RF Generation Message Board

The "Rogue-lite" style of gaming has taken off in the last few years. From RPGs to action platformers, plenty of developers have thrown their hat into the ring, making games with randomized elements to try and spur replay. Some of those games have proven quite successful. Others have fallen by the wayside, not quite finding an audience. One genre where a degree of randomness has always been a factor is shooting games, but usually within pretty tight constraints. What happens when you throw caution to the wind, and go random in a big way?

You get a shoot-em-up like Operation STEEL! From developer Undermog Games, Operation STEEL sees you piloting a space ship across various landscapes to take on random hoards of enemies. Are you tough enough to survive 20 randomized levels? Test your mettle against all manner of crazy bosses, and enemy waves you can't predict! Collect coins and buy weapons and upgrades for your ship to make your runs through the game easier, as well. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in September 2022 as we play Operation STEEL! Available now on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1489300/Operation_STEEL/).

Also...if you'd like to win a copy of the game so you can participate alongside us, be the 1st person to reply to this post! I will PM you here on RF Generation with a code that you can redeem to your Steam account.

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
koola6
4_T_en

I'll play with you guys!

Excellent, you win the free code! I'll message that to you.

I'm going to try to join in. Time is tight, but when I heard it was the September game I checked it out, the demo hooked me and left me wanting more, so I have been playing the full game for a couple of days. As a long-time fan of both the shmup and rougelite genres, I am always pining for a successful hybrid of those styles. They don't seem to be incompatible. So far, OS is working for me. I've only played for 106 minutes so far, but it has me hooked with the satisfying drip-drip of unlocks, and the one-more-roll-of-the-dice compulsivity.

Got my first clear on normal: Pignon, A-D-H-L-Q, 199660 pts. At this early point, I think I benefitted from Pignon's picking up the magnet early, which allowed me to buy repairs regularly, a shield, and to power up faster. I immediately went to compare my score with the online leaderboard, and noticed right away that most scores there have a sixth planet, so there's obviously more to discover. And plenty of unlocks left. So back I go!

(edited: I was wrong in assuming the magnet was a standard bonus of playing with Pignon; I guess I picked it up first thing in the run and didn't notice somehow.)

Welcome to the Shmup Club, 4_T_en! Also, congrats on the clear! I'm hoping to stream this game this evening, and I haven't fired it up yet, so I'll be going in totally unaware of anything beyond the little I've seen in the trailer and snippets of other streams here and there. Regarding the path, I'll have to ask the dev if 5 stages is standard, and then there's an unlock condition for that 6th stage. Obviously opening up another level would give you an opportunity to really maximize score, so if that's key, we'll have to make sure we can learn how to do that :)

why not, i'll join you guys. going in totally blind, haven't played the demo or seen anything about this game. so excited to participate, man it's been too long ^_^

I just had a decent run and made it to the 6th stage (didn't finish it, but broke 200K at least). I'm not entirely sure what the unlock condition was, but I think I collected enough star map pieces. At least that makes sense conceptually. I don't have all of the star map pieces yet, but I got enough to make a complete little cartoon map. (12 pieces, I think?)

Also, I noticed a synergy between poison and squadron. The squadron normally shoots regular bullets, but it shot poison bullets when I had poison as my main weapon. I haven't noticed other synergies yet, but I hope they are there. That's one of the pleasures of a good roguelite.

And I got the full clear on normal this morning. Cid Cobra, B-E-I-N-S-X, 196250pts. So in terms of survival it was definitely my best run so far. I amassed lots of firepower (full blaster, homing, mines, backshot). But I also had a lot of armor, which allowed me to keep going despite fairly sloppy play, hence the relatively low score. I noticed that the fifth highest score on the leaderboards is only four levels, so it does seem like avoiding hits and keeping the multiplier up is critical for scoring. Shocking, I know.

While I'm still hot on this game, I think it should be worth noting all of the references to other shmups and the shmup community. I've noticed allusions to classics like Gradius, R-Type, Truxton, Raiden, and Darius, as well as little shout-outs to the Electric Underground and Shmup Junkie. I'm curious what other people will catch.

Excellent! Also, congrats on the winning the Steam code :)

Great job on the clear, 4_T_en! If you could, please take a photo or screenshot of your best score and post it so we can all revel in your victory. You're rocking this game already! And yes, even just watching the trailer, I could see several references to other games, such as to the Raiden toothpaste laser. Looks like it's going to be a fun ride this month.

i think i'm starting to get the hang of this game. got up to libra before i perished. lemme tell you something, arrows and options, a godly combination but the arrows were stingy up until i think the shop before entering area G. the progressive difficulty as you go along is definitely something i don't see a whole lot, i find myself taking a hit on purpose to scale back the difficulty if i'm fresh out of bombs, it's interesting and it's most certainly gonna take some time getting used to but i'm enjoying it

Here are my top three normal runs so far. If you get a clear on a run, the path is yellow on the leaderboard.

There are a lot of ways left to approach the game after a full clear. First of all, as you can see from my top score, you can try to maintain the multiplier and go after score, and end up scoring higher than you might in a full run. I think killing bosses with 100% multiplier is the trick, but I haven't played enough to be really confident of where the best scoring opportunities are yet. I'm also trying to explore different combos of weapons/usable items/passive items to see if interesting synergies arise. Yesterday I noticed that when you have helix as a weapon and pods as passives, the pods shoot constant laser beams instead of bullets. Not sure if it is mainly cosmetic or if it has a real effect on firepower. [Edit: actually, I was confusing orbs and pods... I'm not sure about any synergies at this point.]

Finally, I've dipped my toes into the hard mode, but haven't put in a sustained effort yet.

A couple more notes from recent plays:
-I think there are two possibilities for the World 5 boss, and it might be random which one you encounter, or perhaps it depends on which path leads to your level 5. In any case, one of them is a direct homage to an old friend from Salamander/Life Force (Golem).
-I like to build a lot of offensive power on my runs, so I will select the Corgi passive, which functions like a little high-fire option that has some independence to its movement. But it is so visually distracting to me. I end up confusing the corgi with my ship when the incoming bullet patterns are especially complex. I'm curious if anyone else experiences this situation with the corgi.

Making more score progress, and reaching the stage 5 boss (sub-final boss), but I haven't quite cracked it yet. There are some really useful passive power-ups that are must buys, like the Magnet, the Corgi (truly passive firepower), the homing missiles, and the rockets. I also quite like both the Arrow main weapon, and the Helix Laser as well. You really need to power up your weapons as well, to make sure you're doing enough damage to take stuff out. The spinning "blade" bullets still get me, and I have a hard time reading those. Turning on the hit box is very helpful, as is turning on the difficulty so you can see the rank. I'm hoping to get a clear with 5 stages at least, and if I can locate the other map pieces, then I can unlock that 6th stage and see the TLB.

Those spinning bullets are tricky because of the way that they curve. One minor complaint I have is that, with the way a few bullet patterns change direction, it does seem like you can get hit by bullets that move offscreen and then curve back in.

I've been busy with work this week, but I have been able to squeeze in a few runs of the boss rush and time attack modes. The latter is quite fun, and is pretty intense from the get-go. One nice surprise I discovered in the boss rush was the appearance of a new weapon called Horn, which I have never seen in 8+ hours of normal runs, and that isn't listed on the shmups.wiki info. It seems to be a short-range weapon that is styled like an audio speaker, and it "shoots" little bursts of text that damage enemies; it literally shoots "PEW PEW PEW PEW" among other things.

Been having a blast with the time attack today. Getting closer to that 200K achievement.

@4_T_en - I'm curious what draws you to the Cid Cobra ship? I find the Pignon to be my ship of choice, I think because I like its default weapon better, in part because of the charge. Once I have access to Arrow or Helix Later, I tend to abandon it, but it's great for taking out mid-size enemies and bosses early on, because of its power. Plus some bullets that you can destroy are easily wiped away with the charge shot.

I'll add that the caravan/time attack is great practice for the main mode. Point blanking to quickly take out bosses is the name of the game in time attack, so you get used to being in the thick of bullet patterns and living on the edge, which is the only way to kill everything in time. Plus you gotta avoid getting hit to keep your multiplier up, so each run feels like a frantic gamble. Then when you shift back to the main mode, the game suddenly feels a lot more relaxed and open. My first few runs on normal mode after a couple of days of concentrating on the caravan mode yielded my best scores so far.

Pignon's charge shot never really clicked with me. I did a decent run with it early in my playing, but I think that once I got more comfortable with the game, I preferred the relative simplicity of Cid Cobras autofire shot. Since you have to lay off the fire to vacuum up the coins, it was simpler for me to manage shot/vacuum with Cid Cobra, instead of shot/charge/vacuum choice with Pignon. In any case, within a couple of days I was very comfortable with Cid Cobra, and figured the smaller hitbox and faster movement speed were reason enough to keep my focus there. I've played dozens of caravan runs and have never tried Pignon yet, for example.

Hi guys, I'm the developer of the game. I finally got around to signing up here.

If anybody has any questions about the game I would be glad to answer them.

re: Ship choice - The game was designed around the Cobra ship, it's my preference but I see many people prefer the Pignon ship so I'm happy they're both viable (although probably not in Time Attack mode as 4_T_en surmised.)

re: Horn weapon - It's not just available in boss rush mode, it's in normal mode too. There is a very small chance it will spawn instead of a "regular" weapon. The horn weapon is pretty terrible though, so you're not missing out by not finding it :)
(Also there is a secret seed you can enter if you want to start with it...)

so last night, i secured a new PB on stream last night. had a really good run and all the pieces fell in the right places but as soon as i got to timeron, i bit the dust. Pretty proud of this run and my first time cracking 200K. only thing that kinda blows is the facecam blocking the score during the run, definitely gotta fix this before my next stream.

and here's the link to the highlight: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1591683670

Welcome to the site, BB! Also, I can confirm the horn weapon - I got it the first night I played & streamed the game, and I think it was my 1st or 2nd run.

@Brandon - you had some killer runs going on during that stream! Seems like you're really getting along well with the game, which is great to see. Great score, as well!

I managed to reach the TLB again this evening a couple times, including my last run where I upped my PB by a decent bit, but I still haven't managed to take the boss down. If I could get there with more health, I might be able to just tank my way through it, but whatever. I'll get it eventually.

I've only been playing the time attack mode recently. I really want that 200K achievement! I'm getting closer, little by little, but I think you pretty much have to have a perfect run to get it, unless there are easier scoring opportunities that I am missing... It seems that you have to quick kill all of the bosses to reap those bonuses, plus kill all enemies to get that bonus, plus no miss to keep that bonus at 100%. In my PB, I got hit once in the final seconds of my fight with Timeron, which was disappointing--but I still made it onto the online leaderboard, at least. I'm having a really good time with this mode. I like how it changes the feel of the game to me, since I think it has to played at the right edge of the screen, quick killing enemies as soon as they come on the screen (at least one of the bosses can be sealed).

I'm glad you're enjoying the Time Attack mode :)
You're right on all counts - the hard part is avoiding taking damage while still killing everything quickly enough to get through in time. It sounds like your PB would have got there if you hadn't taken a hit right at the end, unfortunately.

I can provide more specific tips if you need them, but it sounds like you've got it mostly figured out anyway!

It's great that you are here, BB. Thanks for taking the time! One thing I am curious about is your influences, specifically in combining rogue-lite elements with shmups. That's a combo that I've always been interested in, although I realize it risks provoking negativity from a part of the shmup community--which is a little weird because plenty of genre touchstones have a bit of randomness baked in in various ways. I'm liking Operation Steel so much that I plan on digging in to other shmups with roguelite elements in the second half of the month. I'm going to revisit Steredenn, which I've had for years on the 360 although it never really clicked with me. I'll probably also give Broodstar a go, after checking out the demo and thinking it had promise. I'm curious if you or others have recommendations.

I also wanted to alert our group here that a new update was released yesterday:

v1.4.0
Changelog:

I've upgraded the engine to the latest version of Godot, hopefully some performance improvements might come through. If you see any weird new bugs that might have been caused by the update then please report them on Discord or the discussion board :)
Slightly reduced later boss health (level 4 onwards)
Slightly reduced miniboss health
Slightly increased Dash and Flash item cooldowns
Attempted to soften the coin SFX a touch

I'm sure this will be touched on in next month's podcast, but the short version is that I liked both genres and Steredenn was the first I found to combine them. That game is fun but I felt like there were a few things that bothered me, such as very samey enemy design and many weapons/upgrades not feeling particularly strong (using drones seemed like it was always the predominant strategy for me at least.)

My favourite roguelike/lite shmup is Project Starship X. Broodstar is also fun in a "try to break the game with synergy" kinda way. There are quite a few more games out there I could name but nothing I have felt compelled to play for long periods of time.

I haven't heard of Broodstar, so I'll have to look into that. But Project Starship X is awesome, and lots of fun. We really enjoyed playing through that a few months ago. And while I didn't clear the game during the month, I managed to finally get that 4th loop clear just after, and that was pretty sweet.

Regarding the update, I'll have to make sure I check for the update on Steam. I definitely want to see what difference it makes for the later bosses, and whether or not it gives me an edge to finally beat the game.

I think I may be convinced to check out Project Starship X, or at least put it on a wishlist and give it some consideration. I'm Lovecraft fan going back decades to my pre-teen years, and a fairly humorless one at that (at least where Lovecraft is concerned), so I tend to avoid the corners of online popular culture that embrace a cutesy Lovecraftianism. And as such, I have consciously avoided this game. But if it's a good roguelite shmup, perhaps I should overlook this aspect of its presentation.

There's a free demo which shows a good portion of the game if you're on the fence. There is some cutesy Kthulhu stuff which I could give or take, but there is also serious stuff as well which is pretty cool.

Yes, it's a really well done game in general, so if you're willing/able to overlook the ridiculous factor, it's definitely worth investing time into the game.

Back to Operation STEEL, I have found Hard Mode to be less hard than I imagined, but certainly no pushover. It's interesting that the rank system seems to work about the same, but starting at a higher level, and when you take hits, you're ranked down. I like it, though, and I think it makes it more approachable than it would be if it was just uber-rank all the time.

Okay, multiple posts incoming to show off my final scores! First up, Normal Mode! Funny enough, this wasn't even a clear, but I managed to score the best regardless. Pretty happy with this score.

Time Attack was difficult, and I know if I could find a way to get through it without taking damage, I could score better, but some bullet types, patterns, and attacks I still struggle with.

I managed to beat Boss Rush this evening, and got a nice high score! Again, if I could do this without taking damage, my score would be higher, but I'm still pretty pleased with this. I managed to get into the top 20 on the Steam leaderboard, so that counts for something!

And finally, Hard Mode! I didn't manage to clear this mode during the month, though I came close a couple times. It definitely feels more approachable than you would think of a higher difficulty, but the game's dynamic rank really helps in that regard. I think with a bit more practice, and a little bit of good RNG, I could probably make it happen. Happy with this score, as well.

Anyone have final thoughts to share?

Final thoughts:
I had a great time with this one. I don't think I ever would have given it much attention if it weren't featured here because the art style is not my thing. (One of the main things I love about shmups is the sci-fi pixel art; something like Truxton or R-Type is my ideal... with scan lines, please.) And honestly, it is possible that I may not have even heard of it because Operation STEEL doesn't seem to have a high profile in the online shmup communities I frequent, which is a shame, because it is a blast. I'm grateful that it was the Shmup Club game of the month.

As I mentioned before, I'm a fan of shmups, obviously, and rougelites, so I've always been waiting for a killer combination of these genres. Operation STEEL definitely succeeds in the sense that it feels like a good shmup while adding a fair amount of the compelling replayability of roguelites. The first few hours really were powered by a mix of trying to get further in the game (shmup style) as well as trying to get all the unlocks and explore different combinations (rogue style). And yet, I get the sense that BB really wanted to keep that shmuppy level of challenge, the demand for some memorization and quick reactions that characterize the genre, because I never felt like I was able to put together a game-breaking amount of firepower. Some runs were more powered than others, but I always had to keep my wits about me, and there were always bosses that I couldn't get past without getting hit (Sagittarius and the Observatory, foremost among them). Part of me wanted to find myself in a run where I could just melt everything I faced, but it either never happened to me due to bad RNG mojo, or it was designed to not really happen. And I think that aspect of the game will keep it appealing to more traditional shmup fans.

The second half of the month was a really busy one for me, so I'm glad I got to put in a good amount of time earlier in September. I agree with Guru that the hard mode was, dare I say, pleasantly accessible, especially after honing skills in normal and time attack. But I honestly haven't gotten a chance to try that many runs on hard. The real unexpected discovery for me was how tight and fun time attack turned out to be. I haven't hit my goal on that one, and I can definitely see myself coming back to give it another couple weeks of effort in the future.

I'll finish with a question for everyone, including BB: What would you think about additional content? I was a little sad when the unlock train ended, and part of me still wishes there were more weapons and combos to explore. I would pay for a DLC pack, honestly. But I can also see that there is something nice in saying, this is the finished game, which is a limited experience that is not intended to keep spinning forever. When I think of some of my most-love rouguelites, like Isaac and Dead Cells, I have to admit that they have mutated so much through expansions and DLCs that I miss the core game that I first fell in love with. I played the heck out the originals, took a break for some months or years, and then came back to a game that felt a lot different, and that is a slightly alienating experience for me.

Some items are definitely better than others (Shield being particularly useful) but you're right to have noticed and this was by design. Eventually I would like to make another roguelike shmup (probably horror-themed) and lean more into that crazy synergy side of roguelikes. If Op. STEEL is 2 parts Shmup and 1 part Roguelike I'll try turning the dial the other way...



I've thought about it and have a few ideas, but honestly working on something new is much more appealing to me right now. I was a bit burnt out finishing this (my first) game so a few things I wanted to add were left on the cutting-room floor in an effort to get it out the door.
The saying goes something like "A work of art is never finished, only abandoned" which feels apt to me in this case, but I am very happy with the game in it's current state and the reception it has received from the community :)

Wow 4_T_en, thank you so much for the thorough final thoughts! And thanks for jumping in this month, I'm glad you discovered a new game you like, and were able to get some real enjoyment from it. That's the goal of the Shmup Club, to help introduce players to games they might otherwise not have played, or not played seriously.