Le développeur,
n0rty Games, est passé faire un tour sur le topic et il m'a demandé quelques précisions sur les commentaires et questions de certains membres. Il est Anglais..
Je lui ai répondu et précisé les choses et au final il m'a fait des réponses super complètes et ça s'est un peu transformé en une sorte d'interview où je lui a posé quelques questions supplémentaires. Il répond concernant la vitesse du vaisseau, des boulettes, la jouabilité au stick et plein d'autres choses...
Là voici (c'est en anglais dans le texte) :
Old videos looks slow and shmup fans want faster bullets and ships. About Touhou style patterns, they don’t want! That would be a shame if patterns go in the way of Touhou.
That's good. Touhou patterns annoy me - not because it's a bad game, it's just not what I look for in a shmup. Touhou feels less about shooting enemies and more about dodging bullets. Cave games feel like you are a real weapon of destruction blasting down enemies... the bullets are just their way of fighting back!
In terms of ship and bullet speed, I jump between various Cave games and I look at how fast everything moves. I'll do little exercises like finding a fairly safe area of a level and then moving from one side of the screen to the other in both Shot, Laser, Strong Shot, Strong Laser form in DFK while measuring the speed -- or if I'm doing Mushi Futari, I repeat the opening to stage 1 over and over a few times to get a mental count of how long it should take to travel.
Is the game will be available to play with arcade stick?
Absolutely. Every single video I've put up, or playtest has been done either on my custom dual format Datel based stick, or a MadCatz TE. However the game has to be playable with a 360 pad using both the analogue stick and the dpad. So basically, when you put it on and play it - no matter what controller you are used to - the game should feel right. I spent a lot of time playing Mushihimesama Futari Black Label on both an xbox pad and an arcade stick then going back to Chronoblast and making sure that everything was right.
All commentaries are good and they eagerly await the release! Do you think the game will be released before end of this year? You are also working on Skyravens or that will be after end of Chronoblast development?
I really hope that it will be released before the end of the year. I may have to go back in to full time work soon, so I really want to release Chronoblast before that happens just to get it done. To be honest, I'm really nervous about putting it out there now. It's grown in to something I didn't expect with quite a bit of attention and I think people are really expecting a lot from the game. All I can say is, if it's too easy - I promise I'll make a Black Label sequel
Skyravens has had some time put in to it, but most work is going in to Chronoblast at the moment. As an easter egg, you get to fly the original vertical Skyravens girls in their mech suits when you play the games hardest mode. Once Chronoblast is done I will be focussing much more on Skyravens. Also, you may want to start letting people know that we are talking about doing another vertical shmup - a crossover between Chronoblast and the great indie game "Aero Flux" which can be seen on
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=31663
You are really doing an amazing work! Maybe the best XBLIG shmup is coming…
I hope so! It's a tall order and there are other great shmups out there, such as Snops attack. I don't mind if people don't think it's the best XBLIG shmup, but I know deep down that it's definately a good contender for exercising the full extent of the jam. After all, I've been lurking on System11 for years. That's got to be a good sign.
Seems you are well managing XNA development for Xbox 360 (following the great work about Chronoblast)…Bur before…Did you develop for others video games consoles?
Basically, when I was young I didn't have games consoles. My dad was an electrician and computer engineer. He gave me an old Vic20 system. He said "When you can make your name fill the screen, you can have a better computer". I wrote my first GOTO loop and he gave me a Commodore 64.
He gave me an old book on writing games - one of those ones where you have to punch in the code from the book and fix errors. He also gave me is entire library of games. This pattern of upgrades carried on through an Atari ST, an Amiga and then my first PC based system. I had a NES for my little brother as he was handicapped when he was alive, but the first console I ever owned myself was a PS2.
I've worked for Codemasters as a games tester and I've contracted to other Indie teams to write games - but this is my first dedicated console game. Writing games is something I've always wanted to do and in recent years, I've discovered that it's what I love doing the most because of the challenges. By trade I'm actually a Linux systems and network engineer.
Is Chronoblast planned to be also released for PC (steam) ?
After the XBLIG release is done, I just have to make sure that the game plays on the PC. The complication there is that there are a lot of additional libraries to incorporate for supporting joysticks and so on. Not impossible, but just requires a little extra work. I don't know about Steam, but I will definately release on Indiecity. If sales are good, I can always attempt to get it on Steam Greenlight and ask the shmup communities for their backing.
What was the first shmup you have played and for you what is the one you enjoy(ed) the more?
That's a tough one. The first shmups I would have played would probably be Blackhawk, Uridium and Space Invaders. I also spent some time playing with "SEUCK" (Shoot em up construction kit). I played a lot of games on those old systems. I remember having a long standing love affair with Xenon 2 and Atomic Robokid on the Amiga. Out of all of those, I think Xenon 2 was one of my favourites - but my all time favourite shmup today has to be Mushihimesama Futari Black Label.
Do you like French food? L'o L
I've only been to France once, but damn those Baguettes blew my mind!
MERCI Steve !
Un mec qui aime Xenon 2, c'est un bon mec ! - Sined