Valkyrius Prime - Upgraded Steam Rerelease of Valkyrius

[xlebec]

Valkyrius has finally been released in Steam as Valkyrius Prime!
Why the change in name? Because while at the core it's still the same game, it features a host of improvements, such as:

• Tightened and rebalanced gameplay
• Professional character artwork and design
• Miscellaneous graphics improvements
• Reworked story and writing
• See the Full Change Log here.

[Kollision]

coming soon to Xbox Live Indie Games.

Awesome, tks!

[shmuppyLove]

This game is the booooooomb warp warp warp warp

Shield mechanic is great for scrubs like me, love the different weapons and custom modules, really excellent design and tight controls. A shooter designed with a gamepad in mind for sure, and it plays amazingly.

Great job on this game, it's awesome.

[Cagar]

My only complaint so far:
Stage 2 boss is a tank, why can you get hit by overlapping with it?
Stage 3 sword midboss is ridiculously hard
The game has too easy "hardest" difficulty.. so.. the game is a bit too easy

Been having fun with it, though!

[ciox]

It's a good game, here's some stuff I liked:
- stealing weapons from enemies that used that exact weapon is cool, shockwave bomb especially
- there's a nice progression in difficulty and demands on the player, like the second boss makes you increase the warp radius, and the third boss makes it tough to decide which way to warp
- very easy to turn off the story if you want to just play

Stuff I didn't like was:
- enemies can still fire when they're out of bounds but you can't touch them with most weapons anymore because they shoot forward, mostly the boats do this
- firing just one weapon instead of both feels underpowered a lot of the time, not too big a deal I guess since there are some weapons that you want to preserve, like the shockwave

Oh and it's true the sword midboss is a jump in difficulty, lost two lives there.

[Cagar]

BTW, I can't download the game again from the link provided in email upon puchase.
It takes me to fairly empty page with text
"Iridescent Games Store
File Download
valkyrius.zip (Not Available) "

[guigui]

Cant wait for xblig.

[xlebec]

BTW, I can't download the game again from the link provided in email upon puchase."

Thanks for the heads up. It sounds like it was an unintended result of updating the game version on the store. I'll look into it right away and let you know when that problem is fixed.

Stage 3 sword midboss is ridiculously hard
Oh and it's true the sword midboss is a jump in difficulty, lost two lives there.

What probably happened is that I got very familiar with the teleport mechanic while testing the game, more so than most players would. Since that boss requires a lot of warping around, that would explain why players, even those who are better than me at the game overall, are experiencing a spike in difficulty there where I did not. I guess my advice would be as follows:

• - Keep your warp distance in the "far" configuration.
  - When it prepares its slashes, don't try to outrun it. Just move to where you're comfortable, wait for the slash, and warp over the blade or around the blade. Watch your warp guide if you're having trouble with the timing while jumping over the blade.
  - The most dangerous part of the stabbing pattern is the very beginning. Always try to keep your distance from the miniboss between patterns and it won't be as much of a problem.
  - The spinning pattern is best dodged by warping around the miniboss in a large circle. Try to go clockwise if the miniboss is spinning clockwise, counterclockwise if it's spinning counterclockwise, but if you're forced to go the opposite direction, don't try to change mid-pattern.
  - Your best opportunity do damage the miniboss is when it starts shooting. Although the bullet pattern takes up a lot of the screen, there are fairly noticeable gaps in its line of fire.
  - Since this is your best chance to do damage, you'll want the miniboss to be around the top of the screen when it starts the pattern. So when it's doing its various sword attacks, try to keep it around the upper half of the screen in case it does its bullet pattern next.

It's a good game.
Been having fun with it, though!
Great job on this game, it's awesome.

Thanks everybody! It really means a lot to me to know you've been enjoying it.

[drunkninja24]

My only real complaint with the game is that the control scheme isn't really arcade stick friendly. Maybe something like an option to hold a button combined with D-Pad input to warp?

But I can adjust to using my 360 pad fine. Game is good

[xlebec]

My only real complaint with the game is that the control scheme isn't really arcade stick friendly. Maybe something like an option to hold a button combined with D-Pad input to warp? But I can adjust to using my 360 pad fine. Game is good

Thanks! As for the 2 button arcade setup, I couldn't find a way to make it work well. Holding a button and using joystick to warp worked all right for some parts, but moving one way while warping the opposite direction turned out to be too important to go with that control scheme in the end, much to my disappointment.

BTW, I can't download the game again from the link provided in email upon puchase.

I think I've fixed it. If you try again please let me know. Thanks.

[Cagar]

Fixed it, thanks

I feel like this is one of those games, that if it was released in japanese arcades a couple of years ago, it would be a worldwide hit and "revolutionary" shmup for the teleportation system and lots of unique stage-stuff.. the game is very dynamic.
Too bad that japanese won't most likely even hear about this game now...

[ciox]

Fixed it, thanks

I feel like this is one of those games, that if it was released in japanese arcades a couple of years ago, it would be a worldwide hit and "revolutionary" shmup for the teleportation system and lots of unique stage-stuff.. the game is very dynamic.
Too bad that japanese won't most likely even hear about this game now...

It could be submitted here at least http://stg.liarsoft.org/
Holding off on doing it myself in case the author wants to present it in some specific way.

[xlebec]

I feel like this is one of those games, that if it was released in japanese arcades a couple of years ago, it would be a worldwide hit and "revolutionary" shmup for the teleportation system and lots of unique stage-stuff.. the game is very dynamic.
Too bad that japanese won't most likely even hear about this game now...

It could be submitted here at least http://stg.liarsoft.org/
Holding off on doing it myself in case the author wants to present it in some specific way.

Thanks for the complements and advice! I just resubmitted it to Playism to see if I could get it published in Japan. (The first time the game was still in development, so I figured it was worth another try now that it's complete.) That would be my preferred method of reaching that market. Once it's either published or not accepted, then I'll probably list it on that site you mentioned.

[xlebec]

coming soon to Xbox Live Indie Games.

Awesome, tks!

You're welcome. It was released earlier today. Here's the link:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Produ ... 0258550d9e

[Fudoh]

Violence=1/3, Sex=2/3, Mature Content=2/3

so what is there about the game, you're not telling us about ??

[xlebec]

Violence=1/3, Sex=2/3, Mature Content=2/3

so what is there about the game, you're not telling us about ??

Partial nudity in a sci-fi context (think crystal prison and body to jewel.) It's not intended to be sexual and you can't see anything due to liberal use of frosted glass and image cropping, but it's an automatic 2/3 for sex.
People say "damn" and "bastard." Automatic 2/3 for mature content.

I agree, it looks a lot worse than it is lol, but rules are rules.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Thanks! As for the 2 button arcade setup, I couldn't find a way to make it work well. Holding a button and using joystick to warp worked all right for some parts, but moving on.

Many arcade shmups use 3 or 4 buttons nowadays. An extra button to teleport with wouldn't be much of an issue, and if you really wanted to teleport one direction while moving another, it's not really that difficult to flick the stick while hitting teleport, then flick the stick back in the direction you want to move, is it?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Saw the cool Valkyrius on the USA region XBLIG site with the $4.99 price point. Instabuy alrighty. Is there an option to play it in tate instead of the usual verizontal format (akin to Mars Matrix, Night Raid, Gigawing 1 & 2, etc.)?

Like the cool arcade-like opening attract screen -- this little feature that most XBLIG shmups titles don't have from the get-go is ace in my book to set it apart from the competition. A helpful suggestion is to have a semi-animated Valkyrius main title screen would be much better than a static non-animated main title screen works wonders.

Have you tried playing Valkyrius on an old-school low-res 15khz arcade CRT-based monitor setup, xlebec? That's pure hard-core gaming as they come in utilizing an Ultracade UVc with an 360 console + a low-res candy cab setup for the win. Certainly doesn't hurt with having the obligatory scanlines present as well (or just using one of those SLG or T-SLG on an widescreen PC LCD monitor setup will do the trick quite nicely also).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Thjodbjorn]

Wow, this is a really nice game! Good job on getting this on XBLA!

[KennyMan666]

I tried the demo and while I could have a few comments about the gameplay, I'm just going to question why there is no control config.

[system11]

I bought it, nice game - observations:

1) Everything looks a bit dark.
2) Stage 3 midboss is a huge spike, that's where my game ended.

[Zaarock]

Enjoying this quite a bit. Too bad the control scheme doesn't work with arcade sticks though. A single button for teleport would make it harder to play with a stick but at least better than nothing.

Made it to stage 5 on hard after a couple tries, looking forward to seeing the harder difficulties
If you try to kill the stage 3 midboss fast before it starts spinning around its much less of a problem

[system11]

I've been playing this one regularly for the past week, the stage 3 midboss no longer seems like a spike. The stage 3 actual boss is pretty awesome to fight, I'm playing on normal and reached stage 6 so far. At the top it said 5 difficulty levels, are these unlocked by beating it?

[Sinful]

Well, I just wasted $5.00.

Do you know how freakin annoying and uncomfortable it is to hold both L & R trigger on an X-Box 360 pressed the entire freakin time?!! I called it quits by stage 2. Scew this game. I can't stand it when someone thinks they know the best control setup for me. Especially when it's so wrong, and what seems to be a first for me, uncomfortable.

Doesn't help that the game's sound/music/etc contantly cuts out for most of the game like someone is tapping the mute botton off and on all the time at a pretty fast rate. (Fired it up three times, with same results. Don't care for game anymore to re-download either. Unless it these type of games get patches also, to add a darn control config!).


So yeah, Never, ever, buying a game on blind faith alone like that again when there is a free demo to try out first (I once refused to buy a game cause they didn't give me the option to invert Y axis). No matter how promising it looks.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I see that Valkyrius is priced at 500 yen on the Japanese XBlig site whereas on the U.S. site, it's a mere $5.00 USD.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[xlebec]

@Zaarocl: Thanks! Glad you like it.
@system11: Yes, you gain a harder difficulty every time you beat it on the hardest difficulty you've currently unlocked. You don't need to 1cc or anything to unlock the new difficulty, just get through the game. Good to know the stage 3 difficulty curve smooths out with practice. I'd rather not make game-play changes in an update unless something is way off.
@Sinful: I'm sorry to hear it didn't work for you, especially the music. I've never received this problem before, but I'll certainly look into it for future updates, and let you know if I successfully address it. As for the changeable control scheme, I didn't want players getting used to something that wouldn't work well enough for later bosses. Would on on/off toggle option for weapons help (so you just press the trigger once to fire, and press again to stop firing)? I'll also implement adjustable control schemes.
@PC Engine Fan X: Yeah that's weird - sorry if you were planning on buying it on the Japanese XBLIG market. Unfortunately, I can only set the price in USD on the Microsoft Store, and they determine the prices for other regions based on that. I guess they wanted to have a nice round number for prices in both regions. If it were up to me it would cost 490 Yen, but unfortunately there's not much I can do about it.

[Sinful]

Yes, on/off might seem fine? Just test it and see how it works. Or (/And) maybe also have the RB button dedicated to both weapons at the same time. ... Maybe the second option is better? And much easier to implement, no?

Oh, and why is the LB the Boost distance change? Isn't it better suited to the R3 button? Or even any direction on the right analog stick (namely down & left), which would be even easier. This way you never let go of the left fire button if you are using it? Since you're accessing it with your right thumb. And all you have to do it smack your thumb quickly towards down & left (I actually have this as my "coin" in MAME, and up & right is my "start" Button. Left & up is "Menu," and right & down is "Pause." This way all my other buttons are free for gaming). ... Either way, the boost button ain't the real issue. Only really care about the fire buttons.

So yeah, please post here again if you've solved this issue. Thanks.

[system11]

I actually found the controls just right how they were - not sure where you can put the fire buttons when you need 2x directional sets.

[Sinful]

K, a few days ago I must of been bored enough, cause I deleted and re-installed this game and still I get the skipping audio hing happening during the levels. It happens alot. As in most of the time.

Should I have deleted my cache too?

Or think it might be an issue with my new X-Box I just bought (that Star Wars X-Box 360 in the style of R2D2 & the gamepad of 3CPO, where when you turn the system on, R2D2 makes his trademark bleeps & beeps. SO FREAKIN COOL! And I bought it without even knowing that. What a pleasent surprise ). Still got the other X-Box packaged away, maybe I could try it on that one day? But I'd have to be really bored the day I try that.

Oh, and I'm so sure I'm the only one with this problem? If turthfully so, then it has to be my X-Box, no?

I actually found the controls just right how they were - not sure where you can put the fire buttons when you need 2x directional sets.

Yeah, well I do seem to be the only one who thinks holding both the L & R Trigger to be a major pain (especially he L Trigger).

[DJ Incompetent]

This game is great. Thank you for making it.

I dislike the strictness of collecting a weapon on the correct side. Just stack ammo onto the weapon I'm currently using, don't discard the ammo of the other weapon to give me two of the same weapon at reduced ammo. At least let Keep Ammo mod allow me to stack ammo of like weapons freely.

I don't need the cutscene dialogue in difficulties above Normal.