Awaken:Underwater Odyssey - ver. 1.0 released

[Tryzna]

GAME ITCH.IO page: http://tryzna.itch.io/awaken-underwater-odyssey
IndieDB profile: http://www.indiedb.com/games/awakenunderwater-odyssey
Dev.Blog: http://www.lurkerslair.com/

About:

Awaken: Underwater Odyssey is vertical scrolling shoot em up game. Game takes place in far future on planet Neptune. You are member of Kraken squad whitch is stationed inside Leviathan class carrier craft owned by RPE corporation whitch oversees gas extracting operations on neptune.

Game is about anihilating thousands of squid like aliens while you pilot Orca MK II submarine whitch is highly customizable to fit pilots style.

Latest trailer aviable on youtube: http://youtu.be/eeYke7vvl4k

PRESS REVIEWS:

Indie Game Mag: http://indiegamemag.com/survive-the-dea ... r-odyssey/
Softopedia: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Games-De ... ssey.shtml
RetroManiac: http://retromaniacmagazine.blogspot.com ... mo-de.html






You can get the game by visiting its itch page or you can dowload free demo from indieDB here: http://goo.gl/D8Kw0b

Right now you can download demo containing first two missions for free and if you ll enjoy it you can support this project by purchasing the game BETA whitch contains everything except onslaught mode. Link for full version ll be sent to you when the game goes gold.

Things that ll be implemented befe the game goes full:

• - Onslaught mode

• - Rework options and preferences

• - Possibility to control hangar menu with x360controller and keyboard as well.(Righ now you have to use mouse)

• - full screen filters as an unlockable rewards(sephia, bloom, black and white etc.)

• - difficulty balancing

[Pteriforever]

Looks nice!

From the trailer, it looks like the player ship is a little underpowered, but that's not really a big deal. Looking forward to this ^.^

[Ebbo]

This may sound nitpicking but while the graphics look pretty good, the visual style doesn't really convey underwater atmosphere. I know it's supposed to be hi-scifi but those ship and bullet designs could easily fit any run-of-the-mill space shooter.

Take a look at In The Hunt for an example. Although its theme is quite a bit different, it really manages to create oceanic feel with small visual cues.

[Tryzna]

Many thanks for replies! Now i ll try to reply as best as i can.

Difficulty - Game is nowhere near balanced as currently there are only basic weapons & and gun drones. I want to leave wave design and difficulty balnace as a last thing on "to do" list as i consider that part crucial and want to start it with all pieces of puzzle on board(or at least majority of them) and take my time on it, not beign distracted ny other things i have to do. Especialy considering(and i know many people ll hate the game for it)there ll be no difficulty settings as they annoyed me in every game i played. I dont want a game whitch make different challenge for every individual. I want everyone to make same effort to finish the game and let scoreboard decide who was the best. Old arcade machines i remember from childhood dont have difficulty settings as well(at least aviable to customer)and we all enjoyed them. I know balancing ll be difficult, but i belive i can handle it better than making X difficulty variants.

Ocean feel - Thanks for the point, unfortunately for me iam aware of that since begining of development and it seems like im unable to handle it. The problem is i was never even average drawer so im quite limited in the visuals im able to create. I tried various things to add underwater feel, however thats not an excuse and while the game does not look graphicaly attractive i managed to improve my so called "drawing" by a lot and im learning new things every day so i hope i ll come with some nice watery enhancements until the game ll be finished.
Allready got some ideas and they are on "to do" list, like small buble trails behind every object when it passes certain speed, few screen filters and especialy underwater sounds. However fitting it all together is like completing a puzzle and i was never good at them, lets hope i ll succeed in this case;-)

[buko-studios]

Looks cool, we agree with the other comments.
But, the overall presentation looks like it has a nice level of polish.

Is the video recorded at an angle? or are there unique mechanics at play here?

We gave you a shoutout on our deviant art group Shmuproom

[Tafia Tchagata]

Greetings,
The game universe really pulled me into it and I always love underwater visuals.

I would definitely enjoy a trailer with less effects and montage (zoom especially) to get a good grip on scales, flow and mechanics.

Anyway, liked you on Facebook and wish you lots of energy for this promising title.

[Tryzna]

Again, thank you very much for more responses.

Buko-studios: Thanks a lot for highlighting game in shmuproom. I was going to register on devianart for some time allready, but i thought my creations are not good enought to be posted there.
Video was edited to be at angle to create more dramatic showcase of the game. No special game mechanics in this way were added. Only "special" mechanics that are beign added to the game and i would like to showcase this weekend is the squad command system. Its not unique as squad mates were appearing in many shmups before, but always(as far as i know) in form of random powerup. And as i dont like waiting for a random "drop" and collecting stuff falling off from dead enemies i decided to let player decide when he ll call certain squad member on screen and plan their cooldown accordingly.

Tafia: Thanks! I hope i ll be able to even expand this universe as it offers infinite possibilites as player ll discover during third mission with working title "gates of infinity" after he descend throught huge mining shaft to under layers of Neptune rocky crust. But i dont want to spoil any more right now as story is nowhere near polished and i dont want to shut doors in to any direction right now.
Yeah the trailer used moostly zoomed footage becouse of aspect ratio issues i have run in to. Problem is solved for fullscreen mode right now, and i ll provide unedited gameplay footage as soon as the game ll be ready.
Thanks again for like on FB as every piece of support is really apprecitiated!

[Tryzna]

The weekend is almost over and im back with another teaser. This time im going to showcase wingmans and their abilities.

The system is pretty simple as as one of the wingmans is firing torpedoes one after another so his purpose is to help player out of tight situations when player is overwhelmed by smaller enemies.

Second one is pilotoing support ship whit ability to rapid recharge shield energy and adds bit of firepower as well. His usage if pretty obvious, call him in and he ll recharge your shield over few seconds so you ll be able to take another hit.

Both wingmans fire additionals torpedoes simultaneously with player IF the player have both torpedo shafts loaded. This restriction was added becouse i want players who plan usage of special weapons and use them precisely to benefit even more from this ability, while players who are just mashing torpedo launch button like psycho ll get no exra benefit from this wingman ability as they ll probably never gonna have both torpedoes loaded at a time.

It was a bussy week and im glad i ve got squad control ready and working however i dont consider this part of the game finished as there is still some extra potential left to play with.

Thanks for reading and you can watch the Kraken squad introduction teaser here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxaDmNMoAFE

[buko-studios]

Thanks for the info's.
We'll continue to feature more about the game on the group.
It would be awesome to show updated screenshots on there.

in our experience Wingmen are the feature that get players the most excited.
Definitely worth putting in extra polish there.

Agree 100% on random drops, they have too much risk of unbalancing a game or make for frustrating chance of success.

[Tryzna]

Just a quick update. I had to repeat math class from elementary school but finaly, gun drones are spinning around the ship. Did not expect how a little enhancement like this can impact overall game impression(at least for me). Hope you ll like it too;-)

Sry for low video quality as im new to vine service: https://vine.co/v/MtgZMTVMxrl

[Tryzna]

Hello everyone!
Aftere some time whitch looked like a break im back with few updates about the game. I have started 3rd graphics overhaul as unfortunately my ability to combine pixels is still improving as i had no experience at all few months ago. That should be a great thing but unfortunately every new enemy looks better and better and every time i draw few new sprites i realize they do not fit well with the previevous ones:-/ However, while it brings me more work im trying not to be lazzy and take advantage of every improvement of my skills and use these to enhance the game.
While improving visuals is great thing, most of my focus belongs to gameplay. After lot o thinking and after making a lot of mistakes i finaly have "somethink" whitch plays really promising and finaly, actual version of the game is first version where i think the game plays really well. Still lot of work ahead of me as i had to proceed careful, pay attention to all the details as i found out designing entertaining level in shmup game is not just about placing wawes of enemies at random, expecting the fun ll come out of nowhere(i really tought it ll work somehow like that in the begining of this project).
Thank you for reading the update and I ll end this entry by few ingame screens and detail of brand new alien interceptor.

[Tryzna]

Set of enemies for first mission. Now only boss left and i can start preparing playable demo to be released in about two weeks. Im glad i finaly managed to make group of vessels that somehow fits together.

[Tryzna]

Time for calamari!!;-) No, seriously, Im in, need of your opinion guys. As most of enemies in my shmup are combination of squid and machine i had to try adding some gore and blood particles to the game. Part of me thinks it looks ridiculous but on the other side, whats bad about beign ridiculous, right? What do you think about gore in shmup?? Turn on HD and have a look how it looks, many thanks for suggestions!

Coub video: http://coub.com/view/2op4h

[S20-TBL]

No, seriously, Im in, need of your opinion guys. As most of enemies in my shmup are combination of squid and machine i had to try adding some gore and blood particles to the game. Part of me thinks it looks ridiculous but on the other side, whats bad about beign ridiculous, right? What do you think about gore in shmup??

It depends on the atmosphere you want to convey. For older shmups there's Bio-Metal, R-Type, Gynoug and a few others off the top of my head I couldn't remember (the PSX R-Type Delta had a particularly gory second stage with lots of splatter). If I recall a pair of In The Hunt enemies or bosses also had gore splatter when they're low on health.

For newer shmups, Espgaluda and ESPRa.De. both have humanoid enemies that splatter into gore when killed. They're a bit unsettling when they die because they let out screams in addition to squirting a fountain of blood.

You could try simple gore splatters and particles, just not too over the top. Gore is still unsettling in this day and age.

[Tryzna]

@S20-TBL: Thanks for ideas m8, i have decided to skip the gore completely and added small ink splash as enemies are squids anyway.

Lastest dev. progress teaser is aviable on youtube right now. A lot of things have changed. I replaced the orange clouds from the first level as most people hated them and replaced them with dark purple ink clouds. Bubbling air bullet tracers were added as well and many other visual tweaks.
Scoring system was reworked and now score multipier decreases over the time and is reduced by bigger ammount if your ship takes a hit. It can be increased by scoring combos and bullet grazing. If you are interested to see all of that in motion, then accept my invitation to watch the teaser by clicking link below and switch to hd. Thanks for attention and if you are looking forward to test the game by yourself, then wait a couple of days, as hopefuly, alpha version with complete first level ll be aviable probably on sunday.

Thanks for reading & hope you ll enjoy the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e0T6DL2D_k

[Tryzna]

All right, public alpha test is aviable now!

Please note its very rough version and contains just first mission with default ship configuration however im looking for all kind of feedback. If you like the game, let me know. If you hate the game, make sure u let me know as listening to negative feedback is the only way i could fix the game, or stop wasting my time if the game turns out "unfixable";-)

One way or another, thanks for your time and hope you ll enjoy the first mission of Awaken: Underwater Odyssey!

Link to self extracting archive with the game: http://ulozto.net/xNnvpWBZ/awaken-exe

[S20-TBL]

Downloaded it and played the first mission.

PROS

- I absolutely love the presentation. The dark, eerie backgrounds, stylized HUD, muffled sound effects and neon colors really give it that alien feel. It's like an underwater vertizontal R-Type Delta.

CONS

- The screen feels too cramped at times. For example, the two large squids that appear in the middle of the screen near the beginning tend to drain my life stock, since they're practically shooting from near point blank range.

- The ship has slight inertia. The controls are tight, but the inertia when you let go of the arrow keys sent me hurtling into a bullet more times than I can count. Please remove the inertia; it very much ruins any attempt at high level play due to the momentary loss of control over your ship's movement and the inconsistent speed.

-- The enemy bullets having a blurry blend effect tend to throw me off. You might consider making them less blurry and more defined in shape, so that way players can discern them better.

SUMMARY

I really like what you've done so far except for the above complaints, and am looking forward to seeing this finished. Since the game is a vertizontal, I'd like to suggest taking a closer look at how Giga Wing handles controls and enemy placement. And...dare I say it...go play Mars Matrix.

[Tryzna]

Thanks for your feedback again S20-TBL! I more or less agree with your points. Behavior patterns of enemies have to be ballanced a little as now i see some of them(especialy the small drones) are staying on screen for too long if left unnoticed. Regarding adult squids im not sure as their fire can be allready easily avoided if you keep calm head, but ll do some inhouse testing this weeknd and ll observe how players behave when encountering them and ll adjust them accordingly.
Inertia, yeah i agree with you. The idea behind it was to add bit of underwater feel to the game and while i like the sligh acceleration feel if you start moving in any direction. I ll probably keep this feature in as it softens the controls and allows for fine maneuvuring withou problems even when played on keyboard. However the deaceleration part of this got me several times too;-) Dont want to drop it completely, but ll probably reduce it by half to keep that feel, but lower its influence on the ship movement.

It ll take more playtesting to fine tune this, especial with the ton of weapons and reworked shield system im going to implement in following weeks so feedback like yours is really important to me.

Thanks for trying the game!

[Tryzna]

Hello everyone!

After more than a month im back with another update! Again, a lot happened as i ve got another one week long vacation and spent it by improving Awaken and polishing everything as best as i could. Lets break all additons and improvements in to few sections:

NEW USER INTERFACE & SCREEN ORIENTATION CHANGE



As you probably allready noticed from the screens around, the game screen orientation was changed from horizontal to vertical. Awaken was originaly designed as simplified raptor/tyrian clone for web browsers and both of these games have horizontal screen and i was going to keep screen this way for several reasons, however the main reason was i did not know how to alter the screen to vertical orientation properly with possibilty of having different objects like hud to the sides of the gaming scene.
Now half year after i started working on this game i realized its quite easy and after i spent dozen of hours playing various SHMUP games for analyzing reasons i decided to alter Awaken to vertical screen as it offers many advantages when compared to horizontal scene. Its much easier to design enemies right now as i ve got a lot of vertical space aviable now while player have more time to react to the threaths so i can throw more foes at player while keeping situation managable for him. Basicaly this change means - more enemies on screen = more bullets aiming at player = more explosi intense acti fun.

Going along with this, i needed to rework user interface and while its still work in progress i like the direction of all this allready. However there is still a lot left to do.

NEW WEAPONS



All the weapons player ll be able to unlock during storyline campaing in order to prepare his ship for challenges and end game solo missions are now present in the game. You can divide them in to laser and plasma. Lasers are best for focused damage output directly in front of the ship, while plasma do the oposite. However as players ship has 3 item slots(front deck/wing pods/drone bay) it is possible to combine weapons to match everyones needs. And if thats not enought, then specialized pieces of weaponary are just around corner, however it ll take little more effort to unlock them as they can be aquired through achivement system.

BOUNTY TOKENS & SCORING



Yeah, i was against this feature since begining but while analyzing many arcade shooters, i realized the ability to collect anything that falls of from dead enemies adds a bit of fun. I felt like im reinventing the wheel when i finaly added bounty tokkens, but thats life and sometimes opinions changes under the wight of arguments(enriching scoring debate with my friend in this case). But lets talk a bit about scoring mechanism in Awaken.

If you kill the enemy you got score value(x multipier) and increase your score multipier a little. When you kill multiple enemies you get score bonus, a bit of multipier increase and a bit of shield recharge. The ammount depends on how long your kill chain is.

The multipier decreases on its own over the time, so you have to stay agresive to keep it growing.

When multipier is above 5.0 the enemies ll start droping Silver Kraken Tokkens and when your multipier is above 10.0 enemies ll provide Gold Kraken Tokkens. Tokkens ll provide additional score bonus, the faster you collect it, the bigger the bonus is. Its represented by simple ingame animation, as when dropped, the tokken grow up fast and then starts shrinking, and after about 2 seconds it disappears.
This is one of the ways how to make player even more agresive and force him to move closer to the enemies, while rewarding the extra effort by score bonus.

Hope you ll like these additions as i ve spent quite some time implementing them, hope you ll watch new dev. diary video to see everything mentioned in motion, and i especialy hope you ll be interested in future updates!

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/22j9ULdzgYQ

With regards & thanks for reading

[S20-TBL]

This looks quite nice now. I do miss the old horizontal screen though, but this is worth giving a shot.

Will you be posting a playable demo anytime soon?

[Tryzna]

S20-TBL: Yes, new demo is within range of one month.

Lot of things changed since my last post here. Modular ship customization was added as i always wanted this feature in game(as a former EVE online player and big fan of t3 cruisers) however it was not planned until i realized its not that hard to implement it.
While the game was not designed for this feature i kept all of it as simple as possible. The ship consist of 2 modules(front deck and hull)and third module is drone slot. i did not added stuff like different agility or shield recharge atributes to the moudles as it would quickly lead to one and only right combination of components and i do not dare to balance all of that as this is my first project.



I also dropped the idea of tier 1 and tier 2 weapons as i wanted to add a bit replayability to the game. It would make no sense to add medals and achivements to early missions as player would be able to return to them after he upgrades his ship and earn all the medals with ease.
Thats why i decided there ll be no ship upgrades and weapons have alternate fire mode. In "siege" fire mode weapons fire like their former T2 counterparts but are aplying several disadvantages to your ship to make you think twice before you bring in additional firepower.
All missions and enemies were remade to corespond with this change and siege firing mode serves as a tool to bring down bigger enemies as they have applied vulnerability to their damage.
The idea behind this is to use regular fire mode whitch ussualy have some spread(depends on modules used) to destroy standart alien ships and switch to siege mode as soon as bigger foes apear on screen to get rid of them more effective.

If interested you can read more about this at game indieDB profile: http://www.indiedb.com/games/awakenunderwater-odyssey

Over last weekend there was a lot of fixes and additions as well. I fixed combo detection behavior as before time to time it failed to detect the combo so i simplified it as much as i could and now it works perfect. Gameplay adjustments were done as well so i belive a bit of extra fun was added to the game and it feels much better then before. Explosions of big objects were reworked as before when big enemies like squid bomber died, their actor started creating random sized blasts all over its body and dissapearing after half second under the explosions. It looked good, but did not felt right.
Reworked explosion creates big blast covering whole actor, then actor gets killed right after creation of big blast. Then big blast creates particles underneath it self and push them in random directions with random force. The partilcles themselves are creating smaller blasts at their XY as they are moving away from explosion.



And as a little extra i captured bit of reworked first mission gameplay as well. Hope you ll like the direction game is taking same like me and see you next weekend! Hopefuly with final video dev diary as following should be game trailer . Yes release is within two-three months range now! Finaly;-)

[S20-TBL]

I actually followed your development on indieDB (you can view my own page from my signature link) and saw all these changes. They do make sense and feel more like arcade shmups with regards to T2 being reworked into an alternate fire mode, which is more reminiscent of Cave shooters.

Those weapons which you showcased in the video did look very interesting. I'll be waiting for the next release.

[Tryzna]

@S20-TBL: Ah, never noticed you have indieDB profile, sorry bout that!
Im glad im not only one who thinks these changes makes sense;-) There is so many of them becouse when i started working on this project i wanted to make something simple, something i can handle by my self. Unfortunately for me i did not know much about shmups, sure i played River Raid on my old atari, i remembered arcade machines with Tokio Scramble and 1942. Played a lot of Raptor and Tyrian when i got my first PC, but that was it.

I started working on this game with head full of inovative ideas and revolutionary concepts, however i quickly found i can separate these in to two piles. First pile could be labeled "not so original - allready invented" and second one can be named "not working or not fun at all". And thats where endless rework chain and "reinventing wheel" process started;-)

[Pteriforever]

I started working on this game with head full of inovative ideas and revolutionary concepts, however i quickly found i can separate these in to two piles. First pile could be labeled "not so original - allready invented" and second one can be named "not working or not fun at all". And thats where endless rework chain and "reinventing wheel" process started;-)

I had the same problem with my game...I had to remake or replace all the fancy mechanics at least once, and then it got all overambitious and now it's taking forever. (I swear, if I make another shmup after this, it'll have 5 stages and a sensible number of TLBs)

Anyway, looks like it's all coming together nicely! I'll hold off on playing it until it's done, but I'm looking forward to it~

[Tryzna]

@Pteriforever Thanks! At least all that work was worth it as Starhall is realy great and is one of these games i would love to purchase for all platforms i have at home.
Thanks for kind words, i hope Awaken will not be dissapointment as my mood is constantly shifting between excitement and total depression as the longer i work on this projet, the more im afraid of epic failure;-)

[Tryzna]

Hello guys! The game is "almost" finished and only last boss is awaiting his bullet pattern scripts. By "game" i mean all enemies, all bosses, core of the level backgrounds and there is still lot to be done, but i belive i can finish the game within month or two.

As levels are almost done i still plan to enhance level backgrounds like i did with game third mission. I have finaly learned how to switch level backgrounds on the go so now i can really enhance the sense of flow as the enviroment can change durring ongoing mission. Im lucky i ve got most of the graphics ready so i have to draw just few additional pieces and enhancements.

My main focus during december will be to glue everything together with some kind of menu interface and make few decisions about menu designs as im still not sure if i want to have everything in one screen or if i should split mission select and ship modifications in to two separate pages.

Another thing is to rework scoring system. While i like the system in game currently i feel i can do much better as i want scoring to be as simple as possible while still engaging.

I ll not go in to the details and ll just add couple of pictures from last week and hopefuly the things ll start moving fast next month as i ll start with preparation of demo as soon as i ll have first version of menu interface ready and working.



,

[suny]

Keep up the good work!

I do like the new vertical ratio. I my opinion, there is more energy and dynamic now.
I'm looking forward to play your game
S.

[Tryzna]

After weekend of hard work the main menu is finaly working as intended. Still needs to put in some additional details like options and quit buttons but i ll leave that for final polishing phase whitch is hopefuly just weeks away from now. Im glad i managed to squeze everything i wanted in to one screen and dont have maze o sub menus. On the left side of the screen you can pick the mission you want to fly and on the right is ship module selection whitch is the place where you can configure your ship to fit your taste and play style.

[Tryzna]

Awaken is getting realy close to release and it ll be aviable for grab within few weeks, if you are interested to read more about it you can visit game profile on indieDB as i dont want to just copypaste wall of text. http://www.indiedb.com/games/awakenunderwater-odyssey

And while i dont want to post just few lines of boring text here are showcases of reworked first and second mission. I like how they turned out and especialy lava river added to the descend mission added much needed contrast to the scene.

[Tryzna]

Yes, im finaly sure it will happen. Everything except onslaught mode and few details is ready for release. By details i mean stuff like "flashing images warning", re check everything again and setup itch page for the game. If i ll not be hitted by a car or something simmilar happens the game demo ll be aviable next weekend on itch and indieDB. Beta version whitch ll contain everything the game has to offer except onslaught couple of days latter, probably 1.1.

I ve spent whole weekend by polishing the game, adding dreaded option buttons, creating help screen, pause and players death. Lot of little stuff that had to be done but i ve been always pushing them away until now.

See you by the release!