After Steam Early Access and few times of update. We find special bullet is not as fun as we expected. On the other hand, we also realize our budget cannot afford scenario material of story. Current material already consume our last budget, but the quality still under excepted. So instead of presenting roughly made story, we decide to reorder game flow for change the game style. We want to adjust difficulty and game flow. We tend to make Umbraseal more…
Almost one year ago. I decide to implement a Danmaku System which follows Touhou Danmakufu(th_dnh for short)’s API and make many bullet patterns for our Early Access game 《Umbraseal》. Now th_dnh becomes open source software, I want to learn the design decision from original version for improving our work. Before we diving this topic, I have to declare that I don’t mean to judge th_dnh’s design. Like we discussed in previous article, this software creates the most bullet pattern in…
After months of working, Umbraseal finally joins Steam Early Access! All enemy shoot bullets like crazy! 《Umbraseal》is a bullet-hell dungeon crawler top-down shooter. On the first week after early access, we will focus on bug fixing and roadmap planning. We already mention some features on our early access Q&A. However, it is still need some plan about task scheduling and communication with our players. Because as an early access game, we believe listening player’s feedback is very important. You can…
This month we decide to add shadow ability, new level theme and traps. BTW, Umbraseal becomes pre-beta on itch.io . To meet game title, our heroine now has shadow ability. Shadow ability contains two phase: Right click to release Umbra : Umbra is a shadow entity that attack with player Each hit from Umbra increases shadow charge Right click again to release Penumbra: Penumbra is a shadow entity that release shadow power. The effect of shadow power is decided by…
This month we added custom bullet and boss stage seal mechanic. By default, player has 3-way shot pattern with round bullet. Now you can change what you shot by looting different shape and property of bullet from enemies. We are still trying other bullet pattern shape and bullet property. Although shooting lots of random things is very fun, but the goal is to make bullet pattern become crazy. 😛 For connecting middle stage and boss stage, we introduce seal mechanic….
This month we were trying to deliver first playable demo for players. There are many trivial works like adjusting visual effect, user interface, config option, gameplay element. Because we want to get more feedback in early stage, now you can download pre-alpha version of Umbraseal on itch.io for free. The gameplay cycle may seems a little bit rough, but we will polish it as soon as possible. Your comment would be super helpful to complete this game, please play Umbraseal and…
This month focus on adjusting enemy behavior and bullet pattern for gameplay. For enemy behavior, we need they perform flexible movement and attack. So an enemy will chase player to the death, yet keep distance with other characters. Once in right position, enemy will start to surround player like a satellite. Also, enemy will attack constantly. Combine those movement could create a flow. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. https://fnaith.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/ezgif.com-video-to-gif.gif?w=825 For bullet pattern, we adjust fire speed and…
To solve the “game is too easy” issue from players’ feedback, we make all character can do more action. In Shoot ’em up, player can focus on dodging without distraction because bullets usually come from single direction. However, bullets come from any angle in Umbraseal. In that case, player become helpless when facing bullets unless we reduce bullet number (like we did). So that is why players consider this game is to easy. New solution is to provide a “Dash”…
In previous article, we decide to change many system for enhancing game experience. Unfortunately, AI behavior and skill are typical complex system that need access information from environment and change some status. It is hard to prevent bug when changing a system which heavily depend on the interactions with other systems. Turns out, we need testing. Because there are so many system and functionality, it is important to separate irrelevant codes and what we want to modify. To regularize exist…
In the last month of 2018, we finally finished the first pass demo and start to design polished version features. https://fnaith.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/ezgif.com-video-to-gif.gif?w=825 Fortunately, there are people would play first pass demo even graphics and UI are bit rough now. According to their precious advice, we find what players expected in this genre. Primary feedback as following: Guidance – tutorial for goal and skill, mini map Balance – enemies are too easy, need more AI behavior Aesthetics – every area looks same,…