CYGNI: AGB | Steam, PS5 and Xbox Series 2023

[kid aphex]

https://twitter.com/ign/status/15656864 ... OnLkFByDMg

Here’s the first boss fight…………..

[Rastan78]

That's some impressive audiovisual presentation for sure. Is it me or does something about the ship's movement combined with its tiny size in relation to the screen make it feel like a mouse cursor? I think there's a reason why a lot of shmups settled on a larger ship with a smaller hitbox within rather than just saying hey let's make our actual ship tiny.

A bigger ship will have more visibility and presence and feel more like it inhabits the backgrounds and the same space enemies do. It seems like bc the ship is so small they had to rely on lighting it up brightly to increase visibility? Maybe a a larger ship could still have good visibility while being lit more like other objects in the game.

[kid aphex]

Absolutely. The ship feels so insignificant and powerless.
It’s everything about it - shape, size and movement.
The shifting camera only adds to the weirdness.

You nailed it: doesn’t feel like you’re controlling a ship, but a cursor.

[jehu]

A mouse cursor, or Evaccaneer Doom Jr.?

[Jonpachi]

I can’t wait for the inevitable mainstream reviews where they will compare it to Ikaruga and call it a puzzle game.

[heli]

IGN ?, this game is going for the good review method $
The graphics look very good, fantastic, the gameplay is different.
Curious how much a 9.8 cost ?

[Rastan78]

IGN ?, this game is going for the good review method $
The graphics look very good, fantastic, the gameplay is different.
Curious how much a 9.8 cost ?

For that 9.8 you also need to have a strong narrative focus. That will help reviewers ignore the thick and juicy layers of euroshmup/hack indie shmup elements. Tiny sprites, inertia, weak shot power/too much enemy HP, simplistic enemy behaviors, huge life bar, dead air due to cinematic animations, story dialogue or random long breaks between patterns, 16:9 vertical game etc etc. Repeating all the usual mistakes is all fine if you're busy singlehandedly reinventing the entire genre. I mean who wants to try to satisfy those pesky "hardcore" shmup players anyway.

[Nautilus]

Hello everyone,

I’m able to peek through here again quickly : ).

Absolutely. The ship feels so insignificant and powerless.
It’s everything about it - shape, size and movement.
The shifting camera only adds to the weirdness.

You nailed it: doesn’t feel like you’re controlling a ship, but a cursor.

Thank you for posting a link here for the update. I’ll put my two cents here from my perspective if it helps. But I’m afraid I may leave it at that since I’m probably beginning to see that Cygni may not be for some players here from the get go regardless of what is being shown or not shown, since there will always be that one thing that would ruin it entirely for some (while some things we can safely say are in progress and will be improved or replaced others are pretty much nailed down as to what the bigger picture will be for the game). I’m also sorry if some of you were expecting a different kind of shooter in line with personal expectations within the genre itself (perhaps this adds to frustrations with some as to why it isn't like so or if only this one thing was different and so on). I hope with all sincerity that in the future you will have these wishes more fulfilled through another game that could satisfy those expectations.
Part of me also hopes that one day should all be well, you'll pick up the game and give it a try and maybe you'll say, well it's not what i wanted but for what it is, it does well.

That's some impressive audiovisual presentation for sure. Is it me or does something about the ship's movement combined with its tiny size in relation to the screen make it feel like a mouse cursor? I think there's a reason why a lot of shmups settled on a larger ship with a smaller hitbox within rather than just saying hey let's make our actual ship tiny.

A bigger ship will have more visibility and presence and feel more like it inhabits the backgrounds and the same space enemies do. It seems like bc the ship is so small they had to rely on lighting it up brightly to increase visibility? Maybe a a larger ship could still have good visibility while being lit more like other objects in the game.

Thank you for your comment, well appreciated, to quickly clarify our take on the ship size if that is of interest (this once again goes into "different" rather than "following the established expectations").

- Cygni has varying camera FOVs and play areas, this usually corresponds with what scene or action is taking place on screen, sometimes the ship will appear small, other times much larger or in-between. This depends on the situation or how relevant it is to the environment/gameplay. The flares similarly shrink or expand depending on this size, with larger flares for camera being more distant and vice versa for secondary readability purposes without having to resort to model scaling.

- From the start we opted to keep the ship smaller than “typical scale” on screen notably on larger battle areas or boss fights (depending on the boss size) in order to emphasis “sense of scale”, it is true in this case we want the player to look more “insignificant” in size to the boss. For us this choice is important in that direction as a simple 20% increase in ship size can change things dramatically. We believe It is a basic cinematographic underlying that could be used effectively, and that you don’t need to have your ship be center of attention or have your ship be a certain presence on screen all the time. (on a sidenote while playing it yourself one may hardly notice all this.)

- It is not that we are not aware what other shmups do with ship sizes, it is simply a deliberate choice for good reasons (at least for us) that benefit the game in many areas. It is one of the areas we specifically wanted to alter and play around with long before we started on the project.

In many other Shmups there is emphasis put more on the ship itself as a key visual entity on screen + the vertical cropped aspect ratio puts even more emphasis on this (which is perfectly fine within those games).

However as a hypothetical experiment, if should you say one would widen the screen on Ikaruga for instance the ship will in relation to that change will look twice as small than when things were more cropped and so need to be further increased in size, this in turn will make everything else look smaller in relation to that ship size increase (enemies, environment etc. not to mention much harder unit placement harder but a good challenge which means more work) and so now the feedback would be, well don’t go full vertical 16:9 in the first place and stick with cropped vertical screens, to which the reply from some devs would be sorry but no. (hence one of the "established rules" broken). And to which you will reply "who wants to try to satisfy those pesky "hardcore" shmup players anyway".

If Jamestown wasn't satisfactory to some in the commnity for similar reasons (and that's a game that got a good share of pointers even when it was still playing it very safe and following many of the established norms) I don't expect Cygni to satisfy them either if it is for those reasons. And that is perfectly fine because these become perhaps "different games" than what is considered as "establsihed shmups in the hardcore base", personally i haven't been involved for too long in the community so i look at all this with a fresh take. Even though I understand both sides. I always refer to what we are doing as a top down shooter, its easier to follow that way and less terminologies to muddy the water, people will make of it as they like.

Regardless of all this, it's always a good discussion to have and I'm one always open to conversation when i can.

I can’t wait for the inevitable mainstream reviews where they will compare it to Ikaruga and call it a puzzle game.

Haha I sure hope not. But you’ll never know with the press. In any case don't take what the press says too personally, at least it made some good material for youtubers to have a go at it.

IGN ?, this game is going for the good review method $
The graphics look very good, fantastic, the gameplay is different.
Curious how much a 9.8 cost ?

Heli, i’m not sure if it is a language barrier. I apologize if I may misunderstand you, but if you are implying that we pay for reviews or that we pay for posts or that we intend to, I’m sorry to say that I think you are gravely misinformed about all this. And for the record on a personal level and i’m sure that of the team, I can safely say that we are experienced enough to understand that the “audience review” is our bread and butter and regardless of visuals, gameplay is what “story” is in a film. Something thankfully I believe we also understand very well.

From our side there is still a lot of work to do and very hard work. We have chosen a project that is of greater risk and challenge for us that should we have followed the usual paths would've been far easier, and safer but then it would'nt have been what we want to do or make, and it wouldn't be a passion project. And we all know what would happen to any game that is not, regardless if you like said game type or otherwise.

Thanks again and here's hoping for the best!

[reckon luck]

https://twitter.com/ign/status/1563170443221094400?s=21

Here’s some actual new gameplay footage without the quick-edits of a trailer to soften how un-fun it looks.
Sucks, because I really, really had hopes for this one.

rough timings for 'dead air', where there is nothing for the player to do:
2:10-2:30 (20s)
2:47-3:09 (22s)
3:42-4:03 (21s)
4:18-4:23 (5s)
4:28-4:38 (10s)
4:52-5:08 (26s)

In a ~5m gameplay clip, more than 30% of it lacks substance. This isn't even commenting on the quality of the waves or patterns, but whether there's anything there at all. With all the shmup love in my heart, you guys have gotta fix that. Also please tell me there's an option to turn off the screen shake.

I love a good cinematic shmup (I am a Cambria Sword turbo fanboy). The ground battle going on during the Cygni boss fight is extremely cool, but it needs to be paired with solid gameplay to keep me engaged.

[Nautilus]

https://twitter.com/ign/status/1563170443221094400?s=21

Here’s some actual new gameplay footage without the quick-edits of a trailer to soften how un-fun it looks.
Sucks, because I really, really had hopes for this one.

rough timings for 'dead air', where there is nothing for the player to do:
2:10-2:30 (20s)
2:47-3:09 (22s)
3:42-4:03 (21s)
4:18-4:23 (5s)
4:28-4:38 (10s)
4:52-5:08 (26s)

In a ~5m gameplay clip, more than 30% of it lacks substance. This isn't even commenting on the quality of the waves or patterns, but whether there's anything there at all. With all the shmup love in my heart, you guys have gotta fix that. Also please tell me there's an option to turn off the screen shake.

I love a good cinematic shmup (I am a Cambria Sword turbo fanboy). The ground battle going on during the Cygni boss fight is extremely cool, but it needs to be paired with solid gameplay to keep me engaged.

Hello Reckon Luck, Thanks for pitching in.

Yes, as I mentioned in my previous posts here, the footage shown in that particular area you pointed out and in few other places do not represent the final product, to further clarify this, the air pattern units at the time of that recording were not only not completed, but entirely put on hold until we got other things done, that section in particular was meant to be edited out to avoid confusion, last minute turmoil had the press post the entire clip as is. It's life it happens : ), at least that encouraged me to come and post here when someone pointed it out to me.

Rest assured there will not be any such "dead air", the entire levels are going to be very tightly integrated (Our aim is to have every area action packed). That stage (which is stage01) is roughly 20 miinutes long of gameplay on its own, the footage shown is but around 3 minutes from its beginning section, which so happened to have that unfinished bit with some dead sections in it.

Edit: Just to add, the reason we put the air patterns on hold is not only we had to prioritize other areas but to find and implement better (more interesting and challenging) behavioral patterns for swarm enemy air units, notably given our wide screen approach.

Hope this helps clarify.

[jehu]

you don’t need to have your ship be center of attention or have your ship be a certain presence on screen all the time

That stage (which is stage01) is roughly 20 miinutes long of gameplay on its own

Will be interesting.

[Steven]

20 minutes? Jesus, I thought Tatsujin Ou's ~8 minute-long stages were torturous enough...

[Rastan78]

20 minutes? Jesus, I thought Tatsujin Ou's ~8 minute-long stages were torturous enough...

That's an insanely chunky stage 1 lol. One question there would be how to handle difficulty ramping up. Most shmups will have massively increased the difficulty level at 20 mins in.

You don't want a game where you hang out at stage 1 difficulty so long. That would equal instant no replay value. Then you also don't want the stage 1 boss to be super hard just because the game difficulty has been ramping up for 20 mins.

So introduce mini boss fights at intervals throughout that 20 min stage? Ramp up the difficulty every 4 mins? But in practice doesn't that become sort of multiple stages with seemless transitions?

[jehu]

I'm starting to gather that this is going to be some shmup-adjacent twin-stick campaign experience, where each 'stage' is its own level, and you beat them one at a time at your leisure. Like playing through the levels of the Gears of War campaign or whatever.

Spoiler

Though if you're a real "hardcore score-chaser" (that's supposed to be us), you might try play a few more times to 'beat your friends on the leaderboards.'

With 20 minute stages, an 'Arcade' mode is out of the question. Practically speaking, at the very least. A typical six-stage set would already be a 2-hour slog.

If that inference is correct, though, the game is going to be caught in a tension between being too long for 'our' community or too short for the unwashed masses of the general gaming public. In other words, far too long for an 'Arcade'-style game, but far too short for a single-player 'campaign.'

Am I missing something? Likely yes.

-------

Also, I worry about the Nautilus' defense of the ship size. Look no further than Raiden V to see the visibility issues that arise when panning camera far away from the ship. And the assertion that a player's ship shouldn't be the player's focus is also strange. Macro-dodging only, because the zoomed-out cinematic approach won't work with the practice of having considered, precise micro-dodging player challenges.

I've resigned myself to the idea that his is going to be more in-line with like a 'Housemarque' game than a 'Konami' game. All the references to Gradius, Life Force and whatever else are just the marketing flourishes of a publisher trying to cash in on their legacy. Hey, if it sells...

[reckon luck]

So it's a poor demo, ok, and it doesn't fit the shmupfarm mold. I'm not going to write the game off yet because 20 minute levels and being stupidly epic are what Cambria Sword is all about. I really hope it turns out better than what we've been shown.

[kid aphex]

I've resigned myself to the idea that his is going to be more in-line with like a 'Housemarque' game than a 'Konami' game. All the references to Gradius, Life Force and whatever else are just the marketing flourishes of a publisher trying to cash in on their legacy. Hey, if it sells...

I know what you’re saying … but housemarque games are really dialed in, gameplay-wise.
This is the spiritual successor to (wait for it…): Xyanide.

[heli]

Konami was one of the best.
What does Konami has to do with this ?
Contra: Rogue Corps
suspicious

[Steven]

Yes, Housemarque is great. Everyone should play Super Stardust HD or Ultra because they are really great. So are the PSP and Vita games, for that matter. I love those games and so should you.

Anyway, a 20 minute first stage is... interesting. That one stage is only like 3 minutes shorter than the entirety of Thunder Force III or AC from start to finish. If the pacing and stage design are good, I think it should be fine, but the pacing and stage design have to be good and the music should loop like once at most because it's going to get repetitive quickly. I mentioned Tatsujin Ou's long stages earlier, and even though that game has one of the best soundtracks in basically anything ever, even that game's soundtrack starts to get annoying after a while because those tracks loop like 3 or 4 times per stage.

I mean, if you want to make a 20 minute stage, that's fine and I'm probably going to play it anyway, but the moment you say you have a 20 minute stage I immediately start to think of Tatsujin Ou. As for the difficulty increase of a 20 minute stage... yeah, I don't know how that would work. I don't know, but if you guys have something figured out or something, and not just for the difficulty curve but for everything, then cool, I suppose.

[Nautilus]

Yes, Housemarque is great. Everyone should play Super Stardust HD or Ultra because they are really great. So are the PSP and Vita games, for that matter. I love those games and so should you.

Anyway, a 20 minute first stage is... interesting. That one stage is only like 3 minutes shorter than the entirety of Thunder Force III or AC from start to finish. If the pacing and stage design are good, I think it should be fine, but the pacing and stage design have to be good and the music should loop like once at most because it's going to get repetitive quickly. I mentioned Tatsujin Ou's long stages earlier, and even though that game has one of the best soundtracks in basically anything ever, even that game's soundtrack starts to get annoying after a while because those tracks loop like 3 or 4 times per stage.

I mean, if you want to make a 20 minute stage, that's fine and I'm probably going to play it anyway, but the moment you say you have a 20 minute stage I immediately start to think of Tatsujin Ou. As for the difficulty increase of a 20 minute stage... yeah, I don't know how that would work. I don't know, but if you guys have something figured out or something, and not just for the difficulty curve but for everything, then cool, I suppose.

Hi Steven and to others as well who had a few questions regarding the stages.

Just to note that not all Stages are this long, but generally speaking we don’t plan to have stages that are just 2 or 3 minutes.

With what has been revealed so far. Stage 01 consists of 3 bosses. One mini boss and two large bosses, it also contains at least 6 varieties of unique ground units, and three varieties of unique enemy air units. With the exception of a few, each stage will introduce more unique enemy units that fit the theme of that particular level.

Difficulty level increases per boss section. However since every boss has unique attack behaviour the difficulty becomes more on adapting to that style of engagement. This is on top of the generally difficulty settings.

Steven regarding the music:

We are lucky to have an in-house senior orchestral composer tackling the music for the game. There will be no loops on the music in Cygni during the duration of any stage, In Stage 01 we have roughly 20 minutes of unique one long-take orchestrated soundtrack for that stage (big undertaking in its own right, but we couldn't see it any other way), the music dips during certain moments and elevates during others depending on the area and events while giving the player room to breathe. We balance these carefully throughout. The only subtle loops that may come up would be during final boss fights that can last longer than expected timelines (depending on the player), during these times it's hard to predict the length so we add in long loopable takes at intervals, but these are always orchestrated in a way to make sure they are never intrusive. It's a subject we have spoken about internally and treat it carefully.

Konami was one of the best.
What does Konami has to do with this ?
Contra: Rogue Corps
suspicious

Do I even need to bother here? So far I am beginning to assume you are a very young person with much frustration.
But I'll humour you, I'll be sure to ask them what they are doing with us mere mortals next time I speak to them, its all very suspicious : ).
A little piece of advice, a bit of humility and respect go a long way, especially with those you disagree with, if you say you are a developer then it would be even wiser to come down of that high horse.
But then again it's a free world and i'll leave it at that with you.

All the best,

[heli]

Have you played my link ?
Tell Konami to make Gradius, hire Treasure, they are in it again.
Ofcourse i am frustrated of these drag and drop games.
You keep learning, better skip this whole game.
Glad you did not pay IGN, still suspicious.
At least I am honest with you.

[Bear78]

New trailer and physical per-orders are up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ZEszsWhpw

[beer gas canister]

We are lucky to have an in-house senior orchestral composer tackling the music for the game. There will be no loops on the music in Cygni during the duration of any stage, In Stage 01 we have roughly 20 minutes of unique one long-take orchestrated soundtrack for that stage (big undertaking in its own right, but we couldn't see it any other way), the music dips during certain moments and elevates during others depending on the area and events while giving the player room to breathe. We balance these carefully throughout. The only subtle loops that may come up would be during final boss fights that can last longer than expected timelines (depending on the player), during these times it's hard to predict the length so we add in long loopable takes at intervals, but these are always orchestrated in a way to make sure they are never intrusive. It's a subject we have spoken about internally and treat it carefully.

That's a LOT of compositional effort for a single level, wow!

[Lemnear]

Wow, awesome! This is how every modern SHMUPS should technically be (for today standards)
but ...is that "ship's inertia?"

[Nautilus]

Wow, awesome! This is how every modern SHMUPS should technically be (for today standards)
but ...is that "ship's inertia?"

Thanks, and no there is no inertia on the ship.

Best,

[jehu]

Wow, awesome! This is how every modern SHMUPS should technically be (for today standards)
but ...is that "ship's inertia?"

Thanks, and no there is no inertia on the ship.

Best,

Nice!

Some of the enemy formations look a little more intense in the most recent trailer, too.

Good decisions - onward and upward.

[Lemnear]

Wow, awesome! This is how every modern SHMUPS should technically be (for today standards)
but ...is that "ship's inertia?"

Thanks, and no there is no inertia on the ship.

Best,

Thank you for the clarification.
Hoping that this can push the SHMUPS in a new era!

[dmk1198]

Pre ordered
Cannae wait

[Rastan78]

https://youtu.be/A2mf5x9mHUA

Here's some new footage. I hope all the environments are not as dark as what they're showing. Although everything being highly detailed while very desaturated and grey/brown/dark has sort of been the dominant visual style in "next gen" gaming forever now. Color is not a bad thing IMO.

[dingsbums]

Is it really that difficult for Konami to choose one of their Shoot'em ups out of the gazillion titles they have done in the Genre and make a sequel to the choosen game ?
Xexex 2, Axelay 2, Thunder Cross 3, Gradius 6, Salamander 3, Parodius 5, a new Twin Bee, Poly Stars 2, Space Manbow 2............. anything their fans are waiting for for decades and would actually be excited for.
Instead they are making this soulless, copy & paste, cookie cutter piece of a game ???
Just blows my mind how far can you miss the point and not know what fans of Konami actually would be excited for.

[Rastan78]

Couldn't agree more about Konami dropping the ball on their great classics. Or about the fact that Cygni seems a bit bland and generic in spite of the high fidelity presentation. (Don't want to judge really without the game in hand from small snippets of video). But this seems to be more of a case where a small dev is mainly responsible for the vision of the game and Konami is serving only as the publisher?