Shmup Club September 2022 - Operation STEEL

[MetalFRO]

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.

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

[koola6]

I'll play with you guys!

[MetalFRO]

I'll play with you guys!

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

[4_T_en]

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.

[4_T_en]

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.)

[MetalFRO]

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

[BrandonGuerra97]

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 ^_^

[4_T_en]

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.

[4_T_en]

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.

[MetalFRO]

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 ^_^

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.

[BrandonGuerra97]

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

[4_T_en]

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.

[MetalFRO]

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.

[4_T_en]

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.

[4_T_en]

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