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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsStellar Fury - A Classic Shoot 'Em Up
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Author Topic: Stellar Fury - A Classic Shoot 'Em Up  (Read 6761 times)
mz-one
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« Reply #20 on: March 17, 2021, 12:35:59 PM »

Looks great! The risk-encouraging ships sound like a cool idea. Keep it up!
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« Reply #21 on: March 18, 2021, 02:13:35 AM »

Hm. Don't wanna rain on your parade. If you're happy about this, have fun.

But I miss the simplicity of shooting stuff. I want to blast away some aliens, I don't want to get close to bullets to load up some meter which I'm going to need against a later enemy.

Two kinds of main weapons, suitable for different situations, both unlimited and selectable at any time - I'm fine with that. Just please don't make it complicated.
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bkeegan
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« Reply #22 on: March 18, 2021, 07:30:02 AM »

Hm. Don't wanna rain on your parade. If you're happy about this, have fun.

But I miss the simplicity of shooting stuff. I want to blast away some aliens, I don't want to get close to bullets to load up some meter which I'm going to need against a later enemy.

Two kinds of main weapons, suitable for different situations, both unlimited and selectable at any time - I'm fine with that. Just please don't make it complicated.


I appreciate the sentiment. I'm actually designing a variety of ships, each with a unique playstyle with varying levels of difficulty and nuance. My last post shows more of the risk-taking designs to date, but what isn't shown is other ships that are a little less nuanced.

In this type of design, balance is a concern but honestly I am not prioritizing absolute balance. It's a single player game and fun is the primary priority. Obviously, I don't want to introduce something that is too overpowered where it becomes the obvious dominant strategy but if a particular ship or weapon dominates a particular level or boss, well I'd consider this actually ideal as it gives the player the opportunity to discover it.

So the simple and nuanced ship might be good in all situations and for players looking for that experience, it's there. But there is reward for discovering more nuanced situations.

You have to think about damage levels. Is the damage level of a given ship more or less static? In this case the experience might become more or less static. I'm trying to give the player designs that give them opportunities to increase their overall damage output, but this obviously has to come with drawbacks and risk-taking is one of them.






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Schrompf
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« Reply #23 on: March 19, 2021, 04:26:48 AM »

This looks like a sensible approach.
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« Reply #24 on: March 20, 2021, 07:30:15 AM »

Look awesome!

I did not played any shoot'em up since Ikaruga and Irukandji back in college so I'm not familiar with the genre anymore, but I like your approach.

Will it be available on mac?
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« Reply #25 on: March 25, 2021, 09:01:21 AM »

Look awesome!

I did not played any shoot'em up since Ikaruga and Irukandji back in college so I'm not familiar with the genre anymore, but I like your approach.

Will it be available on mac?

Hello - i've been developing on an PC and it's pretty early in development so I haven't spent much time testing on other platforms,  but it's developed in Unity so I don't imagine it would be an issue. Definitely something I'd be interested supporting for sure.
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« Reply #26 on: March 28, 2021, 01:30:21 PM »

Been working on a number of things since my last update. Mostly fine tuning and tightening up the gameplay
Spent a fair bit of time working on the clouds for level one, the current implementation felt too cheap and sloppy (because it was). Clouds still aren't perfect, but an improvement over the previous version. Clouds were deceptively difficult.



Cloud pattern:


Also shown in the gif, I narrowed the field of play - which feels a bit restrictive but many shmups do this and there is good reason for it. I found that panning back and forth too far felt sluggish and unfun, having a narrower field of play keeps the action feeling tight and hectic. Also, keeping it like this will make it easier to do screen orientation (i.e. TATE). Many shmup players play vertical shmups with a screen oriented at a 90 degree angle.

Also adding the score popup. I still need to flesh out the scoring system quite a bit, what is there is currently pretty static (i.e. just a point value per kill)

Another thing that I worked on was implementing options for the ship and some additional firemodes. Looking at the first player ship - the Tempest, I had it where you press the key for a simple bolt fire (fires a burst of bolts to avoid too much mashing). Holding the fire key activated the beam which deals more focused DPS at the cost of speed. I also had a speed toggle implemented which will slow the move speed while held down (to be used for micro dodging). Thought it was a waste to have it just do that - so this key also trains the options fire for more focused DPS.




The idea is to give the player the most options available to alter their DPS as needed, this creates a dynamic play experience where players make strategic decisions as opposed to just blindly holding down the fire key.


Also worked on the background art for the sea and ground. The original intention was to make this take place at night - felt like that didn't really come across - new version I think does a better job at this:


Also worked on implementing elite enemy versions to add a little more variety in the enemies. Also many of the enemy designs in level 1 have gone thru another iteration. I felt like it was important that popcorn enemies to not remain on the screen too long. I originally had them stick around and it made the flow of the game feel sluggish. Having them come in and remain for a relatively short period of time I think improves the overall game flow - also prevents the screen from getting too messy and cluttered with smaller enemies that haven't been dealt with.
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« Reply #27 on: April 13, 2021, 01:21:36 PM »

Looking good, I also had a lot of fun with this genre when I was younger, and would appreciate a 'modern' incarnation of that! I like the fact you seem to be including lots of options for the player and allowing for different playstyles.
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« Reply #28 on: April 13, 2021, 11:30:31 PM »

Nice, the firemodes' look and mechanics seem great. From the gif I take that it must feel satisfying to master using them. Good job!
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bkeegan
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« Reply #29 on: May 22, 2021, 01:36:30 PM »

Been steadily working away at content for another level. Here's a video of some gameplay set on a Mars inspired planet with a brand new mid-boss fight




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Schrompf
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« Reply #30 on: May 24, 2021, 10:20:46 PM »

Nice work, I like it! The flickering on the background ground, though... is this a video compression thingy or is the background really that flashy all the time?
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« Reply #31 on: May 25, 2021, 06:45:15 AM »

Nice work, I like it! The flickering on the background ground, though... is this a video compression thingy or is the background really that flashy all the time?

Thanks! there's a dust effect that I am not in love with and will likely redo or get rid of - video compression exacerbates it and makes it look more flashy than it is.
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« Reply #32 on: June 22, 2021, 12:25:40 PM »

Been working on a number of things - mostly content and new enemies.
Worked on some more enemies for my mars inspired level


Also updated the dust effects based on feedback I got here and other places that it wasn't working


Got a little tired of working on the same style enemies - so I started working on a different concept - but of a distraction but I needed to break up the routine





Lately have been revising old content - generally upping the dosage across the board






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bkeegan
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« Reply #33 on: June 24, 2021, 12:57:29 PM »

Latest gameplay vid - I do get hit a few times. made myself invulnerable so I could focus on getting the video and not clearing it in a strict sense


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« Reply #34 on: June 26, 2021, 01:57:10 PM »

New enemy finished development today. This is #62. Thinking I'd like to see if I can get over 100 enemies in the game
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« Reply #35 on: June 30, 2021, 06:45:54 AM »

Working on a new boss - decided no shmup would be complete without an enemy that attacks you with its engines.
This drove me finally implementing a melee weapon class. I probably could have done something with my projectile weapon class but this felt more appropriate. Has hitboxes that change over the lifetime of the event


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Schrompf
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« Reply #36 on: July 05, 2021, 10:28:57 PM »

I like this stuff. It's challenging, but not as overwhelming as BulletHell games, so there still might be a chance to actually have a good time :-)

One thing: can you maybe stretch the bullets a bit along their movement direction? It might just be a GIF problem, but I have a hard time telling where the bullet streams go, and visible cues about their directions might help with that.
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bkeegan
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« Reply #37 on: July 06, 2021, 08:27:04 PM »

I like this stuff. It's challenging, but not as overwhelming as BulletHell games, so there still might be a chance to actually have a good time :-)

One thing: can you maybe stretch the bullets a bit along their movement direction? It might just be a GIF problem, but I have a hard time telling where the bullet streams go, and visible cues about their directions might help with that.


Thanks! I'm going for a middle of the road shmup - decent challenging but not too overwhelming.
Interesting idea about the trails. Quite a bit does get lost in the gifs (think it gets scaled down to 15fps) -I should start posting more full videos.

I haven't seen a lot of other shmups do trails like that - but doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I've actually added a lot of bullet options (which I should put out in a later dev update) - adding trails at the very least might be an interesting option.
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« Reply #38 on: July 31, 2021, 08:21:48 AM »

Hey,

Been working on a few things these past few weeks. I've been aggressively trying to get everything done for a playable alpha demo (including 4 levels)
Worked on some of the configuration options I had planned. I enabled options that allows you change the bullet colors and can be done per level.
I've also added granular options to disable/enable specific background elements.






Last week or so I've been working on some new content and refining other levels.
Added a few new enemies. Going to go for over 100 unique enemies. These push the current number near 70









Been incorporating the space station graphics I did quite some time ago into Level 2. Some of these graphics are from all the way back to 2018.




Added a collidable wall section:



New Miniboss for level 2:



Some teeth clenching sections:
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« Reply #39 on: September 29, 2021, 10:29:15 AM »

Hey Everyone,

Haven't posted on here in a while - been busy at work.
Our demo has officially launched and I'd love to get your feedback!
https://figamesllc.itch.io/stellar-fury
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