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"Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-05 22:30:56 (edited 2010-10-15 10:45:50)
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Did I say simple? I meant deadly. xD Other sources of news: The Danzoku Blog Danzoku on Facebook Danzoku, as I incorrectly named it back at the start of 2010, is a simple danmaku (bullet hell, curtain fire, "girl shooter") game I began making as a project in a Visual Basic class back in high school. With a focus on gameplay over aesthetics, it has since evolved into something that has that "oh my god why isn't this as simple as it looks and still kills me left and right on EASY mode" feeling series like Touhou or Suguri keep forcing upon me and continues to get even more so as I continue to finalize the gameplay. So, put simply, it isn't pretty (yet) and only incorporates a single "boss fight". You are a pink block with a circle in it trying to send egg shapes bullets into the body of a bigger blue block who fires more interesting round bullets at you. If you're one of those people who need graphics out the foot to get into a game, you might be put off at the most current version (v0.57). For the rest of you who value gameplay over visual, I'm hoping it incorporates the feeling and difficulty of other such danmakus to keep you playing again and again and again. I did remove the one handicap of other danmakus though: complete predictability. I personally hate it when someone can spend a few hours learning the repeatable details of each individual level to the point of mastery, so, while there are patterns to be realized, the game is based mostly in the realms of randomly generated enemy movement and attack choices requiring skill and quick-thinking, not a decent ability to memorize complex patterns and movements. Unfortunately, due to the limits of Visual Basic and my own knowledge, the attack patterns I can implement are fairly basic (for instance, "Bullet Circlet" can slow down the game when all of the possible 64 bullets are on the screen; or, I don't want to figure out the math to make a spiraling attack) but are compensated by the aforementioned lack of predictability and the current implementation of "supplementary attacks" in an attempt to further complicate gameplay. And, I should note, that it is by no means complete. Most of the gameplay ideas I wish to implement are almost in there and still require some adjusting, but it is still a completely functional game. If you have any creative suggestions, I am open to considering them and, if applicable, adding them. Controls: - Arrow Keys to Move - Z key to Attack (Hold) - X key to "Freeze Time" - L-Cntl key to use Aura Movement: You are free to move anywhere within the lower 3/4ths of the map (why I have it cut off I don't really remembe..oh, that was for the power draw thing in the mob section I never got anywhere with...hmm, I might remove that). Attacking: You have access to a single, rapid fire bullet stream with the possibility of extending that to two such streams as well as an all-directional "Semi-Track" attack. All bullets fired draw power; all hits on the boss give power. Special / Freeze: Stops the Boss' and Boss bullets' movement for easy evasion. It also slows down your attack rate, bullet speed, and aura use. Aura: A combination of the visual 'aura' used in Touhou for slow movement and the power-absorbing dash technique of Suguri, holding the Aura key while near bullets draws power from them. The use of Aura consumes power, so don't have it on when there are no enemy bullets around. Note that this isn't a shield and does not pacify the bullets which pass through it. Power: A stat used to determine final score as well as possible bonuses; bonuses are given in increments of 4k (in Normal difficulty) and are in order +1 Special, 2x Bullets, +1 Special, Semi-Track. Scoring: There are two methods of determining rankings among players: damage dealt and score. Score is determined by various factors including damage, time, power, specials used and general accuracy. Version History and Download Links: Danzoku v0.1 Download v0.1 here. The boss does get harder as you begin to kill him, so watch out for those attacks! Danzoku v0.25 Download v0.25 here. Edits: - Nothing new in terms of visual. "Aura" visual now appears when key is pressed. - Aura now "works"; if you can make the enemy bullets pass through the Aura, you gain power points which, at certain values, give you bonuses (mainly Freezes at this point). Watch out though, overusing it lowers your power value! - Two new boss attacks: "Wave" and "Heavy Drop" - Boss HP to 500. - Edited boss AI to account for new health, attacks; also increases rate of attack as it weakens. - Additional stats added: time, DPS, and number of freezes used. - (Two counters, freezes and Power Points, exist on the left side of the screen. These aren't supposed to be there yet, but I left them in to make learning Aura easier.) Danzoku v0.5 Download v0.5 here. Edits: - Changed UI to be more efficient. Added visual Power and Time Counters. - Addition of Score recall as well as an "About" form. - Both Aura and Bullets draw power. Glancing bullets with Aura or hitting the boss with bullets increase power. - Power Upgrades: 4k : +1 Special , 8k : 2x Bullets , 12k : +1 Special , 16k : Semi-Track Attack. - Added the "Score" stat: *secret* . - Boss AI should be roughly the same as v0.25. Danzoku v0.58 Download v0.58 here. Edits: - Addition of new Boss Attack, “Bullet Circletâ€. - Changes to Score Calculation to include another factor of accuracy. - Changes to the power acquisition rates to be a bit more balanced. - A bonus 5000 power to players who kill the boss. - Realization that the timer counts by 1.5 seconds. It remains as such. - v0.571 : Fix an error in the freeze count not resetting. - v0.58 : Fix Timer, Circlet Frequency, Circlet and Semi-Track starts, set max power that effects score. Danzoku v0.62 Download v0.62 here. Edits: - Added a exponential to the Time in score calculation to force a balance between Time and Power. - Semi-Track (Impulsive; edit on Aimed) has been added. - Torrent (Progressive; edit on Cascade) has been added. - Ray (and the correct appearance of Meteor) has been added. - Decrease fire rate of Double Stream and Semi-Aimed. Double Stream is now 1.5 (down from 2) faster than Single; Semi-Aimed is shot half the time. - Fixes to Movement: Fixed a flaw where a KeyUp event would stop all movement on an axis despite having the other key down. - Additions to Movement: Normal player speed has been increased; holding the Shift-Key will allow the player to move slower. If you have a good attempt, post a screenshot of it here and I'll (try to keep up and) add you to the various scoreboards: Rankings - Damage Dealt: Rankings - Score: Rankings - Time to Complete (500 Damage): 
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-05 22:36:36 (edited 2010-09-05 23:07:49)
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Good one... &uarr - 3rd try. &uarr - 4th try. Will update soon.  |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-05 22:41:30 (edited 2010-09-05 22:47:16)
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@PHS: Hmm, how did you drop from 4k Power to 792? *added* EDIT: Oh shoot, lemme look into something here... EDIT2: How the hell are you using 4/5 freezes under 4k/12k power? :o
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-05 23:17:29 |
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No idea, bugs/glitch perhaps?? Btw, i'll be posting updates on my first post. So, keep sharp. |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-05 23:18:52 (edited 2010-09-05 23:19:44)
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Pretty fun, makes me want to play more Castle of Shishigami III lol. I'll probably try to kill it tomorrow :D  |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-06 00:59:35 |
tested it, it was very fun... anyway... Here is my score |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-06 14:41:21 (edited 2010-09-06 23:43:45)
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I found the problem (thanks to someone on SDA getting a count of 30): When you lose, the number of freezes are carried over from the last game as I still can't make the frmDanzoku completely erase from the memory. I'm uploading a v0.571 with the quick fix (and god, I don't know this version numbering stuff, lol). And I'll add the new scores as well. (Reread this, redundant.) EDIT: v0.58 out with various game-breaking fixes found by people on SDA, lol.
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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by
 
on 2010-09-07 05:56:29 |
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So I played it, and it's pretty nice for a starter. I do notice 2 things though: - When the player moves forward, the bullet shoots out faster, vise versa when moving backward - Occasionally, my sprite gets a glitch stuck restricting movement. It may last for a moment and continue moving or it only moves when I release the movement button and re-press (caused me to die a few times there T^T) Well just my thoughts ;x |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-07 07:25:58 (edited 2010-09-07 07:47:34)
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Updates. (From v0.571) Note : Cancel that. I'm back. |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-07 07:47:18 |
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@Wen: 1. That's because you either move with or away from the bullets as they move. When moving forward, you "stack" more bullets in a smaller space and vice versa. While I didn't exactly plan it, it's a neat little technique I didn't want to change. 2. Hmm, so your character stops moving despite holding the button? Don't know what to say other than after I add everything I should go look for maximizing the efficiency of the code. @PHS: I'll add when you have the SS.
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-07 07:48:42 |
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@terror the aura really helps a lot... if you know how to do it right... hahahaharr |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-07 08:41:03 |
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Yes, Cascade is perfect for it. :3 Well, good news. I'm likely gonna make a "auto-grazing-aura" which draws power from bullets without hitting aura at lower rates. Still trying to perfect the balance of power vrs time/score. >_<
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-07 10:05:51 |
TAKE THAT PHS   |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-08 17:39:49 (edited 2010-09-08 19:51:11)
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 o(^^o)(o^^)o @Terror I understand that you have a focus on gameplay but are you're intending to just leave this game as it is letting people play and submit high scores or do you intend to expand to give a character selection with different stats, stages or improve aesthetics of this game in the future? [EDIT]  New version scores =D Terror it's so much easier to draw power during the later stages of the game T^T [EDIT] @Paiseh Lol it has nothing to do with that. The idea is to move along the bullets while having your aura on. Within 35-40 seconds you'd have twin bullets shooting out of your sprite. |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-08 18:42:39 |
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Oh snap... Kuroi's Touhou experience helps much. |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-08 20:11:43 (edited 2010-09-08 20:34:56)
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T.T I typed up a whole thing and lost it, so now for a very simple version. @Wen: I'm aiming to perfect this battle first with gameplay then aestetics and deem it v1. After that, I might work on expanding it to multiple stages and/or characters. I'll note that unless I figure out "Trig as it applies to VB", my ability for new attacks might be limited (even trying to make an actual "Semi-Track" is giving me a headache). Which bullets did you farm power from? Generally I just farm 8k from Cascade and Aimed for 2x bullets and die somewhere around 4000+ so I haven't gotten around to checking the new power balance. List of attack names found here as I was bored of calling them 2, 4, 4w, 9, 16, etc.
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-09 00:49:40 |
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Should be the cascade, aimed, and semi-track attacks for early game. Late game would be the combination of cascades, heavy drop, barrage of circlets and a (shotgun version of heavy drop, idk which is it T_T) It seems that bigger bullets can be farmed for more power |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-09 08:04:23 (edited 2010-09-09 23:31:13)
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The attack you couldn't name is "Meteor", which I hope to first dumb down into a 2 wave version named "Ray" for when it first appears (kind of like how Wave turns to Deluge). Cascade - 2 (1-2, perhaps increase with Torrent?) Aimed - 2 Wave - 5 (3) Ray/Meteor - 5 Heavy Drop - 30 (20-30) Cascade - 5 (3) That's the current power draw values with possible edits for the next version in (). So long as the center of the bullet is within the Aura field, it'll register. If you're curious why I have HD so high, it's a isolated large bullet and moves very fast by the time it reaches the player at the bottom of the screen, so yeah. EDIT: Actually, I'm happy to see people unable to get past 250 damage in their first few tries; means the game is hard enough to prompt further improvement play.
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-09-10 04:11:07 |
 I defeated the box at last =D seems that using freezes is a bad idea T_____T |
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Re: "Danzoku!" - v0.62 - 10/15/2010
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on 2010-10-15 10:49:11 |
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Nice job Wen, but... >_< Version v0.62 is out! Scoreboard has been reset. Give it a try. :3 Danzoku v0.62 Download v0.62 here. Edits: - Added a exponential to the Time in score calculation to force a balance between Time and Power. - Semi-Track (Impulsive; edit on Aimed) has been added. - Torrent (Progressive; edit on Cascade) has been added. - Ray (and the correct appearance of Meteor) has been added. - Decrease fire rate of Double Stream and Semi-Aimed. Double Stream is now 1.5 (down from 2) faster than Single; Semi-Aimed is shot half the time. - Fixes to Movement: Fixed a flaw where a KeyUp event would stop all movement on an axis despite having the other key down. - Additions to Movement: Normal player speed has been increased; holding the Shift-Key will allow the player to move slower. (Yes, it's a delete post bump, but I'd rather keep the one thread. :P)
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