itch.io

hey - thanks for taking the time - greatly appreciated!

All good feedback. Not being able to press the main buttons when you're in a sub menu is intended- maybe I'll make it clearer so you can't mouse over it.

I did notice that the small circular bullet can be hard to read so I started using those more when it's a line- could add an effect to those to make it easier to read.

Hello,

Old google analytics is going EOL fully in 60 someodd days. Do we have a plan to ugprade to GA4? I do use Google analytics and I'd like to continue to do so in the future. I checked the github page and I see someone opened an issue a while ago but no activity on it. I searched this and didn't find any threads with answers.

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to play the demo and give this really extensive feedback

The demo on itch is actually quite old. I have not released an updated demo as the last 6ish months I've largely been focused on mid/late game content that I won't be putting in the public demo. That said, I know I've done quite a bit of optimizations on memory management/loading resources since then - this might clear up those issues you had around performance.

As for bullet visibility - I've actually put a quite a bit of time into it. I do try to strike a balance between good looking graphics and bullet visibility. I think there's a lot of bullet hell games out there that don't look that great because of it. Everyone can be different, someone people might have a hard time vs others won't.  Because of that I tried to include as many options as possible for people who might have issues - not sure if you poked around the options menu. Basically, you said "take the graphics down a notch" - you can do this yourself with options. Firstly you can dim the background - you can even selectively disable background elements. You can change the color and style of the bullets. You can change the color of the bullets per level (this feature might be buggy in the demo I have now, but it's since been fixed - just not updated in the demo).  There aren't too many styles of bullets right now - but I plan to add more .  You can also turn off debris particles and/or explosions altogether. 

Really meant to accommodate multiple types of players. There are players that might play more casually - maybe credit feed a little, maybe play on a lower difficulty and will want a nice visual experience vs players who want to score chase and optimize on the highest difficulty. 

As for the TV sitch - not sure if you say TV if you're sitting on a couch playing it like a console game - honestly I can't play bullet hell games like this. A lot of these are designed around Japanese arcade cabinets where you sit down directly in front of it. From what I've seen the most popular options are either PC(or console plugged into a monitor) or the Nintendo Switch (handheld). Often with vertical shmups like this - it's put in TATE mode (which SF also supports) and rotate the screen to a portrait orientation. 

Artstyle/gameplay inspiration - you nailed it pretty close on the head. My goal was to make a game with more "western" art style with Japanese gameplay design. 

I didn't intentionally set out to make "Amiga inspired graphics" but I did grow up playing DOS games which are similar so I think it naturally came out in my art style.  Design it meant to be a little manic, little bit bullet hell. Not quite as fast as bullets from Psikyo/Raiden games but also not slowing moving thru a screen full of slowly moving bullets.

Glad you noticed the bosses. Each stage has two midbosses and depending on the rank one or both of those midbosses might be something different. Bosses are also completely different based on rank. Basically each stage has at least a possible total of 3 midbosses and 2 bosses. Bosses have unique sound tracks as well (although lvl 1 I think I got 3 bosses -one of those is not unique). I think the game will have an upwards of 25 unique music tracks. I started making a shmup because it was a creative outlet for me and drawing cool spaceships was my favorite part - everything else is work - so the game will end up with around 250 unique enemies (i.ve got a castlevania style bestiary of all the enemies you've encountered - not in the demo now, but it's a feature I have). 

Thanks again for the feedback - I really do appreciate it - especially more constructive criticism. I know hearing "wow this game is so awesome" *feels* better to hear- but actually hearing what issues people have is actually more valuable in the long rung. 

Hello All,

With our latest Update (0.4) we're officially moving it into a beta. While this is really an abitrary distinction, I think the game has come a long way in the past 6 months and this is meant to reflect that. Also, in the event that you might have held back any feedback because it was marked as "Alpha" - you now have excuse to provide it. We especially want to hear issues you had with the game as it helps us make it the best it can possibly be. 

Last few updates implemented a number of big changes (full details in our dev log). To highlight the big ones:

-Revamped difficulty levels. Stellar Fury is designed to err on the side of being "too hard"  as I think it's better for a game to be seen as "too hard" by some than boring. That being said, we've introduced a Normal difficulty setting that should be a little more approachable to players to new the genre.

-Completely revised scoring system. Scoring system should be way more interesting now. Instead of a simple combo chain that is applied to points from destroying enemies. It only applies to the point items from executing a double focus screen clear

-Added new ships. Added new ships to the game. 

-Added a tutorial mission and reworked the help section

-Reworked the ship/weapon select screen

-Added Key/button prompts 

Download the demo here: https://figamesllc.itch.io/stellar-fury

Hello, I'd consider buying this but is there a particular reason this does not include a license to print? It seems it makes using this asset a non-starter for anyone who might want to publish a physical copy of their game. 

Hey - thank you so much - glad you liked the game! :). For software, the game is being developed in Unity. Artwork was done in Aseprite. Art has just a dash of bloom on it in my videos/clips (can be disabled in options menu). 

As for platforms, right now PC but I want to do a Switch release (and really anything else) but a shmup needs to be on a switch first and foremost. Real question is whether I port it myself or work with a publisher. 

Hey All,

Earlier this week we launched an update to our Alpha Demo for Stellar Fury. This includes a good number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements. A full list of changes can be found on our devlog: https://figamesllc.itch.io/stellar-fury/devlog/330859/stellar-fury-alpha-025-rel...

Store Page: https://figamesllc.itch.io/stellar-fury

Stellar Fury is a fast-paced vertical shoot 'em up/stg. It's been a passion project of mine and in development for about 2.5 years at this point. We hope to launch by the end of 2022.  We've love people to download it and give it a try and let us know what you think - especially if the game broke for you! We've encountered some bugs that have been discovered by the community that don't reproduce on my dev machine - so don't assume we know about the issue if you have one. 

Thanks! I'm nearly done with all the changes for 0.25. Planning on releasing this after the new years - after everyone has thoroughly nursed their hangovers

Yeah, it's actually a bug. I was actually just trying to fix it now but I can't get it to reproduce on my PC. Basically it gets stuck and doesn't move to it's next action.

Hey - thanks for giving it a try! 

You are absolutely right about more/better feedback. I'm thinking of doing a few things:

-introducing tips in the loading screen

-adding a tutorial level to explain the mechanics

-Adding audio queues for the double-focus laser. 

-Adding visual queues to the player ship for weapon states

-Adding info on what button to press "like press <button> to fire" - etc. 

Hey Everyone!

I just published my store page and launched an alpha demo of Stellar Fury. I would love for you guys to give it a try and give me some feedback! (links on our store page for discord).

Stellar Fury is a vertical shoot 'em up or shmup/stg. I've been working on Stellar Fury for 2 years at this point, really a labor of love. It features music by Jean Baudin (Jean Baudin (bandcamp.com))

Stellar Fury by fiGames (itch.io)

I would post some gifs here but there's a 3mb limit. Here are some screenshots!

Fantastic! Loved the vibe. Looking forward to this getting released!