JyraWingZero
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
JyraWing is intended to recreate an older style of shmup reminiscent more of the likes of Gradius or R-Type than the more modern bullet-hell or "danmaku" style stg game. Those games offer something to a very specific type of dedicated player and can scare away people who are not ingrained the genre.
That was not always the case. The games the pioneered the genre in arcades and early consoles were meant to be approachable but challenging for everybody. This style of game has fallen to the wayside in favor of the hardcore bullet hell games in the independent scene where serving a niche is acceptable and common. The commmon belief is that non hardcore fans can't care about a shmup at all anymore.
I have played and enjoyed many bullet-hell style games. They are great at what they do and when made right can be something very special. But there is room for something else too. With JyraWing I hope to hearken back to those older style games. I believe that if made correctly and presented the right way a wider group of people can enjoy these games again. I have decided for a number of reasons that the game will be horizontal scrolling rather than vertical scrolling and that the atheistic of the game will have a "retro" feel. The game is still early in development so anything is subject to change.
I created this demo now for two reasons
1. Early feedback. Anything and everything you want to say about this I want to hear. It's not easy getting playtesters to look at your game whenever you need them to for free. I have polished this demo up to a point where I think on a technical level you shouldn't be having huge issues. If you do, or if you have concerns about anything else I would like to hear it.
2. Recruitment. I am a technical person. By day I am a programmer and that is it. I have done my best with pixel art and I pulled all music from open source resources. The art you see here is maybe a small half step above my typical "programmer art" I know. I would like to have people working with me from here on out to work on art and music. If you think you would want to work on this project as an artist or even something else, please contact me I would love to talk to you. Remember this is an after work/part-time thing for me, I have a full-time job outside of making games and I can't expect any more any more time dedication that what I give.
To contact me for the reasons listed above or any other email me at:
jyrawinggame@gmail.com
And thank you for taking the time to look at my game.
Download
Install instructions
It's a Unity executable, download the correct one for your OS and just run the app. Make sure the data folder stays next to it when you do it though.
For Linux users: If you download one of the LInux versions and it wont run, try the other one. Remember you have to mark it executable(Unity doesn't do that) with chmod +x or with whatever interface your distro might have. For me testing on ubuntu I could right click a tick a checkbox and that made everything work.
The two graphics settings shouldn't be all that different. The game is not resource intensive, but if you are running into issues try the compatibility mode instead of standard and see if it helps.
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Running the Linux x64 version. Fullscreen mode doesn't seem to work right, it just unfullscreens itself when the menu shows up.
It feels good to play, but I'm no good at explaining why things feel good to play. So instead, here are the things I'm not happy with.
I don't understand what the half-circle powerups do.
Mashing the button to fire at the maximum rate is annoying. There's no reason I should have to do that in a game in 2015. In fact, I'm not sure there's ever a reason to NOT fire (except at the very beginning when you can only have a few shots on screen at a time), so I wonder if a fire button is even necessary.
I think you need to be more deliberate about contrast - make sure the enemies and their bullets, at least, stand out against the background. Otherwise, I can't really see them unless I'm looking right at them. In particular, purple on brown doesn't work so well.
You have enemies coming from all sides of the screen, and they move very fast (sometimes faster than the player's ship). Short of memorizing the level so you can anticipate them, there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to avoid them. Maybe I'm just not good enough, but it doesn't feel right to me to be killed by a collision out of nowhere. Perhaps an arrow at the screen edge indicating when enemies will spawn would alleviate this?
Thanks for the feedback. The fullscreen thing is a deliberate decision. I didn't want the game going fullscreen because that would either stretch out sprites or widen the player area and visibility. So if you select fullscreen it shrinks back to a window of the resolution that was chosen.
The half circle powerups let you speed up the ship using the toggle speed button. It would help to have some kind of "How to Play" section in game.
Auto fire never occurred to me but that's a pretty good idea. The player would lose precision but it's something they could use if they wanted as long as the auto fire rate wasn't inhumanly fast or something.
Thinking about getting the bullets to pulse a wider range of colors and faster to make them really stand out better.
Having warnings to indicate when things are coming from different parts of the screen is an interesting idea. It could make the game more playable and also open up some different encounter design.
Appreciate the response.