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[ruudk]

Big update! I edited the opening post to reflect this, please check it out.

In short:
New beta release, level 1 and 2 are now available, lots of additions and fixes. Please give it a whirl and let me know what you think!
You can download it here: bithuffel.nl/zenzizenzic.

[ruudk]

Zenzizenzic was nominated for the Indie Dev Grant! If it were to win, an awesome bit of financial support would be given to further develop the game by the lovely folks over at Bundle In A Box.

It has to go through a voting process, and you can help out in that, which would be hugely appreciated! While you're at it you'll also get some cool indie games which people worked hard on to develop and support those devs as well.

Head on over to Bundle In A Box, grab the bundle for 2$ (or more if you'd want) for 5 cool games, and after activating it you can vote for Zenzizenzic to help it win the Indie Dev Grant! There's not a lot of voting going on, so every vote weighs a lot and Zenzi's got a good chance at winning! It's not a matter of hundreds of votes, but just a dozen or so to take the lead.

So if you'd like to grab a couple of cool games and help Zenzizenzic out while you're at it, I would be so grateful!

Thank you for your time!

[Ancient Account]

This looks good.
And I used to play shumps back in the day.
I'll give it a try.

[ruudk]

This looks good.
And I used to play shumps back in the day.
I'll give it a try.

Thanks! Let me know what you think and what you think could be better.

[Ancient Account]

This looks good.
And I used to play shumps back in the day.
I'll give it a try.

Thanks! Let me know what you think and what you think could be better.

The game was fun.
It became laggy in some places, but that's because my computer isn't that good either.

Nice and clean visual style,and the controls are ok too!

A Suggestions: maybe add a single note every time an enemy dies? An procedural/interactive medoly maybe:)

And yes this. Both the complement and suggestion.

[ruudk]

The game was fun.
It became laggy in some places, but that's because my computer isn't that good either.

Nice and clean visual style,and the controls are ok too!

A Suggestions: maybe add a single note every time an enemy dies? An procedural/interactive medoly maybe:)

And yes this. Both the complement and suggestion.

Cool, thanks! I'm going to mess around a bit more with pitch shifting enemy death sfx, see what happens.

Would you mind me asking what your pc specs are? The game is weighted towards cpu usage.

[Ancient Account]

Would you mind me asking what your pc specs are? The game is weighted towards cpu usage.

I was gonna add it, but I completely forgot.

OS: Win7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20Ghz (4 CPU's), ~2.2GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphics Card: Intel HD 3000 (VRAM: 64 MB)

I don't know if I need to post any more information. I thought info about my Processor would be enough since you say it's more CPU intensive.

[ruudk]

Would you mind me asking what your pc specs are? The game is weighted towards cpu usage.

I was gonna add it, but I completely forgot.

OS: Win7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20Ghz (4 CPU's), ~2.2GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphics Card: Intel HD 3000 (VRAM: 64 MB)

I don't know if I need to post any more information. I thought info about my Processor would be enough since you say it's more CPU intensive.

Nah, that's good. Thanks again!

[Ancient Account]

Would you mind me asking what your pc specs are? The game is weighted towards cpu usage.

I was gonna add it, but I completely forgot.

OS: Win7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20Ghz (4 CPU's), ~2.2GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphics Card: Intel HD 3000 (VRAM: 64 MB)

I don't know if I need to post any more information. I thought info about my Processor would be enough since you say it's more CPU intensive.

Nah, that's good. Thanks again!

You're welcome!

[ruudk]

A fresh beta update is available on bitHuffel.nl. Go give it a whirl, and let me know what you think (and if something breaks)! Also, some fine cover art, 'cause why not!

[ruudk]

Stand-alone website for Zenzizenzic is up! Go pay it a visit over at ZenzizenzicGame.com, while you're at it, you can grab yourself a free beta.

Also, here's a fresh screen of an enemy you might encounter in level 5!

[ruudk]

The Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight campaigns for Zenzizenzic are as of now live!

You'll find lots of cool stuff there, like a new trailer, beta download, exciting plans, awesome rewards and tiers and if you're quick at it you'll be able to grab the early access reward!

So check it out and if you like what you see, every bit of support would be hugely appreciated. If you have feedback, I would especially love to hear it.

Here's a bit of info about the game:

Zenzizenzic is a high paced, adrenaline infused, abstract, challenging and addictive twin stick shoot 'em up bullet hell game for Windows, Mac and Linux! It features a beautiful, cohesive and abstract art style combined with thrilling, addictive one and two player gameplay along with a soundtrack that is sure to get the adrenaline pumping!

Zenzizenzic gives the player a compelling and challenging experience that strongly motivates the feeling of "let's try one more time!". Expect five well balanced, thought out and uniquely varied levels which can be conquered with an exotic selection of weaponry, ranging from screen filling lasers to black holes and time manipulating jumps.

Zenzizenzic takes a well established genre of games and aims to lift it up to the next level through highly responsive controls, modern gameplay mechanics, a unique art style and a blasting beat. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel of bullet hell and twin stick shoot 'em up games, it rather tries to make it the fastest, tightest and most agile of all.

The game is aimed at the players who seek a challenge. The progressive nature of the levels with each offering a new mechanic to overcome, the dynamically increasing difficulty as new enemies are introduced when the player performs well in the game and the rich and layered weapons offer the players a high skill ceiling, giving them the chance and means to test their skills to the fullest!

Zenzizenzic is scheduled for release for late July 2014 at a price point of €5.99 on digital distribution channels. It will be available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Grab it over at the Kickstarter which is currently running for 1€ off at the €5 pledge (or higher)!

And a couple of screens:

Thank you kindly for your time,
Ruud Koorevaar
Developer of Zenzizenzic

[ruudk]

Sharing a quick update!

To start it off, the first 50 backer exclusive full beta access rewards (how's that for adjectives) on Kickstarter were handed out in just a few days! We can't have that, so I threw my hands up in the air, said "screw it!", went over to edit the Kickstarter page and changed the 50 to 80. You lovely folks who decide to back Zenzizenzic deserve nothing less!

So all in all, the past couple of days have been good! Here are few snippets of some awesome articles that popped up this week:

"Zenzizenzic can be favorably compared to Geometry Wars, with it’s excellent, minimal art style, high difficulty and precise gameplay. Highly recommend, it’s so damn pretty!" - Alpha Beta Gamer

"Can the world handle it? No. Absolutely not. It’s crazy. If you like crazy, however, you should check it out." - Cliqist

It seems like "crazy" is a fairly common word to describe the game, as Kotaku also states in a short:

"Announcing a new contender in the category of games with names that are difficult to pronounce, Zenzizenzic is a old-school bullet-hell style shmup that looks about as crazy as a game with that name should." - Kotaku

Crazy it is I guess! As Kaiochi in the comments at the Kotaku article says in the response to the image below:

"what the fuuuuuck is goooing onnnnn?"


Well, you know, it's just bullets and stuff and dodging enemies and things, right?

Also, last night Bestio (Twitter) streamed a bit of Zenzizenzic on his

channel. If you want to see some more bits of gameplay, go check it out! And if anyone wants to stream the game, give me a shout (Twitter), I'll be sure to hang out in the chat and answer any and all questions.

Thanks for the support again!

Cheers, Ruud

[ruudk]

The first week is over! Happy to share that we reached 50%, passing the €1000 euro mark on the Kickstarter. There is still a ways to go, but I'd say we are on the right track!

Promotion on the game could still use a boost, so I started this initiative on the Steam Greenlight page to look for YouTubers / Twitch streamers who would be interested in playing and showing the game. Those who do will receive full beta access, and those who recommend channels will have a chance on receiving access as well. Please check it out, and if you got something to add, let me know!

Also, winners of the Steam Greenlight contest have been contacted by friends request on Steam!

Feedback on the game has been great overall. So thank you to everyone who contributed. Most notable of what I picked up and look to improve is the menu interface and 'juiciness' of in-game feedback. The menu could be a bit less clustered with stuff, so streamlining it would be a good idea. The feedback such as hitting enemies with bullets or getting hit yourself needs to be more impactful. I also want to more strongly enforce feedback on aspects such as when the player has no energy or when a boss enters the fray. A general larger amount of oomph-ness (that's a thing) will make the game feel more richer and solid and is definitely something to strive for.

So, on to week 2! Let's make it a good one!

Cheers, Ruud

[ruudk]

Every Thursday during the Kickstarter campaign I will share a gameplay video of a level (level 1 up to 4, level 5 will remain hidden!) and share some of the things you may encounter in that level.

This week level 2, where things get a little bit more heated as enemies actively work on making survival quite the challenge! Do note that if you do not want to get spoiled on the gameplay, then do not watch the video.

Check it out over here!



Level 2 was the level where it all started with! The enemies you see in this level are actually the enemies with which I learned a lot of basic coding bits and bobs with, such as target following and movement patterns. A lot of time was invested in this stage of development to finds ways to create interesting and effective patterns and it was probably also the most important stage.

This level was actually scrapped completely at one point and rebuilt from the ground up. While building the other levels I kept on learning about ways to make the gameplay more and more exciting. Naturally, this old level started to fall behind the others and the best way to bring it up to par was to completely redo it. A tough decision, since it feels like a step backwards, but in the end most definitely worth it!

That decision of scrapping and rebuilding was in general an important method of working during the development of Zenzizenzic. When you're quickly learning new things and you want the quality of the project to be at a stable level, it is damaging to the project in the long run if there are still, for example, old and archaic snippets of code in there. Starting from a clean slate may feel like "Oh shit, what the hell am I doing, this is going to take forever?!", but again, in the long run it will be worth it.

Also, we reached the €1300 mark on the Kickstarter! Getting closer!

[ruudk]

For a strong push to reach €2000 on the Zenzizenzic Kickstarter I have raised the immediate full beta access reward to the first 130 backers (previously 80) for all €12 and higher pledges!

As we are now on 109 backers, there are 21 more chances left to get the immediate beta reward.

Come on over and check the Zenzizenzic Kickstarter out, give the trailer the spin!



Enjoy!
~ Ruud

[ruudk]

Week 3 is past and we're steadily heading towards that €2000 goal on the Zenzizenzic Kickstarter!

Week 1 got us to 50% (amazing!), week 2 to 70% and week 3 almost to 90%. I'm quite happy that we were able to carry over the progress from week 2 to week 3 and I'm sure we will be able to get a good run this final week!



As usual, expect a gameplay video this Thursday, covering some of the intricacies of level 4, and possibly some cool and exciting updates in between then and now and after.

And don't forget about the Steam Greenlight campaign! If we could get Zenzizenzic on Steam it would mean the world.

So again, thank you for the support and if you might know someone who would enjoy Zenzizenzic, spreading the word really does help a lot. Let's try to get to €2000 this week!

Cheers,
Ruud

[ruudk]

Zenzizenzic got funded on Kickstarter! It is done! We made it! But there are still a couple of days left on the clock with a bunch of stretch goals left to reach, so we ain't done just yet!



Also, you can now support the Kickstarter by PayPal! All the proceeds will go towards funding the stretch goals of the Kickstarter. For more info, please head on over to: zenzizenzicgame.com.

Remember that Zenzizenzic is also on Greenlight, and the support there would be hugely appreciated. It just takes a vote, nothing more, easy like that!

And finally, a new gameplay video for level 4 is up! If you'd like to see a bit about what Zenzizenzic's level 4 is about, you can check that over here:

.

Thank you for the support!
- Ruud, developer of Zenzizenzic

[ruudk]

Week 4 is gone and over on the Kickstarter, but a good week it was!

We got over 100% funded and we are sitting at a comfortable 135% now, including PayPal proceeds. That puts us past the first stretch goal (Gauntlet mode) and well on the way to the second (new weapon)!

If you aren’t familiar with the principle, the Gauntlet mode is about going through all the levels in a single go, with a single set of lives. Very challenging, but a lot of fun. It will require adjusting a couple of the systems in the game, such as gaining back a life for 500.000 points as that could make things a bit trivial, but I’ll make it a challenge true for any Gauntlet mode!

Just a bit to go now until the Kickstarter is over, 40 hours to be exact. Let’s hope for a good sprint the last bit.



Also, be sure to check Zenzizenzic out on Steam Greenlight and, if possible, drop a vote there, add it to your favorites, leave a comment, anything. Getting the game on Steam would be so damn amazing!

Again, thank you all so much for the support!

Cheers,
Ruud

[ruudk]

We did it! The Zenzizenzic Kickstarter is a success! With a final tally of €2763 (including PayPal) of the €2000 goal we quite healthily overshot it, and even grabbing a stretch goal while we were at it!

​So I want thank you all greatly for the support and giving me the chance to do this.



The Kickstarter success not only means a success in funding, but it also raises the profile of the game by a lot. This means it will get a lot more attention, and with that new opportunities may arise. So we can fairly safely say that the future of Zenzizenzic is looking bright!

Unfortunately the dream of reaching the €10.000 stretch goal for the standalone expansion Zenzizenzic: Macro was not realized. It was worth the attempt though and I would be a fool to completely drop it. I mentioned in the Kickstarter FAQ that if the stretch goal was not reached that I would not develop Macro. This is mainly because I can't give you any promises on it. However, in reality it is not as hard-lined as that. Even though I can't say when or even if it will be released, I will still work on Macro when I have the chance since I believe in the concept. And those who have pledged for it will be kept in the loop, I won't forget about you!

All the backers have been contacted. And please stay tuned to the story of Zenzizenzic and where it may lead us! Follow me on Twitter or like Zenzizenzic on Facebook to stay in the loop!

Thank you all so much!

Ruud