METAL CRISIS
A downloadable game
Contains 1 fully-playable level.
[[ PROLOGUE ]]
Pushed to their limits by the Earth government, the space colonies began a rebellion. With the resources of an entire planet, the war is becoming more widespread and there is no end in sight.
[[ MISSION PREP ]]
Please contact me or leave a comment to share High Scores or provide feedback of any kind!
https://linktr.ee/TheDjEAR
Additionally, you can find the original Album the game is based on here:
https://huepow00.bandcamp.com/album/metal-crisis
I hope you enjoy!
- EAR
[[ FLIGHT CONTROLS ]]
The default keyboard controls are listed below, these can be configured from the Settings Menu.
- Button 1 / OK: R
- Button 2 / Back: Q
- Start: Enter
- Select: Right Shift
[[ WEAPON CORES ]]
The attacking power and configuration of your ship's weapon system changes depending on the Weapon Core in use. Collecting Special Cores upgrades the current weapon.
AMBER CORE
1. Straight Shot
- Fires a single shot straight ahead.
Firepower: C /// Range: C /// # of Bullets: C
2. Gatling Shot
- 3 smaller shots with a faster rate of fire.
Firepower: B /// Range: B /// # of Bullets: B
3. Beam Shot
- A Concentrated beam of energy.
Firepower: A /// Range: C /// # of Bullets: A
TURQUOISE CORE
1. Split Shot
- Fires 2 shots at a slight angle.
Firepower: C /// Range: C /// # of Bullets: C
2. Scatter Shot
- Launches 5 shots in a wide spread
Firepower: C /// Range: B /// # of Bullets: A
3. Homing Shot
- Fires 3 narrow beams that home in on nearby targets.
Firepower: B /// Range: A /// # of Bullets: B
JADE CORE
1. Bomb Shot
- Unloads short-range explosives in a 180-degree range.
Firepower: C /// Range: D /// # of Bullets: B
2. Grenade Shot
- Timed grenades are ejected at medium range ahead, above, and below.
Firepower: B /// Range: C /// # of Bullets: C
3. Cluster Shot
- Launches powerful explosive clusters with a directed attack pattern.
Firepower: A /// Range: B /// # of Bullets: C
Download
Development log
- 2month Progress Report6 days ago
- Demo1 Update60 days ago
Comments
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I just tried the demo, and figured I would offer a few thoughts.
1. The ship's hit box is very large, even for a game that's targeting the PS1/Saturn era as its style. It almost feels like it's larger than the ship itself, which feels bad when you aren't even grazing an enemy or projectile, and you get taken out. I'd suggest cinching that up a bit so that it's at least the sprite itself only, or perhaps a little smaller.
2. The initial shot type feels very weak, especially against the initial batch of enemies that take several shots to kill. By contrast, when I got the boss and obtained a laser weapon, even though it still took a bit to take out the boss, that weapon felt way more powerful. The weapon system also seems a tad esoteric. That might be what you're going for, which is cool. It's just not super clear what the upgrade paths might be, so I would say keep that in mind as development progresses.
3. I love that you're channeling the Einhander vibes with this, but I'd caution against going too hard in that direction, lest the game gets labeled as little more than a copycat. But the 1st stage here feeling a bit like stage 2 of Einhander was a nice atmospheric touch, and certainly something players of my age bracket will appreciate.
4. On a minor technical note, when I was done with the demo and entering my name in the high score table, no matter what button I pushed to select "OK" in that screen, it never actually selected OK, it just went back to name entry. It wasn't until OK was highlighted and I hit the Enter key that the score saved. I've seen this in a couple other games, and your score table looks exactly like those, so I suspect it's something inherent to the engine you're using to create the game. Still, good to be aware of this as the game progresses.
All in all, this is a solid start with a lot of promise. I look forward to seeing where you go with it!
Thanks for all the feedback! Seriously!
1. You aren't the first person to bring up hitboxes for the player (and a wonky hitbox for the boss laser) so this is something I've already started working on. The hitbox itself in this demo is the size of the ships body which is my intention, but I'm already squeezing it inwards a bit to account for near-misses and the like. That should hopefully help things feel a little better in that regard.
2. So what I'm aiming for with weapons (ultimately) is the colored items swap loadouts, and the upgrade pickup upgrades everything one at a time. However - because the engine currently lacks the ability to define and track variables, It's not quite as intuitive and simple as I'd like it to be. We were told the variables update would be early this year and that's not quite happened yet so... I'm designing for that eventuality which I'm hoping will make the process much easier to understand. There's a good chance that will open up some easier options for me to visually display some differences on the ship so there's a better indication of what to expect from each weapon as well - but that's still a floating idea. To your point tho, yes - the basic shot is intended to be "fine" but not ideal. I may just need to reduce HP on a few other chonkier enemies.
3. The album sort of came first and it was very much composed as a tribute to Einhander, so this sliding into the territory of fan-game is extremely likely and - having come from the Sonic fangaming community years ago, I wouldn't be too upset by that. In my head-cannon this feels like the same physical locations but, perhaps a different point in time. Dunno. I think its drifting that way because of all the inspiration that went into the music the game is based on.
- I'll say this though, working on this is so much fun that when it's finished I'm definitely wanting to start a new project from scratch and do something that feels more original.
4. I think I've heard about this as well from some other SHMUP Creator devs, I need to poke and see if theres a solution or if we are just waiting for another update.
Thanks again! If you remember your highscore at the end I'd love to include it in the next build!
Oh I should also mention, I stayed up listening to your Einhander podcast episode a couple days ago ^_^;; You guys clearly know your stuff (my SHMUP experience is infinitely limited to stuff like Einhander, R-Type III & FINAL, Zero Wing, and Raptor CotS.... oh and NANOSTRAY. lol (probably a few others I can't think of)
SO - Seriously thank you for the feedback, means a lot knowing you've played a lot of different things and have an idea for what I should be aiming for.
Sorry for the delayed reply, but thank you so much for listening to the podcast! We have a Discord server now as well, so if you want more players to try your demo and give you feedback, I'd be happy to send you a link. We have a very good community, and a couple other devs that hang out in the server that would very likely swap ideas with you and provide feedback from their own development perspective as well.
All good! I'd be happy to pop in and say hi if you wanted to send the link. I''m slowly getting the 2nd stage of the game finished up with almost all of the feedback worked on so it's slowly plugging along. I think once the 2nd stage is in a slightly more final state I'll drop an updated demo.
Sounds good! Looks like you already found your way to the Discord, so I look forward to more dev updates and seeing the game continue to develop :)