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Project Neon: New Shmup for the Neo Geo

Hah, good timing, I was actually to provide an update tonight. In the meantime, I'm looking people that are opinionated on all things swarm and bullet patterns. What you folks love/hate? Random swarms or deliberately set? Spirals, spreads? What makes a good shmup for you personally? :)

P.S. Ah, and shameless plug: if you're into synth music, i just released this split vinyl (my own tracks are on the B side) you might wanna check this out: https://fullset.io/products/fsm-1-unbiased-ep-vinyl .. there's also a soundcloud playlist ;)
 
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Deliberately set pattern is better if you're planning on having a large amount of stuff going on at any given time.

I like slowly learning the level and improving my score as I get the patterns downpat.

I prefer spreads over spirals, but I think you need a mixture, particularly in boss fights. Occasional spiral with spread patterns IMO.

For reference, I am a huge fan of Progear, Crimzon Clover, Raiden, Pulstar, Last Resort etc. but also Truxton.

If your SoundCloud link above is anything to go by, you have one of the most important parts sorted :)
 
Allrighty, it's a tad late here but here's for a brief status update:

The majority of time over the last couple of nights went into the level scripting side of things. It took a few tries to come up with something that I feel reasonable comfortable with in terms of usage flexibility and ease of use.. while still being somehow future proof. To validate the usage of the approach, I've started to deliberately place first swarms over the first level, with about 30% of the level covered. Before this enemies would have just spawn/fly-in randomly and simply fly straight from top to bottom... Let's say it's a bit more sophisticated like this now ;) It also took a while to get the hang of coming up with the first patterns that are actually fun to blast through, but I think I slowly get the hang of it now. I also have some helping hands that can help me whenever I get stuck. I'm still rather new to C... and well, game development. What, I didn't mention that before? Well, there you have it.. full disclosure and all that :) Don't you worry, things will be fine.


The Kickstarter campaign/page is forming. I actually use this for drafting the general project plan and overview for myself going forward :) There a still a few more details tho (artwork, more tiers) and, of course: the introduction / trailer video. For this I will pretty likely go with a capture of the game running on my TATE testing cab. A MAME capture simply wouldn't do things justice! Fingers crossed I get the shutter of my cam to adjust/sync to the refresh rate of the screen for 100% crispness. If all goes well things should be ready to go live within the next 2-3 weeks. I know, I know, delays already? Well, let's rather make this right than rushed, right :)

Last not but least, let's talk sound... or more specific: let's talk music!

I'm super stoked to announce that freezedream agreed to put his magical hands on the soundtrack for Project Neon! We already got a first "test track" (YM2610-driven drum'n'bass baby!) ... I say test track because we wanted to use this for two things: align on the direction and see if we can actually get it to play on the YM2610. As some of you might know, there are no real tracker/tools to compose songs for the YM2610.. at least nothing great. This means that the creation process is somehow funky. Things are actually being composed across two different Deflemask projects (one in Genesis YM2612 mode, and the other one in YM2151 Arcade mode) and then manually using some crazy witch work! We're still in the process of validating this process with the all-might Hpman, who's the one that actually makes this possible. He's the one providing the necessary conversion, sound driver and all that jazz. Luckily Hpman & freezedream know their FM and PCM game inside out and crushed through first blips with ease ;) Ah, and did I mention things already sound amazing? They do! Prepare for some speedy and highly engaging FM Synth galore!

That should be it for tonights update. As mentioned before, please do not hesitate from dropping your thoughts, feedback and ideas here. I want to hear all of it!

- cf
 
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CoinFeeder said:
Hah, good timing, I was actually to provide an update tonight. In the meantime, I'm looking people that are opinionated on all things swarm and bullet patterns. What you folks love/hate? Random swarms or deliberately set? Spirals, spreads? What makes a good shmup for you personally? :)
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I am into reactionary game play. Memorization is fine and all but once you get stuff down it is just routine, like knowing where enemies spawn in Ninja Gaiden and knowing when to jump or slash. I prefer it if it is fair play and I have the ability to get "into the zone" and avoid bunch of shit. It feels good when you get hit by a pattern of bullets and you pull it off, or get hit and say "damn, I should have went that way!" and see your mistakes as they are happening. I was playing Raiden V other night on my Switch (before bed on the small screen isn't the best shmup experience but..) and I feel that some of those bullets and spreads were way too fast to react too. If I didn't know where an enemy was going to spawn I probably wouldn't make it. Had to coin feed to get through it.

Also consider the color of bullets. Most of Raiden V's bullets were red or orange color, but every now and then they would throw out a bunch of hard to see blue bullets. WTF? Also on the screen was shit tons of pickups. Makes it hard to see what I am supposed to be dodging and what I should be collecting.

I think progear is way too crazy with the amount of bullets on screen. Not sure if you are going for a shmup thats a bullet hell, but I prefer the ones that are more manageable like Gradius, Pulstar, Cyvern. Dodonpochi has some cool moments where you slow down and dodge shit in a satisfying way.

Some cool patterns would be nice. Almost like your "dancing" in and out of the bosses beams/bullets.
 
I love shmups of all kinds, but mMy favorite shmups are ones where it isn't just about bullet-dodging, but also has terrain influence gameplay. For example, R-Type 3 has a factory level where lava pours into pipes, and the opening and closing of valves creates safe passages past the lava flow. Thunder Force 3 has a cavern where earthquakes cause rocks to fall. Radiant Silvergun has a boss that shoots a screen-sweeping laser, but you can duck for cover behind a terrain pillar. Gradius V has a slime level where moving hydraulic walls move slime in and out of your path.

I'm hoping that Project Neon will have something similar going on to distinguish it. Bullet hell shmups have their place, but many of them are awfully generic.
 
Hey folks - a quick update on things, as we've been heads down for the last few days and weeks on preparing things for the Kickstarter.

- The game itself is progressing nicely, on a nightly basis so to say. We've involved a few known names in testing things along the progress of the game.. to get and address feedback early on, as well as make sure we have some people to chime in should somebody doubt this is real. Please don't ask who they are, just trust us that you'd trust them ;) If you're keen getting your hands on an alpha build yourself, read on...

- We're almost there with the Kickstarter. We have 3 Tiers (Supporter, Soundtrack, Cartridge) so far. We're also considering (not confirmed yet!) having an "alpha access tier", where you get access to the current alpha version of the game, and a few more updates along the way (read: alpha stage!) for the first 1-2 months after the Kickstarter. These alpha builds would only include the first stage, and we'll we'd use the feedback to refine game mechanics, graphics & sounds and fix bugs should you spot some :P The existing rom builds have been tested on MAME and Darksoft's Multi, but should also work just fine on the NeoSD.. We'll give that a test soon!

- Quite some have asked about the box design and if there will be a special edition. The answer is: we don't know yet, as we try to keep everything that can distract us from working on the actual game at a minimum. We're also not too much fan of different/limited/collectors editions, but might reconsider should voices get loud enough. Now is the time to tell us if you're really that keen about t-shirts, posters, postcards, stickers, marquees... well, and risking us getting distracted for that to some extend ;)

There will likely be no other dedicated update here before the trailer and kickstarter going live, but please feel free to shoot questions + feedback on the above here and I'll make sure we'll get back to you asap!

P.S. We're also looking into doing a live demo and Q&A on one or more of your favourite streamers channels soon.
 
Ah, and talking about posters and all that ;) ...

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I initially lost interest in this after hearing it was going to be TATE only. But today I decided to skim the thread and I see a few others had the same concerns about rotating a monitor for 1 game.

Anyways, I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I think at the very minimum a control/text rotate option should be included in the game.
 
If anyone bought Neo XYX , it was a tate/yoko game so if the same options were applied to this game I think there will be no problems with monitor orientation.
 
Niko said:
I initially lost interest in this after hearing it was going to be TATE only. But today I decided to skim the thread and I see a few others had the same concerns about rotating a monitor for 1 game.

Anyways, I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I think at the very minimum a control/text rotate option should be included in the game.
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NG DEV Neo XYX was also a mostly tate game although it also has the yoko ability. You are right though, unless you also have a pgm with do don pachi, ketsui, and espagulda, this wouldnt be enough to want to flip your monitor vertically.
 
I'm definitely keen on a mini marquee for when I have it yoko in my mvs cab, and a marquee I can use in my Astro for tate play. Aside from that, just looking forward to seeing more deets in the Kickstarter
 
It's hard to tell if the game looks good or not. That trailer video was way hard to watch. Feels like someone got trigger happy splicing things together. There was something like 45 cuts in a 50 second video.
 
@brad808 Thanks for you feedback mate. Sorry to hear the trailer didn't resonate with you. We'll make sure do share some additional footage along the way soon.
 
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