solid base, dunno if you are using a touhou-maker but gj
both kb and pad controls greatly; simple and cute menu
Random stuff i noted, the two most important i'll put right away:
- imo take a second to polish your art a little, it's not very welcoming. i know that touhou art can be very shitty too, but it's not really an excuse
- the dual chara i don't understand very much. They are the main 2 archetypes of touhou, no issue there, but the switch has nothing gamplaywise. The tip in the loading "one is faster than the other", maybe is the only thing; but in reality who cares about that
- Take for example harmful park: harmful has 4 weapons, each one with its own power level and bomb; when you die, the weapon you had equipped downgrades to lv.1. This mechanic create exciting gemplay possibilities for customization and risk/reward
- my tip would be to make two separate chara like (old) touhou; or if you like the change chara gimmick give it a strong gameplay foundation. Imo play harmful park for some inspiration. also make a different bomb for the two chara
- there is a problem with focus: the heart it's white. for man chara there is no problrm, red contrat white np; but not for your girl chara because her dress is almost white too.
- when u hit an enemy the collision particle it's very small, and the enmy itself dosen't registrate the dmg. you can make it flash (like i do), blink etc or maybe up your particles, dunno. in one phrase, lemme know at a glace in heat of dodging that the enemy is indeed taking dmg
- boss of stage1, third or fourth phase i think (when he showers a lot of small projtiles), maybe add another color beside yellow
- P disappar after a few bounces, no problem. but lemme know when they are about to disapper, so i can at a glance choose what P pick up next
- i like your bullet patterns, but they feel very touhou. since we don't have Y move imo you should think about on what you can do to differentiate from a classic touhou patterns
- at the start of the second level, if you start with male chara, the proj will all go to the bottom, maybe you spawn something there befor moving it to the top of the screen?
- hard mode filtered me, it's really really hard to survive just on X axis
- more on that, imo designing different difficulties in your state it's very premature. Your levels will change a lot and redo all difficulties every time can be maddening
Hello. Thanks for playing! I'm using SDL for this game. I actually think the base is kind of wonky but I can actually see all the terrible code and small weird bugs that don't affect the gameplay enough to be noticed normally (thanks for calling it solid anyway). I've been trying improve the art, especially the background art, for a while, but I'm scared I'll just spend all of my time on that instead of working on the game and then have it be bad anyway. But it used to be ten times worse, however impossible that may sound, so I think I'm making progress. I agree with what you said about the characters. They are very WIP, especially the guy, since until the last version he didn't even shoot. I was actually planning on giving them different bombs, but it's not very high priority compared to the other stuff. Ultimately the idea is for them to complement each other, but I've also considered making them completely different shot types.
Making the difficulties actually isn't that hard. Most of it is just changing a variable or two. I didn't plan on having them initially but I added them because people were dying too much and I want people who aren't good at shmups to be able to finish the game too. Anyway, thanks for all the detailed feedback. Thanks for the shmup recommendation, too; I'll check it out and see if I can take anything from it.
horse touhou game is fun! im no shmup god and was only able to beat the UFO on easy, I always die to the snowy wind attack on stage 2 on normal and above. music and art are very charming. the game is very responsive and the controls are intuitive once you get used to aiming the bow. I wish there was a bit more feedback on hitting an enemy, sometimes i wasnt sure I was even doing damage. The tiny hitboxes also made me wish there was a fullscreen option, i found myself leaning forward and squinting at the screen during denser patterns. The patterns for stages 2 and on were especially fun and creative. Who is this Lombard fella and why does he never talk?
Hi. Stage 2 boss's second attack is probably the most gimmicky one, so it might be hard to get from intuition. But I also think Lombard might be simply too slow to dodge it properly (I haven't done much balancing on that). I'm glad you didn't have any problems with the controls; it's been an uphill battle to get those to work properly. I agree the effects are way too underwhelming. As for fullscreen, I've added an option for it (though with no proper scaling, so everything will look fatter if your screen isn't 4:3). Lombard does not talk because he's a cool guy, and cool guys are silent. Or perhaps I just can't find a way to fit him in the scenario. He'll probably talk one day. Anyway, thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!
Touhou but on a horse is an interesting concept. I like that you can switch between the 2 characters with different types of shots. Enemies seem to have good variety in their attacks.
It was a bit difficult to tell where my hitbox was. I realized later that when you press the button to slow down, it shows you the hitbox, but I wish there was a way to see it without having to slow down, since doing so changes your attacks. It was also hard to tell when I took damage, a sound effect and a "hitspark" would help there.
Hello. I think I'll add a "toggle" for showing the hit-box by default since I figure it's not very intuitive if you're not used to it. There actually is a sound effect for taking damage, but I mixed it so low it's barely audible. In fact, this whole game has a problem with sound effects. Anyway, thanks for playing!
Bullet hells are not my forte, but I played quite a few plays and finally got the horse man down and got fucked by the blue lady. I had a gamepad plugged in so I used that and it controlled great but for some reason it seemed like the horse and the angle of aiming moved by themselves which caused most of my gameplay to be struggling with the horse moving on its own. Was this intended? If so I don't like it at all, if anything the aiming shouldn't move by itself. It was slightly difficult to tell when you took damage, but not impossible. The powerup system was also a bit strange but seemed really important if you want to beat it so if you miss one it really sucks. But I like the characters and the bullet hell itself worked pretty well.
Hello. Now that's a new bug with the controller. It really shouldn't be doing anything by itself at all. I'm guessing it doesn't do the same with the keyboard. I'll look over the mapped buttons since I may have messed something up there. I've also had times I took damage without noticing so I'll see if I can give it more of an impact. Thanks for playing and thanks for the report on the buggy buttons.
All right, after testing for a few minutes I was finally able to replicate the movement bug. It seems like if you press left and right on the joystick and only on the joystick too fast it'll send you flying one direction. As to the aiming one, I'm not sure I've been able to replicate it fully, but I found that if you press the aim key for too long it'll change your aim as if you had pressed it again. Thanks again for reporting as I'm not sure I would be able to spot this otherwise.
Playing easy mode with controller, game is way more approachable now. Feels like I can get some traction with the gameplay.
-Not really sure where my hitbox is... [later] oh nevermind, I didn't notice the white circle on her when going slow for some reason. Doesn't help I'm playing in windowed mode and not sitting by the screen.
-Got past second boss, I like the creativity in the attacks, like wind blowing both you and the bullets, and the ice block shattering.
-Died(no continues left) to UFO, rip. I have to say the continue is a little odd, you go back to the beginning of the stage but keep your power level. Not that that's a bad thing. Story stuff is fine enough, only thing that made me cringe a little was the global warming bit, in part because the game looks like it takes place in the past. Not a big deal though.
-Started a new game. Also, it seems like Lombard is getting shafted in these conversations, he doesn't say anything. Kind of weird for him to play the backseat that much.
-After going against it again, I think the laser in the first boss is pretty bad. It spawns and immediately hurts you, I'd like it to 'phase in' so that you can try get off it. Also, it should be animated somewhat. When I first saw it, I though it was some sort of 'tell' for the next attack instead of being a beam.
Hello. Thank for playing, and thanks for describing your experience with the game! Indeed, I've had complaints about the laser since the first version of the game, so I tried to make it more predictable by making it have a slower onset, but you just gave me a good idea with the fading in. And yeah, I should probably make actual graphics for it instead of it just being generic SDL rectangles. Continues weren't high on my priority list so instead of actually "continuing" I just made them restart the stage with a bunch of lives. I'll probably change it by the next version.
Well, at least you didn't have any problem with the controls while playing (except for shooting?). I'll try to add some sort of tutorial and make the controls clearer for PS controller users in the way. I'm guessing you tried to use the keyboard at the end while still having the controller plugged in, which made the game ignore your inputs. I'll try to fix that. Thanks for playing!
I guess it's really created for controllers, since I couldn't do anything with keyboard. Trying to aim and move with arrows is really confusing, can't do both with one hand, so homing bullets were way more convenient. But somehow after first dialogue I was switched back to usual bullets. Unskippable dialogues are not my thing too.
Hello. Indeed, aiming on the keyboard is kind of awkward. I'll see if I can do something more intuitive with the WASD keys. It switching automatically after the end of the stage is an oversight; the guy didn't do much in the last version so it made sense then. Thanks for taking the trouble to point it out.
I'm not good at bullet hell games so level two was already too hard for me. The readme says that you switch angle by pressing the triggers but it was the shoulder buttons on my Xbox controller. The first time I finished level 1 the game didn't continue to the next stage, here's a screenshot:
I only really used the homing sword attack so I wish you could hold the button down for that too instead of having to spam A to keep attacking. If you want people to actually read the dialogue you need to add a button to continue the dialogue instead of just skipping it.
Hello. Yes, indeed, I meant the shoulder buttons... I have no idea why I wrote trigger.
>The first time I finished level 1 the game didn't continue to the next stage.
Ah, finally someone got that bug. I thought it was an issue with my hardware. Sometimes you'll have to press two buttons simultaneously in order to go to the next stage. It seems it only happens on the controller. I'll try to fix it once I revise the controller support (it was added just this build so it's very WIP. Same applies to the sword attack). As for advancing the dialogue, you should be able to do it with the A button. If it's not working, then it's another thing I need to fix. Anyway, thank you kindly for the report.
Hello. Thanks for the video. I'll use it as reference for the next version. I was thinking of changing the aim to a press instead of a hold (the current code uses a counter and is pretty much horrible) so I will probably do that. Glad you liked my scribbles!
Comments
It's great to see another shmupper and touhou fan
solid base, dunno if you are using a touhou-maker but gj
both kb and pad controls greatly; simple and cute menu
Random stuff i noted, the two most important i'll put right away:
- imo take a second to polish your art a little, it's not very welcoming. i know that touhou art can be very shitty too, but it's not really an excuse
- the dual chara i don't understand very much. They are the main 2 archetypes of touhou, no issue there, but the switch has nothing gamplaywise. The tip in the loading "one is faster than the other", maybe is the only thing; but in reality who cares about that
- Take for example harmful park: harmful has 4 weapons, each one with its own power level and bomb; when you die, the weapon you had equipped downgrades to lv.1. This mechanic create exciting gemplay possibilities for customization and risk/reward
- my tip would be to make two separate chara like (old) touhou; or if you like the change chara gimmick give it a strong gameplay foundation. Imo play harmful park for some inspiration. also make a different bomb for the two chara
- there is a problem with focus: the heart it's white. for man chara there is no problrm, red contrat white np; but not for your girl chara because her dress is almost white too.
- when u hit an enemy the collision particle it's very small, and the enmy itself dosen't registrate the dmg. you can make it flash (like i do), blink etc or maybe up your particles, dunno. in one phrase, lemme know at a glace in heat of dodging that the enemy is indeed taking dmg
- boss of stage1, third or fourth phase i think (when he showers a lot of small projtiles), maybe add another color beside yellow
- P disappar after a few bounces, no problem. but lemme know when they are about to disapper, so i can at a glance choose what P pick up next
- i like your bullet patterns, but they feel very touhou. since we don't have Y move imo you should think about on what you can do to differentiate from a classic touhou patterns
- at the start of the second level, if you start with male chara, the proj will all go to the bottom, maybe you spawn something there befor moving it to the top of the screen?
- hard mode filtered me, it's really really hard to survive just on X axis
- more on that, imo designing different difficulties in your state it's very premature. Your levels will change a lot and redo all difficulties every time can be maddening
GL
Hello. Thanks for playing! I'm using SDL for this game. I actually think the base is kind of wonky but I can actually see all the terrible code and small weird bugs that don't affect the gameplay enough to be noticed normally (thanks for calling it solid anyway). I've been trying improve the art, especially the background art, for a while, but I'm scared I'll just spend all of my time on that instead of working on the game and then have it be bad anyway. But it used to be ten times worse, however impossible that may sound, so I think I'm making progress. I agree with what you said about the characters. They are very WIP, especially the guy, since until the last version he didn't even shoot. I was actually planning on giving them different bombs, but it's not very high priority compared to the other stuff. Ultimately the idea is for them to complement each other, but I've also considered making them completely different shot types.
Making the difficulties actually isn't that hard. Most of it is just changing a variable or two. I didn't plan on having them initially but I added them because people were dying too much and I want people who aren't good at shmups to be able to finish the game too. Anyway, thanks for all the detailed feedback. Thanks for the shmup recommendation, too; I'll check it out and see if I can take anything from it.
horse touhou game is fun! im no shmup god and was only able to beat the UFO on easy, I always die to the snowy wind attack on stage 2 on normal and above. music and art are very charming. the game is very responsive and the controls are intuitive once you get used to aiming the bow. I wish there was a bit more feedback on hitting an enemy, sometimes i wasnt sure I was even doing damage. The tiny hitboxes also made me wish there was a fullscreen option, i found myself leaning forward and squinting at the screen during denser patterns. The patterns for stages 2 and on were especially fun and creative. Who is this Lombard fella and why does he never talk?
Hi. Stage 2 boss's second attack is probably the most gimmicky one, so it might be hard to get from intuition. But I also think Lombard might be simply too slow to dodge it properly (I haven't done much balancing on that). I'm glad you didn't have any problems with the controls; it's been an uphill battle to get those to work properly. I agree the effects are way too underwhelming. As for fullscreen, I've added an option for it (though with no proper scaling, so everything will look fatter if your screen isn't 4:3). Lombard does not talk because he's a cool guy, and cool guys are silent. Or perhaps I just can't find a way to fit him in the scenario. He'll probably talk one day. Anyway, thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!
Touhou but on a horse is an interesting concept. I like that you can switch between the 2 characters with different types of shots. Enemies seem to have good variety in their attacks.
It was a bit difficult to tell where my hitbox was. I realized later that when you press the button to slow down, it shows you the hitbox, but I wish there was a way to see it without having to slow down, since doing so changes your attacks. It was also hard to tell when I took damage, a sound effect and a "hitspark" would help there.
Hello. I think I'll add a "toggle" for showing the hit-box by default since I figure it's not very intuitive if you're not used to it. There actually is a sound effect for taking damage, but I mixed it so low it's barely audible. In fact, this whole game has a problem with sound effects. Anyway, thanks for playing!
Bullet hells are not my forte, but I played quite a few plays and finally got the horse man down and got fucked by the blue lady. I had a gamepad plugged in so I used that and it controlled great but for some reason it seemed like the horse and the angle of aiming moved by themselves which caused most of my gameplay to be struggling with the horse moving on its own. Was this intended? If so I don't like it at all, if anything the aiming shouldn't move by itself. It was slightly difficult to tell when you took damage, but not impossible. The powerup system was also a bit strange but seemed really important if you want to beat it so if you miss one it really sucks. But I like the characters and the bullet hell itself worked pretty well.
Hello. Now that's a new bug with the controller. It really shouldn't be doing anything by itself at all. I'm guessing it doesn't do the same with the keyboard. I'll look over the mapped buttons since I may have messed something up there. I've also had times I took damage without noticing so I'll see if I can give it more of an impact. Thanks for playing and thanks for the report on the buggy buttons.
Ah ok, yeah I figured it was a bug, hopefully you might be able to replicate it or just fix it outright.
All right, after testing for a few minutes I was finally able to replicate the movement bug. It seems like if you press left and right on the joystick and only on the joystick too fast it'll send you flying one direction. As to the aiming one, I'm not sure I've been able to replicate it fully, but I found that if you press the aim key for too long it'll change your aim as if you had pressed it again. Thanks again for reporting as I'm not sure I would be able to spot this otherwise.
Playing easy mode with controller, game is way more approachable now. Feels like I can get some traction with the gameplay.
-Not really sure where my hitbox is... [later] oh nevermind, I didn't notice the white circle on her when going slow for some reason. Doesn't help I'm playing in windowed mode and not sitting by the screen.
-Got past second boss, I like the creativity in the attacks, like wind blowing both you and the bullets, and the ice block shattering.
-Died(no continues left) to UFO, rip. I have to say the continue is a little odd, you go back to the beginning of the stage but keep your power level. Not that that's a bad thing. Story stuff is fine enough, only thing that made me cringe a little was the global warming bit, in part because the game looks like it takes place in the past. Not a big deal though.
-Started a new game. Also, it seems like Lombard is getting shafted in these conversations, he doesn't say anything. Kind of weird for him to play the backseat that much.
-After going against it again, I think the laser in the first boss is pretty bad. It spawns and immediately hurts you, I'd like it to 'phase in' so that you can try get off it. Also, it should be animated somewhat. When I first saw it, I though it was some sort of 'tell' for the next attack instead of being a beam.
-Have to stop now, so I didn't get further.
Game seems fine, keep up the good work.
Hello. Thank for playing, and thanks for describing your experience with the game! Indeed, I've had complaints about the laser since the first version of the game, so I tried to make it more predictable by making it have a slower onset, but you just gave me a good idea with the fading in. And yeah, I should probably make actual graphics for it instead of it just being generic SDL rectangles. Continues weren't high on my priority list so instead of actually "continuing" I just made them restart the stage with a bunch of lives. I'll probably change it by the next version.
Gave it a go. Didn't get far though. Lost controls after getting a game over.
Well, at least you didn't have any problem with the controls while playing (except for shooting?). I'll try to add some sort of tutorial and make the controls clearer for PS controller users in the way. I'm guessing you tried to use the keyboard at the end while still having the controller plugged in, which made the game ignore your inputs. I'll try to fix that. Thanks for playing!
I guess it's really created for controllers, since I couldn't do anything with keyboard. Trying to aim and move with arrows is really confusing, can't do both with one hand, so homing bullets were way more convenient. But somehow after first dialogue I was switched back to usual bullets. Unskippable dialogues are not my thing too.
Hello. Indeed, aiming on the keyboard is kind of awkward. I'll see if I can do something more intuitive with the WASD keys. It switching automatically after the end of the stage is an oversight; the guy didn't do much in the last version so it made sense then. Thanks for taking the trouble to point it out.
I played the 0.13 version:
I'm not good at bullet hell games so level two was already too hard for me.
The readme says that you switch angle by pressing the triggers but it was the shoulder buttons on my Xbox controller.
The first time I finished level 1 the game didn't continue to the next stage, here's a screenshot:
I only really used the homing sword attack so I wish you could hold the button down for that too instead of having to spam A to keep attacking.
If you want people to actually read the dialogue you need to add a button to continue the dialogue instead of just skipping it.
Hello. Yes, indeed, I meant the shoulder buttons... I have no idea why I wrote trigger.
>The first time I finished level 1 the game didn't continue to the next stage.
Ah, finally someone got that bug. I thought it was an issue with my hardware. Sometimes you'll have to press two buttons simultaneously in order to go to the next stage. It seems it only happens on the controller. I'll try to fix it once I revise the controller support (it was added just this build so it's very WIP. Same applies to the sword attack). As for advancing the dialogue, you should be able to do it with the A button. If it's not working, then it's another thing I need to fix. Anyway, thank you kindly for the report.
Yeah only B was doing anything
video
I like the character art
Hello. Thanks for the video. I'll use it as reference for the next version. I was thinking of changing the aim to a press instead of a hold (the current code uses a counter and is pretty much horrible) so I will probably do that. Glad you liked my scribbles!