Skies Of Chaos

[danieldiggle]

Hey people, firstly hello! I randomly came across your forum via pinterest > image > blog post > link.. random!, but glad I've come across it!

Myself and a friend are working on our first game, a retro - Snes and GBA - inspired shooter.
Mobile first and pc/console second (if we do it justice). We're aiming to have a little demo (for pc/mac and mobile(testflight)) done for the end of January. We're through most of the backend build now.

It's a shmup! so thought I'd share a little of what we've done, here.

You can catch us on twitter and [url=instagram.https://www.instagram.com/skiesofchaos/]instagram[/url]





We also briefly explored a 'Pico-8' style version - we might still make in the long run.

[M.Knight]

Hello, and welcome to the shmups forum!

You game's artstyle is so pretty and charming. I think it is quite eye-catching.

I checked the twitter page a bit and saw this boss fight video. I have a few questions/comments :
-Is the player character in the PC version supposed to be mouse-controlled or is the video a mobile build? Touch control is fine for mobile, but you should defintely put digital controls for the PC version. I suppose that from a level design point of view, it can be a bit tricky to have to design patterns as the player speed is fixed with digital controls and rather freeform with touch controls. However, mouse PC shmups are very far from the norm.

-Is the music playing in the background just a random placeholder, or is it still representative of the planned musical atmosphere? I have the feeling it clashes too much with the bright and peppy colors. That's not to say you must have some upbeat music and a contrast between sound and visuals can not be pulled off (see Dangun Feveron for example), but I find such a track more fitting for a visually much darker game. In short, the sound is really metal but the graphics are not.

[danieldiggle]

Hello, and welcome to the shmups forum!

You game's artstyle is so pretty and charming. I think it is quite eye-catching.

I checked the twitter page a bit and saw this boss fight video. I have a few questions/comments :
-Is the player character in the PC version supposed to be mouse-controlled or is the video a mobile build? Touch control is fine for mobile, but you should defintely put digital controls for the PC version. I suppose that from a level design point of view, it can be a bit tricky to have to design patterns as the player speed is fixed with digital controls and rather freeform with touch controls. However, mouse PC shmups are very far from the norm.

-Is the music playing in the background just a random placeholder, or is it still representative of the planned musical atmosphere? I have the feeling it clashes too much with the bright and peppy colors. That's not to say you must have some upbeat music and a contrast between sound and visuals can not be pulled off (see Dangun Feveron for example), but I find such a track more fitting for a visually much darker game. In short, the sound is really metal but the graphics are not.

Hey! thank you for checking it out

That boss video is mobile controls.
We also have pc controls for when we quickly test a build on the laptop. For keyboard we had a nice feeling acceleration and deceleration and same for gamepad, the analogue sticks give nice movement. There will be different player speed/armor ratio's for each player ship. Not sure about mouse control option, though touch controls in Gamemaker (the engine/platform we're using) uses emulated mouse controls to generate it's touch inputs - so it's kind of already in there.

The music is placeholder stock audio! but we will be choosing music that contrasts the visual tone - wether rock, electronic and something else, we definitely like the idea of the music changing the vibe of the game, but yeah, there will be more consideration put into this once we have the visuals in place.

[M.Knight]

A casual player may appreciate the analog movement and the feeling of acceleration/deceleration, but the more dedicated shmup players are used to digital controls with a constant speed. Also, arcade sticks do not have analog controls and some may use one to play the game. That's not to say analog can't work, but also having working digital controls is highly recommended.
If you need to control the ship with different levels of speed, consider a focus button that could slow down your ship if held. With two very distinctive speeds (focused and non-focused), it is easier to navigate the patterns than with the dozen of potential speeds an analog sick gives.

[Shepardus]

If the acceleration/deceleration for the keyboard controls is meant to approximate the feeling of analogue sticks, I would recommend at least having an option to disable that and have purely digital movement. The inertia could easily be interpreted by players as unresponsiveness, as it takes some time to start moving in the direction they press, even if (actually, especially if) it only lasts a short duration.

Lovely art style, by the way.