Lunacy Star STG (I made this)

Hello, I've made a game. It's a game where you shoot enemies who are also shooting at you, while you dodge bullets. Lots of bullets.

I would post screenshots, but no hotlinked images. Go to the following pages ~

http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Taizen%20Chisou&cmd=comments&id=271861 http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Taizen%20Chisou&cmd=comments&id=271806 http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Taizen%20Chisou&cmd=comments&id=271722

You can download the Version 0.69 trial at http://www.host-a.net/u/Chisou/Lunacy%20Star.zip

The readme file contains some points that are worth knowing, such as the mysterious unexplained lag time before starting the game, ending the game, and after submitting the high score. Don't mod the savefile, either. The game will crash.

VERSION 0.8 AVAILABLE! http://www.host-a.net/u/Chisou/LunacyStar%200.8.zip

New things include graphics and

oh yeah stages 4 - 6

edited 5th Jan '12 11:14:24 AM by Chisou

To post a link, use [[URL Text]]...or just paste the URL...

edited 28th Jul '11 7:56:29 AM by onyhow

It doesn't let me. How long until the "new account" status ends?"

Crud, then I have no idea then...

All right, I'm back. Sorry people.

I've updated the game.

V. 0.69 is available here:

http://www.host-a.net/u/Chisou/Lunacy%20Star.zip

Before you play, you can find a smorgasbord of old version videos on You Tube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL856F5A4632D962EA&feature=viewall

Edit: I've been hunting down bugs since the release. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes your score is a bit off in the Evaluation screen. If that happens, round up to the next ten, because the score displayed in the evaluation is always going to be lower than what shows in-game.

edited 23rd Nov '11 2:45:44 PM by Chisou

New version 0.8 available for download.

http://www.host-a.net/u/Chisou/LunacyStar%200.8.zip

Huh o-o Have you posted about some other game you made or am I remembering wrong? .-.

I.... might have. I don't believe so, though, considering Lunacy Star is really the only one far enough to post here anyway. Oh, yeah, I launched a page. I hope y'all don't mind.

Ah, okay, that must been another guy without avatar ^^; Sorry, its easier to recognize people with avatars than by usernames.

I haven't quite figured how to. Then again, I haven't really considered it yet.

To anyone who does play the game, I do encourage you to share your scores!

Such as mine being some 294 million. But that doesn't count because I made it.

Some criticisms:

UI: It should be more obvious there's choices to be made at the ship/shot selection screen, not just a mention in the readme

Graphics: Some bullets are the same colour and size as items. Don't do that. Similarly, dropped bombs and lives could stand to stick out more

Difficulty: First, it's pretty damn hard even on calm. Second, the difficulty is quite scattershot; I got wasted by the first boss's last pattern, but the final boss's final pattern was one of the easiest in the game

Some praise:

Though distinctly unpolished, I liked the graphics. Charmingly simple

Lots of bullet types. That's something a lot of games don't bother with, which makes me sad

Music is pretty good

Some suggestions:

Longer mercy invincibility after dying. It's not uncommon to die and lose track of your now respawned character, immediately dying again. A delay in respawning after death would help, too

Longer timers, especially for patterns that have the bosses zooming around the field

This didn't come up often, but the 'ghost' period for lasers seemed very short. As soon as I noticed they were there, they became dangerous

An explanation for how scoring/rank works would be nice

I've received multiple gripes on the UI. They will be addressed. Actually, they were supposed to be addressed already, but my development cycle is in sort of a rush.

Difficulty is something I've been struggling with since day 1. Calm used to be about Hard level in Touhou.

The Idiot Box's Storm Danmaku has been a major point of contention since inception. It's been modified to be easier three times now, and that's after removing the fully-random Torrential Danmaku that used to take it's place. I can totally fix whatever is the problem.

The final bosses' last pattern... Referring to "Lightspeed Lunagun," or "Lunacy Star Supernovae?"

Lightspeed Lunagun on Easy removes the bullets the LS shoots. It's several times harder on higher difficulties :V

Lunacy Star Supernovae on Easy stops advancing a full five levels in difficulty before Standard. (Easy stops at level 10, I think. Standard at 15, Rage at 18 and Lunacy at 22.)

The timers for midbosses have little wiggle room due to stage design. All of the midbosses except the second ones in stages 5 and 6 can be extended a few seconds. As for bosses, please do come up with a list of attacks that take too long, because I have no problem with the time limits as they stand.

Thanks about the music, made it all myself.

Laser wait times vary on the attack. In the Lunacy Star's Laser Columns, depending on the difficulty, it ranges from 0.3-0.6 seconds. In the Hydra Fleet's Trick Formation (which alternates between slow and fast phases), they range from 0.06 seconds (Which I am fully aware is under standard human reaction time) to 0.2 seconds during the omgwtf phase, to 0.5-0.8 seconds during the slow phase.

There are 27 bullet objects. Yeah... that does seem more than average.

None of the bullets are black... And the white ones are tiny... I'm not sure what you mean about the similarity between bullets and point items... Although I can make the life and bomb items more visible for sure...

I have a write-up of the scoring system somewhere... Give me a second... Also, rank is based on score... It's exponential, so Rank 1 is 1,000 points and Rank 100 is 500,000,000 points...

Thank you for playing, also. Very grateful for the input :)

edited 5th Jan '12 3:20:24 PM by Chisou

Having small white bullets at all at the same time as point items are on the field confuses things, even if they don't look terribly similar

Oh, I see.

Well, what color do you want me to make them? :V

Also, here's a rundown of the scoring system: http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Taizen%20Chisou&cmd=comments&id=271625

However, there's a difference in that the "stage" element present in the score formula is now "stage + 3" outside of Overdrive, and "stage + 4" in it.

Just... not white or grey

The score explanation should probably be linked to in the readme. And it reminds me of a few other things:

• The overdrive guage should be more visible. Have it hang out in the bottom left of the screen, directly above/beneath the player's ship, even just a different font than the rest of the numbers, or something else. Information that the player can actually use needs to be easy to find, and it's currently hidden in the middle of a bunch of other numbers
• Grazing should probably have a sound effect if you want to encourage it
• Similarly, hitting bosses

I will consider placing the overdrive meter elsewhere. I imagine though that the text would interfere with placing it in the lower corners, so I might go the Dodonpachi route and stick it up top, shifting it down when a boss appears.

Grazing does have a sound effect... I don't think I transferred it over to the new sound handler, so it's really really quiet, and you'll only hear it if you graze dozens of bullets at once...

The code that makes hitting enemies and bosses noticeable was dummied out... Specifically, everything had little healthbars on them that lagged a lot... I can fix this, though... I have the sounds, but I never put them in...