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[Stargoat]

Balancing has been pretty hard (and probably needs further work? The second boss, especially, is too difficult for where it would 'appear' in the final version).

I think the main culprit is the low gameplay resolution - your ship's weak point is huge compared to other shmups, and to the things that will hurt you in the game, so skin of your teeth dodging is pretty difficult to pull off. If you see a lot of bullets coming your way, maybe it's best to avoid them altogether rather than slip between them, even if that means less hits on an enemy. You might still be able to recover with the energy shot, as it'll destroy most enemies that have taken even only a few hits.

But, as you said, the game is a lot easier when you have the enemy pattern down, and can take them out before they fill the screen up with too much bad stuff.

Remember also that you have the bullet-soaking bomb (mapped to c), so if you know of difficult areas before they occur, you might be able to budget energy to have enough for a bomb. It'll increase your score multiplier, too.

[drChengele]

Speaking as someone who plays bullet hell shooters on occasion, I had no problems with dodging, in fact I felt pretty much in control for the most of the game. When ever I failed to dodge through bullet waves it felt like it was my own fault, whether for not timing the dodge more carefully or for letting the enemies occupy too much of the screen.

[jice]

Totally amazing !! Can't wait to see more levels. The ship animations are unbelievable.
Do you intend to port it to Linux ?

[Stargoat]

thanks

While it is portable, I don't own a linux machine, so to answer your question, it's maybe possibly a might be a tentative perhaps.

[jamey]

I saw a video posted of this a long time ago, and I simply can't begin to describe how ecstatic I am that you are actively working on this and that there's a demo! I love the ASCII aesthetic so much. Cool to see you're working in libtcod, too, since I'm pushing out my first game on it right now using Python (http://bit.ly/ovcl9c for the thread if you're interested). What language are you using?

[Stargoat]

Hey, libtcod's awesome, good to see more love for it .

This is programmed in C.

Just checked out your game, netpac. I love it! Totally unexpected mashup :D

[jamey]

Gnarly! I want to learn C next. What's it like programming without classes?

[Stargoat]

I dunno, pretty regular. C was the first language I learned, so it feels natural.

In other news, I'm working on a linux port. It compiles and runs without crashing, so that's exciting. A few bugs to crush here and there before a public release, but if anyone's interested in testing, drop me a PM.

[eigenbom]

I'm really digging this! I'm using libtcod for my current project, and I've added animated .gif export to the ascii-paint editor also written in libtcod, thread here. Did you hard code your animations, or did you write your own editor?

[Stargoat]

Hard-coded because I'm a badass/moron, haha.

But man, I wish I used an editor, those animations are awesome, I love them!

[eigenbom]

Hard-coded because I'm a badass/moron, haha.

But man, I wish I used an editor, those animations are awesome, I love it!

Yeh hardcoding is hardcore dude ! If you ever do a sequel, you should use my ascii-paint fork, you can visualise in .gif, then save in .asc, which is trivial to parse ( see e.g., http://hg.bp.io/ascii-paint/file/9ec7d980b34f/txt2asc/asc_file.cpp ).

B

[Stargoat]

Minor update, fixing a couple of bugs, adding a couple of features (including,hopefully, better gamepad support).

Hopefully there should be some music for the game soon.

Grab the latest version http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8626299/ChaosStream.zip here!

[snauts]

Looks fantastic!

edit: Plays fantastic too!

[Stargoat]

UPDATE [22 JUNE 2012]: Probably what is the final release of the game, the somewhat unfinished

CHAOS STREAM

See original post for details.

[Sobe]

First of all: Awesome game! I really like it very much, good job!

Then, I wanted to notify you that I discovered it thanks to a french magazine: "IG Magazine" http://www.ig-magazine.com/fr, in an article listing "30 indie games refused for IGF 2012 (but essential)".

For your game, it said (sorry for poor/inaccurate translation):

Fashion for Excel ASCII animations gave birth to an indie hybrid: Chaos Stream. Packaged with a bouncy chiptune OST, this vertical scrolling shmup recycles the mythic characters set to draw explosions, background elements and ennemy ships. Blasts made out of stars, parenthesis for spaceships wings... ideas abound.