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[LosGeekosStudio]

Hey guys, i want to talk about Hawkwing's influences [Part I]


I'm 36, yeah, i'm an old man...
So when i was a child, i used to play on the Amiga 500 and the Atari ST at my uncles homes, because i "only" had an Amstrad CPC 464 at home back in the years.

That's on those two beautiful machines i discovered amazing, true Video Games. I also had a Sega Master System, and later a Nintendo Entertainment System / NES, but that's when i had the Super Nintendo / SNES, that console gaming became as good as those two computers in game experiences. (also played the Sega MegaDrive, but never owned one myself)




Add to this the fact that we had Arcades everywhere back in the time, and some shops to rent or try (not free) any video games on any consoles sold in europe, and you get the picture. it was an amazing time for kids in video games!




When i started the project, i had in mind this whole old school picture, and with a lot of Youtube researches, i discovered a lot more euroshmups i never played nore heard about! So that's where Hawkwing's heart is at, powerful colorful 2D machines that embraced the Shmup's golden age.




In part II, we'll see few of the most influential titles for this game!

As always, thanks for reading,
Greg.

[LosGeekosStudio]

Hello guys, last time i talked about hardware, now let's talk about GAMES: Hawkwing's influences [Part II]!

DISCLAIMER: EVERYTHING SHOWN IS STILL IN DEV PHASE AND COULD BE MODIFIED.

While i have to admit i was not a big shmup player back in the days, i must say it was all about action games, especially 2p coop action games to be able to play with my little brother.

When i started the project, i knew it have to be something that remind me the good old times.




So i started gathering informations on shoot'em ups, especially western shoot'em ups, or euroshmup, because i don't want to make bullet hell, or caravan shooter, as it was not what i was into when i was young.

I would sum Hawkwing as a mixup of Disposable Hero, X-Out, ThunderForce IV, and Macross, but also Darius Gaiden Extra, R-Type LEO, R-Type II, X Multiply, Gate of Thunder, Salamander 2, Wolf Fang, Area 88 shin, Cybattler, Last Resort, Xenon2 and Project-X, are my project influences.







As you can see on those dirty gifs , i didn't go crazy on parallax layers, aka scene depth, nore on the colors number, and i tried to get the *right* color palette, the one that make you feel home, one your old console, computer, or even arcade machine.

Even the intro smell old CAPCOM arcade games, at least to me.


And last but not least, i had to replicate that kind of big boss reminiscent of that genre!
Meet the Cyber-Strugg, Hawkwing's demo real boss!




What do you guys think about all of this? Don't be shy to share any idea!
Thanks to be here, CYA, Greg.

[LosGeekosStudio]

First thing first, Happy New Year 2017! Let's make this year greater than the previous. (not so hard imo)

The work on the game was really slow lately, especially cause i'm daddy, but i managed to finalized few things. One of those, is the poster, or the cover, of the game, so here it is:



Obviously, you can feel the old arcade direction we take with this project. The illustration was done by artist Christophe Sonesaksith, he did a great job capturing the essence of the demo, i really feel it could've been a 16 bit era box illustration!


I personally did a few sketches for the project myself, and i was planning to use these as a cover base before Chris proposed his collaboration.




Far from his incredible work, i admit.



Another good news, is that we have few tracks ready to rocks the game, made by Thomas Casamento from The One Man Army Game Studio. The guy did amazing soundtracks for his two previous games Overdriven Reloaded & Jimmy vs Zombies, and accepted to work on Hawkings OST.
Hawkwings OST is a bit different, as i wanted it to sound like it was made on an old ***Megadrive / Genesis*** hardware, you can listen a sample (still WIP) here:



All in all, the project start to have a real identity! What do you think about all of this?

Cheers, Greg.

[LosGeekosStudio]

Apologize to not post sooner, but the last steps to release the demo take sooo much time.



So what did i do last days? First i created the Hawkwing page on Itch.io !





Then, i made a cover for Hawkwing's soundtracks! You can listen it on the soundcloud of its creator, Thomas Casamento (click on the image below):





Next, the Headquarter captain portrait i made previously was a cameo of Captain Gloval from Robotech, as BentMyWookie mentionned, making such homage will be ok as long as i give credits to owners (that's what i do in the credits), and as long as the game stay in its free form. As i really don't know if the Demo will eventually become a full game, i prefered simply to redo it. So here come the sketch for him and the final ingame result:







Finally, i added a last part in the stage, new enemy, a new "Throw weapon" mechanic, then updated the Los Geekos Studio site with new screenshot from the actual build (0.9.x), added a new "How to Play" state to the game, reworked the boss intro shader, the credits, added an empty "spectate"/demo mode, added/removed choose your language screen, made few new sprites for FX, made an exe game icon, etc.

The good news is that the game demo **should** be released BEFORE february! So be prepared to save the galaxy! See you!

[iosomewhere]

Hey there,

Love your WIP man,really glad to see there are fellow souls out there doing still games like this !
Keep up the good work,share some gameplay gifs if possible ! Love to see more !

Cheers

[eyeliner]

Fantastic work!

[Xonatron]

This looks great! I love this retro graphics style and retro shmup style combined!

[Fat Pug Studio]

When are we getting the demo 

[LosGeekosStudio]

When are we getting the demo 

NOW!!! 

Grab the free demo (pay what you want) on the Los Geekos Studio site, Itch.io or GameJolt:

Have fun and tell me what you think about the demo!

[Xonatron]

Just played it. I will post the video soon. (Looks like it will take some time to upload.)

[LosGeekosStudio]

Just played it. I will post the video soon. (Looks like it will take some time to upload.)

Ok! Can't wait to see it! Do you like the demo btw? 

[Xonatron]

I did! I am a huge shmup fan, and love the retro feel of your game. I am a competitive player so I was using your rapid fire ability, but over time wished it was taken care of for me with autofire. You'll see how well I did soon!

[LosGeekosStudio]

Glad you have fun!

The retro feel was/is really one of my main concern for this game.

And i'm curious to how far will scorers push hiscore! 

[Xonatron]

Your presentation is great. I love the graphics, visuals, sounds, and music... all of it. Have you thought about putting rapid fire (or making the default auto-fire faster)?

[LosGeekosStudio]

Auto fire speed have tight relationship with each weapon "damage per second". so i can't really put a rapid fire mode without breaking the weaponry balance...

That said, you can easily manually fire faster than autofire with lot of weapons, you'll get a damage boost, but at the cost of your own energy. 

[Xonatron]

Here is my gameplay:

[Fat Pug Studio]

Well, i watched the whole gameplay video (still don't have time to play it, i will do so on weekend), and there's one thing that bother me. I really think that enemies that begin appearing around minute 4 deserve bigger explosions, or at least few smaller ones.

[Xonatron]

LosGeekosStudio,

I really want the rapid fire to be automated, as I can fire quite quickly (as seen in the gameplay video above) but your bosses last so long as to make it unsatisfactory. If they were to die in the speed that it takes to kill a boss in Super-C, while using your personal rapid fire, then this would be ok as it does not exhaust you.

So, I would avoid exhausting your top elite players!

[Xonatron]

My last post reminds me of a philosophy we developed at Xona Games, which is to cater to the top players of the world. Never make your game start to work against someone who is an elite player. Most developers cannot conceive of such a mechanic and believe not such mechanic exists. However, you just created one! And there are lots! They are hidden issues, as they only manifest with top playing abilities in specific circumstances (such as rapid firing a boss to exhaustion).

But... this may go against your own philosophy of retro gaming. So...!

[LosGeekosStudio]

Thanks for your feedback, i really appreciate!

Honestly, automated rapid fire will break the game as i imagine it should be. maybe my own philosophy of retro gaming, as you said, but every game that truly inspired Hawkwing are so old they do not have such options/game mechanics.

That said, i'm really amazed by your 1st try video, as you finished the level and scored 1st (even on easy mode) so easily. plus you got a real mashing button fire power!

Give the demo some other tries to master the scoring mechanics and bring me your max score! i can't wait to see how far you'll do!  

PS: What happened to your video sound?!?

@Fat Pug Studio: that's true, i could match the explosion size with that kind of enemies. Thanks to spot that one!