Blue Revolver

[DoomsDave]

Been following this on twitter for a while now, really looking forward to the release, would love to test it out if possible.

The OST is amazing btw.

[amdiggywhut]

Definitely looking forward to this one. Comes out one week from today, yeah?

[Danbo]

Definitely looking forward to this one. Comes out one week from today, yeah?

yep! well, 4 and a half days now

soundtrack details - extended mixes of most tracks, 76 minutes of highest-quality bangers, includes 14 remix tracks, all yours for $8 / £5.59 / 8€. very glad we can release this!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/537670

(soundtrack will also be on itch.io)

[DraconicImpulse]

Oh Danbo, you make me so happy.

[Friendlyfriend]

Definitely looking forward to this one. Comes out one week from today, yeah?

yep! well, 4 and a half days now

soundtrack details - extended mixes of most tracks, 76 minutes of highest-quality bangers, includes 14 remix tracks, all yours for $8 / £5.59 / 8€. very glad we can release this!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/537670

(soundtrack will also be on itch.io)

Does buying the OST from itch.io include a steam redeemable version like the game itself?

[Danbo]

Definitely looking forward to this one. Comes out one week from today, yeah?

yep! well, 4 and a half days now

soundtrack details - extended mixes of most tracks, 76 minutes of highest-quality bangers, includes 14 remix tracks, all yours for $8 / £5.59 / 8€. very glad we can release this!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/537670

(soundtrack will also be on itch.io)

Does buying the OST from itch.io include a steam redeemable version like the game itself?

yes!

[Danbo]

released!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/439490
https://itch.io/s/4948/blue-revolver-launch
http://bluerevolvergame.com/

[Shepardus]

Congrats on the launch!

[Giga Power]

Joined just to reply to this thread.

Really enjoying the game so far. Level 3 is awesome.

[drunkninja24]

Dang, I snagged it on Steam instinctively before realizing the purchase link on the game's site gave you a steam key along with the DRM free version

ah well

[Emma]

Got a little problem here, I can't start the game anymore. *click*

"...cannot function without a window!"

I changed the resolution and switched from "Fullscreen" to "Window", after that I played the game just fine for about an hour.

But other than that, the game feels and plays really great!

[Danbo]

Got a little problem here, I can't start the game anymore. *click*

"...cannot function without a window!"

I changed the resolution and switched from "Fullscreen" to "Window", after that I played the game just fine for about an hour.

But other than that, the game feels and plays really great!

On windows, go to your Appdata folder (eg C:\Users\<username>\AppData), go to Roaming, blue-revolver-final, and delete config.lua, this'll reset everything to defaults.

Congrats on the launch!

Joined just to reply to this thread.

Really enjoying the game so far. Level 3 is awesome.

thanks!

[Remembrance]

I was hoping to get the soundtrack bundle through Humble for easy organization with my Humble library, but it looks like you can only get the game by itself that way.

Went through itch.io instead.

I just realized what a novelty it is to have a shmup on Mac. I think this is the only such game I own!

[Iori Branford]

2 stages in. So far I'm in love.

Is there any hope of recording 60fps 720p video with only 1 PC? Using OBS Studio, Game Capture slows the game to 9-12fps, Display Capture records audio only, Window Capture can't capture fullscreen windows.

[clippa]

Try shadowplay if you have an nvidia card, or dxtory. Both have a very minimal framerate hit and add very little input lag.

Ruddy love this game, an instant classic.

[CStarFlare]

Why is the game more expensive through your website than it is through Steam, particularly when the Steam advertisement just below includes the Steam price (which is £1.50 cheaper)? Is there a DRM-free premium?

[Tim James]

Why is the game more expensive through your website than it is through Steam, particularly when the Steam advertisement just below includes the Steam price (which is £1.50 cheaper)? Is there a DRM-free premium?

Is it still different? It's the same price at all 3 stores in U.S. dollars, so either they just changed it or it's a currency issue.

[clippa]

or it's a currency issue.

Yeah, must be, still showing as £11.24 for me and the steam version is £9.89.
I was all for giving the devs valves cut but I'm careful with my pennies and had some money in my steam wallet so I just bought it on steam.

[Klatrymadon]

20 minutes in. This is beautiful, joyous and triumphant.

[Tim James]

or it's a currency issue.

Yeah, must be, still showing as £11.24 for me and the steam version is £9.89.
I was all for giving the devs valves cut but I'm careful with my pennies and had some money in my steam wallet so I just bought it on steam.

Steam usually screws people on exchange rates but they appear to be better than the normal price here for a change. Anyway, makes sense to use the steam wallet.

[Danbo]

Why is the game more expensive through your website than it is through Steam, particularly when the Steam advertisement just below includes the Steam price (which is £1.50 cheaper)? Is there a DRM-free premium?

it's priced at $15 on each site, but they each take a different approach to currency conversion, meaning that there are discrepancies. it's not something i can really change now but it's something that i will take into account when we do sales events etc

20 minutes in. This is beautiful, joyous and triumphant.

thank you!

[mamboFoxtrot]

Just bought this and put in about 20 minutes, making it to somewhere early in stage 3. Feels really good so far! Using the sub-weapons for scoring reminds me a bit of Castle of Shikigami 3, actually.

e: anyone else feel like Cluster Missile is the best sub-weapon by a mile?

[trap15]

Only concrete feelings I have so far is: neat and I like the palette.

Biggest criticism: sound effects are incredibly underwhelming and quiet; explosions are nearly inaudible, damage sounds nearly inaudible. Only sound effects I really hear are the ones for new boss parts appearing, which is fairly loud. Overall leads to a very weak feedback feeling.

Finding a hard time liking the scoring system; I'm glad it's not an unbounded chaining mess, but the cashing-in's nearly-fixed time length feels weird to me. Maybe it'll grow on me, idk. In any case, the actual stages are fun even ignoring scoring, which is a big positive.

Some air enemies seem to lack collision boxes, but I think it's only one single type (the popcorn that usually come from the sides in stage 1) and it's INCREDIBLY confusing and misleading. Some enemies I'd expect to lack collision boxes due to being zako don't, and it's caused me to die from enemy collisions I wouldn't have expected to kill me, which is fairly annoying.

Music is all great, though one of the arranged versions of Stage 1 feels like it ends way too early when it's actually just going silent and coming back in later. While I get the idea, it's really REALLY awkward to have like 2-3 seconds of near silence in the music.

A lot of the player shot types feel really shitty, the only main shots I've found to like is Mae's power and Val's wide. The trace option for Mae is especially bad, considering it can't even hit anything for like 30+ pixels. Mae's wide shot would be ok except the focus version is still far too spread out to me.

[Despatche]

All I have are minor errors:

-Title theme should probably loop, shouldn't it?
-The music seems to have a very small blip before loops.
-The shot types have different names in the stage select than in the main game character select screens. "How to Play" is probably supposed to be "Tutorial".
-There probably shouldn't be two "Hyper Lasers", especially when they're different.

Aside from that, I think there should be some kind of "game results" screen (particularly, it should display equipment used) like Touhou or x.x has, something that can screenshot nicely. Speaking of which, this game does not screenshot in either fullscreen mode, and there should probably be a command for fullscreen/windowed.

[Bananamatic]

I just assume trace is shitty by default

[DoomsDave]

Congrats on the launch. Only had a chance to give it 30 mins so far but having fun.

[Klatrymadon]

It took me a while to realise that after you start a flourish, subsequent hits are topping up the (rapidly-depleting) cash-in bar, but not your chain. Was wondering why I wasn't even scoring enough to pass "Scoring 101" despite seemingly chaining properly - I wasn't holding onto the 8-chain long enough and waiting for the bigger payoffs... :p

[Glick]

Does anyone else feel like some of the patterns are really imbalanced? Even on the Stage 1 boss, the final pattern is a complete joke, but the one before it is actually extremely difficult. After this, the game stays really easy until the stage 3 boss, but even that one isn't as tough as the first boss' 2nd to last pattern.

[Despatche]

Normal isn't like that at all, so I'm gonna guess you're getting hit by rank. Rank is pretty extreme in this game.

[JDE]

I bought Blue Revolver on Itch yesterday and have had a blast with it so far! My initial impressions:

I'm not usually a fan of chaining systems for scoring, but am really enjoying Blue Revolver's “micro chaining”, where the chain maxes out at 8 and can be cashed-in for a temporary multiplier at any time with your special weapon, after which the chain and multiplier reset. This means that a good scoring route is made up of many small chains rather than a single gigantic one, taking the emphasis off memorisation and allowing for more improvisation.

I've only played the game with a keyboard and an Xbox One controller so far, but custom layouts for both worked perfectly and there was no noticeable input lag. The main game has 5 fairly lengthy stages with lots of variety in backgrounds and enemy types, from lines of tiny popcorn tanks in snowy mountains to enormous flying fortresses in stormy skies. I agree with trap15 that it's odd for some smaller enemies to have collision boxes while others don't though – personally I'd make it all one way or the other.

There's also a mission mode with lots of bite-sized challenges that put a new spin on segments from the main game, which is actually my favourite part of Blue Revolver so far. My only complaint here is that the letter grade you get for completing each mission isn't very obvious: the text colour of each cleared mission's name changes to reflect how well you did, with gold being best (for an A+), but the actual letter grades aren't shown for some reason.

Edit: I thought there were several letter grades, but A+ is actually the only one you can get - for clearing a mission with a special bonus condition - so my original complaint was a misunderstanding, not a problem with the game.

Completing missions or stages in the main game gives you stars that can be spent on unlocks such as artwork and remixed music, which is a great feature: drip-feeding goodies like this will be very encouraging for newcomers, or anyone that isn't interested in scoring, since you get tangible rewards for gradual progress other than a big number. Although if you are shooting for a big number then your score can be tweeted directly from the game, which is a nice convenience feature.

In terms of audio the music is stellar (seriously considering buying the OST) but some sound effects lack punch and all are very quiet even when the music volume is lowered. Graphically I haven't encountered any visibility issues and I like the overall style. My only real complaint in this area is that some cool effects like the water ripple shader in stage 2 are so subtle that they may go unnoticed by many players. Tate mode and various screen scaling options are also available, which is always good to see.

tl;dr
Blue Revolver is a very finely-tuned shmup, definitely one of the better indie efforts to be released this year. Well done to Danbo and the rest of Stellar Circle!