July 2021 Shmup Club - Project Starship X

[MetalFRO]

There also seems to be a strange bullet-eating aspect to the dash move? It seems like sometimes you eat a bullet if your dash lands directly on it. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how this works.

I've noticed this as well, and have definitely abused it somewhat, though I'm not sure I've been doing it exactly right. I don't know if it's landing on top of bullets specifically, or just within a radius of your ship's sprite. Will need to investigate more, to try and figure it out. Also, 900K? That's ridiculous! I don't think any of us would stand a chance catching up, if that's the case

[MetalFRO]

I haven't mentioned yet, but on stream Saturday afternoon, I managed to beat Shopthulu, and unlocked Swagthulhu. I haven't managed to beat the stage 5 boss in the 2nd loop yet, however. But Swagthulhu is a great character to pick, because his low health notwithstanding, he is the most powerful character up front, and any upgrades you get just help to strengthen his usefulness. I also managed my best score so far, over 600K. Still hoping to clear loop 2, so I can see Space Texas, and get to experience what else loop 3 brings to the table.

Oh, and one other interesting note - if you get to the end of stage 5, and don't unlock the boss fight, you'll open stage 6, which is basically a stage 1 redux with harder enemies and more bullets, so keep that in mind. I did that the other day when I reached the stage 5 boss with no health, and decided not to fight it.

[MetalFRO]

I managed to finally clear loop 2! Got my highest score so far, as well. I had to fight the Green Mushroom, so I could get the extra life to expend, but that was enough to put me over the top. That final boss fight in stage 5 is bananas!

[Addicted]

Congrats! Ganbare Guru.

[Golem]

Congratulations Mr. Fro! Those 1-ups are a hell of a powerup!

It's neat how clearing the end level unlocks more content to play through. I spent like a week trying to "loop" the game by going through stages 6 - 10, and I didn't realize that everyone else was trying to "loop" the game by clearing the end boss on stage 5 in a second playthrough. Two senses for the same word, ha.

EDIT: Well, after clearing the TLB, you get a bunch of modes that give you higher scoring possibilities. So, it seems worthwhile to focus on clearing the game before scoring.

I did record a full run tonight: youtube.com/watch?v=7tUeozkgLgY

I think ultimately the challenge was memorizing the level blocks and mad events. Once nothing surprised me, it was all pretty doable. (Also helps that your health maxes out at 10, which is ridiculously generous for the genre.)


Here is the list of stuff I wish I knew off the bat:
- What all the powerups do (I mean... too numerous to list here)
- If you don't charge the final boss portal, the game continues
- If you clear the final boss multiple times, you unlock more content
- If you collect shield restores with a full shield, it powers up that little bar under your shield counter. That bar has five notches. Once you fill up the bar, you get an extra max shield. So, it is beneficial to pick up shield restores, even if you have max shield. (Aside from, you know, the 200 points.)
- Your post-dash invincibility allows you to move down about as far as you move up.
- Not all crash attack-able enemies will be locked on (e.g. hands in the moon stage).
- You are invincible when transitioning into or out of the crawler.
- Mad events undraw the screen all at once and immediately replace it with a new challenge. Normal challenges scroll in gradually from the top of the screen.
- You can hold up to fight gravity. By dashing, you can go up against gravity; by holding up, you will then slow your descent. This allows you to step up even when you are in "GRAVITY DOWN".
- Null health and burning will both give you overload power. (Burning will is when you don't get hit for an extended period of time.) Getting hit in the tank does not cancel burning will.
- If you clear a level without getting hit, you will get a tank powerup. If you already have the tank, you will get nothing.
- Please only watch the bottom three rows of tiles during the stage 2 Sun boss. Stay towards the right so that stray bullets get pulled into the Sun and miss you, but be aware that hazards can still come from the bottom right.
- Along with that - during stage 2 Sun, if you hug the right side of the screen, no bullets from eyeballs can reach you.
- The background dims when you focus shot. (Notable touch for a game that usually leverages confusion in its presentation.)
- The lag on being able to dash again is not the same as the lag on being able to re-enter the tank. I think you need to wait for the dash "clock" to reach 12 before you can go back into the tank.
- Shops are on stages 2 and 4.
- Space Texas has a discounted shop.
- Normal bombs only affect bullets.
- The green mushroom miniboss drops a 1-up.
- If "MAD EVENT" is written in blue, your controls are reversed.
- Mad events are not tied to a specific stage.
- The stage 4 asteroid belt boss (the xenomorph) waves its arms. You can't touch its hands, but you can touch its arms.
- You can touch the eyeball ship during the first two phases of the stage 1 Earth boss (...Zombie Hitler).
- The lighting is an overload powerup, which will shake the screen and paint a high-contrast splash image in the background.
- Holding the shot button slows the ship without changing the shot.
- Unless you are in the tank, where you have a standard spread/focus dichotomy.
- Each stage pulls from a bank of available stages based on the stage number. Stage 1 has a set of stages to pull from, stage 2 has its own set, so and so forth. That is, you could never have the cavern stage as stage 1, and you could never have the space-junk field as stage 2. Stage 5 rotates as you clear each one.

Um. I thought that would be just a few things. I guess it turns out I didn't understand many things about the game right off the bat, haha. I had to learn these things by trial and error.

So far, I think these are the easiest stages to score in:

- Stage 1 - Earth
- Stage 2 - Meteor Field
- Stage 3 - Cavern
- Stage 4 - Computer

[Christapp76]

First play tonight

Score 269,674

Well what more can I say about this game apart from the fact that it tries to do things different and original.

I wish the game would let you dash backwards as in able to push back and dash at the same time. I know it is possible to dash backwards but they way to pull it off in this game feels awkward to me and hinders the gameplay

I think I prefer my shmups to be a bit more conventional. I think the game tries to hard to be different and this impacts my enjoyment

I will keep playing and hopefully the game will grow on me

[img width=700 height=525]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210723/6c18fe3fdd1449786d1a728eacecc658.jpg[/img]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Golem]

I wish the game would let you dash backwards as in able to push back and dash at the same time. I know it is possible to dash backwards but they way to pull it off in this game feels awkward to me and hinders the gameplay

I think I prefer my shmups to be a bit more conventional. I think the game tries to hard to be different and this impacts my enjoyment

That felt awkward to me, too.

The dash move sends your ship upwards. So, seemingly, its main use is to dodge through things by moving upward. The fact that you can use it to dodge things below you is the result of a nuanced rule: the invincibility time of the dash is longer than the movement time of the dash. The dash move kicks off two timers of different length.

It can be cool when games build challenges around nuanced rules. However, the very first level in the game tests this nuance, when you are first being introduced to the move.

[MetalFRO]

Thank you so much for the amazing insights into the game, Golem! This will be super helpful to reference when we do the podcast, because there's a lot we won't have discovered organically on our own. I doubt I'll be able to clear the 3rd loop by the end of the month, let along the 4th, so thank you for sharing all of this knowledge with us.

@Christapp76 - yes, the dash mechanic takes some time to really get used to. I went into the month already kind of knowing how it works, because Ed from Studio Mudprints (Bullet Heaven series on YouTube) has streamed this game quite a bit, and I've tried to pick up some of what he has done with the game. That said, it still took me a while to wrap my head around it, because it's not a common mechanic in shooting games. Also, I get what you're saying about the game's approach and trying hard to be different impacting your enjoyment of it. What I suggest is going into each run with ZERO expectations, because you know the game could throw major curve balls at you right away. Just learn the stages and mechanics as best you can, find a character that works for you, and hope for the best. Oh, and if you can, take out Shopthulhu in the 1st loop and unlock Swagthulhu, because he's technically the best character in the game, despite low health.

[Golem]

I went back over my notes and tried to gather an understanding of the design. I decided to tackle the enemies, since that's where I had the most information:
https://docs.google.com/s...AhhLzBxA/edit?usp=sharing

It's missing some enemies, but I think this covers most of them from stages 1 through 4. I also didn't include any bosses, but I did include a few non-enemies.

-I recorded 37 unique enemies. I'm sure I missed a few, so it could be 40-ish.
-12 enemies had aiming behavior (aimed bullets or homing movement).
-11 enemies fly on the screen, then stay in place until they die.
-10 enemies had non-breaking bullet streams.
  -6 of the enemies with bullet streams also rotated.
  -Only 1 enemy with bullet streams aimed at the player.
-8 enemies were crash attack-able.
-7 enemies rotated in place.
  -6 of those enemies had bullet streams.
-3 enemies had shockwaves (this seems very low, I must have missed some).
  -The shockwave itself is notable because it's the only attack that forces the player to dash as a matter of the enemy design. The clothesline ships in stage 1 junk force the player to dash, but that's a matter of level design, because they come from the bottom of the screen. (If they came from the top, you would not need to dash.)
-Only 2 mad events had an enemy (not counting projectiles like the massive skull walls).
  -Is this right? Am I missing something here?
-Most levels had 7-ish enemies, with 3-ish unique ones.

It's hard to find any one behavior that characterizes all of the enemies. However, it was very common for enemies to present themselves and stay in place until they die (11).

Rotation and bullet streams were also closely related. You have 10 enemies with streams, 7 enemies that rotate, and 6 enemies shared between the two categories.

[MetalFRO]

-Only 2 mad events had an enemy (not counting projectiles like the massive skull walls).
  -Is this right? Am I missing something here?

Offhand, the 1st one I can think of is the 2 "My Little Pony" characters that swoop in and rotate around a pair of orb "ropes" of projectiles. What's the other Mad Event with an enemy?

[Golem]

I was counting the big and small meteors as enemies. They are kind of a border case, but you can destroy them, and they drop coins. IIRC, there is a mad event that's a meteor shower.

It's just interesting to note, since mad events go such a long way to characterize the game. I don't know of another STG that does something like it. And they're largely static hazards, not enemies that you interact with.

[MetalFRO]

I was counting the big and small meteors as enemies. They are kind of a border case, but you can destroy them, and they drop coins. IIRC, there is a mad event that's a meteor shower.

It's just interesting to note, since mad events go such a long way to characterize the game. I don't know of another STG that does something like it. And they're largely static hazards, not enemies that you interact with.

Ah yes, the meteor shower. I have trouble with that one sometimes. I try to hang at the bottom of the screen, and use the sun's gravity as an advantage for avoiding bullets, but inevitably, a small meteor will come in from the side right at the bottom and ruin my day. Or there will be a bunch of flames shooting out from the sun, and I'll get caught in the crossfire. Those can be kind of unpredictable.

[Corkman]

 
  Well since the month is just about up, here is my high score of 576,438. I got the final boss in loop 2 down to a third of his last health bar left. Oh, the agony of defeat!!

  At least I defeated the toilet squid eyeball monster in one of the runs. 
 
  This game really wasn't on my radar to buy and really play but since the Shmup club was in, so was I. Surprisingly, I really did like this game. I eventually got a hang of the dash mechanic and the randomness of the levels and Mad Events. Those things made the gameplay unique and memorable. The graphics were decent and the music was really good as well. Thanks to the Shmup Club for this recommendation.

[MiniConsoleMan]

I bought this game a while back when I saw the glowing review from StudioMudprints, I initially played it several times but wasn't really feeling it.

Fast-forward to this month, and I want to keep going back and seeing what new enemies I will encounter and what pick-ups I'll get to destroy them.  Glad I finally gave this game the time it deserved.  Thank you to everyone for the helpful tips as there was so much to figure out with this game, which was half the fun.

High score of 753,981 (Got this score about half-way through the month and although I feel like I've gotten better at the game I couldn't manage to come close to this)

[MetalFRO]

Awesome to hear you guys came around on the game through playing it for the month. I think I kinda did too, in a way. Anyone else have final thoughts to share as we wrap up the month?