Jamestown, is there a vert mode built in?

It's Verizontal, and the most natural-feeling one I've played to date (being fair, however, I don't have much experience with them.)

It runs at 8:5, with a bevy of stretching/border options available.

Yeah, it's very much a vertizontal.. it really helps when playing with two players! If you guys are playing it one player, you're missing out.

[Leroy]

I picked this up today but haven't started it yet.. was hesitant due to "Western shmups, LOL" but the buzz started and it was only $8.99, so I figured it is worth that to give these guys for their amazing pixel work.

If anybody wants to add me to compare achievements and scores later on:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/PixyJunket

I also just joined the Steam STG Group, I'm assuming it's related to this site with the shared logo and all.

[-Bridget-]

Allright, I got this game to work. Sorta.

Specifically, nothing I did made the 360 controller work.... I really have no idea why. I tried it with JTK on, and all sorts of different settings. I tried it with JTK *off*, and tried different keybindings for the heck of it within the game.

Simply put though, the actual movement controls do not seem to work, with that controller anyway.

I ended up finding another controller here, an old Logitech that I dont use much, and used that instead; it works, it's just..... ah, it's a bit of a cheap controller, so.... yeah.


As far as gameplay is concerned,

overall, enjoying this so far. The scoring system works very, very well, I think. It kinda reminds me of a bit of a Cave style system. The patterns, though, are not like Cave at all. They remind me of.... something.... but I'm not sure just what. The level design is nice and the game is just beautiful. And surreal, definitely surreal.

Also, whoever thought up that final stage (I assume it's the last one, with all the blasted blocks) is warped. THAT stage reminds me of one series very specifically: Shikigami no Shiro. Specifically, the 2nd game, stage 3-1, the Shmup Level from Hell. Yeah, it's ALOT like that.

Nice to see that each stage outside of Gauntlet mode (havent tried that yet) has it's own scoreboard. Hopefully the game will get more sales so the scoreboards get filled with crazier scores than they currently are.

The ONE thing that's definitely missing here: The ability to save replays. I dont see that anywhere, and that's a bit disappointing (particularly as I often upload videos of games like this to Youtube).


Also, the game is still..... buggy. Does crash every now and then with a gibberish error, which can be a bit frustrating.

[burgerkingdiamond]

won't play on my desktop. Get some error when I try to start it up because my onboard graphics doesn't have

"pixel shader 2.0"

that really sucks. It's a custom PC in an NES and there's is absolutely no room to add a graphics card.

Luckily it does work on my laptop.

[Tyjet]

I'm pretty much capped at 50fps in the stages and the menus are running full speed. I guess the system requirements are a bit higher than I thought.

[AntiFritz]

Anyone else disapointed by this? Maybe its because I'm only playing by myself or something. It just seems like a good game, but a mediocre shmup. Maybe i've been spoiled by all the cave games I've been playing recently?

[burgerkingdiamond]

Anyone else disapointed by this? Maybe its because I'm only playing by myself or something. It just seems like a good game, but a mediocre shmup. Maybe i've been spoiled by all the cave games I've been playing recently?

really needs 2 players

[-Bridget-]

Anyone else disapointed by this? Maybe its because I'm only playing by myself or something. It just seems like a good game, but a mediocre shmup. Maybe i've been spoiled by all the cave games I've been playing recently?

The gameplay, as compared to other shmups, seems just fine to me. A really good scoring system, and a high (and variable) level of challenge. So far, aside from the bugs, this is pretty darn good overall.

In all honesty, I wouldnt particularly want to play this (or any other shmup) in any sort of multiplayer mode; that'd just get on my nerves. Particularly since I always play for score.

[ex.machina]

I just gave this a try but I must say that imo it's pretty mediocre.
The hand-drawn graphics are nice but in terms of gameplay it has some serious issues like:

- Strange enemy movements (they fly all over the place and many are hard to follow like this)
- Strange bullet patterns
- Lots of standard enemies have a way too high HP
- Lack of sound effects (although the BGM is nice)
- There's not a very good contrast between the background and things you need to collect, etc. (so sometimes bad choice of colors)
- Not really a friend of a shop system (though this may be appealing to some western gamers)

For 9$ you probably won't do much wrong, it's still good to support such efforts from indie devs, but clearly don't expect anything close to a Cave shmup.

Don't forget, all just my humble opinion...

[TrevHead (TVR)]

From the little time ive spent with the game im liking most of what I see so far, maybe its not quite to the standard and complexity as a Cave STG, but then again I wouldnt want it to be as im happy that it does its own thing and does it relativly well. I wait in hope that Final Form impliment online multiplayer at a later date as Ild love to wow everybody with my sucky shmup skills

As for bugs I have some minor graphical artifacts in that a couple of sprites have boxes around them, nothing gamebraking but a pain non the less.

[Zosite]

I'm not particularly concerned with the Steam achievements, but how do the achievements for the challenge levels work? I've beaten 5 of them now (though only on one player), but I haven't received 'complete a challenge level' or 'complete 5 challenge levels'. Do you have to beat them in 1, 2, 3 and 4 player mode?

Yeah, same here. Any clue on this particular issue? If I'm gonna need up to 3 RL friends, no less, playing a shmup with me I better buy myself a new life... with people around me playing 2D games and whatnot...

On the other hand, this game is just awesome and maybe the best one I've ever seen on PC, second only to HolyCrimzonFuckingClover® (maybe Shiki II ranking 3rd here). Let those fixes come and it will be perfect. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen a single problem yet (except for those silly challenge achievements not unlocking and the shop item with a typo) while playing. Definitely worth 7, 8 and 18 bucks if necessary regardless of this Steam crap.

Yeah, it's not CAVE. And it's not Psikyo nor Raizing nor Toaplan (though Toaplan works actually came to mind while playing... maybe that godly pixel art). So? It doesn't need to; IMHO its particular style is impressive and refreshing and I wasn't expecting yet another CAVEish to start with.

[Observer]

Again, as I pointed out: this shares more with Takumi games than CAVE. It needs an "OTAY" sound for Vaunt and we are set. Yes, Judgment is brutal bullet hell with a lot of suicide bullets and green flak you cannot cancel.

And it's not the patterns or enemies move weird. Ok maybe they do, some really do it... But it's that it is all crafted for MORE PEOPLE. That's why. Play this with a buddy or 3 more people and you'll see. They really should've made a more focused/compressed mode prepared for just one player using less screen space. Still won't fix the fact that the final stage is underwhelming as hell (not even a huge mid boss? Really? Crash Test dummies course?).

Even with all those small flaws, the pixel art is gorgeous when compared to pre-rendered stuff. Just look at DOJ or Ketsui and tell me the bosses look pretty.

Oh, and this has trains.

[Zeether]

- Lack of sound effects (although the BGM is nice)

I'm pretty sure I heard sound effects when I played. Have you checked the volume?

[Snake]

Finally got some gameplay in (still getting flicker in the menus, but gameplay is fine), and I really agree with people saying that the influence is more Takumi than Cave.

Obviously the art is great, I like the music (its a choice on their part, I see why others might not like the style), and the gameplay is above what I had expected, especially on the harder settings.

The thing to remember is that this is a first effort from a new company. Considering the decades of STG development experience gathered at Cave, the fact that three guys from Philly make something in the same category is amazing. Hope it sells well and I look forward to their next effort (and a patch).

[Zosite]

What about this? I've just purchased "Story - Farce" (50,000 ducats) from the shoppe, enabled it in Options and played a couple of stages. Funny indeed!

However, it seems that this particular option doesn't get saved and whenever you restart the game it goes back to normal story mode so in the end you need to reactivate it whenever you want to play. Maybe on purpose?

[Observer]

If anyone wants one hell of a challenge, try beating Judgment on your own without continuing OR getting hit.

It seems Jamestown does not have extends of any kind, which adds even more challenge.

I finished Gauntlet mode on Legendary using all my lives. So many stupid mistakes... I think I can make it through Divine without continuing, just that Stage 4 is a bitch with the amount of flak and the huge screen.

I appreciated the improved music from the recent patch. Now I can clearly hear the choir singing "Cooonquistadoooooor". Who could've known the composer was from Chile. I like the mixture of orchestral and serious business techno at some parts. It has its own particular style without falling into the euromusic or the japanese overly banging tunes. ¡Me saco el sombrero, caballero, la banda de sonido está buenísima!

Let's ass kick betentacled martians together!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I think you might be right about the lack of extends, I genrally like 2 or 3 in my STGs. Although the game does have some form of extends in multiplayer, as there are revive icons which bring back any dead members. Its a good idea, as it allows noobs to join in with experienced players and as long as someone is alive everybody else can be brought back. Ild imagine it to be better then normal STGs with a pro and a noob in 2 player co-op. And the noob loosing all his lives by stage 2 and having to watch the pro while he completes the game.

Sure credits feeding can be used but that changes the point of playing the game from serious play to just for lols. How Jamestown does it is much better as it keeps play on the serious side and allows noobs to be an active participant in the 1CC / Highscore.

Kudos to Final Form they said the aim of the game was to create new fans of the genre I think they might of pulled it off.

Since im a sad man who is somewhat lacking in having RL friends who are still into gaming. What about the rest of you guys? Is it good at getting your non shmup friends into the genre?

[Veracity]

The final stage is a bit of an abomination, which is a pity, since it makes gauntlet a lot less attractive. Some seem to have enjoyed it, so it's doubtless mostly me, but I can't make out what's happening and don't feel much inclined to try, and I like stage three of Shikigami no Shiro III, so it's at least not just that I'm one of those people who thinks you're allowed to crash into scenery only in horis. Not crazy about the second half of stage two, either, but it's not awful, just drags a bit compared to the rest.

Seemed to stop talking to Steam a couple of times (not due to ongoing loss of connection, though it might have dropped temporarily), then crashed pretty untidily on attempting reconnect. Hopefully easily corrected, though I can, of course, just not click the reconnect button. Didn't run into any other actual bugs.

A few minor assorted gripes. Are you sure you don't want the "true" final boss to have some score or credit requirement? Why do you want me to rebind controller on restarting the program? Layers seemed ill-considered once or twice (aimed shots going under fixed patterns). Primary fire feels a shade lacking compared to secondary, making popcorn a bit bullet spongy if you're not focusing on the secondary all but exclusively. Might be worth including a ship type filter for solo high scores - initial impression was that gunner's potential wipes the floor with the other three's, beam is at least easy, and the other two are worthless, if you're ranking their scores as equivalent. I get that the game's built with co-op in mind and salute the ambition, but my instinct is that no more than a tiny handful of people will actually play that way, especially given online not being feasible.

Sorry, that's a hell of a wall of negative rambling considering I jumped on here principally to say this seems to be very good, indeed. Hope some of it's constructive. Even liked the story, such as it is, which is unheard of in this genre - it's amusingly mad without being too self-congratulatory about it. Looking forward to trying farce mode.

[Observer]

I still think stage 5 should've been in the middle or something. Stage 4 is a good prelude to the end since it's truly action packed, has huge enemies and all. Stage 5 is a crash test dummies obstacle course full of small enemies and old school dodging. It reminded me more of Gradius or R-Type in vertical form (aka... Salamander!) and it definitely is anticlimatic considering how cool the final boss is. I would rather have that big mech escaping to the surface, having a sixth stage that is just balls to the wall crazy with big robots and alien shit everywhere and then facing the TLB. That would be perfect, heh.

Also, looking forward for the OST release as I mentioned before.

edit: let me be clearer. The music during stage 5 is GLORIOUS. It's the one you want to hear in a final stage. But the whole action (while I noticed it's quite synchronised) falls really short.

If I'm hearing a choir singing at me while an epic orchestra bangs the hall, I want to see planet-sized ships and huge stuff breaking through the world and delivering an arsenal worth of an aircraft carrier multiplied by 1000!

[kengou]

This game is really awesome. Scoring system is great fun and not overly complicated, patterns are good, stage design is fun... for a first attempt from this dev, this is incredibly impressive. Support stuff like this on Steam!

[MauJustice]

I agree, stage 5 was a bummer. Especially because Stage 4 was epic, I was anxious to see what they were going to follow it up with...

[Zosite]

Excellent so far! The last patch fixed the issue with those challenge achievements, the typo at the shoppe and maybe many other issues I didn't run into (yet). Not to mention that improved fantastic chorus.

Now only that thing about "Story - Farce" not being properly saved in options whenever you restart the game remains. Couldn't check if it happens the same with Hardcore Mode yet but then again, maybe this one was on purpose so you actually NEED to activate it whenever you actually NEED to read such compendium of insanity the Farce Story mode is.

EDIT: Confirmed. It ALSO happens with Hardcore Mode: you need to reactivate it in options on restart if you want to use it for it doesn't get saved between games.

BTW, I've also run into a runtime time error the last time I played in offline mode while I was fighting against The Conquistador (*drumroll needed here*). Maybe it's not related to this last patch but I'll paste here the Windows error log (pop-up crash window didn't provide any useful info):

Code: Select all

0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 6a 61 6d   ure  jam
0018: 65 73 74 6f 77 6e 2e 65   estown.e
0020: 78 65 20 30 2e 30 2e 30   xe 0.0.0
0028: 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 6d 73   .0 in ms
0030: 76 63 72 39 30 2e 64 6c   vcr90.dl
0038: 6c 20 39 2e 30 2e 33 30   l 9.0.30
0040: 37 32 39 2e 31 20 61 74   729.1 at
0048: 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20    offset 
0050: 30 30 30 35 62 62 34 37   0005bb47
0058: 0d 0a                     ..

If any other Steam log file is needed just tell me about. Hell! I'm kinda *HAPPY* to help improving this splendid game; I would even pay those 8 bucks just to beta-test it for the game deserves no less. But... yes, maybe Stage 5 could have been better after having seen New Madrid mines and with such an epic final fight.

[KBZ]

incredibly impressed with this game. These guys came out of nowhere and brought a great shmup to Steam. Thank you so much. I'm telling all my friends about this.

I'm such a nut for British Colonial history and culture as well as anything sci-fi. And here you guys have brought the two together, in my favourite videogame genre, on my preferred platform! Wowza!

[StarCreator]

BTW, I've also run into a runtime time error the last time I played in offline mode while I was fighting against The Conquistador (*drumroll needed here*). Maybe it's not related to this last patch but I'll paste here the Windows error log (pop-up crash window didn't provide any useful info):

Code: Select all

0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 6a 61 6d   ure  jam
0018: 65 73 74 6f 77 6e 2e 65   estown.e
0020: 78 65 20 30 2e 30 2e 30   xe 0.0.0
0028: 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 6d 73   .0 in ms
0030: 76 63 72 39 30 2e 64 6c   vcr90.dl
0038: 6c 20 39 2e 30 2e 33 30   l 9.0.30
0040: 37 32 39 2e 31 20 61 74   729.1 at
0048: 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20    offset 
0050: 30 30 30 35 62 62 34 37   0005bb47
0058: 0d 0a                     ..

I don't think that provides any more information than you think it does - that only contains the string "Application Failure jamestown.exe 0.0.0.0 in msvcr90.dll 9.0.30729.1 at offset 0005bb47" represented in hexadecimal (with the string representation right next to it).

[Zosite]

Well, even that had to be digged out from Windows logs hence why I copy-pasted the hex crap. I also had a LUA error while uploading my scores but that one was before the patch and it wrote an error log at Documents and Settings\<user>\My Documents\Saved Games\Jamestown\.

Then again, I'd be glad to provide any additional info as necessary. It's just that I installed Steam 2 days ago and little I know about its potential useful log files.

Anyway, thanks for claryfing me how an hexadecimal code looks like.

[ptoing]

I am enjoying it so far, the gameplay is fun, simple but rewarding scoring system.
And the music and setting are great.

What I HATE is the menues. So many screens to just get to play. Do I need to know everytime what Gauntlet does and click OK after I read that once? Why the fuck do I have to constantly remap the controls to what I like after closing and reopening? It is very inconvenient. Esp. Gauntlet should be pick up and go.
Also the ship selection would be much faster with just having to press left/right to select and have some coloured indicator in one of the corners for each player or something.

Please add some way to change the default keyboard and whatnot controls in some way. (Also adding a scanlines option would be neat)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Any plans to release a demo of Jamestown?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~