AuthorTopic: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo  (Read 9498 times)

Offline junkboy

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Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

on: February 01, 2007, 06:15:07 pm
Here's a game that me and two other fellows (Surasshu and fsFreak) have been working on as an entry to Autofire 2007, a game making competition hosted over at shmup-dev.com.




We released the demo last night so if you've got the time, feel free to download it right here (11 mb).

Feedback is, as always, much appreciated!


Credits go as follows
Code: fsFreak
Music: Surasshu
Graphics: junkboy

Offline 9_6

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #1 on: February 01, 2007, 07:17:51 pm
Holy shit this is hot!
You did a great job on the graphics, the gameplay is smooth and the music fits perfectly.
Great job!
Does scaling an image blur it?
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Offline snake

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #2 on: February 01, 2007, 08:09:48 pm
Excellent work. It all works and the retro tunes really give it that little extra.

Hard as hell though. If it wasn't for the unlimited lives I'd be done for before I reach the shore. (woodchuck...) Only thing I feel it lacks are hyper upgradable weapons OF ULTIMATE POWER!11! You really didn't get much of an advantage or change of tactics with the little missile. It took a while to get it as well. Didn't hurt the gameplay though. I'm going to do a second run with the 2 player mode.

Great job so far.

Offline Helm

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #3 on: February 01, 2007, 08:43:46 pm
Hello. Good job so far. I have the following critique:

The aesthetics are extremely derivative. Of course I can't blame you for emulating your favourite games, but it's a bit too much for me when I see something that wants to be Progear and a host of general capcom and cave games so badly, artistically. Down to the busty females for pilots, I just don't see the point of you know, that sort of artistic incest. The concept could stand to be a lot different, the art direction not as tired as that, the sources of inspiration not that clear (In the Hunt, Metal Slug, Progear) and generally, more YOU than '90's coin op'.

Art-wise that's my biggest concern. It's too late to change now, I know, but I just had to say it.

Code-wise:


When stuff blows up on the air, the explosion still carrying horisontal velocity is okay, but not on the ground, it seems as if the explosion is travelling.

Bullet patterns are aimed streams and some very basic carpets, we've seen all that before a million times since 1985 to 1995. Now for most non-shooter fans, that'd be fine. For people that actively play and call themselves fans of shmups, that sort of barrage simply is boring and one-trick. I suggest you break out the stops and put creative, colorful and challenging patterns on-screen. Perhaps on next levels.

I see no point at attacks from the rear in these games, and not many good ones have them in. Take a cue from them.

Fast bullets. This is a bit of a matter of preference, and only ground units use them which can be dispatched easily, and they're not aimed at you, but still, fast bullets for me, spoil a shooter mostly. Just a thought.

The ship doesn't control quite cleanly. Does it move one pixel at a time? If not, it should, and it should be as responsive as possible. There's also some flicker and stuff going on, is the engine suffering from too much on screen? That would be needing of sorting. It just doesn't feel smooth enough at the moment.

The sideweapon is not very useful at this time.

Music-wise:

I find that old-style amiga dance beat type of music very boring, and not fitting to this game. Also, sound-effects I guess are placeholders? You're missing a lot that will make the action very much more happening.

Congrats on having something in your hands that's better than most amateurs do in terms of presentation. But the gameplay needs a lot, still.

Offline Soup

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #4 on: February 01, 2007, 08:57:53 pm
It looks quite a bit like Metal Slug.
But very nicely done otherwise.

Offline pkmays

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #5 on: February 01, 2007, 10:37:18 pm
Game looks fine, but the game play is way too sluggish. Takes a full 4 1/2 seconds to move from the top of the screen to the bottom. Urg. This has all the makings of a great twitch shooter, except for the twitch part. The ships basically need to be fast enough to dodge normal bullets at point blank range. Funnest thing about shooters is pulling off that hairy escape only to find yourself in another mess. Ships need to be at least 2X faster, if not 2 1/2 or 3X faster.

There's also some balance issues. The flamethrower enemies bottleneck your ship very early in engagement, and the speed of some of the enemy bullets are too fast considering the player's lack of speed. Bullets also seem a pixel or two too large in general compaired to most shooters.

Ground enemies are mostly just a chore, due to the slow vertical movement.

The first ships secondary weapon is very useful, whereas the second ship's is borderline useless. At the very least it should pack a bigger punch.

Again, it looks great, but right now it's challenging in a frustrating way, not challenging in a fun way.

Offline MoD

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #6 on: February 01, 2007, 11:18:51 pm
There's a bug in the control setup. Attempts to change the start button change the fire2 one instead.

The graphics are beautiful (some of the enemies I thought were very Zero Wing-esque) and the gameplay is fun, but I need to echo pkmay's comment that she ship is too slow. There's nothing more likely to make a player stop playing the game than deaths he couldn't have prevented. If the ship's not fast enough to dodge all but one in a few hundred barrages of bullets with perfect skill it's just too slow.

EDIT: Oh, the other ship (pilot on the left) is a lot better about speed. You might want to tell the player the different stats for each ship before they choose, though, so they don't get stuck with a combination they aren't good at. Also, I'd like the customizable controls to be global so I don't have to switch control sets between gameplay and the menu. Great job with this all around; the player is really immersed in i with the faster ship (slower one just annoyed me); when I got to the boss and saw the word 'Warning!' I was thinking, "Oh... sh*t."
« Last Edit: February 01, 2007, 11:27:58 pm by MoD »

Offline shaheen

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #7 on: February 02, 2007, 03:09:32 am
I agree about the speed issues. I'm not super great at shmups, but I do play them pretty often. In this demo, I always see bullets coming and see what hole I want to escape through, but the ship is too slow to actually make it. In the end, it feels like the only way I can make it through those holes is to fully memorize the bullet patterns and to move way ahead of time which I think should only be a minuscule part of the shmup experience. I think it might be a wise decision to go with a speed option, or the recent trend of high speed along with a "slowdown" button for weaving through those extra tight spaces.

Great graphics, however I can't help but agree with Helm about them being a bit too similar to other games' graphics.

Offline junkboy

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #8 on: February 02, 2007, 12:47:48 pm
9_6: Thanks! Are you the same 9_6 from shmup-dev.com?

snake
: Thank you! Yes, indeed, the game is hard as hell. :D We're implementing a new side-arm system, with bigger and more powerful missiles/bombs, and smartbombs as well. So hopefully that'll take the difficulty down a notch or two.

The concept could stand to be a lot different, the art direction not as tired as that, the sources of inspiration not that clear (In the Hunt, Metal Slug, Progear) and generally, more YOU than '90's coin op'.

But that begs the question: What IS me? ;) I practically grew up in the small crampy arcade sections of shopping malls, video stores and billiard halls, so the 90's coin-op aesthetic is something that lies very close to me. Not trying to defend me playing "monkey see monkey do", but still, the point of making it like this would be to give the player a positive gaming experience by feeding into a his nostalgia. I'm wired like that myself, so it felt natural to approach it this way.

I certainly appreciate your point of view on this though, however I can't help to feel that it's part of a more general frustration about pixel-artists sort of lingering around whatever Capcom did back in '96, without ever pushing forward?

Anyway, thank you, you raised some valid concerns about the gameplay that'll be taken into account.


Soup: Thanks.

pkmays: Thank you. We were pretty happy about the speed settings, but since that's being brought up quite a lot I guess we'll have to play around with it some more. :) Personally I'm doing fine with both ships, but then again I know the stage inside out by now.

MoD: Thank you. That bug has been taken care of now. Did you manage to beat the boss? :D

Khris
: Thanks. I don't think we'll be adding any more buttons, but speed issues will be looked at.

Offline 9_6

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Re: Force Majeure - Indie shmup demo

Reply #9 on: February 02, 2007, 01:22:57 pm
9_6: Thanks! Are you the same 9_6 from shmup-dev.com?

Yeah that sucker over there is me... or let's say one of my personalities. :)

I have noticed another thing. The altfire button is pretty much useless.
I just keep it pressed along with the primary fire button.
Get rid of it, letting the secondary weapon shoot with the primary weapon button or let secondary weapons have limited ammunition.
Does scaling an image blur it?
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