November 2020 Shmup Club - Jamestown+

[MetalFRO]

[img width=616 height=353]https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/377950/capsule_616x353.jpg[/img]

Imagine an alternate future, if you will. What if America wasn't where the British colonists landed? What if civilization had already advanced far beyond where we are today, and instead, had already reached the level of space travel, 400 years ago? If so, Jamestown wouldn't have been planted in Virginia, or anywhere on the east coast of what we know as America. Instead, it would have reached beyond the Earth, and started elsewhere. In an alternate past, in 1619, Jamestown was born...on Mars.

In 2011, Final Form Games brought this vision to life, as Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony, debuting on PC. Just 4 years later, it was updated with new levels, and new modes, and came to PlayStation 4 as Jamestown+. More recently, Jamestown+ has made its way to Nintendo Switch, and is also available on Steam. A loving homage to CAVE-style danmaku games, with some flavor all its own, and a very different visual approach, with it's "vertizontal" orientation. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in November 2020, as we play Jamestown+ and discover an alternate timeline!

In terms of scoring, since each stage is its own self-contained experience, post your best scores for each stage, and each difficulty level that you decide to play, and we can go with that. If you want to post a run of the Gauntlet mode, like zoydo has, just post a screenshot or photo of your end score.

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
SaturdayDevelopment
zoydo

[SaturdayDevelopment]

I'm in for November.  This game has a lot going on.  What are we using for scoring criteria?

[MetalFRO]

Good question - I haven't fired this one up yet, so I'll be discovering what the game has to offer, alongside everyone else. Let me do some research, and we'll see if we can pin something down. Also, welcome aboard this month!

[MetalFRO]

Just so everyone's aware, Jamestown+ will have a 4-player, LIVE demonstration happening during Shmup Slam 3 this weekend! It should be a lot of fun to watch, especially since it will be on "Divine" the highest difficulty. Live commentary will be provided by Mark from The Electric Underground podcast, and Alva, a noted shmup player.

https://horaro.org/shmupslam3/saturday

The schedule should adjust to show when it's happening in your local time zone, so make sure to check it out! Once the event is done, and the run is available as a separate video, I may link that here for everyone to watch.

[MetalFRO]

I wanted to throw a reminder in here to make sure you don't sleep on the upgrades! I had forgotten about the shop (or shoppe, as the game says), and ended up spending all my ducats last night buying new ships and upgrades. There are some cool ship types, and some fun stuff to experiment with. Each different ship has its own unique load-out, and it really changes the way you approach the game, giving a lot of flexibility in how you route stages and approach bosses. There's a lot more depth here than I initially imagined.

[SaturdayDevelopment]

Good call.  I also find that the Challenges are a good way to test ships in a short timeframe.

[zoydo]

Guess i haven't played Jamestown for more than two years now, so i thought it would be fun to play a few credits.

Did a run on the Gauntlet Mode (Normal) last week.

[img width=500 height=375]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50587853612_3722674f84.jpg[/img]

(Didn't care too much about scoring.)

It was a lot of fun seeing the game at ShmupSlam 3, those dudes rocked!

[MetalFRO]

Very nice! I need to make sure I've unlocked Gauntlet so I can give that a try. And you're right - that 4-player run at Shmup Slam 3 was amazing to watch!

[zoydo]

That run showed off pretty good, that Jamestown+ is intended to be played in multiplayer. I almost feel stupid now, playing it alone. xD
But it also works very well in singleplayer anyway.

[MetalFRO]

Speaking of which, here's the Shmup Slam 3 day 1 video, time code directly to the Jamestown+ run:

[MetalFRO]

As we wind down the month, anyone have thoughts to share on the game? I've found that some of the challenge levels are ridiculously hard for me. Some of it is my inability to execute the way I want to, and some of it is that I expect it to behave like other danmaku shooters, when in some ways, it kind of does its own thing. The vertizontal orientation throws me off a bit, and the lack of a defined hitbox on each ship makes it harder for me to visualize where I'm vulnerable. The fifth stage is also insane, with the maze, and so much getting thrown at you, that it becomes a bit overwhelming. I was tackling that last night, after failing repeatedly at a couple challenge levels, and actually managed to reach the boss, after using up all my credits. I know it's possible to do this stage on a single credit, but I'm not sure I have it in me, and certainly not before the end of the day today. Lots of good ideas in this game, though, and I'd be interested to see this developer tackle the genre again, to see what they come up with.

[SaturdayDevelopment]

I played a good bit this month, but none of my gauntlet runs ever felt worthy of posting a score. 

The pixel art is fantastic.  The story is insanely creative.  The music took me completely by surprise and matches the aesthetic perfectly.

This game reminded me of why I prefer older games.  The modern gameplay format where you get points to unlock things to help you get farther in the game, without ever really getting good (read: git'n gud) came full-circle for me when I tried to play the Gauntlet and Super Gauntlet modes and couldn't make it very far.  I wish I would've focused on Gauntlet mode earlier and more often so that I could've at least worked up my way to making it through the first level on Legendary without eating a credit.  I felt nothing when I beat the game (in the non-gauntlet mode) for the first time, because I hadn't really gotten that much better at playing the game well.

The scoring system is interesting.  I went with an "always be vaunting" approach, but never got good enough to skillfully time the initial vaunt shield to collect points from bullets.  I spent most of my time focusing on surviving and never put too much thought into point accumulation.

Random Note:  I didn't care for the Croatoa level that turned into an obstacle course mid-way through.

In summary, I did really enjoy this game.  It was a fun ride, and the overall presentation was excellent.  I just wish I could've gotten better at the game so I could dig deeper into the scoring system.

[MetalFRO]

I'm kind of in a similar place. Croatoa is creative, with the obstacle course/maze design, but it feels like they were trying to do too much on the final stage, and it ends up being either an endurance run, or something you have to practice over and over, potentially with many different ships, to find the best path through. That's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly since you can start at that stage, and there's no need to power up, so it works like a practice mode in a modern game. But yes, I wish I had focused more on Gauntlet mode earlier. I tried it last night, and couldn't even get through stage 1 on a single credit on Divine difficulty. Had I focused more on that, after unlocking the different stages, that might have helped me somewhat.

Regarding the scoring, we'll go into this more on the podcast, but I found out through the course of playing that bullet cancelling is actually pretty minor for score. It's a component, but the real money is on keeping your vaunt going. As you destroy enemies while in vaunt, you score more points, and the golden nuts and cogs you collect are worth more points while vaunt is active - typically double their normal value. There's also a risk/reward factor for cancelling out of vaunt early, and you get a bonus for doing that, but I didn't quite nail down the specifics of that.